Primal Call Read Free

around the restaurant, and there were indeed some camera phones aimed their way. He expected better of the patrons of such a hard-to-get-into establishment.
    James needed privacy with this woman. Nothing less than complete concentration on each other would do. No time for that now. No place for it, either. Best to get this lunch over with, then he and Athena Blaise—he loved that name!—could go somewhere to be alone.
    “Thanks,” he said to Marki.
    He reluctantly let go of Thena, who quickly sat down again. Then he reached down and gathered up the spilled items. Among them he found a small red velvet bag. He couldn’t resist a look inside.
    “Knitting?” He looked up at Thena. “You knit?”
     
    ###
     
    Good Lord, Thena thought. Now he knows what a boring, old-fashioned, stay at home, dull spinster I really am.
    And why shouldn’t he know that? And why should I care? the sensible part of her added. Just because simply being in the man’s presence made for flights of erotic fancy didn’t change the reality of who she was. Thank goodness, she’d be going home tomorrow. Being in Lotus Land wasn’t good for someone like her, who lived inside her own vivid imagination.
    “I knit,” she said, and wished the words hadn’t come out so stiffly.
    “All my relatives knit,” James Wilde said.
    She wondered what he meant by that, but didn’t ask. She tried for a polite smile, but knew that came out stiff, too. One of the men at the table asked Wilde a question, thus eliminating her need to say any more.
    He put her purse down by her chair and took his seat as he answered the man. The lunch then proceeded to small talk, mostly between the Hollywood people. They talked about movie production, people Thena had never heard of, fashion, and a lavish children’s birthday party an actor threw for a five year old that had turned into a disaster involving accidently calling in the city’s SWAT team. This gossip was the talk of the town, apparently. Thena laughed, nodded, and made interested noises when all these things were expected. She had no idea what she ate, if anything.
    What she was aware of was James Wilde.
    What she wanted was for the torture of sitting beside him, out of reach, out of touch, out of his league, to be over.
    Eventually, everyone stood up, shook hands. Official photographs were taken. James Wilde left, without a backward glance.
    She did have some vague memory of his saying, “I’ll see you,” or “I’ll call you,” before he walked away from the table, but she doubted he’d been talking to her.
     
    ###
     
    Thena actually hummed I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair while she showered. It amused her. But the steamy water pouring over her and the smooth slide of soap over her skin did nothing to alleviate the awareness of her own body James Wilde had triggered.
    Not James Wilde personally, she told herself. All right, his hands had touched her, a little—simple, social touches of her hand, on her shoulders. Seeing him nude on screen had been hard enough, knowing she would meet him later. Actually meeting him was devastating enough to knock the image of him naked right out of her head. That image came back with knee-shaking force as her fingers glided sensuously over her bare skin.
    All she was doing was rubbing herself with soap, but her senses—
    Were a bit too heated, thank you very much.
    Really, Athena Sophia Blaise, what is the matter with you? You are a woman of adult years, who knits for a hobby, cleans up after barnyard animals, and sings old Broadway songs in the shower. Oh, and you lie for a living. Other than that you are dreadfully ordinary. Oh, and you live on an Ionian island part of the year. Which is nice, but nothing so exotic as, say, a woman who can jump on her private jet and whisk her hot Irish lover off to Bora Bora at the drop of a false eyelash. You don’t even own any false eyelashes, and wouldn’t know how to put them on if you did.
    But I suppose I could