One More Kiss (Affair Without End Book 2) (8 page)

“Yep. Got one of those myself. So, welcome to the team. We need to meet this week. Go over the employment agreement. Introduce you to everyone. Get you fully plugged in and on a plane by Friday to the UK.” This time rustling paper sound. “I’ve got an opening at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.”

“Two would be great!”

“Welcome aboard, Linda.  I’ve got a lot riding on this decision.  This is a messy situation, but something tells me you’re going to manage it beautifully. You’re not going to let me down, are you?”

“No. Not if I can help it.”

Sandy laughs. “I know you’re not. I can just tell. See you Wednesday.”

Click. I drop the phone into the receiver and slouch down on the couch. I feel strange. Am I in shock? Am I so happy I’m numb? I’ve got a fucking job! Is this how it feels to finally have a fucking job?

My eyes round as a fragment of the conversation jabs at me. My dad called twice this week. Is this why Brian was calling me? He’d gotten a call from Sandy Harris? He gave me a good reference, even after I stormed out on him last fall in San Francisco and have ignored his phone messages. Jeez, it wasn’t what I expected from dad, for Brian to do me a solid, and I should probably make some gesture in return. I’m not sure what. I’ll figure that out later. I want to be just thoroughly and completely happy now.

I start to laugh and the smile on my face grows larger. I stare at the room. I came in here for some reason before I called Sandy. What was it? Aha, breakfast, I realize suddenly able to take note of the hunger gnawing my stomach. I didn’t get to eat much of my picnic last night. I flush, and the delicious memories send soaring sensations through my elated flesh. I spring up from the couch.

Things are starting to look up for you, Linda, I tell myself, padding across the room to grab the room service menu.

I sink onto the chair before the desk. Now what should I order?  I reach for the phone and hit the guests services button.

“Room service,” a voice says on the other end.

“Yes, I’d like to order breakfast.”

“Of course, Mrs. Parker.”

I hold the phone away from me and make a face. Why does the staff at the hotel keep calling me that? I know it’s probably out professionalism and trying to be tactful, it must be tricky all around trying to figure out what to call a no-name woman in a man’s room, but its wrongness mocks my emotions on all levels.

I scan the menu again. What would Jack like for breakfast? Something Mexican, something spicy.

“I don’t see it on the menu, but do you have chorizo and black beans in the kitchen?” I ask.

“We can accommodate anything you want, Ma’am.”

I see. Can you accommodate not calling me Mrs. Parker?
I shut down the voice in my head and say, “I would like one order of ovoce ranchero. An egg white omelet with broccoli and Swiss cheese. One order of sour dough toast. Two orange juices. Two pots of coffee. One regular. One decaf. No creamer. No sugar. Got that?”

“How soon do you want it?”

I check the clock. 10 a.m. I haven’t really eaten since yesterday morning. “I want it as soon as possible, please.”

I hang up the phone and go to gather the remains of my picnic last night. Taking a trashcan in hand, I start to dump the leftover food, setting aside the plates and my abalone shell and other things I want to take back home with me. I start to toss into the trash the candles I placed and lit around the room. I crinkle my nose. Jeez, they’ve melted down to wax into the wood of the furnishings.  I forgot to blow them out last night before going to sleep. It’s a small miracle we didn’t burn down the hotel.

I giggle. “In some ways we did burn down the hotel,” I say to myself.

I fold the blanket and then push the coffee table back into place. I stare at the room. Nearly perfect again. I draw back the drapes of the window just enough to let a hint of sunlight into the room.

I quietly sneak into the bedroom for my proper full-length white robe. I gaze down at Jack. Still sound asleep. I should probably let him sleep. He was in San Antonio two days ago and did a concert last night. The robe slips from my fingers and I carefully climb back into bed.

I curl into him. I want to be as close to him as I can get. Everything about me has a deliciously content feeling to it. Very strange and different than how I usually feel. Everything is going to be OK. I’ve gotten a job. I’m not going to be broke, apartment-less, and living with Doris.

I tuck my head into his shoulder and smile. I’m starting to fix my own life, I’m starting to build a new life, and that’s an amazing thing.

I nuzzle him and my hand starts to move in a loving glide over the warm, firm surface of his chest and abdomen. I should probably stop. I shouldn’t wake him, but I’m suddenly as eager as a child on Christmas morning to have Jack wake. I want to tell him about my call with Sandy Harris. I want to pick his brain on how I should handle the mercurial Alan Manzone. I want to tell him I got into my graduate program. I want to love him.

My hand inches from his abdomen to his cock and as my fingers brush it in a light, teasing glide, he rolls over and his eyes open, smiling down at me.

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs, then kisses me lightly. “I hated waking to find you gone, but now that you’re back, don’t stop.”

“No?” I whisper, my hand stilling as I stare up into his lazy blue eyes.

“Again,” he orders softly.

I do a more thorough stroke on his erection. He groans and moves into me. He starts to kiss me and lightly touches me in return. Just being near him is very, very arousing. It doesn’t take much for me to be instantly hungry and desperate for him.

I want to ride him this morning. No tender kisses. No foreplay. Just hard fucking. I want to fuck him. I feel so powerful. So in control of my own life for the first time. It’s a glorious feeling to no longer feel like I’m holding on by my fingernails, to have someone want me for a job and think I can manage it well,  and those feelings, blending with my arousal, has made my want of him a raging storm within me.

He’s mine. I’m his. We’re
both
OK for a change. I’m not Linda, totally messed-up girl, struggling to keep up with Jack. I’m Linda one-step more firmly in the life I want to have and loving Jack. And today I want to fuck him.

I push him back, flat against his pillow, and his eyes are wide open now, even though he’s laughing. I silence his laughter with a thorough open mouth, all tongue kiss. I don’t take time to even remove his t-shirt from my body. I position myself on top of him, stretching myself open and I put him inside of me as far as I can take him.

“Oh, someone woke with nasty thoughts this morning,” he whispers, closing his eyes as he flexes and moves his hips in the motion I command.

I plant my hands on his chest, holding him in place. I pull off him and slam back down. I still. His eyes open, burning with anticipation and want. I gently roll my hips, dragging his erection against my inside, deep and hitting all the spots that sends the feel of him through my body.

Moaning, I tilt back my head and very slowly I build the pace. Up and down, harder and harder, until I can feel the sexual want in him a coil trying to take over, and my own body burning and unwilling to let him.

Our eyes lock. I see so much in Jack’s wide open stare. It pushes me into a faster rhythm, over the edge. Raspy, incoherent sound punctuates my climax and moans, and I’m only vaguely aware he’s grabbed my hips, his eyes are closed, he jaw is tight, and he’s gushing into me as I shiver atop him. I collapse on his chest, hugging him to me.

I watch Jack slowly collect his breath. His eyes open. He smiles. “I don’t know what the hell you were doing out there, Linda, but you should do it more often.”

I lift my face. I’m flushed and smiling and I’m sure I look kind of goofy right now. “I missed you. You slept late this morning.”

He brushes my cheek with a thumb. “You should have woken me sooner.” He kisses my lips and then frowns. “Go see who that is knocking at the door. I need a few moments before I can move.”

I laugh. I forgot I ordered our breakfast. Thank god, we didn’t need a whole lot of time to get both of us sexually there this morning. Life right now is moving in an effortless flow, almost perfectly choreographed, and I don’t know how that happened, but it’s wonderful.

I climb off of him, then drop a kiss on his lips.

“That would be your breakfast. I have seen to your every need and pleasure this morning.”

Jack’s smile is potent and sexy. “Every pleasure. Always, Linda. You are my every pleasure in life.”

I pull my robe into prim arrangement on my body, do a sassy swish with my hips and then dart from the bedroom, wishing room service would stop pounding from the hallway.

As I open the door, I think,
all and all I’ve had one fine morning!

CHAPTER SEVEN

I sit beside Jack atop the bed while we finish our meal on the breakfast tray. My inner smile consumes me and my sudden optimism over the future is something uncontainable. It feels pretty fucking great to feel hopeful.

I can feel Jack watching me as we pick at our breakfast plates. “So what’s gotten you in such a glowing mood today?” he asks, setting his coffee cup down on the tray. “Is it us? Not us? Or a combination of both? Whatever it is, I like it.”

I look up at him. “I’m always happy when I’m with you.”

He leans in and kisses me. “Good answer. Now give me the real answer. What did you sneak away from bed this morning to do? I heard you close the bedroom door. What were you doing that you didn’t want me to hear? Whatever it is, it’s definitely made you happy. You’re all smiles this morning.”

I start to answer and then stop. Now that I’ve gotten an easy opening to share the events of my morning, it is suddenly not an easy thing to do. We don’t talk very much about me. Not ever. Jack tries, he’s always curious, always interested in what is going on with me, but too often my life is such a downer I shut down those conversations as quickly as I can. It’s odd that even when my life isn’t a totally fucked up mess, it’s hard for me to talk about me.

I shrug. “It’s no big deal. I had to make a phone call. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Jack’s eyes round. “A call about what?”

I lift my chin. “Just a call back on a job interview from last week. I’ve been striking out everywhere and suddenly someone called back. It was great, you know, to feel not completely unwanted.”

His thumb does a light glide on my chin. “You are very wanted. Always. By me.” His hand drops away, he stares at me and then frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for a job?”

My eyes round. “I did.”

His frown lowers. “No you didn’t. What’s going on, Linda? What is it you don’t want me to know?”

Shit, he is suddenly tense, his blue eyes drilling into me. “There’s nothing. OK? So I didn’t bore you with my fascinating adventures looking for employment. God, why are you making such a big deal about this?”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to figure out why the woman in my life won’t share with me what’s going on in her life.” This time his palm cups my chin and turns my face so I can meet his gaze. “There is nothing about you that would bore me.”

Instantly defensive: “I share with you everything.”

Jack’s eyes widen and he is suddenly overly alert. Oh damn, I said that too hotly. The way I said it makes me sound like I am being secretive, and, to be brutally honest with myself in a way that is not comforting, I am secretive with Jack about a lot of things in my life.

As troubling as that thought is, now is not the time to probe it. “I just don’t like to talk about me. OK?” I add with a shrug.

“Why?” He stares intently at me.

“Because everything is not rosy and perfect in my life. Who wants to hear someone else’s shit?” I counter in knee-jerk, defensive, auto-pilot mode.

“I do.” He frowns as if for the first time he has realized I don’t talk about me
sans
him. Not ever. He’s exasperated and runs a hand through his golden hair. “So, tell me about the job and the phone call.”

I glance down at my hand, focusing on my fingers poking at the piece of parsley on my breakfast plate. What a useless thing parsley is. I look up. He’s still watching. Waiting. Insisting.

“Please, don’t be angry with me,” I whisper.

Jack’s eyes change. Surprise. “I’m not angry. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with you. Why you’re suddenly intent to shut me out. And what I’ve got to do not to have you do that.”

Jeez—I’m making us all fucked-up again, and I need to stop this.

I sigh. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, how long you’ve been looking for a job, for starters. And why you didn’t tell me.”

“Since I graduated. OK? Finish school. Look for work. Perfectly normal and perfectly dreary. And I’m not real thrilled about the fact that I’ve been this close—”I hold up my thumb and index finger with just a hair between them. “—to having to move back in with Doris. So pardon me for not wanting to talk about me.”

“How long has money been a problem for you?” He’s staring at me concerned and…surprised?...like it’s something new about me.

A part of me feels slightly affronted and a part of me just plain pissed. “Like always. My entire life. Some of us aren’t born on pretty little estates in a land called Hope, rich boy. Broke is a perfectly normal thing.”

He rolls his eyes and I can see that I’ve irritated him.

“You need to tell me these things.”

“Why?”

His golden brows shoot upward. “Because I can’t know what you need from me unless you tell me.”

I lift my chin. “Well, I don’t need anything because I got offered a job this morning. I can fix my own problems.”

He stills. “What job? Did you accept it?”

Why is he staring at me that way?

“I interviewed with Sandy Harris for an administrative position in his public relations department. He called back. We spoke this morning and I accepted the job.”

I don’t have a chance to figure out why I just told a half-truth and a half-lie just then. Everything about Jack changes in way I find confusing and unsettling. He gazes at me for a moment, searching my face, and then frowns.