“Not … Wh–what do you …” With a gasp, Marianne yanked her coat closed. “Oh, my God, you think—”
“I mean, of course I’m interested,” he corrected with a sheepish grin that made him look about fourteen. “How could I not be? I mean you’re … you’re …”
Was he blushing? It was too dark to tell for sure. “Look,” she began, backing away. “I think there’s been a little—”
“I didn’t mean to imply …” He raked a hand through his hair. “I mean, you’re incredibly …” He surveyed her head to toe, although her trench coat hid the Easter Bunny costume from view. “Wow. You’ve got to be just about the sexiest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But the thing is, I just don’t … I’ve never …” He winced apologetically. “You know. Paid for it.”
Marianne stared at him in wonderment as thunder rumbled overhead. The sexiest thing he’d ever seen? Was he serious?
“But, hey, if I was ever gonna …” His look of wistful desire was anything but boyish. “Anyway, sorry.” He reached for the button to raise the window. “Uh, good luck, I guess.”
It was as he was driving away that Marianne felt the first stinging shot of pain. She yelped and grabbed her shoulder as an ominous rattling filled the air.
Hail. Within seconds, thousands – millions – of marble-sized ice balls were plummeting out of the sky to bounce and roll on the pavement. From somewhere came a sirenlike wail, and then another, and another, as the hailstones set off car alarms for blocks around.
One struck her on the head, feeling like a bullet even through her hair. Shielding her face with her hands, she looked around frantically for shelter – a recessed doorway, an overhang, maybe – but the surrounding apartment buildings all had front doors that were flush with their façades.
The hail storm intensified, pinging like artillery all around her. Cowering at the side of a building, she tore off her trench coat and cloaked herself with it, but it was meagre protection from this hellish barrage.
“Miss!”
Peering out below the edge of the coat, Marianne saw the white car at the kerb again. The driver, leaning across the front seat to hold the door open for her, must have put it in reverse when the hail storm began.
“Get in!” he called out, gesturing to her. “Hurry!”
She stared at him through the icy torrent, relief warring with deeply ingrained trepidation at the prospect of getting into a car with a stranger. She cried out as a hailstone struck her hand.
He bolted out of the car and sprinted over to her through the onslaught, flinching as the hail pelted him. Crouching down, he yelled over the racket, “You’re gonna get hurt if you stay out here!” He pulled her to her feet, holding the coat over her head. “Come on – you can sit in my car till it’s over.”
He grabbed her hand, and together they darted to the white sedan. After helping her into the passenger seat, he circled the vehicle, vaulted into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
“Whew!” With a diffident glance towards Marianne, he said, “Um, I’m Rob, by the way. Just thought, you know, sine we’re stuck here together, we might as well know each other’s …”
“Marianne,” she managed as she wrestled with her trench coat, which had got twisted around her.
“Pretty name.” Rob’s gaze lit fleetingly on her brazen display of cleavage as she squirmed free of the coat. Reaching for the keys, he killed the engine. “Guess we’ll just have to wait this out.”
Hail pummelled the windshield, the car, the street. The incessant bombardment, on top of everything else Marianne had endured tonight, made her shake so badly that she couldn’t get her arms through the sleeves of the coat. Giving up in frustration, she draped it over herself like a blanket, aided by Rob, who solicitously tucked it around her.
“What a night I’m having!” She clawed her hands through her hair, ruining the sleek effect she’d gone to so much trouble to achieve. “Everything’s gone wrong tonight, everything, and now this!” She gestured towards the windshield and the hailstones clattering against it.
“Hey … hey …” Lifting a hand to her hair, he brushed it off her face. “You’re just rattled by the hail, that’s all. It’ll be over soon.”
She hunkered down in the seat, pulling the coat up to her chin. “You think a hailstone could break a windshield?”
“Not these – they’re too small.”
“I hate this. This whole night, this whole stupid …” Her voice caught; her eyes stung. “I hate it!”
“Oh, hey, no. Don’t cry. Please. I lose all perspective when women cry.”
“I won’t,” she promised, trembling with the effort not to.
“Oh, man, this is even worse than if you were bawling your eyes out.” He clambered awkwardly over the gearshift to wedge himself into the passenger seat with her. Gathering her into his embrace, he cupped her head against his chest. Beneath the age-softened cotton of his polo shirt, faintly redolent of laundry soap, she felt hard-packed muscle, heard the faint thump-thump of his heart. “So, uh … Marianne, is it?”
She nodded.
“Are you, like, prone to weather-related freak-outs, or is it just tonight?”
“Tonight,” she sighed, “has been a nightmare.”
“The nightmare is over now.” He scooped her on to his lap as he shifted to settle his weight into the seat, his arms banding around her, his warmth seeping bone-deep into her. To be comforted in the arms of a stranger in this dark confined space, while outside the heavens unleashed their terrible fury … there was a dreamy unreality about it.
“Everything’s OK now,” Rob whispered as he nuzzled the top of her head. “Everything’s fine.” There came a soft pressure, a tickle through her hair. Had he kissed her?
Marianne grew very still. So did Rob.
She turned her head into the crook of his neck, inhaled his scent, his warmth. On impulse she touched her lips to the quickening pulse on the side of his throat.
His arms tightened around her, his mouth brushing her forehead, her temple, the crest of her cheekbone, her jaw, his breath coming hot and fast just like hers …
Their lips touched, parted, touched again.
“Oh God.” He drew back. “I’m sorry, I’m … You’re upset. I shouldn’t be …”
“It’s … it’s all right,” she whispered. He thinks I’m beautiful, he thinks I’m sexy.
“No, I should stop. Tell me to stop,” he murmured, his gaze on her mouth.
“Don’t stop.”
He kissed her ravenously, one hand burrowing through her hair to grip the back of her head, the other fumbling with the coat in whichshe was wrapped. Marianne returned the kiss with a hunger that astounded her, pausing only long enough to yank the coat off and fling it on to the driver’s seat.
His hands were everywhere on her, hot and demanding. “Yes,” she breathed when he unzipped her sweater, flicked the front clasp of her bra, filled his hands with her. They both moaned as he kneaded the pliant flesh, her nipples tightening almost painfully as he fondled them.
And still he kissed her, their legs a restless tangle, their breath fogging the glass as hail continued to batter the car. Rob smoothed a hand up a stockinged thigh and over her lace-clad bottom, hiking up the little vinyl miniskirt as he went.
He slid a hand between them, growling deep in his throat when he discovered the panties to be crotchless. Marianne hitched in a breath as he pushed a finger deep into her, where she was already wet and ready, so ready, more ready than she’d ever been. She arched her back, thrusting against his hand, drunk with sensation, delirious with pleasure.
He took his time, enticing her slowly towards an ecstatic crisis of the senses – a crisis she had never reached with Alan. Where had it come from? she wondered dazedly. How could she feel this heat, this passion, this aching need for a man she’d just met?
It doesn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this raw, ungovernable, astonishing desire. And it wasn’t like she was violati
ng her new moratorium on relationships. This wasn’t a relationship, it was just … a fleeting encounter, two bodies uniting in the dark while fury rained from the skies.
Straddling Rob’s lap, she unzipped his straining fly. He bucked beneath her when she closed her hand around him. “Yes … oh …” he murmured when she began to stroke him. He pumped into her fist, clutching at her, his eyes losing focus. “Marianne, I think I’m … you better …” He groaned. “Stop!” he said, clamping a hand around her wrist. “No, stop, stop.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” He chuckled throatily. “It feels too good, that’s the problem. I’m gonna end up going off in your hand, and that’s … It’s not what I had in mind.”
“Me, neither.” She smiled – a little bashfully, which was absurd under the circumstances, but there you go.
“What a pretty smile.” He touched her mouth with fingertips that shook ever so slightly. I did that to him, she realized with amazement.
Reaching inside his sports coat, Rob withdrew a wallet from which he slid a little square packet.
Marianne closed her eyes, hearing the crackle of plastic over the hail still hammering the car, and thinking, This is happening. This is really going to happen.
“Marianne?”
She opened her eyes to find him regarding her with a look of concern.
“Are you OK with this?” he asked.
“I’m desperate for this,” she whispered as she leaned down, claiming his mouth in another searing kiss. He lifted her up slightly, positioning her just so; she closed her hands over his shoulders to steady herself. Gripping her hips, he pulled her down, then came the hard, hot pressure of him stretching her open, pushing deep, deeper …
He groaned rawly as he drove into her. “I’m too close. I won’t last.”
“Just be still,” she murmured into his ear, rising slowly up the length of him, then lowering herself just as gradually. “Don’t move. Let me do it all.”
“As long as I can touch you,” he said, one hand lightly stroking her where they were joined, the other cupping a swollen breast as he leaned forwards to close his mouth over the rigid little nipple.
He suckled and caressed her as she made love im, further and further into an utter delirium of the senses. She’d never taken control during sex, yet right now it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Rob felt so hard and full inside her; his fingertips were so slick and clever, his mouth so hot.
She writhed and whimpered, panting as her climax gathered up. He moaned each time she sank on to him, the muscles in his thighs quivering with the strain of holding still.
“I can’t …” he rasped. “I can’t …” Seizing her hips, he rammed into her once, twice, and then stilled, his body taut and shuddering, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. A guttural shout tore from his lungs as he throbbed inside her, igniting her own convulsive pleasure. It thundered through her with a violence that rocked her to the core. Dimly she was aware of a ragged groan, and realized it was her.
He pulled her close with quaking arms, laying her head on his shoulder, and covered them both with her coat. That was how they remained until their breathing steadied and their hearts slowed to normal.
“Wow,” he whispered.
“Mmm.”
“That was …”
“Mmm.”
“I, uh … I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last longer,” he said.
Last longer? Alan was usually finished in half that time.
Before she could say something reassuring, he said, “Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” he said. “The hail storm is over.”
Marianne sat up to look out the side window, but the glass was too steamed up to see through.
The hail storm was over. What now? Would they just shake hands and go their separate ways? That prospect filled her with a terrible sense of emptiness.
Not good, she thought as she and Rob clumsily uncoupled and righted their clothing in the cramped space. Not good at all. Half an hour ago she’d resolved to ignore that little devil on her shoulder that made her lose her heart to men she barely knew. The smartest thing she could do right now would be to walk away from here and not look back.
“I don’t want this to end,” he said, pulling her back into his arms.
Marianne’s heart skittered in her chest.
He trailed his knuckles lightly down her cheek. “I’d like you to come back to my hotel with me.”
“Hotel?”
“I’m in town on business. Just till tomorrow morning, then I’m flying back to Rochester, but I thought—”
“Rochester?” she said. “I grew up there. Is that where you live?”
“South of there, actually – Canandaigua. That’s where I grew up, and I have no intention of ever moving. The Finger Lakes rule.”
“They do – they’re awesome.” She raised her head to look at him. “We used to go down there every summer to go sailing on Canandaigua Lake, or sometimes Seneca. God, I loved it there.” She shook her head as she lay it back on his shoulder. “I’d move upstate again in a heartbeat, but … circumstances have kept me here.” Circumstances meaning Alan. Her job would never have kept her in New York. Fed up with teaching – or rather, babysitting – spoiled little rich girls in one of Manhattan’s most exclusive parochial schools, she’d been all set last June to quit and apply to public schools upstate. But then she’d met Alan, and those plans had dissolved within days.
“Ah, yes, circumstances,” he said thoughtfully. “So, uh … well. Like I said, I’m in town till tomorrow, and I was hoping …” He dragged a hand through his disheveled hair. “I, uh, I’m not used to this, so I guess I should just ask you … you know … how much it would be?”
“How much … oh.” Oh God, that’s right. He thought she was a hooker. You idiot. You’re falling for him at supersonic speed, and he’s just trying to figure out your going rate.
“For the night,” he clarified. “If you came back to my hotel with me. How much would that be?”
It’s just as well, she thought, steeling herself. You made a moratorium; you should stick to it. “You couldn’t afford it.”
She started to rise off him, but he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. “How much?”
She’d heard something on TV once about a call girl who charged $1,000 an hour. “Ten thousand dollars.”
“I can afford it,” he said without missing a beat. She must have looked sceptical, because he smiled and said, “I’ll give it to you in advance if you don’t trust me.”
“You’ve got that much on you?”
“On me? No, but I promise you—” he drew a cross on his chest “—cross my heart and hope to die, that there’s ten grand in my hotel room safe with your name on it. What do you say?”
“Rob, it’s … it’s not the money. It’s just this has been so … so incredible, so …”
“I know.” Framing her face with his hands, he compelled her with his gaze to look at him. “It was … it was just like it’s supposed to be and never really is. I completely lost myself in you. That’s why I don’t want it to be over. I want to spend the night with you, Marianne. I want to …” Closing his eyes, he pulled her towards him until their foreheads touched. “I want to lose myself in you again. And again and again. The thing is, I’ve never been with a woman like you before—”
“You mean a whore?” she asked, pulling away.
“I’m not talking about how you make your living, Marianne. I’m talking about who you are, really are. You’re the most passionate, most responsive woman I’ve ever been with. I only lost myself in you because—” he shrugged “—you lost yourself in me.”
“You … think I’m responsive?”
He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
As he was driving her to his hotel, Rob said, “Do you mind my asking what you’re doing here in New York? I mean, I know what you’re do
ing. I know how you make your living.” He said it casually and without any hint of judgment, as if he were referring to a perfectly respectable line of work. “I was just wondering why you left upstate, if you like it so much.”
Marianne didn’t know how to answer that. She’d been thrilled when Professor McGrath had hooked her up with the kindergarten position at Our Lady of Sorrows during the spring semester of her senior year at Nazareth. She’d moved to New York thinking it would be an adventure. Then came Alan.
Then came tonight.
But she couldn’t reveal any of that to Rob without blowing her cover, as it were, and exposing herself to heartache all over again. His assumption that she was a prostitute was like an insurance policy against another precipitous relationship. By playing this role, she could enjoy a sexual adventure without risking her heart.
“Forget it,” Rob said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “I’m being nosy. It’s none of my business and it’s probably nothing you want to talk about. I mean, I know girls sometimes end up in your situation after … going through difficult times.”
He thought she’d fallen into prostitution after a traumatic adolescence, Marianne realized. He assumed she’d been a runaway, maybe abused at home, maybe a drug addict: prostitute as victim, a heart of gold but a painful past.
She said, “You know what? Why don(t we both just not talk about who we are and what we do and how we got here?”
“A gag order on our pasts?”
“The last few years, anyway. No questions, no explanations, just us, together, right now.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s actually an excellent idea.”
“It is, huh? Do you have some deep, dark secret I should know about before you get me alone in a hotel room?”
“A nefarious plot to chloroform you and sell you to Barbary pirates?” he asked with a grin.
“Barbary pirates?”
“I read a lot of boys’ action adventure when I was a kid. Here we are,” he said as he pulled the car to the kerb in front of an old and ornate-looking granite building with an awning over the front door. “This is a boutique hotel almost nobody knows about. The building dates from 1841. It was the mansion of a railroad tycoon, and it’s an awesome example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. You can’t see it in the dark, but there’s the coolest gargoyle peering down from the roof.”
The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance Page 19