Читать книгу Suite Seduction - Leslie Kelly - Страница 8

IF SHE HADN’T looked so adorably indignant, Robert might have laughed again. He was unable to hide a grin, though, as she threw her crossed arms down on the table in front of her and plopped her head onto them.

Ruthie. Sweet, funny, voluptuous Ruthie. How could he ever have imagined he’d stumble onto such a vibrant woman in the darkened kitchen of a hotel? Or that she’d appeal to him so instantly, so sharply, like no other woman had in years?

For whatever reason, Robert suddenly felt like a kid on Christmas morning, who’d found his favorite gift was one he hadn’t even included on his ten page wish list!

Things were definitely looking up. Maybe he would even have reason to look back on Monica’s ridiculous offer and be thankful. It had driven him here, to this room, at just the right moment to meet someone who had knocked his socks off in less than fifteen minutes.

Someone who, he realized, was still sniffling as she kept her face buried in her crossed arms.

“No, I’m definitely not having sex tonight,” he said, confirming that fact not only to her but to himself. “And I haven’t had it in a pretty long time, either. So you’re not alone. Now, will you please stop crying?”

Her head lifted and she stared at him. Hard. “Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why aren’t you having sex? You’re gorgeous. You’re nice. You smell good and you don’t have bad breath. Why isn’t there some woman waiting for you upstairs?” A sudden look of understanding crossed her face. “Oh, great, you’re gay, aren’t you? That’s it. You’re gay. Somebody, just shoot me now.”

He bordered on taking offense, but since she was so obviously miserable, not to mention tipsy, he forgave her for momentarily doubting his preferences. “Not gay.”

“Married?”

“Nope.”

“Sissy mama’s boy?”

He cringed. “My mama’s a mechanic.”

“Why celibate, then?”

That seemed a very good question right now. Particularly since all he’d been able to think about since he’d first seen her licking chocolate off her fork was how much he wanted her to be tasting him.

“It’s been a long time since I met anyone I was seriously interested in.” Not three years, of course. He shuddered at the thought that she’d been unattached for so long. Were men in Philly totally blind? “Why you? Other than the obvious things like your gorgeous red hair has too much curl, and you’ve got a figure most men with stick-thin girlfriends fantasize about?”

His flattery didn’t influence her. She obviously didn’t believe it. “I’ve been busy. Working, helping the family with the business.”

“You work with your family?”

She nodded. “It takes a lot of time and energy. Not that I’m complaining—I love my family a lot. And I do have friends I spend time with.”

“But no boyfriends other than the loser who passed up the chance to spend a night with you?”

She sighed. “It’s hard to meet eligible men when you work ten hours a day, six days a week.”

“I know how that goes. My job requires a lot of travel, not much time for home and family. Not that I mind. That’s exactly what I wanted growing up. I couldn’t wait to leave home, get away from the craziness of five younger brothers, have my own quiet place, then go out and conquer the world.”

“And have you?”

He grinned. “I’m working on it.”

They fell silent. It wasn’t a heavy, uncomfortable silence between two strangers who’d had a very intimate conversation. Instead, Robert just enjoyed breathing the same air, catching the light scent of her perfume, watching the way the glints of gold in her hair caught the light. Hearing her sniffle. “You cryin’ again?”

She shook her head. “Allergies.”

“Good. I can’t stand it when women cry.”

Ruthie sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I love to cry. I rate movies by the tissue factor.”

“How depressing.”

“No,” she insisted, “it’s not. I don’t mean I like to see horror or twisted stuff that brings you down, but there’s something so moving about a real love story, doomed and destined to end in tragedy.”

“Yeah, they move me, all right,” he muttered, “right out of the theater. I like war movies.”

“Yuck. Blood and gore. Sat through half of one last year on a blind date and threw up my popcorn and Sno-Caps right onto his shoes.” She sounded very philosophical about the experience.

“Did he ever call again?”

She rolled her eyes and let out an unladylike snort.

“Well,” he said, giving his head a rueful shake, “I’ve had my fair share of bad dates, too.”

“But I bet you never got sick on your date’s shiny new penny loafers.”

“True,” he conceded. “But if he was enough of a geek to be wearing penny loafers, he deserved it.”

She raised a sardonic brow. “Are you criticizing my taste in men? Implying I date geeks?”

He shook his head and held his hands up, palms out. “No, no, you said he was a blind date, remember? Obviously the friend who set you up doesn’t know you very well!”

She smirked. “My mother set us up.”

He paused, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, silently daring her to go on.

“Okay, okay, so she doesn’t know me very well!”

His expression was triumphant. “Nobody’s mother knows them very well. That’s why mothers love their children when any sane person would have kicked them to the curb years before.”

Ruthie nodded in agreement with his reasoning, then said, “Is yours really a mechanic?”

He nodded ruefully. “She and my father are in the auto repair business back home in North Carolina.”

“Southern boy,” she said as she stuck her fork in the last third of the cake and helped herself to another bite. “I guess that explains the good manners, the handkerchief and all. But no accent?”

“New York eventually wore it away.”

Robert reached out to help himself to more cake, and accidentally tangled his fork with the tines of hers. “Sorry.”

“If we were down to the last bite, you’d have to fork-duel me for it. But I think there’s enough left for both of us,” she said with a huge grin as she disentangled their utensils.

When she truly smiled, she did so with her whole face, not just those beautiful lips. Robert watched her, awed by the transformation genuine amusement brought to her already pretty features. Her eyes sparkled. A pair of adorable dimples turned up in her cheeks. He had forgotten how much of a sucker he’d always been for dimples—had been since his first crush on the freckled, dimpled, toothless Doreen Watson in second grade. Now he was reminded with such sudden, raw joy that he simply didn’t know what to say. He merely smiled back, memorizing her features, as though afraid this entire interlude might be a figment of his imagination brought on by one too many vodka tonics and might disappear at any moment.

From outside, Robert heard a few horns beeping. The flash of a blue strobe from a police car passing by the window spotlighted the far wall of the room. Distracted, he looked around. The kitchen was immaculate, reminding him of his original purpose. He’d completely forgotten why he’d come snooping while he’d talked with Ruthie. Amazing. A woman who could actually make him forget about his job, albeit only for twenty minutes or so.

Ruthie finally broke the comfortable silence that had once again fallen between them. “So, I suppose you like sports.” Her voice held a note of resignation.

He nodded. “You?”

She shook her head mournfully. “Nope.”

“What about music?” he asked, immediately recognizing her bid to see just what they might have in common, other than the cajones to sneak into a private hotel kitchen and raid the dessert cabinet.

Her eyes brightened. “I love country-western!”

He cringed. “My father nearly disowned me when I was nine and told him I hated country and liked New-Orleans-style jazz.”

A gentle smile and a look of tenderness crossed her face. “My father and I used to sing along to Broadway albums when I was growing up. He had a wonderful voice.”

“Had?”

She nodded. “He died when I was in high school.” Her voice broke, and she gave her head a quick shake, then reached for the bottle of champagne.

“So,” Robert said, trying to move past the awkward moment, “what else? How about books?”

He could have predicted her answer before she said it. “Romances. You?”

“Techno-thrillers.”

“I get tired thinking about picking up one of those two-ton hardbacks,” she said with a frown. “Do you think those guys get paid by the word?”

Since he’d sometimes wondered the same thing, he nodded. “Seems possible.” Instead of being depressed at their conflicting personalities and tastes, Robert found himself thoroughly enjoying their banter.

“Kids!” she exclaimed and he almost heard the “aha” she didn’t utter. “Growing up with all those younger brothers, you must love children!”

He gave a vehement shake of his head. “Growing up with all those brothers made me never want to have children.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Really? Maybe you just think you don’t want any.”

He shuddered. “Ruthie, I practically raised my younger brothers while our parents were getting their business off the ground. Snotty noses, diapers, chicken pox, bad dreams, never-ending fistfights. Believe me, I did all the child-rearing I ever want to do before my eighteenth birthday.”

She looked at him, studying his face as if testing his sincerity, then a disappointed frown marred her brow. She studied her own hands, suddenly quiet and pensive. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t dream about growing up and having lots of children.”

Lots? He couldn’t even fathom the possibility of one. It did seem critically important to her, though. What she wanted for her own future really wasn’t any of his business, he supposed. She was an absolute stranger to him; he might never see her again after this one unusual night. But he couldn’t stop a feeling of regret over their completely discordant dreams for their futures.

“I hope your dream comes true one day, Ruthie.” He hoisted the bottle and held it up for a toast. “To your future babies. May they all be female so you don’t have the nightmare of raising lots of little boys like I did.”

She nodded, grabbed the bottle, and took a liberal sip.

“So, where were we?” he mused. “Ah, yes, what could we possibly we have in common that we can talk about now?”

She squared her shoulders. “What about the weather?”

“I think we’ve moved a little beyond talking about the weather, Ruthie. After all, I already know the details of your sex life, and you saw a condom fall out of my pocket.”

“The details of my nonexistent sex life,” she retorted, “and thank you so much for reminding me!” She rolled her eyes. “For your information, I was talking about the seasons. Are you a summer man or a winter one?”

“Summer. Definitely. Sandy beaches, bright blue sky, waterskiing, deep-sea fishing. Give me ninety and sunny any day.” He had a sudden purely delightful mental image of lying on a beach, sipping a fruity rum concoction, watching Ruthie walk toward him from the water, wearing a tiny bikini that barely covered the full, lush curves of her breasts.

He glanced at her, to see if she’d caught the brainless, besotted expression he felt sure must be on his face.

She looked like she wanted to slug him. “Winter,” she practically snarled. “Nothing compares to snuggling up in your very softest angora sweater, sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of a roaring fireplace at a beautiful mountaintop ski resort.”

Sweater? No, no. That definitely wasn’t part of the fantasy. “Better than lying on a beach, listening to the gentle surf, feeling someone rub oil into the hot skin of your back?” he asked, his voice growing husky as he fantasized aloud.

She sighed. “Only if there’s a gorgeous young waiter dressed in a loincloth bringing me free piña coladas—and Solarcaine by the case since I would turn red as a lobster in forty-five seconds flat.”

“Ever heard of beach umbrellas?”

“Ever heard of sun poisoning?” she shot back. “I’m a dermatologist’s poster child.”

“No risk of sunburn when lying on a hammock beneath a palm tree in the early evening.”

She wasn’t teased out of her mood. “Just mosquitoes.”

Robert shook his head ruefully, admiring her stubbornness, her honesty, even if it was a bit inspired by champagne. “I give up. You’re right. We have nothing in common.”

Instead of looking pleased that he’d agreed with her, Ruthie frowned deeply. He heard her sigh and watched her shoulders slump again. “I guess not.”

They both extended their forks toward the cake at the same instant. “There’s always chocolate,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “We’ll always have chocolate.”

Between the two of them, they killed off the first bottle of champagne and did some damage to the second in the next hour. Robert didn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard, all the while shifting in his seat as he reacted physically to the gorgeous redhead fate had thrust right under his nose.

He’d never dated a redhead. He’d never dated a curvy bundle of dimpled femininity. His women, in the past, had tended to be more the corporate shark type. Not by preference, he suddenly realized, but merely by circumstance.

His brothers had been telling him for years to get the hell out of New York before he found himself married to one of the piranhas he’d been dating. Robert didn’t worry. He had no intention of marrying anyone. His job was too important to him—and too demanding—to try to find time to share his life with a family. Dating piranhas helped make sure he was never tempted.

He’d never taken a woman home, of course, knowing the full Kendall clan was enough to frighten off anyone. More than that, he’d never met a woman he’d wanted to bring to North Carolina. But some members of his family had met one or two girlfriends when they’d come to visit him.

“Find a nice southern girl,” his mother had said after one disastrous dinner during which his date had picked at a salad, complaining the dressing was too rich to be fat free, then gone on to tell Robert’s father he was crazy to eat red meat these days. “One who is gentle of heart, but has blisters on her hands,” his mother had counseled, “who isn’t afraid to laugh instead of titter. A lady who can occasionally be unladylike.”

One whose eyes are the most amazing shade of green, who’s completely inept at hiding whatever she’s feeling at a particular moment. Ruthie would be a lousy poker player, he realized. Then again, Robert had never really cared for poker.

With her zany personality, he imagined she wouldn’t be much of an office person, either. He didn’t know what Ruthie did for a living, but he would bet his last dollar it had nothing to do with finances, executives, or business.

He was about to ask her when she slid from her stool and tried to push her feet into her emerald-green pumps. “This was the color my dress was supposed to be,” she explained ruefully.

“It would have looked beautiful on you.”

She winced as she slipped the other shoe on. “Shouldn’t have taken them off. Now they’re killing me.” She leaned against the table and bent forward to adjust the shoe, giving Robert a clear view of the deep cleavage revealed by her dress. The fact that he knew he shouldn’t look didn’t stop him from staring, nearly choking on a mouthful of air he suddenly felt incapable of drawing into his lungs.

“Time to shuffle off,” she said.

“You’re staying here in the hotel?” he asked, figuring she was but wanting to get more information from her.

She nodded. “I don’t have to, since my apartment’s only a few miles away. But I should take advantage of the free room, especially after so much champagne.”

Ruthie reached for the green handbag lying on the table. As she pulled the strap of the bag, she wobbled on her high heels, pulling too hard and spilling the bag, and its contents, all over the floor. “Oh, rats,” she muttered as she bent over to retrieve her belongings.

Robert froze. She hunched right in front of him, between her vacant stool and his knees, and the images that ran through his brain would have given quite a shock to colleagues who considered him a responsible, conservative man.

She rested one small hand on his thigh to steady herself, refreshing in her complete unselfconsciousness, yet utterly devastating to his composure. He watched, focusing on those fingers pressing into the gray fabric of his slacks. It took her forever, it seemed, to retrieve her comb, lipstick, room key and a bundle of netting filled with birdseed.

Robert’s mouth felt like it contained a cup of sawdust. He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe without thinking about it. He had the most intense longing to watch her hand move higher, stroking his leg, pulling him down to kneel on the floor with her. Or better yet, to bring her to her feet, then lower her onto the top of the sturdy, butcher-block table. The memory of the pale skin of her thighs above the lace of her white stockings returned with gut-clenching intensity.

Get real, Robert! You’ve known the woman an hour!

She was vulnerable, depressed, and had consumed more champagne than she should have. No way would he take advantage, even if the sparkle in her eye while they’d talked had told him, without words, she was attracted to him, too.

No. Tonight would be about chocolate cake and laughter and champagne. His hands on her body, her lips on his mouth, her scent filling his head and her sighs of pleasure would all come another night. No question about it.

“Yours, I believe?” she said as she pulled herself up, still using his knee for leverage. He didn’t know what she meant until she dropped the condom on the table with a smirk. “Even though you say you don’t need it, I don’t suppose we ought to leave it here on the floor for the staff to find!”

He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He glanced down. “See the other room key down there anywhere?”

He didn’t spot it right away, but Ruthie apparently did. She pointed to the foot of the table. “Right there. I would offer to get it, but I’m wobbly enough on these stupid shoes and don’t think I could manage bending over again! Although, I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed if I fall on my fanny right in front of you, do I? I mean, you’ve already pretty much seen me at my worst.”

“This is your worst? Piece of cake!”

They both looked over at the remains of the decimated chocolate cake resting on the table and laughed in unison.

Sliding off his stool, Robert stooped down to retrieve the key, not even thinking about how close she stood. He found himself practically kneeling at her feet, his face level with her right hip. His mouth was close to her body, close enough that he could see her dress ruffle with his every exhalation. He swallowed hard.

As if he wasn’t distracted enough by the sight of her hip and the tempting curve of her sweet backside just inches from his face, she chose that moment to turn toward him. “Having trouble?” she asked, leaning over to look down at him.

He stifled a groan. Oh, yeah, he was having some serious trouble. Trouble breathing. Trouble swallowing. Trouble thinking about anything except that she now stood directly in front of him and if he leaned forward he could press a hot kiss onto her stomach. Elsewhere. Everywhere.

She’d taste sweet—chocolate and champagne and the joy that was the essence of her.

“Do you need help?”

He definitely needed her help. But not now, not this soon, not with her in mourning for a newly ended relationship with another man. At least, he hoped it was ended.

Tomorrow, however, was another story. He’d camp out in the lobby of the hotel, if he had to, to find out who she was and where she lived. Suddenly, the upcoming months filled with business trips to Philadelphia seemed much more appealing.

“Did you find your key or not? I could have sworn I saw it there by the table leg,” she said, her tone concerned.

The key. Monica’s room key. He felt it with the tips of his fingers and quickly palmed it. Still kneeling, he slowly shifted his gaze upward, until his eyes met hers and locked. He knew his expression revealed too much of what was going on in his head and the rest of his body. There was no hiding it. There would definitely be no hiding it when he stood up, considering the uncomfortable tightness in his trousers.

She understood. Her cheeks suddenly suffused with color. Her mouth fell open as she pulled in a deep breath. He heard the rustling of her dress as she moved her legs close together and Robert had to close his eyes to shake the image of her clenching those pale thighs.

He rose to his feet slowly, as if someone was pushing down on his shoulders from above. They stood, toe to toe, and he marveled at how petite she was, the top of her head only reaching his nose, even though she wore high heels.

“Meet me for breakfast,” he urged, trying to find something to say, something else to do with his mouth so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to lean forward and lick the chocolate off her lips.

She hesitated, biting the corner of her mouth. “I have a meeting here in the hotel in the morning.”

“Lunch then. Better yet, why don’t you meet me back here tomorrow night at midnight? I’ve heard this place serves a pretty wicked cheesecake.”

“They do,” she said with a tiny smile. “But I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

He watched regret cross her features as she took a step back, pulling her pocketbook up to her chest as if using it as a shield. “Look, I said a lot of things tonight, things I should never have said to a stranger. I’m not normally like this. Tonight was brought on by champagne and a good heaping helping of self-pity. But tomorrow, when I remember all of this, if I remember all of this, I’m going to feel like an idiot.”

“So we can both feel like idiots together.”

She shook her head. “If you see me tomorrow, if we bump into each other in the elevator, please pretend tonight never happened, let me think I imagined or dreamed it all, because it would be too humiliating to know it was true.”

He could see by the determined set of her chin that she meant it. Of course, there was no way Robert was going to let that happen. But there was no point arguing about it tonight. She’d find out soon enough that when he found something he truly wanted, he could be relentless in pursuit of it.

And now he very much wanted her.

RUTHIE LEFT HER dream man at the entrance to the restaurant. He went one way, toward the elevator, and she headed toward the lobby. Part of her was relieved he’d agreed to forget tonight had ever happened. Another part was sad she’d ever asked him to. She had a feeling it was just as well she didn’t know his name. He’d never mentioned it, and she’d never thought to ask. If she had, she might have been tempted to peek at the registration records for his room number. “No, Sinclair. You’re swearing off men starting right now,” she muttered as she rounded the corner next to the front desk.

“Swearing off men?”

Ruthie glared at her cousin, Chuck, who’d obviously heard her comment. Chuck, Celeste and Denise’s only brother, worked as the night front desk manager. He’d left the wedding shortly before Ruthie had, so she didn’t ask him what happened after she’d slipped out. “Yes. You’re all a bunch of heartbreakers!”

“Guess ya didn’t have such a great time at Celeste’s wedding, huh?” Chuck replied. A goofy grin creased his face and he suddenly looked like the surfer dude he wanted to be. Chuck didn’t exactly match the hotel’s clean-cut image, with his shoulder-length, bleach-blond hair, tanned complexion, and perpetual lazy grin. “So’dja catch the flower thing or what? I had to leave early and didn’t see that part.”

“No, I didn’t catch the bouquet. Thank goodness.”

He shrugged. “I thought you old single chicks dug that, you know, getting your hopes up and all.”

Ruthie leaned across the three-foot-wide expanse of polished oak that made up the front check-in desk and grabbed a fistful of her cousin’s shirt. “Old? You think I’m old?”

He grimaced and held his hands up protectively. “Nah, not old. I mean, it’s not like you’re pushin’ thirty or anything!”

“You’re on a roll now, Chuckie,” she snarled. “Why don’t you dig yourself in deeper?”

He suddenly looked shocked. “Oh, man, Ruthie, you’re thirty? When did that happen?”

Ruthie sighed in exasperation. “Chuck, sweetie, remember when you were six and you ruined my twelfth birthday slumber party because you kept coming to the door of my room and trying to throw spitballs at my friends? And I told you I was going to make you eat six of them, one for each year I’d had to suffer with you on the planet?”

The head bobbed, slowly. A grin creased his face. “Yeah, and I hit Denise in her head and she ran crying to your mom.”

Ruthie had forgotten that. “Okay, so it wasn’t all bad.”

He snorted a laugh. “She sure was ticked. So why’d ya mention that?”

She explained slowly. “I was turning twelve. You were already six. Uh, how old are you now, Chuck?”

He hesitated for a moment longer than anyone should have when asked that question. “Twenty-three next month.”

She waited, watching the wheels churn behind the bright blue eyes. Saw him calculate. “Oh, yeah, right,” he finally said with the lazy nod. “See, I toldja I didn’t miss it.”

“There’s a reason you’re so gorgeous,” Ruthie muttered beneath her breath. Her mother’s favorite saying suddenly popped into her head. Heaven distributes its gifts.

Chuck got the tall, blond, lean and gorgeous genes. He was like Ruthie’s late father and her uncle in that respect—and like Celeste and Denise. But Chuck had been just a bit shortchanged in the “quick” department. “I guess there are worse things than big hips and kinky red hair,” she continued with a yawn.

“Huh?”

“Never mind, sweetie,” she said as she wearily turned toward the elevator. “I was just coming in to say good-night. I’m going up to my room. Don’t call me in the morning, as I’m quite sure I’ll be sleeping off a champagne headache.”

He smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet. You must’ve had a hellish good time. I’ve never seen you rockin’ when you’re walkin’.”

She didn’t ask what he meant, too tired to try to follow his reasoning tonight. “The ceremony was beautiful,” she conceded. “But I’d rather forget everything else that happened this evening.”

“That bad?”

A flash of memory brought a sudden warmth to her cheeks. The man. The dark-haired stranger in the kitchen. Well, she might want to forget how foolish she must have appeared to him, but she certainly would never forget the expression on his face—the one that said he thought she was desirable.

But she’d never see him again. Which was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. She never got his name! She’d never asked, probably subconsciously keeping their interlude anonymous, enjoying its mystery and magic.

“Let’s just say, after I watched Celeste tie the knot, the evening went downhill faster than you did the time you broke your arm trying to sled on a greased trash can lid.”

He looked puzzled, trying to place the memory. Ruthie blew him a tired kiss and turned to leave the lobby.

“Hey, Ruthie, take a few aspirin tonight before you go to sleep. Should make you feel better in the a.m.”

She gave a rueful chuckle. “Chuck, there is absolutely nothing that can happen to me tonight that will make me feel better in the a.m.”