“Miss Zalinsky.”
“Yes, Mr. Cameron?” I couldn’t believe how sweetly innocent I sounded.
“You seem to be making an extraordinary amount of personal calls.”
“Yes, Mr. Cameron,” I said. “And since it seems to be annoying you, I’m going to go home. I have quite a bit of vacation coming and I’m going to take it now. I won’t be in the office for the next couple of days. That way I can make my calls from home and not disturb you.”
“May I ask why you suddenly need personal time?”
“Of course you may ask,” I said cheerfully. “I have a wedding to plan.”
I walked out of the office feeling more lighthearted than I had felt in weeks.
Alex
She had a wedding to plan? She had a wedding to plan? What the hell did that mean? She couldn’t be getting married. She didn’t date anyone, at least not that I knew of. One lunch with Kenneth Johnson didn’t lead to a wedding that fast. Or did it?
Susan
On the night of Betsy’s bachelor party, my loft had never been so full of lively, three sheets to the wind women. The caterer had come with the food and laid it out on my island. It was a feast of finger foods, meat balls in sauce to spear on a toothpick, chips and dips, cold meats and cheeses, delicious freshly baked bread and strawberries to dip in a chocolate fountain. And of course lots and lots of wine. I tried to be a responsible host, but the women I’d been introduced to as Mary Dennis and Sweets Peterson declared the Pink Moscato wine I‘d chosen to be divine and had availed themselves of it way too often. But they had a designated driver, so I wasn’t really worried about them. I’d planned a game, but every time I tried to get the group quiet long enough to announce charades, they’d overruled me and said they wanted to see the stripper men. Where were the men?
I made a general announcement that the men would not be here until ten o’clock, that Betsy was going to open her presents first. While she was still on her feet, I thought. Betsy’s favorite wine was Riesling and I’d lost count of how many glasses she’d had. Everybody groaned, but good naturedly gathered around the bride. Betsy sat in the lovely little chair that was the exact copy of the one Alex had in his office that I‘d indulged in not long after that second raise. She looked like a princess with her blond hair long and curly, her blue eyes and her flushed cheeks. She had on a Christmas green dress in a silky fabric that crisscrossed her breasts and displayed how well- endowed she was. She began to open presents. I was designated to write everything down so she could send out thank you cards before she left for Australia.
Most of the gifts were filmy lingerie or teddies. I had told everyone I thought those were the best gifts. Betsy wouldn’t be able to take kitchen appliances or anything like that with her. Unlike those of us who needed flannel in the middle of winter, those bits of nothing would be just the thing for the one hundred degree plus temperatures she was going to experience in the Australian desert. I had gifted her with a blue baby doll pajama set. She lunged toward me to hug me, scattering gift paper wrapping around her high heels. When all the gifts were open and all the thank yous said, I put on some dance music. Almost everyone was out on my hardwood floor, dancing to those old standards of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and YMCA, songs that everyone knew the dance moves to. At a lull in the music, my doorbell rang out the big Ben chimes.
“It’s the strippers,” somebody cried, and they all went screaming to the door. I was rinsing out wine glasses and had my back to the room. When I turned around, I nearly lost it. They had dragged the man into the room and were busily tugging off his coat, ruffling his hair and pulling at his belt. The man they were stripping was Alex. I plunged into the gaggle of women around him and put my hands up. In my most authoritative voice I said, “Back off, ladies. This isn’t one of the strippers. This is my boss.”
There was silence for a moment. Then a voice piped up. “He could join them. He’s beautiful enough.”
Alex bowed his head. “A most intriguing proposition which unfortunately I must decline.”
Another voice said, “Ooh, and he talks good, too.”
“Again I thank you. However I feel that stripping is not in the area of my expertise. I came to talk to Susan.”
“Lucky girl,” someone muttered.
Just then, the two men who were the real strippers stepped into the room. “Is there a party here that needs a couple of sexy men?”
There were squeals and screams as the women rushed to their new targets. I told Mary…I hoped she could still read the labels on the music CDs…which one to put in the player.
The music started and the men boogied into the middle of the room. The taller one, Motorcycle Mike, said, “Let the party begin.”
I grabbed Alex’s arm and steered him toward my bedroom. I’d fantasized a million times about having him here, but not with a gaggle of screaming women and two male strippers on the other side of the wall.
“I’ve come at a bad time.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. His hair was mussed and his buckle was half undone. “You think?” The walls pulsed with the beat of the music. The screams were a little more muffled.
“This isn’t…your bachelor party.”
“No, it’s my friend Betsy’s. I apologize for my guests swarming over you like that. They’re not entirely sober.”
“I guessed as much. It wasn’t…all that unpleasant. I’ve never been mistaken for a male stripper before. It was quite…exhilarating.”
“I’m glad you weren’t offended.”
“Why should I be offended?”
“You are rather formal and stiff-necked.”
“Is that how you see me?” He moved closer to me. I became aware that there was a huge bed in this room, even though it was covered with my guest’s coats. The lighting was subdued, I’d only left on the two small lamps on my bed tables, thinking I needed the light if someone had to use the extra bathroom.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I’m not…quite sure.”
“When will you know?”
“Maybe after I do this.” He came to me and gathered me into his arms. He gave this funny little sigh, as if he’d been starved for the feel of me. I knew I was ravenous.
“Alex, are you going to kiss me, or are you going to stand there and think about it?”
“Choice number one,” he said and he took my mouth eagerly, absorbing my tongue into his mouth, playing our game of hide and seek. He broke off the kiss and pressed my head into his shoulder. “Holy hell. I tried to stay away from you, I really did. But I kept thinking that if you were getting married…”
“Getting married? And just who would I be marrying?”
“Any man in his right mind.” And he kissed me again, quite fervently. When he lifted his head he said, “How long is this bacchanalia going to last?”
“Probably till three or four in the morning.”
He groaned. “I wanted to come back after it was over.”
“Alex, you can’t. I have to get a few hours sleep. Betsy is being married at noon tomorrow. Would you like to come to the reception?” I thought he’d have at least three objections.
“Yes,” he said.
I told him where the reception was being held. “The doors are open at twelve thirty, but the bridal party won’t be there until about one o’clock. We have to pose for pictures. I’m the maid of honor.”
“Yes, you are,” he breathed. “All right. I’ll see you at Betsy’s reception. I don’t suppose there’s a back way out of here.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Not unless you want to use the fire escape.”
He raised an eyebrow. “First I get mistaken for a stripper, now you want me to turn me into a cat burglar?”
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll help you run the gauntlet and retrieve your coat.”
“You are a lady and a scholar.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me behind him. I protested. “Hey, I thought I was running interference.”
“I’m
bigger and taller,” he said.
He didn’t have to worry. The strippers were down to their tiny briefs by now and dancing for dollars. They had everyone’s attention. I picked Alex’s coat up off the floor and held it for him to shrug into. He gave me a quick, unsatisfying kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, thinking how quickly my world had turned from dark to wonderful
Chapter 10
Betsy made an absolutely beautiful bride. She’d chosen a strapless, full skirted dress that made her look like a doll on a wedding cake. Sam, with his red hair and his stalwart features was a perfect masculine compliment to her blond femininity. When the wedding was over and the pictures had been taken, we were riding together to the reception in the wedding limo when Betsy whispered to me, “Did I dream it or did you say Alex is coming to the reception?”
She and Sam were in the back seat. Mike, Sam‘s best man and I rode facing them. “You didn’t dream it,” I said, smiling. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind. But shouldn’t you mind? Did you ask him about his I’m-so-beautiful model?”
“No. and I probably won’t.”
Sam captured Betsy’s chin and turned her face toward him for a long kiss. “We’re married, babe. Can you believe it?”
“Not really. Love me?”
“Always,” Sam said and kissed her again.
“You two need to get a room,” Mike said, which made Betsy laugh.
“Oh, my gosh. When we do get a room, it’ll be legal.”
“Imagine that,” I said.
Betsy and Sam’s guests were seated at the round tables scattered around the room. There was much clapping and cheering when the bride and groom appeared. I searched the room for Alex but he wasn’t there. I tried to hide my disappointment as we were escorted to the bridal table. All through the reception I kept looking for him. He never came.
When it was time for Betsy and Sam to leave on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls, I kissed Betsy. “He didn’t come, did he?” she whispered in my ear.
“No,” I said, “he didn’t come.”
I drove home fighting back tears. It was like a double whammy. I would miss Betsy like crazy and Alex hadn’t kept his promise.
I pulled in front of my loft and swung around to park my car on the correct street for Saturday night. I hadn’t noticed the car parked ahead of me before, but now my headlights picked up color and make. It was a red Jeep.
I wrapped my coat around myself tightly, climbed out of the car and headed for my building. I was halfway across the street when he grabbed my arm and pulled me around to him. “Susan.”
I looked up at him and said in the coolest tone I could, “Alex.”
Snow fell on his dark head, glittering in the light of the street lamps.
“Do you think we could possibly get out of the middle of the street before we get run over?”
“You’re the one who accosted me.” I wrested my arm loose from his hold. “Where were you?”
“I…there was something I had to do.”
“You always have something to do. Well, you can do it without me.”
Seeing Betsy with Sam and then feeling the sharp disappointment of having Alex bail on me was too much. I didn’t want to feel like this anymore. I didn’t want to go on loving someone who had all the clarity of a Chinese puzzle. It was too damn tiring. “Go away,” I said.
He followed me into the building and punched the elevator button. I said, “You might as well not come up. I don’t want to see you anymore.” In the elevator, I tried to pull the door shut before he got in but he was too quick for me.
“I thought you loved me,” he said in that amused way he had.
“I’m tired of loving you,” I said. “I can’t love you anymore because I don’t understand you. It’s too wearing. I’m giving you my two weeks’ notice now.”
I tried to keep him from coming into my apartment, but I wasn’t any more successful with that than I had been the elevator door.
He followed me in, closed the door and locked it. He took my coat and hung it up on the wall, and then he hung his coat up on the wall along with his white silk scarf.
By now, my heart was going wham, wham, but I told it to calm down. He was probably here to tell me he’d thought it over and we needed to go back to being business associates and nothing more. I could tell him he needn’t bother. I would give up the loft and I’d go back to dispensing coffee before I’d subject myself to the torture of seeing him every day without his ever acknowledging the truth of how he felt about me.
I went into my kitchen and looked for something to bang around, a pot a pan, anything, but I was too neat. I had gotten up early and cleared away all the party debris in nervous anticipation of seeing Alex at the reception.
He came up behind me. His hands circled my waist and he pulled me into him, my back to his chest. “Have you got any spaghetti?”
“What?” I was going to kill him, I really was. My heart was breaking in a million pieces and he was talking about food. I turned around and tried to push him away. He wouldn’t allow it.
“I had this fantasy about you and spaghetti.”
“What, me cooking and you eating, the way any good little woman should take care of her man?”
“No,” he said, and he lightly pushed my hair back from my face, “you and me naked…with maybe a little spaghetti in there somewhere.”
It took me a minute, but I catch on quick. “This is crunch time, Mr. Cameron. If you don’t have a condom in your pocket…”
“I come fully prepared.” He kissed the side of my neck. “Did I tell you how much I like you in that red dress?” He kissed the v in my throat. “Did I tell you how much I’d like you if you weren’t in that red dress?”
I pulled him close, feeling his erection, loving his erection. “Do you think we can make it to the bedroom?”
“We might just…” He step walked me to my bedroom door and when he reached the bed, he collapsed on it with me underneath him.
“Alex…about that woman you were with…”
“Her husband is a good friend of mine. I take her to the ballet every year. Her husband was in the booth waiting for us.”
“You could have told me.”
“I just did. Can we make this work…working together and being lovers?”
“I think we already have…well at least we did until I quit a few minutes ago.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
My dress had the same crisscross style as the dress Betsy had worn to her bachelor party. He pushed aside one strip of fabric to kiss me just at the top of my breast. “It’s going to be hard for me to find a new assistant who can make the discovery of stolen switch plates and faucets as exciting as you do. And your contributions in the acquisition meetings. So insightful.”
“All right. So I wasn’t paying attention. I was fantasizing about you, you brat.”
“I, a brat? I have it on good authority that I am beautiful enough to join a line of strippers and I talk good, too.”
I laughed. “You talk real good, mister.” I mimicked his bad usage.
He leaned over and kissed my throat right in the area of my voice box. His warm lips explored, going ever closer to my breast. “You kiss real good, too,” I said, hardly able to breathe. I felt like I was in a dream. I had wanted this, ached for it so long, that now it was really happening and Alex was in my arms in my bed, I was almost afraid. I was afraid that when he entered me, my world would be forever changed. It was like stepping out on a high precipice. I might soar up to heaven…or I might fall down so far I could never get up again.
It started to rain. The sound of it pelting on my roof made me feel closed in with Alex.
He lifted up and looked down at me. “What is it?”
“It’s raining.”
“I like rain,” he said. “Lying here with you I feel tucked in and cozy.” He pushed aside the other strap of my dress
and now I was completely bare to him. His eyes darkened. “You are…exquisite.” He leaned over and took the tip of my breast in his mouth and my hips lifted involuntarily. My mind told me that if I was afraid that once I had sex with Alex, he would set me aside, I should stop this now, while I still could. My body had other ideas. He found the zipper on the side of my dress and slid it down, allowing me to shift my dress downward and off my legs. I lay in front of him wearing only my tiny thong and my thigh high stockings. He started on my left leg, rolling the stocking down slowly, deliberately, watching me every moment. The other leg received the same treatment. His hands were so warm, so masculine, so skilled. My thong had a snap on one side. He found it and with a sound of satisfaction, pulled it loose and stripped me of my last bit of underwear.
He was still fully clothed. He put his hand over my mound and then his fingers found my nub. He teased and rubbed and explored, going a little further inside me each time. Then he suckled me, and I grabbed his shirt, feeling his muscled shoulders and wordlessly, pleaded with him to stop, pushing at him. I didn’t want to come this way. I wanted him inside me, where he had never been. He ignored my tugging and went on pleasuring me, until I could no longer resist. Great waves of pleasure rolled over me and I arched my back and cried out my pleasure and came again and again. He cupped his hand on me to keep the wonderful torture racketing through my body.
When the storm had passed and I reached a form of sanity, I realized he was standing beside the bed fully clothed.
“Susan. Come here.”
“I already have,” I said smiling.
“Come again?” he asked in a sweet double entendre.
I rose up to my feet and stood in front of him completely nude. He made no move toward me. Instead, he let his gaze rove over me, taking in the swell of my breasts, my abdomen, the nest between my legs and my bare feet.
Winning Alex: The Cameron Family Saga Page 8