An Affair Across Times Square

by Rachell Nicole

  She nodded her acknowledgment. She couldn’t pretend it had never happened. But where the hell was he going with this? Was he scared she’d tell his pregnant wife?

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then lunged at her. He wrapped his left arm around the small of her back and cupped her ass with his right. And then his lips were on hers.

  She pushed him away.

  “Whoa, Brian. Way not okay with this.” She kept her hand on his chest and stepped away. His arms moved down to his sides.

  “But…” He seemed confused.

  “You’re married, for crying out loud. Look, last time was a mistake on my part. I shouldn’t have kissed you, and I stopped as soon as you told me you were with someone. Now you’ve got a freaking ring on your finger, and you’re kissing me? What the fuck?”

  He moved farther back from her. “Sorry. Shit. I must have misinterpreted your signals or something. You really have no interest in a fling? None?”

  The image that came to mind with his words made her shiver. Gah, he sounded so hopeful. It wasn’t Brian’s face she pictured when she thought of a fling. It was Tyler’s—Mr. Times Square’s, she corrected herself. She couldn’t think of him as Tyler now. That seemed too personal after his dismissal. She shook her head.

  “And even if I did, which I don’t,” she added at the hopeful look in his eyes, “if you’re having some issues with your wife and the pregnancy, this is not the way to deal. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought you were here all the time, always available when I called. This wouldn’t be the first affair you’ve had. So what makes this one different?”

  Oh, God. He knew about Jason. He freaking knew she’d been the other woman, and he thought she’d hop right into bed with him like a slutty secretary. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. He didn’t know the whole story. The fact that her boss knew the biggest screwup in her life should have affected her more, but she was too caught up in trying to wipe away the taste of doughnut. He must have just eaten a powdered one before he’d stuck his tongue in her mouth. She didn’t think she’d ever have one again.

  “I honestly did not know he was married. No ring, no pictures of the wife or kid on the desk at the office. Nothing. I didn’t even hear anyone else mention Justine until after I was sleeping with him. And trust me, it didn’t end well for any of us.” She wanted to feel bad for him, to help him find his way back to his wife. But all she felt was disgusted. “I have work to finish, and I think you should let me get back to it.” She gave him a look just short of a full-on glare. Something to let him know she meant business, but not disrespectful enough to be considered rude. She hoped.

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Layla.” He turned from her and went back upstairs to his office as if the past few minutes had never happened. Maybe she could pretend that too.

  But as she lowered herself on shaky legs into a chair, she bit her lip. Because the minute Brian had touched her, she’d wished he were the man across Times Square.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tyler held the phone in his hand. He turned it on. Turned it off again. Sitting at his black kitchen counter, he still couldn’t decide what to do. She deserved an explanation, and he wanted to give her one. But calling the Marietta and asking to be connected to her room phone would break the rules. Not that they hadn’t already. She’d asked his name, after all.

  He couldn’t get Paulson’s face out of his head. The man had looked so resigned to his fate today. As if the trial had already come and gone and he waited to be sentenced.

  He’d given up no new information, save for the fact that he did recall the exact time he’d gone to bed that evening, because he looked at his watch right before dozing off. It had been eleven p.m. Two to four hours before Jeannie Rose’s estimated time of death.

  Remembering the images of the crime scene photos made him turn the phone on and dial the number before he could chicken out. Life was too short for cowardice.

  “Room 1823, please,” he said to the woman who picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” Ms. Marietta said a moment later. Her sweet voice tightened his gut.

  “Don’t hang up.”

  He had to make sure he kept her on the line, at least for a few minutes, until she’d heard his explanation. And then she could hang up.

  She was silent, but he could just detect the sound of her breath. So he jumped right in.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I’m catching a lot of flak at work for being in the office after hours and not having any productivity to show for it. I missed a deadline this morning, and I couldn’t exactly explain to my boss why I didn’t get any sleep last night.” He chuckled. “I can’t keep camping out there like it’s my home away from home.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.” Her voice sounded contrite. And resigned, just the way Paulson’s had sounded a few hours earlier. He wondered what in her life made her apologize for it outright. Like it was all her fault he’d gotten himself into this mess.

  “I’m an adult,” he said, “and I can take responsibility for my own actions. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

  She didn’t reply. God, he wished he could see her face. Watch her reaction even from across the street, through panes of glass.

  “But I can’t see you through the window anymore. You have to keep those curtains closed so I can attempt to think straight at work.”

  “Of course. I’ll keep them closed, or I’ll move rooms. You won’t have to worry about me distracting you anymore.”

  Oh, shit, wrong thing to say. Why did everything come out wrong when he talked to her? She thought he was calling to let her down gently. To tell her to stay out of his life so he could get on with it. And while he should be telling her that, it was the farthest thing from what he wanted.

  “No, it’s not like that. Would you stop sounding so damned apologetic? I’m the one who fucked up. What I mean to say is that I can’t keep splitting work time with recreation time. I need to separate the two.” Shit, that didn’t sound right either. He huffed in frustration. “I called to say that I’m sorry I brushed you off earlier. I was pissed at myself for not being able to divide work and play. And to break another rule—”

  “No. No more rule breaking.”

  He could almost picture her shaking her head. Only this time it wouldn’t be with a rueful smile on her face. This one would be serious. With her big brown eyes staring straight through him.

  “So that’s it, then. You’re just willing to push aside the past few days like they never happened? You’d be content to never see me again?” He couldn’t keep the shock, the hurt, out of his voice. How could he have gotten so caught up in her in such a short time? It didn’t seem possible. Yet here he was, practically begging her to see him again.

  “I’m leaving in two days.”

  The proclamation hung in the air. He didn’t want to believe it. She said she’d be staying in town for a while at least. A few days wasn’t “a while.” That made this the end, then. Time for him to realize he wasn’t going to get that home run. She wouldn’t meet him. Which would probably save him some semblance of sanity. Because one real taste of her in his arms would be his undoing.

  She was right. They had to leave what they had as a few very exciting, wonderful days. That was it.

  THE LIE HAD almost gotten stuck in her throat, but she’d forced it out. It would be better this way. She wouldn’t be distracting him from work, and she didn’t need to get any closer to him. So why did the silence on the other end of the phone irk her so much? It made her want to agree to meet him.

  Which was exactly why she said she was leaving. Even without the incentive of keeping her hands off Brian, she wanted to see Mr. TS. She wanted whatever this was to continue in any way it could. Even if that meant meeting him in person and allowing him into her life, just a bit more. Because she couldn’t be with him in person and not want to tel
l him about her life—not want to tear his clothes off and screw him senseless—it had to end.

  Now.

  “Good-bye, Tyler,” she said into the silence, then hung up the phone. She would change rooms and make sure Eddie knew not to ever talk to him again if he came into the hotel. The phone rang, but she ignored it. After the fourth call, she unplugged it from the wall and flopped back down on the soft bed, still in her work clothes. It would take entirely too much energy to change now. She just didn’t have it in her.

  She lay there for a few moments, letting the ache in her chest overtake the rest of her body. Saying good-bye to him shouldn’t have filled her with such dread, with the certainty that she would never, ever see him again and because of it, her life would be lacking something. That hadn’t happened since Marge died. Since Layla’d sat by her bedside and whispered good-bye. But this heart-suffocating weight she felt wasn’t an ache. It struck her sharper, cut deeper. She knew she’d done the right thing by cutting him off now, before he got too close to the flame that was her. Before she burned him up and left nothing but ashes behind.

  She refused to do that to anyone else.

  So instead, there she lay, feeling the room closing in on her. Feeling like she could never again take a deep enough breath to fill her lungs. The sound of people in the hall was distant. Nothing for her to concern herself about.

  Until a hesitant knock sounded on the door. She ignored it. Anyone who was knocking on her door didn’t get to enter. Eddie would just use his key; the rest of the staff would have called up to the room first. The knocking came again, more insistent this time, louder, harder.

  “I know you’re in there. Please open up.”

  Oh my God. No way, it couldn’t be. Damn him to hell. And damn Eddie for giving him her room number in the first place.

  “I’m not going anywhere, so the sooner you open up, the quieter it’s going to be in this hallway.”

  Nope. Not taking the bait. He could cast his line as much as he wanted. She would not bite.

  “I know this is insane. I do. And I know you’re freaked out, but you don’t have to be. Believe me, I’m freaking out enough for the both of us. I’ve taken your share of the freak-out. So you can just stop now.”

  Well, he hadn’t taken enough of it, because she was still panicked. Her anxiety grew with every second he stood in the hallway. She wondered if Eddie could get rid of him, but that would mean admitting she was in the room, making noise calling him, making him come in to clean up her mess. Like she always did. She was so tired of that. She wanted to fix her own mess for once.

  “Besides, you’re leaving in two days. What could it hurt? Shouldn’t we make the most of it while we can?”

  He didn’t know what he was getting himself into. And she didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to warn him or scare him off.

  Maybe… She shook her head. No. Bad idea. She couldn’t let him in.

  “Please…” His voice came out a whispered plea. The pain in that one word tore something inside her. Made her want to rush out to him and wrap her arms around him, promise him everything would be okay.

  If he thought she was leaving in two days, maybe she could offer him that comfort. God, how she wanted to. He remained silent, giving her too much time to think. Could she give them these two days? She took a deep breath. Yes, she could. She would make it something nice and good and clean for them. They both knew the time limit, and she would “leave” and not cross paths with him as she finished her work and got the hell out of New York.

  “Fuck, Ms. Fucking Marietta, would you fuck the fucking door, for fuck’s sake?”

  Clearly “fuck” was the new “smurf.” She buried her face in the pillow and tried to stifle her laughs. She could imagine Tyler’s internal whoop of triumph from the other side of the door, though he remained silent. He seemed to sense that her decision was still tenuous at best and she could continue to ignore him all night long, or call the cops. And wouldn’t they just be a lovely addition to this clusterfuck?

  She got up from the bed and walked to the door. She watched him through the peephole for a moment. Up this close, he looked even more stunning. She glanced down at her basic white shirt and black pinstripe pants. She had no idea what her face looked like, though she thought she’d let a few petulant tears escape.

  Oh, well. She stood at the door now. He could probably hear her. No running into the bathroom to freshen up. She took a deep breath and opened the door in one fluid movement before she could change her mind.

  Then he stood before her, in his rumpled dark blue suit and white shirt. He looked liked he’d been rolling around on the floor in that expensive outfit. She gripped his tie and yanked him into the room, slamming the door closed behind him. She pushed his back against the door as he slipped his hands beneath her ass and lifted her for a kiss.

  She straddled his hips as his soft, thick lips touched hers. His top lip was thinner, with a deep V in the middle. He deepened the kiss as he pulled her against him. She moved her hands along the short graze of hair on his scalp, delighting in the way the rough texture felt against the smoothness of her fingertips. God, it felt so much better in person than she could have imagined. He sucked her tongue into his mouth, and she shivered.

  She needed them naked. Now. She forced herself to stop kissing him, dropping her legs and sliding down his body. He was taller than she’d thought, and she looked up into dark chocolate eyes, her hands still on the back of his head. She brought them down his neck and pulled his tie free, then reached between the lapels of his jacket and started on his buttons. She couldn’t get them off fast enough.

  And then his hands were on her, trying to undress her. She leaned back from him a few inches, brought her fingers to her white shirt and pulled the buttons free as fast as they would go. He did the same, tossing his jacket and shirt to the floor. She pushed her shirt off and then unbuttoned her pants. He took off his belt as she reached behind her to unhook her bra. She let it tumble to the floor with the rest of their clothes, and then she could stand it no longer.

  She moved for him at the same time he came closer to her, and she loved that she could finally touch his bare chest, his back. He pushed down his pants and bent her with him as he stepped out of them. She wanted to stop for a second, to savor the look of him. But he didn’t give her the chance. His mouth covered hers again, his hands roaming all over her. She wiggled her pants down her hips, and he lifted her free of the fabric. He swiftly lowered them both to the floor atop the clothes, and she didn’t protest.

  He nuzzled between her breasts and began licking hot trails across her skin. “Mm, so good. I feel like I’ve been waiting a year for this.”

  So did she. He licked her again, and she shook.

  He slipped his fingers beneath the edge of her lace panties, and she lifted her hips, then her legs, so he could brush the small piece of fabric aside. He paused for a second, completely still, just staring down at her. She wanted to squirm under the scrutiny of his gaze. She felt so much more exposed with his eyes mere inches away than she ever had through the windows. But she held still beneath him, frozen in anticipation.

  Finally the wait was over. He sprang back into motion. From somewhere in the pile of fabric, he grabbed a small foil packet, and she’d never been so happy in her life to see a condom. Thank God he’d had the mind enough to bring it, because the few she had were in the bedroom, much too far away.

  Cocky bastard.

  She raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment as he sheathed himself. She lifted her knees, planting her feet in the slippery clothes beneath her. He slid between her legs, propping himself up on both arms. He bent to kiss her, teasing her. Prolonging the moment. She’d had five days of foreplay; she wanted him inside her. Right now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tyler smiled as Ms. Marietta grabbed his covered cock and angled it toward her. Her eagerness made his gut clench. Her long fingers were warm through the latex as she held him. She wanted him
with the same burning intensity that he wanted her. This had been worth the wait, just this moment of looking down at her. Seeing the heat in her eyes that he’d only before imagined. Feeling the moist heat of her sheath as she rubbed herself against him. It nearly made his head explode.

  Her fingers were stronger than he’d thought, her eyes lighter. She slipped the head of him into her, and he groaned.

  “Oh,” she cried. She licked her bottom lip and lifted her hips, taking him deeper. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to wrap his arms around her. But if he moved his arms, he’d crush her with his weight, and kissing her the way he wanted, he wouldn’t be able to see the milky chocolate of her eyes. She took the decision away from him, lifting her lips to his and kissing him.

  She pulled back, and he thrust into her. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t wait any longer as Ms. Marietta gazed at him with such lust. Her short nails clutched his ass as he inched out of her. He tried for a slow rhythm, but she was killing him with the look in her eyes. With the tightness surrounding him. At least he’d die a happy man.

  Every time he tried to move out slower, she pulled back, creating an amazing friction that would send him catapulting over the edge in a matter of moments. He shifted a hand beneath the small of her back, angling her up more, and she opened. She grabbed a pillow off the couch beside them and pushed it under her. He hadn’t even noticed the couch until then. And then he saw nothing but her as she wrapped a leg around his hip and thrust up to meet him again.

  She made a soft, high-pitched squeal of delight as his fingers connected with her clit. Oh, he’d known from watching her across the street how to touch her to bring her pleasure. Her muscles clenched down on him once, hard enough that he thought he might come. But he held on, thrusting a few more times into her. Her mouth parted in soft pants as she rolled her hips, and then she was screaming. Coming. Gasping. And bringing him right along with her.