Penthouse Suite

by Sandra Chastain

  “The television was her window to the outside world. But she didn’t like current programs very much. Old movies weren’t threatening to her. She loved the past. It was safe and happy. The bad guys were obvious, and the good guys always won. I think that’s about it. A lot different from your background, I’ll bet.”

  “Maybe and maybe not, since I never knew my father either. And we didn’t have a television.” His hands skimmed down the backs of her legs. “Turn over.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m committing your body to memory, and I’m ready to catalog the rest of you,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Because you need this sunscreen on both sides if you’re planning to do any work tomorrow.”

  “If I’m planning to do any work tomorrow? Of course I’m planning to work tomorrow, if I don’t get fired again.”

  “I’m not going to fire you. Life without you would be much too dull. You need a job, and I need to change my life-style, remember?”

  Kate was finding it hard to remember why anybody had ever thought Max was dull. A little stern maybe, but she was beginning to understand that quality in him. Compassionate? Romantic? Caring? Sexy? He was all those and more. Without even thinking, she turned over.

  Max poured a dollop of lotion on Kate’s stomach and swallowed hard. He began to rub the clear liquid over her shoulders, making quick feathery motions across her collarbone and down the sides of her breasts to her abdomen. Up and down, faster, slower. The muscles in his neck were corded tight.

  Kate forced herself to open her eyes. “Max?”

  His eyes were glazed. He smiled provocatively.

  Kate tried to remain coolheaded and detached. Her skin was on fire, and it wasn’t due to the sun.

  Max could see her breathing become shallow. Beneath the skimpy swimsuit top, her nipples had peaked into tight cherries, begging him to take them in his mouth. He could feel his own body harden and thrust against her thigh.

  “Kate?” His voice was hoarse with desire.

  “I don’t understand. Why do you want me, Max?”

  “I don’t know, Kate. Must there be answers?”

  He leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth. As he touched her he felt the passion between them build quickly to the point of no return. It intensified, gathered force, and swept them away with its power.

  “Max!” Half beneath him, Kate twisted to allow the other nipple the pleasure of his kiss.

  This time he seemed to move in slow motion as his mouth left her breasts and captured her lips again. She burned with the need to touch the man beside her. She thrust her hands through his hair, slid them down his neck, across his chest, and lower, until she was holding his hardness in her hand. She heard him gasp, and she gloried in the power she held over him.

  They were engulfed by a slow-moving tidal wave of sensation that burned the very sand beneath the blanket where they lay. Finally he lifted himself over her and they came together, racing toward the sun, experiencing wave after wave of exquisite pleasure until at last they were spent.

  “The world may never know, Max, but between you and me, never let the word ‘dull’ be mentioned again.”

  “Ah, Kate, my Kate.” He moved back to her side. Lifting himself on one elbow, he kissed her lips gently.

  His kiss was almost spiritual. Kate let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

  “Kate. Do you have any notion of what I feel? I think that I’m beginning to care for you, Kate Weston, very much. I think we may have to extend your contract. I don’t think I’m going to be able to let you go.”

  She lay listening to his unsteady breathing. In all her wishes for adventure, she’d never pictured herself making love to such a man on a deserted island. She’d never known that a man and woman could come together in such an explosion of desire. A week ago she would never have believed that she’d share this kind of bond with this kind of man. Now? Was it all a fantasy? It had to be.

  “Did you hear me, Kate?” Max’s hand was lying across her stomach, his fingers splayed like a steel fan, holding her still.

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Max. Don’t care too much. You mustn’t feel that way about me. This isn’t part of any movie. I know that you’ve learned the right lines, but I don’t need to hear you say them. I understand.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Script? If you think that this is some kind of play acting, you’re wrong.” He removed his hand from Kate’s stomach and sat up.

  “No, you’re just caught up in the fantasy, too. Hey!” She twisted away and stood. “Bossman, let’s get to the food. You promised me a picnic. I never get serious on an empty stomach.”

  Max stared at her in amazement, a situation in which he continually found himself. The woman was completely bewildering. They’d just made love, magnificent love. He’d opened up to Kate as he’d never done to any other woman, and suddenly she was pulling away from him.

  “Dammit, Kate. What does that mean?”

  “It means that this isn’t real, Max. You and I, here on this island, making love on the beach. This isn’t real. I understand that. When we get back to the hotel—that’s real.”

  Max let out an angry sigh and shook his head. “You mean this is all some kind of pretend trip for you? It’s a fantasy? Well, it means much more to me, and I won’t deny that. I’ll drop it for now, Kate, because I know you feel something for me, even if you won’t admit it. Why don’t we have lunch?”

  Kate let the subject drop and watched as Max uncovered the food.

  The sail back to the hotel was much too short. Max didn’t make any more provocative statements about how he felt, making it easy for her to pretend that they were just a regular guy and his girl returning from a nice Sunday outing. Outside her room, Kate lost all awareness of time as Max kissed her good-bye.

  “Kate?” he whispered.

  “Max, what are you doing?”

  “I’m touching you, Kate. I like touching you.” He slid one hand beneath her shirt and cupped her breast. The other hand slipped down and cupped her bottom, lifting her hard against him.

  “May I come in, Kate? Please? I don’t want to leave you.”

  Earlier he’d been demanding. Now he was asking politely. This unexpected tenderness was part of the new Max, and she didn’t know how to respond. She sighed and lifted her hand to run it along the edge of his lip.

  “You want to stay here, in the employees’ quarters? Wouldn’t you be a little out of place?”

  “If you’re here, it will be the Taj Mahal.”

  “I’m on call tonight, Max. And I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to stay.”

  “I know,” he whispered, “but I understand that there’s an Atlanta Braves game on TV, and I thought we’d watch it.”

  She tried to move away from the intimacy that was turning her body into Silly Putty. “I don’t think we’d get much watching done here.”

  “All right, let’s go for a walk. I know a little spot down the beach that’s secluded and …”

  It took every ounce of control Kate could muster to twist out of his grasp. She would have been content to spend the night, the next month, the next year in Max’s arm. But she couldn’t.

  “No, Max. Too much has happened too fast. You have to go. I can’t think while you’re touching me. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “No, not tomorrow, Kate.” He pulled her close and kissed her again and again before drawing back. “I have to leave for New York on the red-eye flight. Come with me.”

  “To New York? Now, would that be an idea. Work two days and run away with the boss. I can’t, Max. Be practical. You go to New York, and when you get back, we’ll see.”

  With a sigh of resignation, Max pulled his hand from under her shirt. He lifted his head and looked down at her in confusion. “Are you sure?”

  No, she wanted to say. The only thing she was sure of was that when she found her place in the sun, she didn’t expect to get burned by its heat.

  “No, I’m
not sure of anything, Max. But I think you need to go.” Kate knew that she was hurting him, but she didn’t know what else to say.

  “All right, Kate.” He drew himself up and stepped back. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  After one last quick, sweet kiss, he was gone.

  Kate went inside and closed the door.

  Damn Ricardo Montalban. She wish she’d never watched Fantasy Island. She’d made up her mind to let Max make love to her, but she didn’t know how to handle this kind of relationship. Adventure she craved, but never in her wildest imagination had she equated conquering new horizons with romance. One thing she did know, she hadn’t imagined the way Max Sorrenson made her feel.

  Max leaned back against the brocaded airplane seat and flexed his tired neck muscles. For the first time, he’d lost his intense power of concentration. In the middle of an earnest presentation at the board meeting, the memory of a pair of warm brown eyes had intruded, and he’d suddenly been back on the beach being kissed by a woman who called him bossman and ordered him around.

  Max leaned his head back and closed his eyes, wondering what he was going to do about Kate. They’d made fierce, intense love, but when he’d given voice to his feelings, she’d drawn back. They had both been surprised by the pure physical reaction they’d experienced. They’d eaten lunch and talked. But he’d sensed her uncertainty.

  Max hadn’t wanted to leave the Carnival Strip the next day. His scheduled trip to New York for the board meeting was one he’d have bypassed if he’d had time to prepare anyone else. Then before the board meeting had ended he’d received the urgent call from fellow hotel owner, Red Garden. Red had been made an offer for his newly completed hotel, the Showboat. The property hadn’t even been on the market, but the offer was just too good for him to turn down.

  “Dammit, Red, can’t you give the Hotel Association a few days to make a counteroffer?” Max had argued. “You’ve barely got the place open. I need to get back to my office to see if I can find a fairy godmother with a magic wand somewhere. Right now, I can’t even think.”

  Red didn’t know that what Max really wanted to get back to was Kate. Max couldn’t concentrate on any problem until he’d seen Kate again.

  “Sorry, Max. My buyer is anxious for a quick sale. I didn’t intend to sell just now, but what can I do? I can’t pass on this. You’re the wonder boy. You’ve always come through before. Give me a higher bid, and it’s yours.”

  Max had made the only offer he could, based on the funds available, and it hadn’t been enough. For the first time, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

  The Hotel Association had turned into a kind of Chamber of Commerce. They’d committed some of their funds to mediate the fight between the local fishermen and the outsiders moving in. But the real problem was that the Association had not yet had time to replenish their funds since they’d bought the Oasis Hotel.

  “Dammit, Red,” Max had to admit, “we’re close, but that’s the best I can do. What about it?”

  “I’m really sorry, Max. Their offer isn’t that much higher, but I’ll have to take it. Of course, we still have to wait for the mortgage holder to agree to the sale, so I’ll be able to stall the signing until you get back. That’s all I can promise.”

  Max had cut short his meeting and caught the next plane back to Panama City. Red would throw the traditional party to introduce the new owner to the Association, so at least he would get to meet the buyer. Though Max didn’t know what good that would do.

  The offer had appeared unexpectedly, at a time when Max was away, so that he couldn’t keep a finger on the activities on the Strip. The entire deal must have happened fast and undercover. Max didn’t like it—not at all. If he hadn’t been so involved with Kate, he might have known more.

  Kate. Even now she filled his thoughts. At the airport bookstand on the way out of New York Max had picked up a book called Television and Movies Today, a complete line-up of profiles on the stars. For the rest of his flight, he managed to keep his mind off Kate by studying the anthology of actors. With any luck he’d be able to pull a few stars out of the hat to match Kate’s repertoire.

  On board the plane, Max began to question his wisdom in ordering roses sent to Kate. They might have embarrassed her, flowers from the boss. He’d have done better to come up with something more warmhearted, like the corsage Andy Hardy took his date, Polly, for the senior prom. The odd-looking sailor costume Shirley Temple was wearing in the chapter about child stars reminded Max of the boat festival being held Sunday morning in the bay. Kate would love seeing the charter boats parade through the harbor for the Blessing of the Fleet.

  When he deplaned at Panama City’s airport, he phoned the hotel florist shop and ordered more flowers, this time daisies, lilies, snapdragons, and baby’s breath. On the card he wrote:

  I want to take you to the Blessing of the Fleet tomorrow morning. We’ll have breakfast and watch the sun rise.

  Max

  P.S. Do I really look like Lorenzo Lamas?

  Wow!

  Kate tied her hair back and wiped her face before turning to her maintenance cart. For two nights she hadn’t slept well, and she was uncharacteristically tired. Thank goodness Max was still out of town. At least she didn’t have to face him yet. She’d thought that with time she’d be able to find an answer to the impossibility of a romance between a maintenance worker and the man at the top. She hadn’t.

  The long-stem roses he’d sent had been a complete surprise. She’d been thrilled and a bit embarrassed, knowing that the staff must be wondering about their relationship. The staff wasn’t alone. She felt as if her insides were doing push-ups. Every so often, without warning, she lapsed into some kind of flashback of Max.

  Max Sorrenson was a permanent part of the Carnival Strip, and she was a gypsy. After another week and a half, she’d take her paycheck, repair the car, and be gone. That was the sensible thing to do, and Max of all people would appreciate her being sensible.

  Why, then, was being sensible so hard for her? She’d already learned that her intentions of doing the practical thing flew right out the window when Max touched her.

  Gradually over the last few days she’d come to the conclusion that this had to be a case of opposites being attracted to each other. Max would have figured that out by the time he returned, and they’d go back to where they’d started.

  Just as she was beginning to get herself together, the second bouquet came and sent her into orbit again. Time and distance obviously wasn’t the answer. She didn’t have an answer. Fortunately, she had three television sets to check and all the air-conditioning units on the fourth floor. Somehow she’d get through it. It was after lunch when the beeper attached to her belt went off. She dialed the desk.

  “Kate, we have a problem.”

  Six

  “Can you drop everything and go down to three-twenty-six?” Helen Stevens’s voice was frantic. “It’s Jody, one of the kids helping out for the summer. I can’t make any sense out of what he said.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve water,” Kate said, thinking about the problems she’d been involved in so far.

  “I don’t think so. He’s babbling something about Mrs. Wilson’s birdcage.”

  Kate quickly agreed to check on the situation. Making one last adjustment to the television set she was working on, Kate replaced its panel and took the stairs one flight down to the third floor. When she opened the door to room 326, she gasped in horror. A vacuum cleaner lay open on the floor. The bed was covered with a murky mound of purple-gray soot. Dust motes swirled through the air as Jody pawed through the heap, throwing debris everywhere like a dog digging for a bone.

  “Goodness. What are you doing, Jody?” Kate recognized the youngster as the high school student who normally worked around the pool.

  “Kate, I think I’m in big time trouble. Pleeeeez! Help me. Like I’ve got to find it, or I’m out of here.”

  “Find what?” Kate held her breath an
d moved closer to the bed, eyeing Jody’s frantic action. “Are you looking for buried treasure or digging a foxhole?”

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Wilson’s canary.”

  “Her canary? You mean there’s a bird in the middle of all that muck?” Kate quickly dug in beside Jody. Between the two of them they raised a dust cloud that would have triggered a pollution alert. And then she heard it, a pitiful sound, not from the muck on the bed but from somewhere behind them. She glanced around, “Jody, it’s up there.”

  The bird had apparently managed to free itself from the emptied bag of dust while Jody had been on the phone. It was now tottering precariously on the edge of the wall mirror.

  “Wow!” Jody grabbed for the small mound of moldy feathers, which panicked and flew. The bird fluttered toward the door just as it opened.

  “Hey, Kate, I’m saved! It’s alive.”

  The bird flitted erratically toward the opening.

  “Oh no! Close the door, dude. Don’t let it escape!”

  “Dude?”

  The door slammed.

  The distinctive masculine voice left no doubt as to who the “dude” in the doorway was.

  Max was back.

  Everything went into slow motion. Jody threw a towel at the canary, but missed the bird. The towel draped over Max’s head. The bird whirled and darted toward the window. This time Kate snared it with a washcloth and dropped it into her uniform pocket. She looked up to see Max holding the towel in his hand. Jody was probably looking at time in the Big House. Maybe life.

  “I hate to ask,” Max said.

  She was wrong, Max’s voice was trembling with controlled amusement.

  “Are you two talking about a major jailbreak, or do we just need a visit from the exterminator?”

  “Neither, Mr. Sorrenson,” Kate said quietly, trying to still the panic of the tiny creature she was holding. “Just a little accident. Mrs. Wilson’s canary escaped.”

  “I see. It set off a smoke bomb to escape detection?”

  Max could have dropped the stern employer act, but before Jody he’d automatically reverted. Now he was standing there worrying about a bird, when all he wanted to do was take Kate in his arms. He suddenly glared at Kate, the last thing he’d intended to do.