All I Want…

by Isabel Sharpe

  “Mary.” He chuckled, while his brain made a mental note to ask Sheila to hunt some token up for Mary, too. “You shouldn’t have—”

  “Oh, I know. I wasn’t planning to get you anything. But I saw this and couldn’t resist. Open it.”

  He put on a smile, hating having to open presents in front of the giver when his reaction would be on display. The ribbon untied easily, the wrapping slid off….

  A cartoon in a frame. Executives in suits, red-faced, sweating, running frantically around a circular track. On the sidelines, rats in lounge chairs, in sunglasses, holding drinks. The caption: Who’s racing?

  Seth forced a chuckle. “This is fabulous.”

  “Isn’t it?” She laughed and swung her legs so her skirt moved higher. “I knew you’d love it.”

  “I do love it.” He hated it. Why the hell would he want a reminder that he was trapped on the track? In a bizarre jump of logic, his brain told him Krista wouldn’t have given him anything like this.

  He held the print up and made himself laugh again. This time the bitterness probably showed. What the hell was he doing fantasizing about Krista and exchanging gifts? “Thanks, Mary, this was very sweet of you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She leaned forward. “So are you hungry at all?”

  His eyes dropped. So shoot him, he was a man and she was stunning. “Starving.”

  “For food?”

  Hmm.

  He pushed the stubbornly clinging thoughts of Krista away. Maybe a night with Mary was what he needed. She was passionate, exciting and most of all loyal and discreet, never mixing business into their pleasure, never expecting special treatment or favors on the board because of their on-and-off liaison. Nor did she ever expect their relationship to stay exclusive or stray out of the bedroom. His ideal woman.

  Or so he’d always thought.

  He stood and leaned on the desk so their faces were closer than business decorum dictated, watched her eyes widen and go dark, her lips part. He let his gaze linger again on her cleavage, remembering the bounce and firm feel of her breasts in his hands, trying to conjure up as many arousing images of their sexual gymnastics as he could.

  Still trying.

  Trying again.

  Damn.

  He felt nothing but a desire to find some way, any way, using whatever possible imagination or means at his disposal, to get Krista Marlow in bed with him again.

  IMAGINE YOURSELF stressed, strained, wrung out. The work week has been hell. Your significant other barely glances your way. No energy to cook. House needs cleaning, decorating. Presents to buy for too many people. Same old drunks at the same old office parties. Sound familiar?

  Now imagine you and your SO leaving the office Friday, maybe an hour or so early, driving into the peace and pine-tree serenity of the Maine woods. No decorations but the ones nature put there. Not a soul around…

  Except for the sexiest body and voice in the darkness you could ever even hope to fantasize about.

  Your cabin waits, cozy, warm, fireplace flickering.

  Assuming the damn thing works.

  Silence so comforting and beautiful you can hear your own thoughts. Only the call of birds or breezes singing through needled boughs…

  Or the scream of the wild orgasm.

  Krista sighed and pushed her laptop off her lap, grabbed a handful of Nature’s Way organic tortilla chips from the bag she’d plopped onto her still-unmade bed and started crunching. Damn it. The article was stupid and boring, and writing about the trip was hell.

  She wanted him back. The glow of the experience last weekend had lasted the rest of her trip, all the way home and all this week.

  Then, thud, it had given way to the reality of her life. Without him. Without anything but work and friends and family and…well, okay, she was damn lucky, those were all pretty incredible.

  But not magical. Not light-me-up fabulous. Not writhe-in-ecstasy supreme.

  Call her greedy, but having her fantasy satisfied hadn’t satisfied her. It had only kindled her appetite. Not for more sex with more strangers. No way. Talk about an unhealthy, disaster-inviting lifestyle.

  But for more sex with him. With John Smith or whatever his name actually was. There were other men she’d enjoyed only once, though she never entered into a one-night stand intending it to be just that. Either the guys decided once was enough, hasta la vista baby, and thanks, whoosh, gone. Or she turned off, though that was much rarer—if she made it as far as the bedroom, chances were she liked them enough to keep trying. Or neither ever made the effort to see the other again and the whole thing quietly died off. She’d been disappointed some, cried a bunch of times, gotten cranky way more often than that.

  Nothing like this. She was obsessed, flattened, miserable. A few hours in contact with someone she knew nothing about and her world had been rocked as hard as her body.

  What the hell was that?

  She scooted off the bed and marched into her kitchen to root for a jar of salsa in the refrigerator. Was she so shallow that the only guy she’d ever been this excited about was one she knew next to nothing about? Or had there been an extraordinary connection that meant something?

  Why couldn’t fate have given her the chance to find out?

  Salsa in one hand, bottle of natural-flavored water in the other, she closed the squeaky refrigerator door with her foot and made her way back to the bed. She wasn’t a control freak. High-strung, yeah, okay, but she took things in stride most of the time or found ways around any obstacles.

  She settled back on the bed, twisted open the salsa, dunked a chip and gave her laptop a disparaging glare for still being there, reminding her of work that still needed doing. She wanted John Smith again—and again and again and again—and all her energy was wasted slamming over and over into the brick wall there was absolutely no way to avoid. The very fact that made the fantasy so exciting and arousing and intriguing also made it doomed never to be repeated.

  John Smith was a stranger. He’d disappeared sometime during the night, not to cabin nine, but to wherever he’d driven. She’d been pathetic enough to linger at the Pine Tree Inn a couple of hours after it was time to move on to her next destination, hoping maybe he’d run out for breakfast for the two of them, maybe had a flat, maybe gotten lost….

  Yeah. Her maybes never worked with men. She could publish a four-hundred-page volume of all the rational reasons men might have disappeared, and it always came down to because they wanted to be gone.

  John Smith wanted to be gone. And Krista was still having a terrible time accepting it.

  She poured salsa off the edge of a chip into her mouth and crunched the chip viciously. Yes, folks, you heard it here. Krista Marlow, author of Get Real, was having trouble getting exactly that.

  Her phone rang and set off a charge of adrenaline. The latest one. Her adrenal gland was working so much overtime these days she expected a strike notice any day. Talk about needing to get real. John Smith didn’t even know her real name, let alone her phone number.

  She stood, brushing tortilla chip crumbs off her black top, and picked up the call. “Hello?”

  “Hey, there.” The voice was deep, masculine…familiar, but not the right one. She knew because her adrenal gland yawned and went back to sleep.

  “Hey, there what?” Who the heck was this? She started pacing. For some unknown reason she was unable to hold still during a phone conversation.

  “It’s Sam.”

  “Sam!” Right, of course. Sam. Ex-boyfriend who reappeared periodically and he and she, um, sorta took up where they left off for a while and then stopped again. Nice, comfortable itch scratch when she needed one.

  “Ho ho ho, little girl, have you been good this year?”

  “I’m always good, you know that.” Hmm. An itch scratch sounded like a really good idea to brighten up her December, take her through the holidays in a more cheerful manner. “Great to hear from you, Sam. How’s it going?”

  “Fine. I was think
ing about you this morning, wondering what you were up to.”

  Translation: My latest girlfriend and I broke up a while ago.

  “Oh, that’s nice. Well, the writing is going well, I’m keeping busy….”

  “Anyone in your life right now?”

  Translation: Are you already getting some?

  Krista smiled. Pictured Sam as she’d last seen him—tall, blond, nice build, neat goatee. Cute, energetic, funny, good time in the bed and out.

  Just what she needed.

  An image came to her—okay, no, it had been totally dark, so it wasn’t an image. A memory then. Powerful arms around her; her body joined to his, straining to join harder; the feel of his lips on her skin; the sound of his voice…and the intensity of the physical connection that somehow, no matter how impossible it seemed, had spilled over into the emotional. At least for her.

  Anyone in your life right now?

  Not anyone real.

  “Hello, Earth to Krista.”

  Sam’s voice jolted her out of her lustful daydream and she shook her head. “Sorry, I’m here. Sorry.”

  “I asked if you were seeing someone. Sounded like you were having a hard time deciding.”

  She opened her mouth to say the words, There’s no one in my life, but they wouldn’t come. The truth? John Smith wasn’t in her life. But he sure as hell existed strongly enough in her head right now that she was shocked to find she had no room for Sam.

  How self-destructive was that?

  “There…is someone in my life right now.”

  “Bummer. Is he worthy of your perfection?”

  “Oh…yes.” Her throat threatened to close up. Tears stung. What the hell was the matter with her? She should be laughing and teasing Sam right back.

  “Wow. Sounds serious.”

  “I guess.” She closed her eyes. Serious Krista-the-Nutcase, more like it.

  “Okay. Well, I wish you all good things, Krista. Merry Christmas, happy new year and all that.”

  “Thanks, Sam. To you, too. I’ll see you around.” She said goodbye and punched off the phone, slumped down onto her gray-and-white-striped couch, near the black ink stain that looked like a rat.

  Oh my lord. She needed her head examined. She’d just turned down good sex with a really nice man for the memory of one night of unrepeatable perfect sex with…who knew?

  Her incoming e-mail notifier started in—loud footsteps of a cartoon butler who walked somberly onto the screen and announced in an upper-crust British accent that she had mail.

  Probably spam. She sighed and went to check.

  No. Not spam.

  A message from the Pine Tree Inn owner, Betty Robinson. That alone was enough to get her heart pounding. Anything containing the words pine tree would probably make her feel alternately jazzed and wistful for the rest of her life. She’d make sure to get a Frazier fir when she went tree shopping.

  Ms. Marlow,

  We hope you enjoyed your stay. The following e-mail was sent to our office; the gentleman requested we forward it to you. Hope you are well and that we’ll see you again next time your travel brings you to Maine.

  Sincerely,

  Betty and Arnold Robinson

  Oh.

  Oh, my.

  Oh, oh, oh, my.

  Forget pounding. Her heart was slam-dancing. Quick, before she opened it, who else could it be from, before she assumed it was John Smith and then got bitterly disappointed when it wasn’t. No one she knew would have reason to e-mail her anywhere but her home account…

  Light-headed and shaky, trying to calm herself down and failing miserably, she opened the attachment. Another e-mail.

  Dear Jane Doe,

  I didn’t get enough of you. Could I ever?

  I’d like to find out.

  Ritz-Carlton Hotel, room 329, Monday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.

  John Smith

  7

  NERVOUS DIDN’T EVEN begin to describe it.

  Krista stood just down the silent hall from room 329 at the Ritz-Carlton, staring at the door, amazed that her feet had agreed to carry her even this far.

  Damn Lucy and her cautious nature. Some of her warnings had finally penetrated Krista’s delirious haze. She’d barely slept the night before, both from excited anticipation and anxious dread. The middle of the night was the what-if demon’s favorite time to strike.

  What if…? What if…? What if…?

  What if John Smith was a psycho weirdo who liked to toy with his victims several times before executing them?

  What if he knew who she was and was stalking her? He might have seen her Massachusetts plates, but his e-mail had just said Ritz-Carlton—he hadn’t specified Arlington Street or any other direction or clue an out-of-towner would need to know. How did he know she was from the Boston area?

  What if he was married? Why a hotel? She hadn’t felt a ring, but that meant nothing.

  And her biggest question: with all these doubts and fears, why had she shown up?

  Why wasn’t she messing up the sheets with big, comfortable, funny Sam, who she wanted so desperately to fall madly in love with and couldn’t ever manage to?

  What did that say about the Get Real queen that she’d chosen this fantasy instead?

  She knew. In her heart she knew. Because it was irresistible. Because whatever had happened between them that night in Maine a week and a half ago, she wanted to know if she could feel it again, this time being able to see him. She wanted to find out if the passion and thrill were simply products of the darkness and the remoteness and the excitement of fear and the surprise of it all or if there was something—dare she use the word?—real between them.

  And because even deeper, in her deepest heart of hearts, she believed that if he meant her harm, she would have suspected, that something would have tipped her off, that her instincts would have warned her away.

  Yes, he could be married…or he could be protecting himself by choosing a hotel. He knew as little about her as she did about him; it was only sensible not to invite her to his home until they knew each other better. And why bother with a bar or restaurant meeting when a bed was what they really wanted?

  Of course, the Ritz was a damn fine touch. No hourly motel in a bad neighborhood for her lover.

  She smiled, took a few steps closer to the door. Adrenaline pulled the smile back off her face. Okay, she was terrified anyway. Seeing him in person would put the whole fantasy in—excuse the pun—a different light.

  In front of the door now. Deep breath, then she’d count to ten and go in.

  One…two…three…

  The handle of the door turned. Krista stopped counting. Stopped breathing. Looked up to where she imagined his face was going to appear.

  Call her shallow, but she desperately hoped he’d be as attractive to her by sight as he was by touch and personality. Didn’t have to be to-die-for handsome but to have that chemical spark visually….

  The door swung inward about a foot. Behind it…

  Darkness.

  So…she wouldn’t see him? A stab of disappointment, followed by more questions. Why not? Was he married? Anxious she not be able to identify him to the police?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, Krista. Hadn’t she just been talking about deep-down heart-of-hearts trust?

  She stepped forward to the threshold.

  “Come in.”

  His familiar deep voice made her realize retroactively how dreamlike the adventure in Maine had seemed—and how unsure she’d been that it really had happened as she remembered. Hearing him live brought the whole night back to her.

  Her nerves switched over into excitement and she took a few steps into the room. More fantasy, more perfect erotic excitement. “John Smith” would stay “John Smith” and she could be his perfect “Jane Doe” for another night.

  “Hello, Jane.”

  She turned and saw his silhouette against the white door, now closed again. Tall and broad, solid and definitely not a dream. An indefinable emoti
on rose, and she had to relax consciously so it wouldn’t escape, though whether it wanted to come out as a giggle or a sob, she couldn’t tell.

  “Hi.” Her voice was breathy and flat.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I am, too.”

  His dark form stepped toward her, and her already racing heart managed to beat even faster. “I was about to tell you that you look beautiful, but since I can’t see you, that’s pretty crazy.”

  Krista laughed unsteadily, understanding him perfectly. If the shape of a man could be beautiful, his was. Certainly to her it was. “I know what you mean. You look…incredible.”

  He stopped directly in front of her; she could feel the warmth of his body, catch his familiar scent, and the urge to touch was so strong she held back, perversely wanting to stretch the longing to its most unbearable before she gave in.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  Krista’s breath rushed in, then out. “Me neither.”

  “I must be losing my mind.”

  “Mine was gone when I stopped you from leaving the cabin.”

  “To check your fireplace.”

  She laughed. “You never did.”

  “No.” He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. “I had other things I wanted to do for you.”

  Krista closed her eyes, lips tingling with his nearness. “I remember all of them.”

  “And I couldn’t stop wanting to do them again.” His fingertips slid gently along her jawbone, to the back of her head, tipping her face up toward him. “You?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  She barely got the words out before his mouth touched hers and held there, full and warm and still. Then he moved his head slowly, brushing his lips side to side, making her wait for what she wanted.

  She was willing to wait. She wanted this night to go on forever. She wanted to feel this erotic charge, this thrill, this mystery, all night long. John Smith and Jane Doe, cloaked in darkness, doing what they did best together.