She shot up off the couch. “Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that. I’m not a child, and you’re not my uncle.”

Suddenly his eyes narrowed and his jaw set in a hard line. “We needed a woman to play Lizzie. Instead we hired a kid.”

His words should have wiped her out. They should have broken her into a million pieces and sent her flying from the house in tears, but they were too outrageous. She stared into that tough face and felt a primitive surge of excitement. He wasn’t looking at her as if she was a kid. Beneath those shielded blue eyes, she glimpsed something she’d never seen before, something she could easily identify because she’d been feeling it so long herself. Despite his hostility, Jake wanted her.

Her skin broke out in gooseflesh. In that moment, she understood everything Lizzie understood, and she knew exactly what gave Lizzie her power.

“The only kid in the room,” she said softly, “is you.”

He didn’t like that. “Don’t play games with me. I’ve played them with the best, and believe me, you’re still minor league.”

He was deliberately trying to hurt her, and she could think of only one reason. So she’d run. She settled back on the couch and slipped her fingers into her hair. “Is that so?”

“Careful, Flower. Don’t do anything you’re going to regret, especially when you’re wearing that dress.”

She smiled. “What’s wrong with my dress?”

“Don’t mess around, okay?”

“How could I mess around?” she said with fake innocence. “I’m minor league, remember?”

His brow furrowed. “I’d better drive you into Morro Bay. There’s a nice inn where you can stay.”

Sunday Morning Eclipse would finish shooting in two weeks, and she might never see him again. If she needed to prove to him that she was a woman, now was her chance, while she wore this silly string dress with its illusion of flesh and its short hem that showcased the legs he couldn’t stop looking at. She saw the desire in his eyes. A man’s desire for a woman. She stood and walked over to the window. Her hair swished across her shoulders, the gold hoops skipped at her ears, and the little string dress played peekaboo with her hips. She tugged on one of the hoops and turned to face him, her heart pounding. “You seem jittery. Is there any reason?”

His voice snagged on a rough edge in his throat. “Maybe it’s because you’re not looking as ugly as usual to me tonight, Flower. I think you’d better go.”

She summoned all her cover-girl tricks. She leaned against the glass, angled her hips, and extended her legs. “If you want me to go…” She bent one knee just until it opened enough to expose the inner curve of her thigh. “…you’ll have to make me.”

Something inside him seemed to snap. He slapped his glass down on the bar just as he’d done in a dozen films. “You want to play games? Okay, baby. Let’s play.”

He started coming toward her, and she belatedly remembered this wasn’t a movie but her real life. She told herself to get out of his way, but he caught her before she could take a step. Her hips bumped into the window. He curled his hands around her arms. “Come on, kid,” he whispered. “Show me what you’ve got.”

His head swooped down, and he closed his mouth over hers. His teeth ground into her bottom lip as he forced her mouth open. She tasted whiskey on his tongue and tried to tell herself this was Jake. His hands slipped under her dress to her panties. He slid them down just far enough to cup her bare buttocks. When he pulled her hard against him, her newfound sense of power evaporated.

He pushed her dress higher, and the fly of his jeans scraped the bare flesh of her stomach. His tongue probed her mouth. He was too fierce. She wanted soft music and beautiful flowers. She wanted sinuous bodies blurred beneath a soft-focus lens, not this raw carnal attack. She pushed against his chest. “Stop.”

The harsh sound of his breathing rasped in her ear. “This is what you want, isn’t it? You want me to treat you like a woman.”

“Like a woman, not a whore.” The lover of her daydreams had vanished. She pulled away from him and stumbled toward the front door, desperate to get outside before she burst into tears. But she needed her purse. Her car keys. She turned back to get them in time to see him pick up the telephone.

Her lust-crazed attacker had vanished. He looked tired and sad. She studied him more closely, trying to see him with her head instead of her bruised heart. Suddenly he became as transparent as one of the glass walls in this cantilevered house.

He spoke into the receiver, all business now. “Do you have a suite available for tonight?”

She walked toward him, her keys and purse forgotten.

He fixed his eye on the fireplace so he didn’t have to look at her. “Yes. Yes, that’ll be fine. No, just one night-”

She took the phone from him and set it back on its cradle.

He wasn’t a man who could be easily taken by surprise. He pulled on his hostility like an ill-fitting costume. “Haven’t you had enough for tonight?”

She stared him straight in the eye. “No,” she said softly. “I want more.”

A pulse ticked in his throat. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Nobody’s ever accused you of being the world’s greatest actor, but even for you, that was a lousy performance.” She softly mocked him. “Big bad Bird Dog Caliber trying to scare off the good girl.”

He raked his hands through his hair. “Leave it alone. Just leave it alone.”

“You’re a chicken. No guts.”

“I’ll drive you to the inn.”

“You want me,” she said. “I know you do.”

His jaw clenched, but he kept his voice even. “After you get a good night’s sleep-”

“I want to sleep here.”

“I’ll pick you up at the inn tomorrow morning and take you to breakfast. How about that?”

She shaped her lips into a model’s pout. “Golly, Uncle Jake, it sounds super. Will you buy me a lollipop, too?”

His face darkened. “How much am I supposed to take? What the hell do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop trying to protect me.”

“You’re a kid, damn it! You need protecting.”

“That kid crap is getting old, Jake. Really old.”

“Go away, Fleur. Please. For your own good.”

She couldn’t take one more person telling her what was best for her, especially not Jake. “I’ll decide that.” She tried not to show her heart in her eyes. “I want you to make love with me.”

“Not interested.”

“You’re a liar.”

She saw the exact moment when she won. His head came up, and his lips thinned. “All right then. Let’s see what you’re made of.” He caught her arm and steered her across the room toward a ramp, not exactly dragging her, but coming close. They went up the slope, through an arch, up another ramp. She wanted to slow down. “Jake…”

“Shut up, okay?”

“I want to-”

“I don’t.”

He led her into the master bedroom, which had the biggest bed she’d ever seen. It rested on a platform directly beneath an enormous skylight. He scooped her in his arms, just like in her daydreams, climbed the two steps, and dropped her in an unceremonious heap on the gray and black satin spread.

“Last chance, Flower,” he growled, his expression forbidding. “Before we hit the point of no return.”

She refused to move.

“Okay, kiddo.” He crossed his arms over his chest and pulled off his sweatshirt. “It’s time to play with the big boys.”

Her grip tightened on the coverlet. “Jake?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re making me nervous.”

He opened the snap of his jeans. “Tough.”

He was still trying to scare her away, and he whipped off his jeans. Seconds later, he stood at the bottom of the bed, clad only in a pair of black briefs. She wished he were wearing friendly white cotton, or something baggy and faded like his swim trunks. She’d seen his chest a dozen times, but never so much of his stomach. It was flat and solid, taut, sculpted muscle. Her gaze dropped to the forbidding vertical shaft the briefs were too small and too tight to conceal.

“You’re overdressed.”

He wanted her to back off, but she wouldn’t. He needed to understand exactly how tough she was.

His hand shackled one of her ankles, and her toughness began to dissolve. He untied her sandal and pulled it off, then did the same with its mate. His eyes lingered on her exposed skin. She pushed herself into the pillows. He was so grim. “I don’t want it to be like this,” she said.

His eyes touched her breasts, her hips, swept down her legs. “Too bad.” He leaned forward and tugged open the tie at the top of her dress.

“I’d rather not-”

He caught her by the shoulders and drew her up into a kneeling position.

She gulped. “I think we should-”

He whipped the little string dress over her head. “I’m sick of playing the good guy around you. From the day we met…” He reached for the hem of her slip.

She pushed his hand away. “Not like this. This isn’t how I want it to be.”

“We’re playing by grown-up rules now.” He tugged on her slip and pulled it free of her hair. She was kneeling on the bed in nothing but panties and her swaying gold hoops.

“Now I can see all those parts of you I had to pretend not to look at on Friday.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, and I won’t let you. I won’t let you make this bad for me.”

His voice was tight and hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She curled her hands at her sides. “You’re trying to ruin this. You want to keep this from being important.”

“It’s isn’t important.” The mattress sagged under his weight. He covered her body with his own, and reached beneath them to tug off her panties. “It’s fun. That’s all.” His fingers found her, their touch almost clinical. “Do you like the way this feels?”

“Stop it.”

“How do you want it? Fast? Slow? Tell me how you want it, babe.”

“I want flowers,” she whispered. “I wanted you to touch my body with flowers.”

A shudder passed through him. He rolled away from her with a muffled curse and lay on his back staring up at the night through the skylight. She didn’t understand him at all.

“Why do you want to hurt me?” she asked.

He reached out and touched her hand. “If I were a better man…But I’m not.” He turned toward her and gently traced the curve of her shoulder with his fingers. “All right, baby,” he whispered. “No more games. Let’s do it right.”

His mouth found hers in a soft, tender kiss that melted the great chill inside her. It wasn’t anything like their kisses on camera. Their noses bumped. He opened his mouth and closed it over hers, the sound sweet and sloppy. His tongue slipped past the barrier of her teeth, where she touched it with her own. It was wet and rough and perfect. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him so close she could feel his heartbeat with her breast.

Finally he drew back. His fingers played in her hair, and his eyes gazed gently down at her. “I don’t have any flowers,” he whispered, “so I’ll have to touch you with something else.” He dipped his head and caught her nipple in his mouth. It swelled beneath his tongue, and she moaned as waves of pleasure washed through her.

Like a lazy cowboy with all the time in the world, he roamed her body with his hands. His kisses trailed over her stomach while he stroked her thighs, setting fires in all the empty spaces inside her. Then he drew up her knees and gently pushed them apart.

Moonlight washing through the skylight painted silvery shadows on his back. His fingers played at the tight web of curls. Gently he opened her. “Flower petals,” he whispered. “I found them.” And then he covered her with his soft, sulky mouth.

The feeling was like nothing she’d ever imagined. She called his name, but whether out loud or only in her mind, she didn’t know. Spirals of pleasure whirled inside her, throwing off sparkling pinwheels that glowed brighter and hotter, ready to explode. “No…”

Her strangled cry made him look up, but she couldn’t think how to tell him that she didn’t want to go on this flight by herself. He smiled and slid his body beside hers. “Give up?” he murmured, his voice sexy, teasing, and absolutely irresistible.

She felt the strong outline of him against her thigh and slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his briefs. He was smooth and hard as a shaft of marble, and he let out a soft gasp as her fingers closed around him.

“What’s the matter, cowboy?” she whispered. “Can’t you take it?”

His breathing came in soft, sudden gasps. “Doesn’t…affect me…one way or the other.”

She laughed and eased herself up to see him better. Her hair brushed his chest. She peeled his briefs off and experimented with the power of her touch. Here…there…here again. She stroked with the end of her finger, the pad of her thumb, a lock of her hair. Finally she touched him with the tip of her tongue.