Читать книгу Hot Under Pressure - Kathleen O'Reilly, Kathleen O'Reilly - Страница 8

THE FIRST STOP was at the newsstand for condoms.

Condoms!

I can’t believe you’re sitting here watching a man buy condoms. I mean, I’m glad and all, but Ash, he’s not a serial killer, is he? This is not smart. How much do you know about this man?

I know enough that I want to sleep with him. No, not sleep. I want to have sex. I want to kiss him, I like watching his eyes get all dark and sexy. You’d be surprised what you get to know about a guy when you’re trapped on a grounded plane for eight hours. He’s not a serial killer.

It’s your funeral.

Shut up, Val. You’re not here, and he is.

She pulled out her flats from the carry-on and switched out of the bunny slippers. Not going to need those until tomorrow.

After an eternal four minutes, David walked back from the newsstand wearing a slight flush, his eyes dodgy, not like a guy who was an old hand at buying condoms at the airport—and not like a serial killer, either.

“I don’t carry them,” he apologized.

“I understand,” she said, and decided it was best not to talk about this anymore.

The shuttle to the hotel was fast and silent, and it glided through the darkness, getting them there way too fast. David didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. She could feel him, feel his eyes, feel his thoughts.

When the shuttle arrived at the hotel, David took her bag, his arm brushing against hers, and she jumped. It was like a scene in some of her favorite horror movies, but not in the “someone’s going to get hacked up” sort of way, but more “someone’s going to get laid,” and it was going to be good. Really, really good. Her loins started to ache, her blood pounding.

At the front desk was a seventeen-year-old who didn’t need to be up this late. As David handled the registration, Ashley held back because she didn’t know hotel registration protocol for this arrangement. Did they need two names? If so, should she use her real name? It was a whole new world, and honestly, she didn’t need to know about it. There were much more important things to think about, so she and her aching loins were going to hang back and wait it out.

Three seconds later, and then David was back. It was time. It wasn’t enough time.

“You don’t look so good. You need a drink? We can chat more,” he told her, because obviously eight hours stranded on a plane wasn’t enough for Ashley. Oh, no, she needed more chat time.

“We should get a drink,” she said, her brain furiously stalling for chat time, while her other parts were yelling at her to get the heck upstairs.

To the right of the front desk was the hotel bar. It was dark, sleek, a place with low lights, big comfortable chairs, and an IMAX-sized mirror on the wall. Ashley leaned up to the bar. “I’ll take a double shot of tequila,” she told the bartender.

“Make it two,” added David.

While he waited for the drinks, she picked out two chairs, far from the bartender, but not far from the mirror. David set the shot glasses on the low table and settled in the chair next to her. “You should know that I have taken defensive driving, been married only once, have no contagious, nor sexually transmitted diseases and I never pick up strange women in airports.”

For some reason, that made her feel a lot better. “Me, neither. I mean, men. I never pick up strange men.” And after that mangled confession, she licked the salt from the rim of her glass.

David leaned over, and kissed the corner of her mouth.

“Salt,” he murmured.

“Mouth,” she responded automatically, staring at his mouth. It was a good mouth. It was hard, stubborn and looked liked it knew what it was doing.

“Tongue,” he replied.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and then poured a sharp splash of tequila down her throat. “You would tell me if you think this is slutty, right?”

Ash, that’s a stupid question. He’s not going to tell you that. Men like slutty. When it comes to sex, men have no scruples, no morals, no ethics.

“Absolutely,” he lied.

“Okay. That was stupid.”

“We can get two rooms,” he told here, doing a great impersonation of an ethical man who still wanted sex.

Is this what you want, Ash? If it’s really and truly what you want, then Do It.

She looked at David McLean, the once-divorced, defensive driver with eyes currently tending to brown rather than green. Eyes that said he wanted her. And Ashley made up her mind. It was no contest. Not even a minor dilemma.

“I want to have sex with you. I want to do something new and exciting, at least once before I die, most likely in a plane crash. Stranger sex is exciting.” As she said the words, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were the same, yet different. She was…glowing, which could have been the warmtoned lighting, but she didn’t think so.

“Stranger sex?” he asked, his mouth quirking up at one side. She liked that about him, the way he didn’t fully smile, but only partly committed to it. Like a man who wants to laugh, but isn’t quite sure it’s the correct thing to do.

“Yeah, you know, stranger sex. The unknown, the forbidden, the lady and the tiger.”

Now she was fully staring at the mirror in front of her. Her, the wild-eyed seductress—slight overstatement—with him, the harried businessman, which was probably true.

Kiss him, Ash. Plant a big smoochie right there.

Throwing caution to the wind, Ashley leaned over and kissed him. Once, on the side of the mouth.

“Salt,” she murmured.

Then she boldly moved her mouth to his.

“Mouth,” he whispered against her lips.

It was nearly a kiss. A press of skin, an exchanging of breaths.

It wasn’t enough.

“Tongue,” she said, and magically, it was a kiss. Mouth, tongues, and oh, yes, that was passion. David McLean was a most excellent kisser. He was earnest, sincere, unafraid. Best of all, he made Ashley feel earnest, sincere and unafraid. She forgot about the mirror, and the hotel room, and only focused on one thing—his mouth. The way his tongue mated perfectly with hers.

He tasted like lime and salt and hot, sweaty, body-smashing sex. Maybe that was only her subconscious talking or the humming moisture between her legs, but she didn’t think so. Ashley moved closer, wild-eyed seductress that she was, and then his hand was at her jaw, holding her while that magic tongue moved in and out, intensifying the hum between her legs.

When he lifted his head, those hazel eyes were dark, sleepy and irresistible. Ashley could only stare.

“Two rooms?” he asked.

She shook her head, not wavering or worrying even once.

They walked to the bank of elevators without touching, because Ashley didn’t want to touch him at the moment. Touching implied combustion, and neither a hotel hallway nor a hotel elevator was the place for combustion.

Not for Ashley, and apparently not for David.

This is it, Ash. We’re sure he’s not a serial killer, right? What if you get strangled or something?

David looked at her, his hungry gaze falling to her mouth.

Ashley told the voices to shut up.

DAVID’S HAND SHOOK as he inserted the keycard in the lock, but honestly, he was too primed to try and be smooth about this. He opened the door, told himself to go slow, then immediately ignored all his normally responsible, conventional wisdom and grabbed Ashley, kicking the door shut behind them.

Her arms curled into his hair, pulling him closer, and they stumbled toward the bed. He wasn’t like this. He wasn’t ever like this, so who was that man fumbling her shirt over her head, lifting her skirts, or dive-bombing for her mouth?

That mouth.

She kissed like she dressed. Not completely stylish, but there was an understated flashiness, and a zing. Definitely a zing.

David heard a moan. Hers. Oh, definitely a zing. Now he was moaning, too.

He tumbled on top of her, completely without finesse, but thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind. Her legs wrapped about him, pelvis surging toward him, and his hands went to his fly. Her breasts pressed against him, soft peaks in white cotton. If his zipper would ever get unstuck, he’d shove the bra aside, because he wanted to see…

The room began to shake. What was that? He could hear the roar of a jet engine. The airport. They were at the airport. That wasn’t his cock. Calm. Remain calm.

Condom. Oh, shit. He needed a condom.

“Wait,” he nearly yelled. He needed to get control. He needed to breathe. In the dim light of the single bedside lamp, she looked up at him, clothes ransacked into parts, exposing more skin than covering. Great skin. Gold and rose mixed together like mother-of-pearl. She wore white cotton panties. With a sun-yellow gypsy skirt, she wore white cotton panties, and did she even know he had a thing for white cotton? He definitely had a thing for white cotton. It was sexy as hell. She was sexy as hell.

His hands were still shaking as he shoved her bra aside. Like a total amateur.

Dude, get a hold of yourself. She’s going to think you haven’t done this in like, months.

She’d be right, but he didn’t want to advertise the fact.

The foil packet tore exactly as it was supposed to, and then…

“Let me,” she whispered in a husky voice that sent every drop of his blood out of his head. Into his head. There was courage in her eyes. The bunny-slipper woman, who was a trembling coward at ten thousand feet, now seemed mightier than any warrior queen with her clothes askew.

Oh, no. Her capable hands got busy on his cock, sending ten thousand volts to his system. Concentrate on something else. The breasts, for instance.

Didn’t work.

David wasn’t going to last, he was going to explode and this was going to be over. No way.

He pushed her into the bank of pillows, roughly, again with the no-finesse thing, and then…

Then…

Yes.

She was tight, perfectly tight, and wet.

He opened his eyes, looked down at those dark, dancing eyes and swallowed.

Had he truly forgotten that sex could be this awesome? Yes, yes, he had.

“Oh,” he managed to say.

Ashley smiled at him, and it was a marvelous smile. A smile for a hot summer’s day, and he was so glad the airplane had had a mechanical failure. He was even glad for Hellboy Junior. Being like this, surrounded by her, was worth it, so worth it. He rocked his hips, going deeper inside her, and her smile turned serious. Again he thrust, just to see if it was as good as the first.

Yes, yes, it was.

Then his mind began to shut down, and biology, desire and sex took over.

Greedily he drove inside her, plunging into that moist heat. Her pupils were wide, dilated, and her mouth…it was exactly as he’d imagined. No, it was better than he’d imagined. This was so much better than he imagined. Ashley tried to talk. Couldn’t. Her nails scraped down his back, down his butt, and it was the best pain ever. Ever.

He should be doing more for her, pushing buttons somewhere, but his body was running on autopilot, pumping hard and fast, and she didn’t seem to mind. Her hands locked on his shoulders, pulling him, pushing him, and there was no finesse there, either. And he’d never had such great, mindless sex in his entire life.

Another plane took off, and the bed shook, only this time it wasn’t a plane, it was David and Ashley. It was nearly an hour later, after all the planes had been grounded for the night that the room stopped spinning, the bed stopped moving, and David’s heart landed back on the ground.

Stranger sex? Is that what that meant? Shit. They were going to have to do that again.

ASHLEY SLID OVER to the far side of the bed. You didn’t cuddle with a man you’d known less than one day. Actually, you normally didn’t share a hotel room with a man you’d known less than one day, but in this case, after the last two hours, her standards could be relaxed. There was a moment as she listened to the ever-efficient sounds of used condom removal. Too much information, oh, man, she was not cut out for this.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rolling over, and they were so close, so naked, actually not completely naked, there were clothes still attached to both of them…barely.

“I’m good,” she answered, a total understatement if there ever was one, and Ashley didn’t usually understate. Honestly, she had to say that David McLean had the best bed head ever. Brown strands falling into his eyes, a cowlick in the back, and she wanted to reach over, smooth it back into place. She kept her hands still. They were strangers. You couldn’t go around fixing a stranger’s hair. Sex? Yes. Hair-fixing? No. Again with the rigid standards.

“How good?” he asked, not seeming to be needy, but still curious.

“Really good.”

“Oh, good,” he sighed, and fell back on his back. “That was freaking nuts. You were right.”

“I was?”

And what did “nuts” mean? He sounded happy, beyond happy even, but nuts? What sort of word was that? No, she was getting all paranoid again. She would not get paranoid. This had been awesome, and she had been an active part of that awesomeness.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve never done something like this before, and it’s…I don’t know, it’s just…great.”

Now, see, “great” is so much better than “nuts.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” she said, sounding like she did this all the time.

He nodded, and she grinned, completely ruining the confident, sophisticated image.

“Why isn’t it always like that?” she asked, studying her past sexual behavior pattern to figure out why this was different. Why here, why him, why now? She hadn’t had sex in a year…two? Maybe it was the long dry spell that made things so…stimulating?

“It isn’t always like that because not every man is me,” he answered, sounding exactly like every man. He started to laugh. “Whatever it is, it’s not ambience, that’s for sure.” He cast a long look around the all-American airport hotel decor.

She followed his gaze. He was right. A single torchère light stood in the corner, the bedcovers were orange—orange!—but the drapes were a nice touch. A garden green with large tropical flowers. Cheery.

Ashley pulled up the sheet and blanket to cover her chest discreetly. David McLean, on the other hand, was certainly not shy. His legs, half in half out of bed, exposed lean thighs. The legs were tan, with an indentation where his ass joined the thighs. It was a fine ass, smooth, firm…exactly like his…No, Ashley focus on the conversation.

What were they talking about? Oh, yeah. “That…bam,” she began, searching for a better word, failing, and no, it wasn’t because of his fine ass. “I mean, what’s that about? If I knew you better, would it disappear?” Her eyes kept stealing lower. Conversation with a naked hot man was harder than it looked.

“The zing? That never lasts. I’ve had some great first dates before, and then, you get to the third date, and you’re thinking, who is this person?”

“Exactly,” she said, curling up next to hot man with the fine ass, because miracles did not happen often. “Familiarity. And then it all goes down the drain.”

“Too bad they can’t market that. That bam, that zing. Advertisers would go crazy.”

“I know absolutely nothing about advertising, but you’re right.”

“Thank you,” he told her.

“For what?” she asked, because honestly it was no big deal to agree with him. He was right. She knew he was right.

He cocked his head toward the bed. “For doing this. For staying with me tonight. I feel good. Normal. Better than normal. Like I could run a marathon. Alive. Not so dead.”

Don’t look, Ash.

Not looking, not looking, not…looking. Nope, she looked. Not dead yet. Getting livelier by the second.

He turned, studying her. “I didn’t know I could have sex with a stranger in a hotel without guilt. Without trying to analyze everything.”

“You’re analyzing everything.”

“Occupational hazard.” He leaned back into the pillows and sighed. Not a restful man, David McLean. “It shouldn’t be so hard to start over. Just a date. That’s the Holy Grail for me. I want to find a woman to go out with, and have a nice evening. A good conversation, a little fun.”

“There would be tons of women wanting to go out with you,” Ashley told him.

Good God, what was wrong with the women in New York?

Nothing wrong with him. He’s a serial killer.

Right, Val.

“It seems like all the women I meet are weird, neurotic, or needy. Or eighteen. I have standards.”

Speaking as a weird, neurotic woman, neither needy, nor eighteen, Ashley knew he was doomed and felt it her duty to speak the truth. “Sorry, you’re out of luck. All that comes with the estrogen…except the eighteen part.” His eyes looked nervous and she laughed. “Have you tried online services? A friend of mine met her husband online.”

“Normal people don’t do that, do they? It doesn’t seem like, I don’t know, there’s something wrong with me?”

Ashley waved a hand. “Not anymore. Everybody’s too busy to go and hang out somewhere on the off chance they’ll meet—” she held up quote fingers “—the One.”

David still didn’t look convinced. “A dating service. It sounds painful.” For women, yes, for men, ha. “Go for it. Women would jump all over you.”

Like you did, Ash.

“You really think it’d be okay?”

Ashley nodded.

“And you swear that normal people sign up?”

“On my honor as a fashion professional.”

“I don’t know.”

“Try it,” she urged, because he needed to find that perfect petite blond, black-dressed New Yorker who would appreciate a man who was simply…nice. That, and a pile driver in bed, which made for a nifty combination.

After a moment of consideration, he sighed, but then nodded. “I’ll do it. Just a test. You’ve given me courage.”

That out of the way, his eyes skimmed over her, and she felt the tingles again. That wasn’t courage. No siree, that was lust. She gave him courage. He gave her lust. There was something wrong with that equation. “You should do it, too,” he added.

“Oh, no. It’s not for me.”

Ashley didn’t want to date. She didn’t need the hassles, the aggravation, or the neurosis. Nope. Everything she longed for was right there. Long, lean, stranger man, naked in her bed. She hadn’t known she could do this. “I don’t want a date. I want an affair. An exotic, femme-fatalish affair. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”

“You should live in New York,” he said, possibly reading her mind. “If you lived in New York, I’d give you an affair.”

“No, thank you, Yankee man. I’m staying right here in the Windy City. Well, actually, I’m leaving in the morning for L.A., but I’m coming home here. To Chicago.”

There was a momentary silence as she contemplated that statement. They were complete strangers, didn’t even share the same state. One more plane ride to L.A., and then she’d never see him again. It made the night seem…alluring, adventurous. The lady and the tiger, and tonight she wasn’t the lady.

Become the tiger, Ash.

David propped up on one elbow. “You want to get dinner in L.A.?”

“Aren’t you tempting fate?” she asked, tempted to tempt fate herself.

“By eating?”

“By having a date. What if that destroys the bam, the zing? What if the only way we can have this is by meeting in hotel rooms and losing our exterior selves in a moment of wild abandonment?”

David looked at her, slightly awed. “You came up with all this from one shot of tequila and sex?”

“No. I’ve been thinking.”

“You could think?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t think. Why could you think?”

“Not then. Now.”

He rapped a hand against his heart. “Good.” Then he looked at her in that way she was learning to recognize. “Do you honestly believe all that?” he asked seriously. There were two David McLeans. One, resident goofball, but the other was hardcore analyst. He was probably excellent at his job.

“I think it deserves some consideration,” she replied, but honestly, she did believe it. It explained everything.

And he didn’t look at her like a crazy person, which made her like him more. “Okay, meet me in L.A. In a hotel room. Chateau Marmont. We can be Mr. and Mrs. Jones. We’ll test your theory.”

“We’d just…exchange a room number and then I knock three times on the door, and…?”

“Yeah, or we could just meet up in the lobby,” he explained in a practical voice.

Ashley sighed. “It’s easy to tell you’re Mr. Bottom Line. No sense of adventure at all.”

“This from a woman in bunny slippers?”

She held up a naked foot. “Not a pink floppy ear in sight.”

His eyes crinkled. “Bare flesh. Seductress.”

“You think?” She held up her foot again, watching one of his long, lean thighs dig itself into the covers until it was buried completely. She was going to miss that naked thigh, that firm flank, that stellar ass.

“You have very sexy feet. I was watching them on the plane.”

Feet? No. It would have been better if he were a serial killer.

“You think my feet are sexy? You’re not gonna get weird and suck toes, are you?”

He must have some flaw. This one would explain it.

Thankfully, he looked horrified. “No. But I could, you know, start at the arch, work my way up, see where I land…” And she could see the gears turning in his head…all because of a foot. Her foot.

Ashley stared at the appendage of interest, considering the possibilities. “That sounds…decadent.”

“Bam?” he asked, raising a brow.

“Definitely.”

“Good. I didn’t push any buttons before, and I’m sorry about that, but you felt so good. I got carried away, and I feel like I have shirked my manly duties.”

She wiggled her toes. “Go forth, and unshirk, my devoted slave of pleasure.”

He pushed down her body, and his mouth pressed against her arch, and the first time it tickled, causing her to giggle. But then he moved up her calf, and it still tickled, but a different tickle. A warm tickle, a tickle between her thighs.

“Oh,” murmured Ashley, then she shot upright, horrified by a new thought. “You have more condoms?”

“A whole box. Now let me get back to my unshirking.”

Ashley fell back against the pillows, and his mouth touched the inside of her thigh, and there were no more giggles. Only the sighs and ragged breathing of a woman having her buttons pushed. Every single one of them. Sometimes twice.

“I’m very glad you went for the box, rather than the travel size,” she told him.

“Bam?” he whispered, his mouth unshirking behind her knee, and moving north at a steady, yet wholly orgasm-inducing speed.

Ash, you’re way too easy.

Shut up, Val.