A Billion Little Clues (21 page)

Why was he laughing at this? How could he think that this was funny? Amid my tears, I felt a momentary flare-up of anger. "I just feel like it's all been too perfect, so far!" I tried to say. "And now, that things are back to normal, it just won't keep on going!" The man shouldn't be laughing at this! How would he like it if I just smacked him? I bet he wouldn't be expecting that!

Roman's hands slid from my back over to my forearms, sliding up and down. I didn't really want to be comforted, but in the end I gave in. It did feel nice. "Listen, Melinda," he said to me, clearly at least making some attempt to sound serious and to contain his laughter. "So far, for us, things have most definitely not been perfect!"

I looked back at him, blinking in confusion. What in the world was he talking about?

"Since about an hour after we've met, I've been a murder suspect in the eyes of the police!" Roman pointed out. "The company's been struggling to try and balance out the loss of our CFO, I've been running around like crazy attempting to convince shareholders that there's no cause to panic, you've been off trying to hunt down the real killer, and our only real date was interrupted by the police coming in to haul me off in handcuffs! Now, I don't know about you," he finished, "but that is most definitely not how my dates generally go, and it is by no means what I would call a normal relationship!"

Okay, the man had a point. Actually, now that I could think about it without being interrupted by more sobs, he had quite a few good points. This had not gone, at almost any stage, according to plan. In fact, most of my attempts to get closer to Roman had been foiled - either by a murder, by his stupid secretary, or by the police. Not one date had gone well for us yet!

And yet, here we were, still together! And furthermore, even despite the apparent signs from Heaven itself that we weren't supposed to stick together, we were here in each other's arms. And for once, I didn't want to listen to the signs of the universe - I wanted to be with this man.

I reached up and wiped a last tear away from my cheek. I noticed that my hand came away with a faint streak of mascara, and it reminded me of just how bloody awful I must look right now. But when I looked back up at Roman, strangely enough, I couldn't quite bring myself to care.

Still, it wouldn't do to not keep up appearances. "I must look terrible," I said to him, sniffling a little as I tried to clear my nose.

Roman just smiled back. "You look perfect," he replied. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

Coming from anyone else, those words would sound shallow, false, like little platitudes designed just to calm me down, even though we both knew that they were wrong. But from Roman, I actually felt like he believed, he truly agreed, with what he was saying. It was not a smoothing down of ruffled feathers; it was a statement of fact.

There was still a little part of me that wanted to keep crying, to just sit down on these steps in the sun and bawl my eyes out. But that temptation was fortunately receding, being forced down and controlled. And instead, as Roman kept on stroking my sides with his hands, I once again began to envision those hands sliding to other places.

"So what now?" I finally asked, hoping that the man would have the right answer.

Roman opened his mouth, but then paused, looking down at me while his eyebrows momentarily furled in thought. "Actually, I know what we ought to do," he said, a grin blooming across his face. "We technically never finished that date, did we?"

There was no force on earth that could stop me from smiling back. "Technically, no," I replied. "As I recall, you were accosted by the police and hauled off right in the middle of it, about fifteen hours ago now."

For a moment, Roman put on a face of mock shock. "How rude of me!" he exclaimed. And then his eyes crinkled back into that happy grin, suggestive of so much. "In that case, please allow me to make it up to you, by finally finishing the second half of our date!"

"And what does that involve?" I asked, as his arms tightened around me.

This time, the grin was secretive, meant just for me. "Oh, come along and you'll find out," the billionaire whispered back.

And this time, as he led me away, down the steps from the police station and out back into the city, my smile and happy laughter was completely genuine.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

It was twelve hours later, and I didn't want to open my eyes.

I simply felt so comfortable! I was fairly certain that my skin was wrapped in smooth, cool layers of silk and velvet, and the curves of my body were being supported by the feathers stolen directly from angels' wings. I was pleasantly warm, and even though I could feel a definite soreness in my muscles, I wanted to do nothing but lay here. Possibly forever.

Hold on a moment, though.

There was something poking me.

Something a little uncomfortable.

Something that appeared to be doing its best to worm its way in between my legs, right at the crack of my ass.

I still didn't want to open my eyes, but that thing was pointy! Sharp! So instead, I threw one hand up over my side, reaching over behind me and trying to feel around in the maze of soft, luxurious fabric for that one annoyingly hard item.

Finally, my searching fingers found it. It was cylindrical, and much bigger in girth than I expected! But it narrowed down to a thin, tapered tip, and that was what was poking at me. I wrapped my fingers around it, searching for a grip...

And then I yanked it up and out of the bed, around to in front of my eyes.

Blearily, I opened up one eye, trying to blink out the little clumps that always accumulated there after sleep. The cylinder was still in my hand, now held a few inches from my face. After a few more blinks, it swam into some semblance of focus.

"Whipped cream," I read off the canister.

The little tines on the dispensing valve were quite sharp - no wonder I hadn't been able to drift back to sleep! With a half-hearted toss, I pushed the can off the edge of the bed, and heard it clatter across the ground as it bounced and rolled away.

"Not your idea of breakfast in bed?"

At the sound of another person's voice, I sat bolt upright in bed, my muscles leaping into action without waiting for input from my brain. For just an instant, I had snapped back to the idea that I was back in my own bedroom, in my own apartment, and someone else was intruding in on me!

But that wasn't right, was it? And indeed, as I sat up, I felt the sheet fall away from me, sliding down over my naked skin. A quick glance down at myself confirmed what I already felt - that I was totally naked! No wonder that can of whipped cream felt so sharp against one buttock.

My eyes scrolled up, across the room. The sheets were a mess, pulled up into knots and revealing the expanses of bed beneath. This had to be at least a king-size mattress, if not something even bigger. It seemed like miles to the nearest edge.

At one corner of the bed, a silver tray sat on top of where the sheets were still tucked in for the moment. The remains of the tray were largely gone, but I could see a couple leftover strawberries, their chocolate coverings now starting to melt off a bit.

Yes, now I could remember. The last twelve hours had been filled with some of the most intense and inventive passion of my life. No wonder that can of whipped cream was totally empty! In fact, I could still remember when I had been bent nearly double, my tongue sliding languidly out of my mouth to lap up dabs off of Roman's-

Roman! My eyes continued upward, finally taking in the man himself. The billionaire was standing up at the foot of the bed, looking down at me with a half-grin on his face. He shook his head at me. "If you want a repeat of last night, we'll have to phone room service for more whipped cream," he said.

My eyes continued running hungrily down his body. Unfortunately, he wasn't naked like me, still - he had clothed himself in a pair of tight shorts and an equally tight shirt, ending only barely below the shoulder. His exposed arms and legs glistened with a faint sheen of sweat. I guessed that he had been down in the gym at this hotel, working up a sweat before I had even made it out of bed.

The hotel... that's right, we were in a hotel! The room service comment definitely made more sense, now. And now, through the haze of champagne and orgasms that had clouded my memory, the last day or so was coming back to me.

After Roman and I talked outside the police station, I'd insisted on returning home, partly to get some supplies for the date, but mainly to clean myself up. As Roman relaxed on my couch, watching TV with some amusement as reporters covered "the shocking new development in the murder indictment of Panther Worldwide's superstar CEO", I busied myself with a frenzy of showering, shaving, tweezing, plucking, trimming, crimping, and other feminine activities. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, accompanied by a haze of steam, I felt like a totally different woman. One who could actually show her face out in public without running the risk of being mistaken for a homeless person.

And when Roman saw me, cleaned, fresh, and in a cute little sundress I had been saving just for an occasion like this, I felt incredibly gratified to watch his jaw drop open.

"Wowza," he gasped. "Excuse me, have you seen a woman who wasn't quite as gorgeous as you? I'm supposed to be taking her out to resume our date."

I tried to grin demurely, but it fell apart as the man swept me up into a whirlwind of kisses and roving fingers. "Hey, hey!" I protested, trying to slap away some of those wandering digits. "We're supposed to be going out for lunch, aren't we?"

The man actually growled into my ear! "We've got time - they'll hold my reservation as long as I want," he protested.

In my head, my mind immediately came up with a half dozen justifications for this. There really wasn't any reason to rush off! We could be a few minutes late. Or twenty. Or thirty. That would be just fine. And ooh, the man had already managed to slide a couple of fingers inside the lacy elastic waist of my panties! And that thing he was doing with the wiggling was just absolutely divine...

But no! I finally insisted, managing to claw back control for just an instant. I had gone to all of this effort to look presentable so that we could go out, and I wasn't going to see it all wasted right now! So even though my body was screaming out at me, calling me a traitor, I pushed the man away, extricated his fingers from all of the sensitive places where they were sending tingling sensations into my skin.

So we went out to eat. And honestly, it really ended up being a bit of a waste.

Sure, it was a nice restaurant. It managed to perfectly straddle the line between breezily relaxed and formally classy. We were on the edge of the river, with the breeze streaming in through open windows and French doors. The waiters were still dressed in classy black and white, but most of the people around us were lounging in khakis and polo shirts, as if they'd just stepped off of the golf course - which, coincidentally, happened to be just next door. I had no doubt that Roman was an executive member there.

But although I suffered through three courses, from soup to entree to a lovely latte with exquisite art in the foam on top, I barely even tasted the food. I just wanted to leap across the table and rip off the clothes of the billionaire on the other side.

And from the way that he ripped through his food, barely even looking down at it, I knew that he felt the same way.

We'd planned to spend the afternoon out on the lake, lying out on the deck of a boat and sunning ourselves. But by the end of the meal, we were both already making up excuses for why we should forgo this activity.

"It looks a bit breezy," Roman said.

"The spray and water isn't great for my hair," I agreed.

"I don't know if the boat is fully fueled."

"We might get stranded out there."

"There could be a lot of water traffic."

"I've never really sailed on boats before. I might hate it."

"It will take a while for us to get out to where the craft is moored."

"It could be warmer."

"It's warmer in my hotel room," Roman shot back after my last excuse, and I smiled. I didn't even have to say anything before he had my hand and was tugging me out of the restaurant.

We arrived at the hotel, a gorgeous tower at the heart of downtown with many amenities I didn't even notice. We ran inside, Roman grabbed the keys to the room (the penthouse, of course!) out of the bellhop's hand, and we were gone.

Even the elevator ride was too long for us. As soon as the intricate brasswork doors closed on us, Roman had me up against the wall, his breath hot as he kissed at my neck. My hands ran up and down his back, feeling his muscles shift, while his fingers hiked my skirt up to my waist.

One tug from him, and my panties were in a moist little pile on the floor.

He leaned in, grinding his hips against me, nearly lifting me up off of the floor, and I moaned softly into his ear. With that last little bit of fabric covering my modesty gone, I could feel his bulge inside his pants even more strongly than ever before! I had to have it!