Free Altered Images by Maxine Barry

linen napkins Reeve had put out. She accepted her glass of wine and took a tentative sip. Properly cooled, dry, tangy and delicious. She thought of the others, drinking lukewarm café tea, and felt a tiny tinge of guilt.
    â€˜To the murder mystery weekend,’ Reeve said, raising his glass. Annis clinked her own glass to his.
    â€˜May nobody guess whodunit.’
    â€˜You would hope that,’ Reeve teased. ‘You being the killer!’
    Annis couldn’t help but smile. ‘You know, sometimes you can be . . . all right,’ she said, grudgingly.
    Reeve shot a stunned look at her, then burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. She looked so disgruntled. In his mirth, he nearly choked on his wine. Finally, eyes streaming, he managed to shake his head. ‘I’ll bet that was positively painful!’
    Annis smiled, again grudgingly. ‘OK, OK,’ she held her hand up. ‘No need to make a meal out of it.’
    Reeve coughed and leaned back in his chair. He was wearing a simple white T-shirt that strained across his well-formed biceps and contoured, hard chest. The sight of all that lounging male indolence made her want to stroke him, like she would a cat.
    â€˜Truce?’ he asked quietly.
    Annis dragged her mind away from thoughts of stroking him, and managed a shrug. ‘Sure, why not?’ she said, with something less than grace. ‘It’s not as if we’re going to have to put up with each other for too long. Only a month or two. Even I can put up with you for that length of time.’
    Reeve’s lips twisted. ‘Gee, thanks,’ he drawled. But the thought of how soon the murder mystery weekend would come and go made him feel oddly depressed.
    He watched her eat with pleasure. She seemed to enjoy the food so much that he found a tender feeling beginning to glow, just below the region of his heart. Which was patently ridiculous.
    â€˜So, what have you got lined up after this murder mystery gig?’ he asked, absently brushing crumbs off his thighs, unaware that Annis was following the brushing motion of his hands with a mouth gone suddenly dry. He was wearing tight-fitting jeans along with the T-shirt, and she could almost imagine the firm, warm feeling of his flesh . . .
    She blinked mid-chew, realising that he was gazing at her with a slightly quizzical look in his eyes. ‘Huh? Oh . . . um . . .’ She swallowed her food hastily. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got one or two commercials lined up. Voice-overs mostly. But my hands might get famous.’
    Reeve looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. ‘Oh. A hand cream commercial?’
    Annis nodded and regarded her hands thoughtfully. Reeve did too, and understood at once how she had got the role. Her hands were long, pale, and quite exquisitely shaped. He had a sudden vivid picture of them on his chest, the long slender fingers running through his dark chest hairs, her fingertips moving slowly down over the rest of his body . . .
    â€˜What about you?’ Annis asked, and Reeve dragged his mind away from her hands to concentrate on her face. Her eyes really were a tawny blaze of colour, he thought, wondering how it was that no director had yet realised their potential. In a close-up, the camera swinging in towards her face, those eyes looking straight at you out of your television screen . . . it would be enough to curl the toes of the entire male population of Great Britain.
    â€˜Oh, well, I’ve got an audition for that new soap,’ he said, and Annis felt herself chill by several degrees.
    â€˜Isn’t that the soap that’s being directed by Gale Evers?’ she asked. When a woman grabbed a hot top job like directing a glitzy new soap, it was news. What was also news was that Reeve Morgan and Gale Evers were rumoured to be . . . if not an item exactly . . . then more than just passing buddies.
    Reeve, unaware of the sudden danger, nodded. ‘That’s