Private Relations (5 page)

She stared at him and he stared back, so many un-spoken messages zapped back and forth between them it was like a high-speed connection. It was close and intimate, and utterly ridiculous to sit under a table and want this woman with every atom of his being. But he did.

He didn’t release her ankle, but he didn’t try to move his hand, either.

“Give me your list,” she whispered. “I’ll get tomorrow organized.”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned a little closer so she’d know he meant business. “And you’ll be my hostess?”

“Like you said, anything the customer wants.” She glared at him, “Except—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “Except maybe this,” and he leaned all the way in and kissed her. Not hard, but soft. His eyes drifted shut as he leaned into her, tasting the oh-so-painfully-familiar flavor of brandy on her lips.

Kit didn’t pull away or hit him or do much of anything. She remained motionless, as though she couldn’t make up her mind whether to respond or not. If there was one thing he’d learned about women, it was patience. So he didn’t push, but he didn’t back away, either; he just kept moving his lips over hers until he felt her soften. Her mouth eased from prim as her lips slid apart to let him in. At that same moment, he felt the tense muscle of her calf ease under his hand.

He licked into her mouth and found it both familiar and brand-new. She was the woman he’d always known and run from loving, the soul mate he’d treated like a carelessly lost sock.

He wanted to tell her his revelation—that he loved her still, had always loved her. But if being this close to him made her nervous, a confession like that was going to have her running farther than he had. Kit tended to be a little competitive. When he’d panicked, he’d run to Asia. If she ran away from him, she was likely to book a rocket to Mars.

Then suddenly she was kissing him back and he felt the turboboost of lust roar through him. He ached for her, wanted to take her here and now, drag her up to his room and spend the entire weekend with the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

Easy, easy, he reminded himself, even as he changed the angle to deepen the kiss. He put his glass on the carpet and followed the line of her arm until he found hers. He took it from her unresisting fingers and placed that on the ground, as well.

With her hands free, she pushed her fingers into his hair and kissed him with some of her old enthusiasm. Oh, this was good. The hand that had waited so pa
tiently at her calf waited no longer, but tracked slowly up her leg. He hit her knees but she kept them locked tightly together, so he slid beneath and reached under the soft flutter of her dress for the smooth line of thigh. She sucked in her breath and he felt the struggle within her. She wanted him, and she didn’t want to want him.

What had he expected? For all her spin-doctor take on the dramatic collapse of their relationship, he’d really hurt her. If he was going to regain her trust, he wouldn’t do it by fooling around under a bar table.

But the skin of her thigh was smooth and warm and he could feel her heat, drawing him closer in spite of his better judgment.

Just once. He only had to touch her once. He promised himself that would be it. Her knees hadn’t opened but she hadn’t pushed him away, either, and her hands were burrowing under his shirt to reach skin. Whatever had been wrong between them, it had never been sex.

He let his fingers slide a little closer to the source of all that heat, and her struggle increased. Her hands were fisting on his back as though she were fighting her attraction. As her hands clenched, he felt her nails dig into his skin.

“Let go, baby. Let go,” he whispered against her mouth.

“You bastard,” she said, in a low, choked voice, even as her knees parted.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I wish I could go back.”

He reached for her blindly, cupping her heat, feeling the fever of her desire even as he understood that she didn’t want to feel this way.

“We can never go back,” she whispered, even as she mimicked his action and cupped the source of his own fever.

Somebody had got the saying wrong, he realized. It wasn’t love that was blind, but lust. Even as he wanted her with blind need, the fact that he loved her stopped him.

She was right. They couldn’t go back.

But they could start over. At least, he hoped so.

A man didn’t get the girl of his dreams by making out with her under a bar table. He got her—if all the songs, and movies and fairy tales were right—by wooing the hell out of her.

He let her touch him a little longer, prolonging his own torture, and he let himself hold on to her, resisting the urge to delve under her panties, knowing that would be the end of him. Instead, he ran his hand up the center of her body, trailed his fingers up the soft skin of her throat and cupped her jaw. He took the kiss down from incendiary to warm.

“Come up to my suite. The first time I make love with you, I’m going to need a lot more room and a whole lot more privacy.”

She shook her head as though a bee were after her. “The first time was about six years ago. And it didn’t end so well.”

“This will be the first time for the new and improved us.”

She snorted, but since he didn’t want to have a stupid argument in their current position, he turned his back on her and crawled out from under the table. As he rose, he nearly bumped into an athletic-looking young guy and a girl who looked as if she had spent her formative years yelling things like, “Give me a
G!
”

Peter was aware that his shirt was hanging out of his pants, and he was seriously rumpled. Behind him, Kit crawled out looking sexy, mussed and pissed.

“Wow,” said Jock Boy, bending down. “What’s under there? We were just in Exhibit A.” He jiggled his pelvis in the direction of his girlfriend, who giggled. “This place is sweet.”

“You’re right,” Peter said. “That’s what they call it under there. The Sweet Spot. Help yourself. We warmed it up for you.”

Even as Kit said, “Peter,” in a furious undertone, the sex-crazed jock and jockette were crawling under the table. Peter leaned down. “What do you want to drink? I’ll put in your order at the bar.”

“S
HOPPING
? H
E WANTS
to go shopping?” Kit shrieked as she paced up and down her hotel room, her cell glued to her ear and her ever-ready smile out of batteries.

“Honey, calm down,” Piper said, her voice sounding altogether too content and unruffled for someone who’d just been woken at close to one in the morning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, you just interrupted some of the greatest sex of my life so I’m not at my best.”

Oh, no wonder she sounded so pleased with herself. Great sex. Just what Kit did not want to think about right now, especially as she could be having some this very second if she made her way to the eighteenth floor. The image of that amazing room and her and Peter in it…Oh, don’t go there. Besides, she was too mad to go there. Peter’s list vibrated in her hand as she stomped across the plush carpet.

“Well, sorry to interrupt the great sex, but I hear you’re off to the Hamptons early in the morning so I might not get another chance to talk to you.”

“I think—”

“This is Peter Garson’s idea of the perfect day,” she interrupted, reading from the list that was quivering in her hand. “The Metropolitan Museum, followed by a
picnic lunch in Central Park and then shopping. He wants to return here for spa services, then rush off to Broadway to see
Love Ya, Babe.
”

“It’s nominated for a bunch of Tonys, and you’ve been dying to see that play.”

She ground her teeth. “Exactly.” And how the hell did Peter know that?

“What else is on the list?”

“Dinner on the roof patio. Dancing to follow.”

Piper laughed, the husky sound of a woman who gets a lot of great sex with a man not currently driving her insane. “He’s either turned gay or he’s wooing you.”

After their little tussle under the table, she didn’t think he’d changed his sexual orientation. “That bastard is putting the moves on me. I know him. He would never choose all this stuff. It’s my ideal day, not his. What the hell should I do?”

“Look, honey, when a man goes to all that trouble to do everything you love, you just have to punish him. Enjoy the museum. Make him spend hours in the costume galleries. Insist you both have fruit salad for lunch. Shop for dresses. Make him have a facial. Not only see that play but make him discuss how it makes him
feel
afterward.” She chuckled, a low, evil laugh. “If he gets through all that, I really think you should forgive him.”

“But he almost ruined my life.”

“Okay. You’re right. What was I thinking? Let’s make it a strawberry facial. And a hot wax pedicure.”

“You set me up for this, didn’t you?”

There was a sigh.

Somehow this was one of the toughest parts of the fiasco. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am your friend. Always. Maybe I was wrong not to let you know Peter was the winner. I don’t know. It felt to me as if you needed some closure on the whole broken engagement thing. Needed to at least have the chance to talk to the guy again and let him know what he did to you.”

“But you set me up!”

There was a short pause. “Did I? We both read those entries. Seems to me he won fair and square. All I did was keep his name off his entry. He penned the fantasy, and I think it got to you.”

“Yes. Well. Now I’m stuck with him for the whole weekend.”

“Doing everything in the world you love. I am really having trouble feeling very sorry for you. Mmm,” she made a sound that suggested Kit was losing her friend’s attention. “Oh, Trace, stop it…”

“Well, I guess I’d better let you go, then.” If there was one thing Kit did not want to do right now, it was overhear Piper and Trace going at it, which they were obviously about to do.

“Love you,” Piper said, but whether she was speaking to Kit or to Trace it was impossible to tell, so she pressed End without another word.

She slumped to the bed and regarded the list one more time.

So, Peter Garson was wooing her, was he?

She glanced over each item again and had to agree; if he wasn’t wooing her, he was sure sucking up to her for some reason.

What irked her so much about this?

She flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Piper was right, in a way. It had been nice to see
Peter again. It was good to know that he obviously felt badly about running away from their wedding. She supposed the fact that he was trying to get close to her was an apology of sorts.

The thing was, she hadn’t lied. After the crush of heartbreak, she’d done more with her life than she ever would have if they’d married. She’d been free to focus on nothing but her career, and she was doing very well. Certainly she had a reputation for doing the outlandish and daring—and getting attention in the Manhattan media wasn’t the easiest task in the world.

Okay, so she wasn’t sorry to see Peter again. It was even convenient to think of having sex with the guy again. That foolishness in the bar had made it pretty clear to her that her body responded as it always had. Great. Then what was she doing up here by herself when a very attractive and sexy man had invited her to his room?

She was here, alone in a Hush bedroom—she realized—because it pissed her off to be so out of control. She was the organizer.
She
was the event planner. She didn’t passively sit around and wait for men to ask her to their rooms. Here she was, nothing but a stand-in hostess, while Peter was giving her a list of things he wanted to do, and she had to trot along by his side like the chirpy Manhattan Welcome Wagon.

Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum, sir.

Welcome to Central Park, Mr. Garson.

Welcome to Hush, the ultimate in erotic boutique hotels, Peter.

From the moment Peter had opened the door of the Carnaby Suite, she’d been knocked off balance and out of control. And Kit didn’t like that a bit.

What this relationship needed, she realized, was for her to take back the lead. Diving under tables when she saw the man was not her style.

She sat up in bed so fast she got dizzy. Some things couldn’t be explained.

They had to be demonstrated.

She put a hand to her chest as she realized she knew the perfect way to send him that message.

Could she do what she had in mind?

Hell, yes.

She got up off the bed, found her briefcase and rummaged through it until she came to the file she was looking for. It was suitably bright red. She read through it, nodded once and called downstairs to the night manager. “The Boutique’s closed, but I need to get in.”

It was simple enough to arrange what she needed and she found that once she got started, nothing was going to stop her.

P
ETER FLIPPED
stations with about as much enthusiasm as he’d give to, say, washing his car.

NBA basketball wasn’t holding his attention.

How come the news was never good?

Porn stations—and Piper seemed to subscribe to every pervy station beamed by every satellite in space—couldn’t hold his interest after he’d been so close to the real thing.

He should change rooms. They’d promised him anything he wanted, and right now he did not want to be shacking up solo in the most sensual suite he’d ever seen. It was pathetic.

Sure, he could stroll back downstairs and find some
one warm and willing to share the amenities of the Carnaby Suite, but he didn’t want someone.

He wanted Kit. He wanted her so badly his body ached and his blood pounded.

If she’d wanted to punish him for the past she couldn’t have found a better way than to let him have a taste of her, then back off.

Not that he didn’t deserve the punishment, but a big dose of remorse wasn’t going to help him sleep in this frilly lady’s boudoir of a bed, either.

The ice had all melted in the ice bucket by the mega Jacuzzi. He knew that the floor-to-ceiling windows were made of some special glass so no one could see inside, but somehow he felt exposed, as though everyone in the five boroughs could see into his room and observe him dateless in the sex palace. He hadn’t even bothered to undress. All he’d taken off were his socks. He was like a guy who’d been transported from the office to a swanky hotel room by accident.

Oh, the hell with it. He’d pull out some work. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well do something useful.

Flicking off the TV, he dragged out his briefcase and propped himself on the frilly bed against the frilly pillows and spread out his files on the frilly spread and his laptop across his knees.

He’d been brought into the marketing firm as a vice president. The firm had a sound reputation and he’d been able to bring in some big international clients, but he also needed to pull in some New York companies. He’d set himself some targets, some gets that were fairly getable, in his opinion, and some pie-in-the-sky ones, simply to keep things interesting.

Everybody was after the big guys, obviously. He liked to work slowly, never stealing a client, but letting them see that his firm was a logical next step.

Looking out the window of this hotel, he saw the city laid out before him. He was going to make his way here. He’d worked hard to earn the right. He didn’t intend to blow it.

He was skimming a research report and making notes on his laptop when there was a knock at the door. He glanced at the bedside clock in the shape of Big Ben.

Turn down service at 2 a.m.? He didn’t think so.

Even as he told himself to be cool and tried to prepare himself for some sex-starved idiot who’d got the wrong room, hope leapt inside him. He put aside his laptop and padded barefoot to the door.

If his gut had leapt at the sound of the knock, something else leapt when he saw the woman standing outside.

Her blond, sleek hair was in one of those society woman bun things. Her black dress revealed nothing, and hinted at everything. It came to just above her knee, showcasing her fantastic legs. She wore sheer black stockings and high, high shiny black heels. There were pearls around her neck. A long string of elegant pearls.

Kit’s makeup was the same as earlier, except she’d done something to her mouth. He didn’t know they made lipstick that red. Or that glossy.

“May I come in?” she asked, crisp and cool.

Where was the woman who’d hidden under the bar table rather than face him? Where was the woman who’d rejected his advances?

She sure as hell wasn’t staring at him from that cool, ice-princess gaze.

Unable to speak, he opened the door wider and stood back.

She swept in, and nothing could stop him staring at the way her hips swayed in that prim but not prim dress. She stopped and surveyed the room for a moment, then disappeared into the other room. It was a kind of office. What was she doing?

She emerged carrying the upright chair from the desk. She hauled it over to the dark window, then turned it so it faced into the room.

She pointed, without saying a word.

Only now did he get it.

His fantasy.

For a second, he hesitated. When he’d written the thing he’d been concentrating on how to appeal to Kit, what would make her choose him. A fantasy was fun on paper, or whispered together in the dark, but did he want to play this one out?

He wasn’t at all sure he did.

It seemed she didn’t care.

When he didn’t immediately move, her brows rose in silent challenge. He got the feeling if he didn’t scoot his ass into that chair right quick, he’d be watching hers sashay out the door.

He walked over to the chair. He sat.

Felt the wool of his slacks pull tight across the ridge of his erection and figured what the hell. Maybe he did want to play this game.

She walked over to the console and pushed some buttons and two things happened. The lights dimmed and music came on. Soft, sultry music with a Latin beat. He remained seated. Somehow, he didn’t think she was going to ask him to dance.

Instead, she ignored him. She walked—no, that was not walking, that was strutting and the old Kit Prestcott wouldn’t have had it in her to strut like that. It made him wonder about what she’d been doing with herself for the last three years. Not that he had any right to ask, but it made him wonder all the same.

So she strutted until she was in front of a mirror. She raised her hands to the zip at the back of her dress and their eyes caught in the reflection and held. Oh, she’d placed his chair at the exact spot so he had a clear view of her in the mirror and her in the flesh. Okay, so she’d read his fantasy, and this was his fantasy weekend, so she was going to act it out for him.

Why did he suspect she wasn’t going to go entirely by the script?

Not that he was going to stop her. Not when her fingers latched on to the zipper and she pulled so slowly he could feel each zipper tooth catch and try to hang on before losing its grip. A little like the way he was feeling right this second.

Mesmerized, he watched as each little tooth opened wide extending the vee. She had her head tilted slightly forward to keep her hair out of the zipper and as the dress fabric parted, and more of her white skin appeared he found himself getting goose bumps everywhere. And sitting still was as much of a trial as he’d imagined it would be when he had penned that absurd fantasy.

Did she know how much she was getting to him already?

Her eyes did a slow cruise up and down his body, and then a tiny smile tilted her lips. Oh, yeah. She knew.

And still the zipper tracked down her back as though she had all night. It wasn’t a striptease, exactly. It was
more like watching a woman undressing—as though he were watching her through a window. She knew he was there, but she was in her own space and—so long as he played by the rules and remained on his chair—he was very much in his.

A lacy black strap was revealed, stretching across her upper back. It hit him harder than full frontal nudity. She was all tease and suggestion, as his penned fantasy had been. She got that. Got how erotic it was.

A little lower. The dress sagged against the curve of her hip and he wanted to put his hand there so badly his palm tingled. The panty wasn’t the thong he’d half expected, but a see-through gauzy affair that shadowed the curves of her ass. She turned, holding the dress up to her chin, so now it was her back in the mirror and he was watching her front.