The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights

by Sarah Lefebve

  Technically he’d left the “friend” zone. They wouldn’t be able to re-enter the land of “just friends” after tonight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Privately ensconced behind the closed doors of his hotel suite Alex gathered Maggie into his arms and held her close. He lowered his face to hers and kissed her – softly, gently. He imbibed her – hot, feminine, fragrant. He ran the fingers of one hand to the back of her neck and caressed her nape.

  She broke the kiss and tilted her face to look into his eyes. “Make love to me,” she whispered.

  He pulled back, releasing her from his arms, semi-paralyzed by her choice of words. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the laptop. The shiny rectangle was a reminder of the cyber world that lay beyond the walls of his hotel room.

  What new stories lurked out there?

  What latest headline loomed?

  He jabbed a hand into his hair, huffed out a breath and turned away from her. He should stop before they went any further. The best way to protect Maggie from the venom of any more press tittle-tattle would be to go to his room, close the door and stay there – alone.

  He turned back and faced her looking for some kind of signal in her enticing eyes. “This can only be for one night. You know that, don’t you?”

  She gave a mysterious half-smile, tossed her head, tipped up her chin and fired him an impatient look. Her hands played distractedly with her hair and she glanced away. Gathering it all into a single swathe, she curled it around the back of her neck and let it lie across one shoulder. Its sheen glinted. “Look at me, Maggie. This is important.”

  She met his gaze with a sparkling, playful smile, put one fist over her mouth and contorted her voice so that it sounded like she was speaking through a loudhailer. “Roll up! Roll up! Ladies and gentleman. For One Night Only. In a hotel suite near you …”

  “Stop it.” He grabbed her wrist, drew her close. “Don’t play the clown.” He kissed her deeply. Suppressing a groan, he forced himself to stop, pulled back from her. Did human beings ever really spontaneously combust? On Mercy of the Vampires there’d been an episode when his wicked half-werewolf, half-vampire cousin had exploded into flames and melted into an unattractive pool of putrid gloop. All he wanted to do was scoop Maggie into his arms and carry her straight to bed. “I’m being serious.”

  Maggie reached up and touched his face, her palm smooth against his jaw. “I’m not looking for a relationship. We both know that.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “We’re on the same page then?”

  “Sure,” she said, twisting away and heading towards her bedroom. “One night. End of story.” She turned back, met his gaze, and since he hadn’t budged, took his hand and laced her fingers through his, tugging so that she could uproot him from his spot and pull him after her. “We’ve already hit the headlines. Might as well make the most of it.”

  “The newspapers are a law unto themselves.”

  “I get that.”

  One minute Maggie was leading Jago the merciless vampire to her bedroom, and the next she was off her feet and in the arms of Alex, as if she was lighter than air. She let out a squeal of delight and anchored herself by circling her arms around his neck. He was too gorgeous for words. And tonight the top-of-the-hotties was all hers.

  She trembled, remembering that she needed to hang on to the vampire fantasy and not risk letting her heart believe that she was finally spending a night with her fabulous lost-but-found-friend.

  She gave a kind of internal shrug. Either way, it was unreal. He was taking her to bed.

  Result!

  She’d left her scarf draped on the back of a sofa. As Alex carried her to his room she reached out with one hand and grabbed it.

  “What’s that for?” His voice was gravelly hoarse.

  “I want you to blindfold me.”

  “Oh no, lady. Your wish is my command. But not that. I want to see your face.” Silent for a second, he added throatily, “Your eyes.”

  He tossed the scarf across the room. It unfurled, opening up into a rainbow parachute as it billowed in the air and floated to the floor. Alex shouldered open the door to his bedroom. Maggie tried to kick off her shoes. They were bound fast by the ribbons at her ankles. He sat on the bed with Maggie across his lap and slowly undid the ties. First one shoe, then the other, hit the deep-pile carpet with a muffled clunk.

  He stood, lifting her with him, and setting her on her feet beside the ridiculously super-sized bed. Giddy, she steadied herself with one hand on the bulge of his biceps. She traced the line of his mouth with one finger.

  “I want your lips to cover my body in figures of eight,” she whispered huskily, adding stupidly. “Like you do with your conquests in Mercy of the Vampires.”

  His jaw tensed. Hands balanced on his broad shoulders, beneath her fingers a shudder rippled across the muscles.

  “I thought you weren’t into the vampire stuff.”

  “I changed my mind. I’ve unbanned it.”

  “It’s always a lady’s prerogative to change her mind.” His quiet words spelt it out clearly. She had the option to back out if she wanted to.

  She shook her head slowly, knotting her arms around his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair and drawing his head down. “I haven’t changed my mind about anything else.” He’d put a spell on her. Magnetic desire had turned her spaced-out and rubbery-boned. Backing out now would be an impossibility.

  He dwarfed her, a tower of rock-hard muscle. Smaller without her heels, she felt as if she’d swallowed a shrinking potion. Her confidence wobbled. Alex wasn’t a passing fancy. But imagining that she could have any kind of life with him in it would be a fantasy.

  It’s a fling. One night. Nothing more.

  She resolved to immerse herself in the pretense that she was being seduced by Hot Vampire Guy. If she admitted it to him, she’d risk losing the one night she craved with Alex – forever.

  He clasped her tight against him. She melted into his muscles, lost in his hold. It felt so right, far beyond control.

  She took a deep breath as if she was about to jump into the deep end of an infinity pool, somewhere hot and beautiful.

  Holding her so close that she could feel his heartbeat, Alex’s erection pressed hard and urgent against her middle. He slipped the fabric of her dress off her shoulders and it fell to her waist. Outside a moon, now only one sliver short of a full circle, hung high above the trees in Central Park. Her naked breasts stood out pale and rose-peaked, bathed in silvery light. With one swift move Alex found the zip and expertly freed the fabric covering the curve of her bum so that it dropped at her feet, leaving her standing in nothing but a wisp of lace with a shimmering pool of black silk and sparkly sequins at her feet. As he was about to kiss her, he let out a raw groan and stepped back, striding quickly across the room to close the curtains.

  Along with the moonlight she shut out emotion, erasing her feelings like darkness stripping away color. Her body quivered as he picked her up and laid her on the bed, compelling her to acknowledge that he was no fantasy.

  With impatient fingers she unknotted his bow tie and tossed it aside. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, hurrying him to shuck it. Her hands fumbled for his buttons, her undoing of them awkward and inexpert. He breathed heavily as she pulled at his shirt, held fast by cufflinks at his wrists.

  “Flip. Sorry,” she whispered. He gave a low, seductive laugh, rolled onto his back, unfastened the cuffs of his shirt, and dropped them – somewhere. He rolled the shirt into a ball and launched it across the room. Maggie’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. She straddled him. She smoothed her hands up his arms, feeling her way over his biceps to his shoulders, down across his broad chest. She paused on his rock-solid pecs, hard nipples under her palms, and continued her quest down across his perfect abs until her fingers made contact with the cool metal of his belt buckle.

  He stopped her, gently clasping her wrists.

  He rolled her over onto her back
until he was astride her. His mouth grazed her neck. “Figures of eight, you say?”

  Oh yes!

  He cupped her breasts. Rapture lapped at her center. He kissed her deeply and broke from her mouth to work his way down her throat and across her collarbone, plotting an unrelenting course towards her breasts. Every inch of her zinged with heat. Her nipples jutted as his mouth pleasured first one, then the other, slowly running his tongue over the hardened tips.

  Ever so slowly he went lower, tracing the loop-de-loop of a figure eight around her midriff.

  Her body arched into him as his mouth feathered her abdomen, moving down with the velvet caress of butterfly wings. A lava flow of hot sweetness pooled at her center. Her desire grew greater by the second, her body crying out for him, screaming for more. He went lower, proving her lacey thong was insubstantial when he ripped through it with his teeth, first the strip at her left hip, then the right. He flicked the torn black lace onto the floor before parting her thighs and going down on her, pressing his mouth to the soft fold and plunging gently with his tongue. Pops of sensation ricocheted through her like the first bright rockets of a firework display shooting into a night sky. She vocalized the ecstasy at her core with a guttural cry. The room spun. He teased her clitoris with skilled strokes, bringing her in waves to the pinnacle of desire until, with a final deft strike of his tongue, he drove her over the edge. The pleasure rush thrummed at her center, spreading out through her body like ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond.

  She touched his shoulders, drew him back to her until his mouth met hers and she tasted her essence on his lips. “I want you. I need you. In me. Now.” The rasping command spelt out her want.

  He palmed one breast. His mouth lowered and opened over the other, warm and wet. Half a day’s stubble growth grated against her skin, pushing her desperation to feel him inside her off the scale. She craved him like a drug. He persisted in keeping the jigsaw fit of hard meeting soft just outside her reach. His hand went between her legs. He played with her body, resisting her hot, moist sex, until she was so turned-on that she let out a cry of wanton need.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. Or the baby.” He rasped out the words like a solemn vow.

  “You won’t. You can’t.”

  Urgently his hands undid his belt buckle. He littered his clothes on the floor and sheathed himself.

  Finally – finally – he braced his body over hers, parted her thighs with his, and entered her, filling her up completely. He moved inside her with gentle strokes – strong, graceful. A living, breathing statue of muscular male beauty he yielded himself to her – purposeful, determined.

  Totally in control.

  She pulled him close against her, letting herself be absorbed by him, legs and arms entwined.

  Sex with Alex, until now unimaginable, unattainable, and better than any craving she could dream up.

  “You’re better than strawberries in champagne.”

  “That’s good to know,” he groaned against her ear, breath hot. His mouth on hers silenced her before she could make any more food and alcohol-based comparisons. She wanted to tell him he was a magic potion, an elixir of love. Someone should bottle him.

  His heavenly physique, holding her, moving inside her, fabulously in tune with the rhythm of her very being stopped her wandering mind in its tracks.

  In that instant, perfectly joined, so that where he ended she began, and where he began she ended, their limbs locked in visceral harmony, she finally twigged that she’d been conning herself with the idea that she could pretend she had a super-crush on Jago to satisfy. She wasn’t having sex with a vampire. She’d surrendered herself body and soul to the only man she’d ever come close to falling in love with.

  What if he’s The One?

  The thought was much too heavy to bear. Feverishly her lips found his and she fought to lose herself in his kiss.

  A fusion of sensation rocked both their bodies. Together, in perfect sync, they tipped each other into a dynamite orgasm. Locked together in release, despite her determination to hold on to nothing but the moment, an overwhelming tide of emotion engulfed her.

  Afterwards, she lay on her back and stared up into the dark space, where she knew somewhere there was a ceiling. Pah. She aimed a cynical snarl at herself. So we came together with intuitively good timing. So what?

  That didn’t make Alex The One. There was no such thing.

  She rolled onto one side, her back to him. He ran the pads of his fingers lazily over her skin, drawing large loopy eights. She turned back to face him. He drew her close. And they made love again.

  Much later Alex’s voice was the first to break the sated silence.

  “Magenta,” he drawled. Her heart fluttered. “It’s official. I’m beaten. You’ve worn me out.” She laughed, licked her finger and marked up a point scored in the air. “What is it with you?”

  “I’ll add you as a notch on my bedpost when I get home.” Her bravado was completely fake, but convincing enough for him to raise an eyebrow and quiz her.

  “Are there many of those notches on your bedpost, Magenta?” The way he rumbled out her name made her heart quiver.

  “No,” she answered truthfully. “Not really.” If there were, she thought ruefully, she wouldn’t have needed to go to the trouble of making a baby on her own. Admittedly, she’d been avoiding rejection. In any case, there’d been no one who’d made love to her like Alex just had. Certainly not Marcus. He’d been low on passion – at least where she was concerned. She’d been duped into believing that she was loved and safe and cared for when she’d been none of those things.

  He gathered her onto his chest and she lay for a long time, one cheek flat against his skin, listening to the thud of his beating heart. She traced a lazy figure of eight on one smooth pec. “Don’t get big-headed. I mean it was great and all, but I think it’s more down to loopy pregnancy hormones than anything else.”

  His face dropped in mock displeasure. “Ouch. And there was me thinking my technique might have improved over the years.”

  She placed a kiss just below his collarbone and raised herself on one elbow to look him in the eyes. Their blue depths remained ever-cool. “It has,” she confirmed. “It so-o has.” She lowered her head and tracked her way over his body, softly moving her lips across his abdomen, following the line of dusky hair that arrowed downwards. “And so has mine,” she murmured as she sensed his officially done-in erection surge back into life.

  She acknowledged with pure delight the low, deep groan of pleasure that escaped from his throat in that moment.

  Much later, when the grey dawn light intruded through a chink in the curtains, Alex lay propped on one elbow, wide awake, watching Maggie sleep, and listening to her breathe. Earlier, when he’d held her close, joined so inextricably that his body had melded with hers, he’d felt her heart beating and been consumed by a sense of rightness.

  And wrongness – for there wasn’t just one beating heart in her body. There were two. A mire of emotion, from which he couldn’t begin to extricate himself, swamped him. He admired her determination to have a family of her own. But could he get past the fact that he’d been gutted when he’d seen the positive test result? That was everything to do with how he felt about himself, and nothing to do with his feelings for Maggie.

  She’d been a spectacular lover; fiery, sexy, responsive. Lying beside him she looked pale and beautiful in the dawn light. What if he could stay in her life and take care of her? There was no point in asking that question. It couldn’t happen. She’d misunderstood when he said that he didn’t want to hurt her or the baby. He knew enough biology to be certain that sex couldn’t physically harm them. What he’d meant was that he didn’t want to risk being with her long enough to let her down. It would be a mistake to wonder if they could make it last. She’d been categorically clear that she wasn’t expecting any more than one night. And she didn’t have room in her life for a permanent man. Even if they were to give it a go, it woul
dn’t be long before the flipside of his fame dragged them down. The pressure of being in the public eye would get in the way. It had already started. Every which way he wrestled with his feelings, it boiled down to the same thing – great sex might keep them together, but everything else would drive them apart.

  He’d had a second chance with her and he would be rock-solid. He’d love her for one weekend and leave her to get on with her life.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maggie slept and slept and woke to find that, instead of being on a flight to London Heathrow, she was still in bed with Alex. Oops. They spent a languorous hour or two of Sunday making love, pausing to punctuate their love-fest with a delicious brunch courtesy of room service. For reasons of Britishness, Alex ordered scones with strawberry jam and cream especially for her.

  “Afternoon tea for brunch?”

  Alex picked up his watch from the bedside table and checked the time. “It is afternoon.”

  “You need to keep your strength up.” With a smirk on her face she spooned a dollop of cream onto a halved, jam-spread scone and passed it to him. She’d taken up residence in the middle of Alex’s big bed and, wrapped in a bed-sheet toga, she sat cross-legged, scoffing scones and feeling no inclination whatsoever to budge. She didn’t care that they were making crumbs.

  “You did put out the do-not-disturb sign, didn’t you?” she asked for the umpteenth time.

  “Check.” he replied, without impatience.

  He downed his last scone half, and gulped from a teacup in a not-so-genteel manner. “I’m going to take a shower. Care to join me?”

  She shook her head. She watched his smooth brown back disappear into the bathroom without her. She took in his height and the breadth of his shoulders with a touch of awe.

  Abandoning her sheet toga she ventured off her bed island and snatched up Alex’s discarded I Heart NY tee from the night of the premiere. She put it on. It swamped her. She gathered a fistful of fabric, pressed it to her nose and inhaled the manly-spiced scent he’d left behind.