Читать книгу Do Not Disturb: An Erotica Collection - Elizabeth Coldwell - Страница 5

‘Lazy …’

Reflecting on it later, it would occur to Ryan how natural waking up next to her had seemed – so natural he didn’t wonder at her presence for even a moment. Of course, the whole scene was awash in sleepy pleasures; the bed was warm, her body as perfumed and sweetly soft as the early-morning haze clouding his mind. She lay with an arm draped across his chest, long legs holding one of his scissored between. Holding him tight, and stroking him with a somehow proprietary air. As though she intended to never release him. Normally Ryan tended to squirm when a lover held him too tightly during the night, but he felt he could spend a happy eternity dozing in this one’s arms.

‘Tell me … what am I to do with such a lazy man?’ Her mouth was as soft as her hands, whispering the words into his ear. An accent – British? There had been a woman in his office who spoke like that, a transfer from the London office. Wonderful, sexy accent. Those round vowels. Like listening to music when she spoke.

What was the woman’s name – Pamela? What was sexy Pam doing in a New York hotel room with him?

Ryan strained upward against the mystery woman’s limbs. Laughter sounded lightly in his ear, and the limbs tightened against him, holding him down. He made no attempt to escape.

‘No, no … mine.’ She licked his ear, laughing again, but lower this time, a little growl/purr deep in her throat. The scent of bed-warmed skin seemed to briefly intensify.

She’s excited. She wants me. The thought didn’t just stiffen his cock; he found it flattering, as if she were a celebrity or some person of note. He reached for her arms and she moved to straddle his waist, smiled down at him.

She wasn’t Pam.

‘Where you going, hey? Got a date?’

She had coffee-and-cream skin and tousled black hair, squiggly locks of it hanging in wide dark eyes. A broad, strong nose that was almost too strong for her delicate face; it would have been too strong if it weren’t for those eyes and the smiling red mouth. Her breasts were small, little creamy handfuls with dark, hard nipples.

‘Who’s the lucky girl, then? Anyone I know?’

She pressed down on his chest with both palms, grinning as she shifted her hips. A firm, wet weight grinding atop his now fully erect cock.

‘Told you … this is mine. I don’t share my toys. Those other girls can go find their own.’

What had he done the previous night? He had gone out, met her at some bar?

‘And you know … I feel like playing with it a bit more.’ She rose briefly on her knees, groped for something hidden by a fold in the bedclothes. At first he thought it was a chocolate; a moment later, when she held it up for his inspection, he laughed at himself; it was a condom. She had it unwrapped in a moment, then she slid both hands between her legs. Ryan felt her fingers groping for his hardness, rolling the condom on.

He lay back, unresisting. Yeah, he must have gone out last night. It was the only explanation. Because here was the proof, horny and smiling, getting ready to fuck him. He had met this woman and brought her back to his room …

Except that he hadn’t.

Once he had that thought his mind began clearing, his thoughts beginning to process at something like normal speed. Glancing to one side, he saw his laptop still open on the table by the window, a stack of binders beside it, dishes from room service beside those.

No, he hadn’t gone out. He remembered now. He had stayed in and worked. Because Wilson wanted the numbers by next morning. And next morning – this morning – he had to be at La Guardia at nine to catch his plane and he didn’t want to work on the flight home. He had worked until two and gone to bed alone.

He didn’t know this woman. He had no idea at all who she was.

Inexplicably, the thought did nothing to calm his erection. It enflamed him, brought on a surge of excitement so powerful he thought he could almost taste it, like a bite of lemon. Before he knew it, he was sliding into her, and it was good, the sensation so beautiful he found himself immediately surrendering to it. She was tight, and so wet he thought he could hear himself moving in her. Ryan grabbed handfuls of the sheets at his waist, resisting the urge to reach up and touch her face, focusing only on the need to push up into her again and again.

‘Ooohh … yeah, lover. Yeah, my baby.’

She was riding him, leaning forward to grip the edges of the headboard, hips grinding, encouraging him to thrust hard and harder.

Who is she? Who the fuck is this woman, where’d she come from? The question was like a whining voice in his ear. Five years ago he wouldn’t have even heard it. Five years ago he would have been thanking God and all the stars for dropping her into his bed like this. But he was thirty now. There were considerations.

Still. Considerations didn’t soften him and they sure as hell didn’t make him want to pull out. She grinned down at him, ran a tongue round her full, hungry lips and pressed her chest out at him. A brown nipple wobbled invitingly in his face, brushing his cheek and eyelids.

‘Bite it …?’ There was a pleading note in her voice. Instinctively Ryan caught a nipple between his teeth, slowly squeezed it between his teeth. Her back arched, her middle pushing down onto his as though desperate to keep him still.

‘F-fuck … fuck!’ The word came out of the depths of her throat. She hadn’t come yet, but she was pursuing her climax with a ferocious determination, working her hips faster and faster. Loving him. Grinding him into the bedding.

He was close to spilling, but he restrained himself with an effort. Just push, just keep on keeping on …

She came, eventually, with spasms. As if an electric current were running through her. Her back went straight and stiff and her mouth opened wide as her eyes shut.

Say aaah-hh, Ryan thought. Stifling an urge to giggle until the tightness of her sex around his shaft got him, made him crane upward and burst finally. She fell sideways off him, curling up and holding herself, sighing with pleasure.

Ryan lay breathing for a long while, staring at the ceiling. There was a box of tissue on the nightstand. He cleaned himself and rolled himself onto her back, arms going around her middle as though they’d been pre-programmed for that very action.

This is what she likes, when we finish. Spooning. Me holding her. She waits for this, she loves it.

Strange thought. He no idea why he would think such a thing, because …

‘Who are you?’ He whispered the word, asked her ear. ‘Where’d you come from?’ Because you’re wonderful? No, that would be smarmy. Might as well ask if heaven was missing an angel.

She laughed, reached for his hand and pressed it hard against her shoulder.

‘Why? You want to take me back, exchange me?’

‘You know what I mean …’ He tried, unsuccessfully, for a serious tone.

‘No, I don’t know. Tell me.’ She sounded sleepy, ready to drift off. And why shouldn’t she? That good old post-coital snooze, you can’t beat it. Except when you have a plane to catch at La Guardia. Except when you have a strange woman in bed with you who acts like she knows you when you’ve never seen her before.

Her bare feet found his. They were icy cold. He caught them between his, thoughtlessly. Warmed them.

His eyes made a circuit of the room, viewing it more critically, his mind sharper. There were his laptop and papers, yes, and his suitcase, open but still neatly arranged. But the rest of the place, he saw now, was a disaster; shopping bags and uneaten carry-out and small piles here and there of underwear and cosmetics. Women’s shoes everywhere. Many, many fashion magazines, hung on the arms of chairs or lying flat and spread open like grounded birds. The room smelled of her, a sweet mixture of perfume and skin spiced with unwashed female laundry. Like a room that had been lived in by the same woman for at least a week. But they – he – had only checked in yesterday. He didn’t like the thought, so he pushed it from his head. He had to find out who she was.

How do you start a conversation like this? An unpleasant thought was occurring to Ryan, that his new friend might be crazy, or some kind of scam-artist. What other woman just gets in bed with you and pretends you’re old friends?

He didn’t get a chance to phrase the question. She was doing something with his hand, prising his fingers apart, looking at them. ‘Where’s your ring?’ Her voice was concerned.

‘Ring?’ At the moment, the word meant nothing to him. She might have been speaking Cantonese.

‘You didn’t lose it? Ryan!’ Panicked now. She sat up, refusing to let go of his hand.

All right, she’s crazy, then.

‘What ring?’ he asked carefully.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth tightened. What would have been humour a moment ago was now sarcasm and hurt. She held up her right hand, her long fingers spread and wriggling. A plain platinum band rode on the fourth.

Oh, my God. My God. She thinks we’re married. He had to break this to her easy. Gently. But firm as well. He had to be very firm with her.

‘I … I just took it off for a while. It was … hurting.’

Her shoulders lowered, eyes went soft again. Mercurial. Her temper came and went. That’s why you fell in love with her, a voice whispered to him. He ignored it.

She seized his hand, covered his fingers with soft kisses. ‘I told you we would get it resized. It’s not that much money.’

‘Yeah … yeah.’ He began disengaging himself from her embrace, which was accordingly tightened.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Just … bathroom. Back in a minute.’

She let him go and leaned back on the covers, pouting. ‘OK, but don’t be long. We’ve both got to shower. We’ve got a plane to catch, don’t forget. And you know what a nightmare security is these days.’

Nodding and smiling, he made his escape.

‘Oh, and be careful! Your clumsy princess spilled the mouthwash.’

The small rug in the bathroom was, in fact, soaked green with mint-smelling liquid. A pair of nylons hung over the shower rod. Ryan found her wallet resting on a fat paperback behind the toilet. He tore it open and found her driver’s licence.

Under her smiling, happy-looking picture was the name IRENE CARSON.

Ryan sank down onto the toilet, feeling sick. She had his last name. The DC address on the licence was his. If this was some kind of scam, it had been planned well in advance, though for what purpose he had no idea.

Fingers rapped on the door.

‘Darling!’ The woman’s voice – Irene’s voice – called gaily. ‘Done yet? I have to tinkle!’

* * *

Ryan left while she was in the shower. He moved fast, snatching up his laptop and shovelling clothes into the suitcase. He didn’t stop to put on anything but jeans and a T-shirt and his running shoes.

He shut the door gently behind him, then ran for the elevator, the sound of the shower fading to nothing as he barrelled down the hallway. He’d tell the front desk that some insane woman had broken into his room. Let them deal with it. He had a plane to catch.

But as he waited for the elevator, he began feeling the plan was basically unsound. She – Irene – had his address. And a Washington, DC driver’s licence that as good as said she was his wife.

And there was the little matter of the sex. He could see the concierge nodding sympathetically, then, with an ever so slight creasing of his brow, inquire why, since Sir was so put out over the strange woman in his room, Sir had, with such evident enthusiasm, fucked her cross-eyed?

He told himself these things, but there was something else he couldn’t quite escape, that he couldn’t quite face.

He didn’t want to leave her. Even though he was on the move, walking with great determination to a particular destination, the world around him seemed oppressively quiet without her sexy chatter. Less colourful without her clothes thrown everywhere. It was as though time moved more slowly without her.

Dear God, he couldn’t possibly be missing her?

Ryan turned as the elevator opened and began walking quickly back down the hall. He would face her. Sit her down and explain the whole thing to her, even if she ended up screaming. It would be the right thing to do.

As he approached the door, he realised he couldn’t hear the shower. Something was wrong. She couldn’t possibly have finished so soon.

Strange thoughts fizzed up in his head like bubbles in a glass of cola. She wouldn’t have finished so soon. She likes her showers. Anything with hot water. After a shower she’ll fill the tub and splash around like a little girl, singing. It drives you crazy when you have a plane to catch …

Ryan opened the door with the key-card and smelled nothing. He stepped inside, moving slowly and carefully, reminding himself of a detective. The absence of smell pervaded the entire room. No flower-scent of perfume, no sweet-stale smell of her laundry. No shoes or magazines on the floor, or loaded shopping bags. He went into the bathroom and there was no spilled mouthwash soaked into the bathroom carpet. No dog-eared romance novel, no wallet. The room was empty, without any sign of Irene Carson.

Exactly as he had left it the previous night, when he’d turned in, still single, still alone.

Ryan thought perhaps he had entered the wrong room. The solution was wonderfully appealing in its simplicity. He ran eagerly out into the hall, but the numbered plaque beside the door read 414. His room – theirs?

Either way, it was empty now, and Irene was gone.

* * *

Ryan ended up missing his plane, and he didn’t think that was entirely an accident on his part. He got to La Guardia in enough time to make the gate, but he couldn’t seem to make himself move with any purpose.

He kept thinking about Irene. During the cab ride to the airport he had managed to convince himself that the whole episode had been some kind of elaborate hallucination. You’re overworked, Carson. Seeing things. Need a vacation. By the time the cab had arrived at La Guardia he had convinced himself otherwise. He just wished he had thought to pocket her driver’s licence. Even a pair of her panties.

Because women didn’t just disappear, not without leaving some token of themselves behind.

At the airport Ryan finally found himself sitting outside a fast-food restaurant, staring at a couple making a display of feeding each other bites of breakfast sandwiches, snickering about it as though the whole routine was adorable. By the time they finished and left, it was too late to get to his gate. So he kept sitting. Eventually he told himself he needed to get up and at least see about getting on another flight. He could brood about Irene on the way home. He still had a job, after all. Responsibilities.

He took out his phone to call Wilson and tell him he’d be later than expected, and noticed someone had left him a voicemail. A red Number One glowing at him on the corner of phone’s screen.

He accessed Voicemail with no great enthusiasm; he was sure the message would be from Wilson.

‘Hello, darling. This is your clumsy princess. I’m leaving this while you’re being naughty in the bathroom – at least, I assume that’s what you’re doing, because, without the love of a good woman … uhm … well. Who’s to say what a good man will get up to?’

His heart was pounding. Yes, this was something she’d do. Leave little playful voicemails or texts for him when he stepped out, even if it was only to the next room. The Information Superhighway’s equivalent of spontaneous love-notes.

But something was wrong with the sound. There was a strange electronic swishing noise in the background, some kind of distortion that did funny things to her voice.

‘So-o-oo … saying I love you. Love you and miss you …’

The connection broke with a sudden, high-pitched whine. Ryan had a feeling the distortion had something to do with it, that Irene had actually gone on talking, unaware that she was cut off.

His heart was beating, hard and fast. Ryan wasn’t a complete idiot with cell phones. He didn’t know much about apps and calling plans, but he did know one thing.

He knew if someone had called and left you a voicemail, you could usually get their number from the RECENTS screen and call them right back.

Yes, and there was her number – or what must have been her number. DC area code, what a surprise. He thumbed the numerals and a small box opened up on the phone’s screen, asking him if he’d like to CALL the number.

Oh, that’s very good of you. How considerate. Yes, actually, I would.

Heart still dancing, he hit the CALL button.

It rang for ever. Every ring was a lifetime. There was more static between the rings. The electronic hissing became gradually louder, so that when she finally picked up he barely realised it.

‘… Ryan …?’

‘Yes!’ He was shouting into the phone, turning it in his hand so that he could speak into it from different angles and get through to her.

‘… you? You’re … here … scared …?’

That ‘scared’ hit him hard. He wanted so badly for her to be there, so he could put his arms around her. He bit his lip.

What’s the matter with you? She’s not married to you. You don’t even know her.

‘Ry … I want …’

The line went dead.

Ryan’s shout startled a couple walking past. He punched his thigh with frustration and the woman moved closer to the man, who gave Ryan a quick, cautious glance as he led her away.

All Ryan could think to do was get outside and try again. The signal would be stronger outside. Outside the damned thing would actually work. Reaching fresh air took a while, and as he was shouldering his way past a flock of indignant tourists, the phone rang again.

Her number.

‘Hello?’ He was desperate to hear her voice. And it came through, so clear and loud he actually shrank from the phone. As though whatever force had separated them was now taunting him with that crystal clarity.

‘Ryan? Dear God, where are you?’ Not panicked now, or even frightened, particularly. She sounded royally pissed off.

‘I had … I just had to go out.’ Lame. Lame, Carson. But he had never felt so happy in his life.

‘You went out … with your suitcase?’ She was half laughing, half ready to kill him. Ryan was laughing himself, a little hysterically.

Wait till she hears I’m calling from La Guardia.

‘I promise … it was this crazy thing. I’ll tell you all about it. But listen, you have to …’

Static hissed again in his ear, as though malicious forces were determined to cut them off again as quickly as possible. Ryan held the phone away, staring at it in disbelief.

You’re kidding me.

‘Ryan?’ Just his name, delivered with frustration and anger and a strange plaintiveness. Then gone.

It was a fucking horror movie, he thought. She was the heroine, fading away into a strange wraith-world, an alternative dimension where they’d be so close, but never able to touch, or see each other.

The anger that rose up in him at that thought made him wanted to dash the phone onto the concrete, watch it shatter into plastic splinters. But he couldn’t do that. He might need it. She might call while he was on his way back to her.

Because that’s where he was going. Back to her.

Pocketing the phone, he made for the cabs.

Wilson was going to be pissed.

* * *

The cab back to Midtown ran into traffic. Ryan sat biting his knuckles all through the ride. This is crazy, he told himself. Insane.

What was really insane, though, was how excited he was getting. Horny all over again. As the cab bumped along he kept thinking about Irene, remembering the feel of her body on his. Like he was eighteen again and a woman’s touch was an unthinkable miracle. He was crazy to see her again, to feel her. He wanted to take her to bed immediately and this time explore every inch of her, from the lines on the soles of her feet to the exact shade of her hair colour. He would memorise her, not only with his eyes but with his nose and tongue. With his cock. He would imprint her on his skin, so he’d never risk losing her again.

She would be waiting for him in the room, thinking that he was only a few blocks away. She would have called by now if she had gone out to look for him. It was unthinkable that she had gone out to the airport, that they would have crossed paths on the way in separate taxis and not known it. It was not possible.

He made it back to the hotel somehow, finally. The girl at the check-in desk gave him a strange look that didn’t last more than an eye-blink, replaced almost immediately with a smooth smile.

‘Hello,’ she said blithely. Blithe as all get-out. Not asking, not even thinking, what the hell are you doing back here already?

For a moment Ryan almost told the girl that his wife was still in their room and he just needed to go get her. No, that would sound awfully funny.

So what was he supposed to tell her? ‘Excuse me, Miss. I appear to have somehow lost the woman of my dreams in a hotel in an alternate universe, so I need to get to the corresponding room in this universe because I’m sure that simple act of faith will somehow cause the universes to re-collide and deliver her back into my eager arms.’

Oh yeah, Carson. You smooth bastard. That’s much better.

‘I need a room,’ he said, managing to smile but breathing heavily. He’d run in from the street. He struggled to remember which room. ‘414.’

‘414,’ she said, running her fingers over her keyboard. ‘Let me just see if that’s available …’

‘It has to be 414,’ he said, trying desperately to sound reasonable. She had to be used to snotty corporate types making outlandish demands, wanting a room on the north side or west side, or a room with a view of the park, quite willing to bawl like infants if they weren’t instantly accommodated. Surely this girl wouldn’t bat an eye at him begging for a specific room.

But what if someone else had taken it? Was Irene, even now, poutingly telling some fat salesman from Bloomington, Indiana that his clumsy princess had forgotten to pick up her niece an I HEART NY T-shirt as a souvenir?

‘Oh, yes … here we are. For just the one night?’

Ryan had to stop himself from snatching the key-card from her hand. No, he didn’t need help with his bags. Oh, he was sure, all right.

He ran for the elevator.

The room, when he reached it, was empty. Even emptier than last time. Housecleaning had been at it. It had a sweet, empty smell of chemicals. There was no sign of Irene. Her absence tore at him.

Ryan fell down, exhausted, onto the bed. The faith that had been in him like steel only moments ago was gone now, or turned to porridge.

He was losing his mind. No excuses this time. He was not only seeing dream-women, he was hearing their voices talking to him on his cell phone. He should consider checking himself into Bellevue while he was still in New York, assuming they’d have him.

Self-pity and fear for his sanity gradually gave way to a feeling of emptiness. It was a strangely gentle feeling. Everyone in the world felt like this eventually, didn’t they? Sure they did. They wanted something or someone more than anything, and they couldn’t get it/them, no matter how hard they tried.

Ryan lay watching bars of sunlight track slowly across the ceiling. He didn’t want to ever move again. The stress of the past few hours began catching up with him, demanding he relax his muscles, showing him how good it would be to shut his eyes, just for a minute. Sleep stole up on him eventually. He didn’t fight it.

He woke up like diving through a bank of cottony clouds into sweetness. The room smelled sweet, like her perfume, like her laundry and the syrup-filled chocolates she liked to snack on in bed. He felt weight on his legs. Irene was there, lying on top of him, barefoot in a sundress. Her nails were freshly done, a maroon that went beautifully with her skin tone.

She had unzipped him, taken his cock out and was holding it, lapping at it like an ice-cream cone.

‘Where the hell were you?’ she whispered, her lips moving over his pink head as if she were speaking into a microphone. Her eyes were fixed on his, unreadable. ‘I looked and looked. We missed our plane. This is your punishment.’

She licked his cockhead again and he shuddered at the intensity of the feeling. No more emptiness. Joy was back instead, so strong he didn’t have the strength to cry out or grab her. He lay back with his eyes shut, smiling idiotically. I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I don’t.

‘I’m not going away again,’ he told her. ‘I promise. If I go anywhere, you’re coming with me.’ For the rest of our lives. I’m never losing you again.

‘You’re right about that, Mr Man. And look …’ She gave his cock a last kiss, climbed up so they were cheek to cheek. She took his hand and slipped something over the fourth finger. ‘There,’ she said smiling.

‘What?’ he asked, but he knew what it was. He held his hand up. Late-afternoon sunlight caught the metal and gleamed. It looked strangely familiar now.

Irene bit his earlobe. ‘I found your ring,’ she told him.