Simon Says...

by Donna Kauffman

  He slowed when she wriggled to get at her bra. “Stop,” he told her, then shifted just enough so he could cover the hard tip of her nipple, straining against the soft pink silk of her bra, with his lips. Her body quivered and he almost lost it right then.

  “Simon—”

  “Mmm, Sophie,” he said, then shifted back up and took her mouth in a deep, fast, hard kiss. A kiss that didn’t end, but kept on. And on. As did he. And she met him every thrust of the way. Perfectly.

  It was hearing her climb yet again, feeling her tighten further around him, her entire body beginning to shudder beneath him, that drove him straight to the edge.

  “Simon,” she whispered, then urged his tongue into her mouth, and took him over.

  He held on to her as both of their bodies shook with the force of it. He tried to shift his weight off her, but she pulled him straight back down again. “Stay,” she asked.

  And he did. He didn’t want to be anywhere else. Not right then. What came next…he tried not to think about that part.

  “What?” she asked, already far more in tune to the subtleties of his body than seemed possible. And yet, didn’t he feel the same about hers?

  “Nothing.” He smiled. “My ilk thanks you. Most intently.”

  He felt her smile against the side of his neck. “As soon as the world stops spinning and I’m at least somewhat certain I’ll regain the use of all my faculties, I’d like to thank your ilk. Personally. And with enormous gratitude.”

  He was grinning as he slid from her and rolled to his side, taking her with him. She curled into him as if made exclusively for that space. And, just like that, his heart squeezed and thrust him into the next moment, one he was ill prepared for, and, at the moment, defenseless against. That moment where he didn’t want to let her go. Where he was forced to acknowledge that he wanted a whole lot more. And not just sex.

  “Simon,” she said, quietly now, sounding contemplative.

  “That was…you are…” He stopped, knowing he sounded like a babbling fool, and not wanting to risk giving voice to even the slightest bit of what he was feeling at that moment. Later, when he was away from her, and back in his right mind, he’d put this all in perspective. At the moment, he knew he was well and truly compromised, not himself, thinking the crazy thoughts of a man who’d just had the most fabulous, satisfying sex of his life, and was understandably feeling more than was really there.

  Which was utter bullshit. He knew what this was, and what this wasn’t.

  And this wasn’t just a quick toss.

  He’d known before he’d kissed her that any amount of time spent with Sophie was not going to be enough.

  “Don’t let reality intrude,” she said softly. “Not just yet.”

  “Would that be so bad?” he said, and realized then he was doomed. He wasn’t going to keep quiet, he was going to go down in flames. Idiot.

  She lifted her head, looking worried now. “Don’t.”

  “Sophie—”

  “Just enjoy this moment, Simon. We both know this can’t be about anything else. Well, other than the whole partners in crime part.”

  “You’re out of that. I’ll take care of the situation with Tolliver some other way.”

  She sighed a little, and he felt a bit of the tension leave her body, and not in a good way. “And then what?” She closed her eyes. “Don’t answer that.”

  He brushed a kiss across her lips. “And then we find out what comes next.”

  “Things that are too good to be true usually are,” she said, her voice a whisper now.

  He shifted so he could look more directly into her eyes. “Sophie, I want you to know—”

  She pushed at him then, and caught him by surprise just enough to wiggle away from him before he could stop her. She slipped off the bed and ducked into the bathroom, shutting the door immediately behind her.

  Simon rolled to his back and sighed deeply. Idiot indeed. “Sophie, come back.”

  She didn’t reply. All he heard were some shuffling sounds and a few little grunts. He’d just sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, considering if he should go in after her, when the door opened and she stepped out, fully dressed in the clothes he’d first met her in. Her hair was a bit wild, and her cheeks were flushed, but her lips were compressed in a straight, no-nonsense line. And he wanted to part them with his tongue just as badly now as he had before.

  “I think I made an error in judgment,” she said, and for the first time, he didn’t have a quick response. Mostly due to the sudden pressure squeezing his chest. Despite the fact that she had every reason to believe what she’d said, it still hurt to hear the words.

  “Not in trying to help you,” she quickly added. “I’ll always help someone who needs it if I can. I don’t think I’m built to look the other way. But…but, even though I really, really wanted to think I could, I’m also not built to just have a fling and enjoy the moment. Much as I wish it were otherwise.” She glanced down. “Really, really wish.” She looked up again, and her eyes were overly bright. “And even thinking that you might…” She shook her head.

  Hurting her was the very last thing he’d want to do. “Sophie, I’m sorry. For a lot of what has happened between us, in regards to the situation I’m involved in. But I won’t apologize about what we did here on this bed.”

  “Maybe if we’d just done it and stayed in the moment. But then you mentioned what comes next and I realized that’s exactly how I’m built. To want more, to want it all. And the fantasy was gone and I wanted it for real, and it hurt—a lot, too much for so soon—” She stopped abruptly and looked away, biting her lower lip, which he noted was trembling. Hard.

  He reached over the end of the bed and scooped up his own clothes, quickly slipping on his pants before crossing the room to stand before her. “I understand why you stopped me, even if I wish more than anything you hadn’t.” He cupped her face, tilted it up to his. “But I had to be honest with you, Sophie. It might not have mattered with someone else. Maybe anyone else. But it matters with you. I do want more. I just haven’t a clue how to make that work, and maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But I couldn’t just pretend it was meaningless. I didn’t want you to think that it was.”

  She was trembling all over now. He felt horrible. He didn’t know what else to say. There were no promises he could make. He could only be honest. “I wish I could just have taken what was there and walked away, happy for the chance to get what I could.” He pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her hair. “I guess I’m not made that way, either.”

  She leaned into him, her cheek pressed against his chest, and all he knew was that he wanted her there. Right there. And the idea of her walking out that door—forever—was completely unacceptable.

  And yet, what else could he offer her? As soon as he had the emerald, he was heading home, back across the pond. Her life was here.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then broke free from his arms and walked to the door of his room.

  He took two steps after her, more out of instinct, to stop the feeling like his heart was being ripped from his chest, when she suddenly turned around and walked back to him. And the instinctive, automatic jolt of joy that shot through him was indescribable.

  He reached for her, not caring, in that moment, what happened next, just happy it still included her. But she stopped short, ripped the lanyard with her key card over her head and pressed it into his hand. “Use this if you need to. Good luck. I— Goodbye, Simon.”

  And then she was gone.

  11

  SOPHIE WHACKED HER ELBOW on the filing cabinet—second time, same spot—and swore under her breath as she made her way back to her desk. She tried to ignore the new lanyard and key tag swinging from her neck…and the memories that went with it.

  Two days. That was how much time she’d given him. She’d burned two sick days, holed up in her apartment, and spent way too much time thinking about Simon Lassiter. But she’d spoken ab
out him to no one. Not even Delia, though that hadn’t exactly been a problem. Her friend had spent every waking moment that they’d been in contact since Sophie had called after leaving Simon’s room talking about her own problems, which, to be fair, weren’t small. The wedding was still on and mere days away. But all was not well in Wingate Wedding World.

  Sophie had mumbled something about food poisoning and being too sick to even answer her phone or come to the door, and apologized for worrying her friend that day and for not being able to retrieve her phone. She’d explained about it being the wrong room, but by then Delia had been off and running, alternately ranting and sobbing about her situation, leaving Sophie to mercifully keep the rest of the truth to herself.

  Two days. Not one word from Simon. And far too many words from Delia. Nothing seemed the same. And yet everything was exactly how it always was. Even Delia’s breakdowns weren’t all that unusual, as dealing with the Wingate family had never been exactly easy. Now there was increased tension between her and Adam, who had become suspicious when his call to Delia’s phone—which, it turned out, had mercifully died at some point during the night—had gone straight to voice mail, and had badgered her about why it wasn’t plugged in and why she hadn’t called him back when she’d realized it wasn’t on and she’d missed his daily call.

  Perhaps he’d sensed something was amiss, although it took very little, real or perceived, for Adam to flip out, or perhaps it was Delia’s guilty conscience prodding her, but, in the end, she’d confessed to him about the stealth bachelorette party, which had put Sophie squarely on Adam’s shit list, or at least higher on it than she’d been before, and claimed that she’d left her phone in the pub. Which, as it turned out, was the truth. Just not the pub they’d actually started the evening in. And, of course, she’d managed to conveniently leave all the parts of what had come directly after, and with whom, out of her confession. Which was why there was still a wedding on Sunday.

  Which meant, everything that had happened, all of it…for nothing. If only Delia had remembered where she’d left her phone in the first place, none of it would have taken place.

  And Sophie wouldn’t have spent the past two days see-sawing back and forth over whether she wished she’d known sooner…or preferred that things had happened exactly as they had.

  But, as for Adam and Delia, she was convinced that if it hadn’t been the missed phone call, and the subsequent confession about the bachelorette party setting him off, it would have been something else. A truth Sophie had tried, once again, to gently point out to her friend, but Delia was so upset over his cool attitude toward her since their most recent blowout, and his subtle threats to call the wedding off if she didn’t “behave more intelligently,” that she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to listen to Sophie. Sophie knew exactly what she’d like to do to Adam, and his condescending attitude and super controlling demands, but Delia wasn’t interested in her vengeance scenarios, either.

  Of course, there was that part where Delia had actually done something much worse than attend an un-Wingate-sanctioned bachelorette party, but given how Sophie had spent that twenty-four hour period, and with whom, she was more than willing to pretend that entire little scenario had never happened if Delia was.

  So…Sophie had gone back to life as usual. Listening to her friend sob and rail, working her shifts, collapsing during her off hours. She would have thought the wedding prep chaos and the increased media and guest events surrounding the upcoming Art Institute gala would have preoccupied her to the point of not thinking about Simon every second of the day. All it had done was exhaust her already exhausted self, who was not sleeping worth a damn, despite her intense fatigue. And she thought about him. Constantly.

  Matters weren’t helped any by Adam’s mother, who was still ranting every chance she got—which was hourly—about how she couldn’t believe that the museum had the nerve not to change the date of their annual gala when the wedding date had been announced. The museum had informed her the first time she’d thrown a fit that they scheduled their events several years in advance, in order to secure the loaned collections from their donors. But then, a little thing like logic had never stopped Arlene Wingate before, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to stop her now.

  Which meant a daily tug-of-war between Arlene and Sven, the gala coordinator—who had many guests booked into the Wingate—with the hotel managers square in the middle.

  Probably because of the heightened stress level of the entire hotel staff, security hadn’t even given her much grief over having to replace her key tag. She’d been almost nauseous enough when she’d approached their office, terrified that her activities would somehow be revealed, that faking a food poisoning incident as her reason for leaving her key tag in a restaurant and not realizing she’d lost it until reporting for work two days later was a relative breeze.

  All that stomach-churning terror, and all she’d gotten was the standardized lecture about the vital nature of safety and security for the hotel and all its guests, then was sternly informed by her immediate supervisor that given her exemplary work history, she wouldn’t be written up this time, but that another infraction would result in a report being put in her file and a possible demotion or dismissal. Otherwise, it was have a nice day, and don’t eat the shellfish.

  Normal. All back to normal.

  So why didn’t she feel back to normal? Sure, it had only been a few days, and the entire episode with Simon wasn’t exactly a forgettable way to spend a day, but it was more than that. She worried. Not about the key tag, or what he might have done with it. No, that would be normal. What did she worry about? What had made the past two nights the longest of her life? Wondering if he was okay. Had she given him enough time with the key before the replacement had rendered his tag invalid? Had he recovered the velvet box and whatever was inside? Was he, right now, on his way back to England, gone from the hotel, and her life, forever? Was Tolliver hot on his heels, or had he accepted the loss of the object, knowing it was never his to begin with?

  Did Simon miss her?

  She missed him. She couldn’t even pretend to claim otherwise. She rolled her chair forward and stared, sightlessly, at the files on her desk. She had a pile of work to do. Being gone two nights straight had left an overstuffed inbox and dozens of calls to return. She wondered how the day managers handled the job, when her far more narrow field of responsibility covering the night hours seemed so chaotic and unwieldy. There was only so much a manager could take responsibility for from midnight to six, though it had its share of special concerns. Mostly in the form of noise control, overly exuberant parties, late arrivals who hadn’t confirmed, inebriated guests, unwelcome visitors, that sort of thing.

  But the guests were a lot more demanding during regular business hours. Most of the time on her watch, the guests were asleep. It was only the ones who weren’t who could make her life interesting. Of course, day management was her goal. It was the next step.

  She propped an elbow on her desk and rested her forehead in her palm as she sorted through the latest stack of reports from security, must-return call slips, urgent notices from the kitchen and the front desk and the housecleaning staff. At that moment, the idea of taking on a hotel of the size of the Wingate seemed like a career path only an insane person would choose. “A life of crime seems much less intense.”

  One thing she hadn’t done was check up on the occupancy of a certain room…or a certain suite. The less she knew about Simon’s whereabouts, and Tolliver’s, likely the best for them all. Or, that’s what she told herself. But it had taken almost superhuman control to resist even a peek.

  Her door burst open, and Mick, the concierge, popped his head in. “I have a problem.”

  Her entire body tensed. This was what she’d feared, every waking moment, since leaving Simon’s room. The moment the hotel would discover a crime had occurred. “Of course you do,” she responded, lifting her head, heart pounding. She forced a smile. “Which is why we hire
d you. Because you’re a problem solver. It’s in the job description. And you’re very good at your job.”

  “Yes. Well, this time the guest in question wants to speak to you. And only you.”

  She couldn’t help it, her heart skipped a beat. What other guest would want to speak to her and her alone? Was this Simon’s way of contacting her through business channels, to make their connection appear legit? And why in the hell was she even wondering that, since she’d decided to walk away? She would hardly go back just because he’d crooked his little finger.

  Visions of all parts of Simon, crooked and otherwise, filled her already vision-filled brain. She crossed her ankles and pressed them together against the urge to get up and run.

  The question was, which way would she have run?

  Then another thought struck her. What if it was Tolliver waiting impatiently to speak with her? What if he’d noticed something missing and was making good on his threat to contact management and security? What if he noticed that she was the maid from the other day? Simon had said he was far more observant than he let on.

  Now her legs began to tremble, but not in a pleasurable-memory-induced kind of way.

  “Who is it,” she asked, trying to keep the internal quaking out of the tone of her voice, “and what does it pertain to?”

  “One of our guests is putting something of great value—according to him—in our hotel safe, and he wants to post his own security personnel. Our security is understandably not enthusiastic about the idea, and…this has led to a demand to speak with the manager.” Mick, who was always meticulously groomed with never so much as a plucked eyebrow out of place, always managed to somehow maintain himself as the calm in the center of any storm, no matter the size. Behind closed doors, however, he was quite the animated gossip. It was for both of those reasons that he was one of Sophie’s favorite people.

  He managed an apologetic smile. “That would be you, darling. I tried to mediate the best I could, but, my dearest innocent, if you could see the size of those behemoths Mr. Tolliver wants to post—”