Belly Up.
“Funny in a good way,” he added.
“Let’s see.” She watched him move in again, felt his lips trail along the column of her neck to the first button on her white silk blouse. “I’m cute. I’m a laugh riot. I’m—”
“You’re—” A big, pathetic joke with jet lag, PMS and no chance now of getting “close” tonight. “Sexy as hell,” he finished. With his low words of reprieve, Darcie’s legs went weak. She leaned her head back farther to give him access to her throat. His tongue swept across the hollow there, down to her breasts, into the slight cleft that passed for cleavage—when she wore the right bra. She wasn’t.
And for a moment Darcie’s sensible side prevailed. Walt was upstairs. They were here to work. In any case she shouldn’t take a stranger to her room. Was she nuts? Forget Merrick Lowell. Not only were hotels becoming her second home, a bad habit, but this seemed risky. Possibly dangerous, Darcie cautioned herself. Certainly the rash notion showed a lack of common sense on her part. She couldn’t help asking.
“You’re not a serial killer, are you?”
His tongue whisked along the valley of her breasts.
“Like I’d tell you.” At the droll statement she could feel him smile against her skin. He lifted his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. “Which floor are you on?”
“Uh, thirty-three.”
He took her mouth, sent the words inside. His tongue, too. His husky tone.
“I’m on thirty-one. Let’s go there. It’s closer.”
Her pulse soared like the rising elevator and Darcie stopped finding reasons to resist. Hell, take a chance—like Annie. By the time the doors opened onto the quiet hall, his hat had flopped over her left eye. By then, Darcie supposed the hotel security staff had had their fill of elevator foreplay, verbal and physical, on the video monitors. He took her hand, led her to the corner room on the corridor, and, while kissing her again, slipped his key card into the chrome slot beside the door that flashed red when no visitors were wanted. The light turned green—go, Darcie—and they tumbled inside.
Darcie had a quick impression of light wood, butter-cream walls, the frosted celadon-green glass door of the bathroom—like her own room. Before she breathed again, he had her up against the mirrored closet doors in the entryway. Still kissing, he caught her hips in his hands and bumped up against her, better than Gran had said.
Darcie wound her arms around his sturdy neck. With her head tipped back, the Akubra smashed against the glass, she hung on tight. Oh, God, he could kiss. God, he could…
In about five seconds, with his hand flicking open buttons like this down the front of her blouse, then his chambray shirt (he obviously didn’t need practice) Darcie wouldn’t even be breathing.
His hand dropped to his buckle. The belt snapped from the loops. It clanked onto the marble floor. Outside, through the plate glass window wall on the opposite side of the room, the stars—those unidentified constellations—sparkled in the black nighttime sky. Blocks away, down the long slope of King Street, which Darcie couldn’t see from here, at Darling Harbour people danced and drank. It didn’t matter. With his shirt open, her blouse undone, he pressed his chest to her breasts and Darcie whimpered at the low-down ache in her abdomen. They’d never reach the bed.
“Feel good?” He dragged down his zipper. She heard a foil packet tear before he sheathed himself. “I’ll make it better. I promise.”
“Don’t let me down.”
With her request, he whisked her panties off so fast Darcie never felt them fall. He cupped her bottom in both hands. That aching spot down low needed his attention so badly she couldn’t speak—comedy was the last thing on her mind now—and his hardness pushed at the ready opening of her body. He raised his head.
“You’re clean, right?”
She gasped. “I’m clean.”
“Me, too. So let me…show you…my billabong,” he whispered hotly.
Then he slid inside. Deep. Hard. Full. Heaven. Her breath rushed out.
“Ohhh.”
“Unhhh.”
The stars twinkled. The moon shone. The cold beige marble floor made her toes curl—or was that him? His arousal felt velvety hot. The mirror felt slick and cool against her bare bottom. If he opened his eyes, would he see her big behind squashed flatter than his hat to the glass? When his heat engulfed her, Darcie no longer cared about her exposed rear end, about hotel rooms with men who didn’t love her.
His tempo increased. He stroked her, in, out, in, out until they both seemed to lose their minds from the very motion, like the lilting strains of the song she only half remembered.
“You little swag…woman…” he gasped.
“You…big tucker…man…”
She didn’t know how long they lasted. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Not long enough. At some point while the moon still gleamed and the stars still shone and Darcie still wore the Akubra, the climax caught her, swift and shattering.
With one last hard thrust, on a groan he came, too.
When he stopped shuddering and she finally stopped shaking, her head fell back against the mirrored closet. She didn’t mind if he saw her rear now, plastered to the glass, reflected in all its formless, naked glory. When his head dropped to the juncture of her neck, his mouth hot and open on her damp skin, Darcie peeled herself away from the mirror. And the Akubra hat thumped onto the marble floor. She couldn’t tell which of them was breathing in the most ragged rhythm. Or a complete lack of one.
Her heart beat like fury. His thicker, stronger pulse thudded against her breast.
He whispered a low, erotic word, and Darcie cried out, ready to begin all over again what they had just finished…but, like him, not quite finished. When he kissed her, long and sweet and silky, she hoped this one night would never end.
“‘Waltzing Matilda,’” Darcie breathed into his mouth like a prayer.
“Want another beer?” Like a pagan god, hours later he stood naked at the minibar, a perfect sight in the open fridge door that shafted light over his loins, upward along his taut belly to his muscled chest and shoulders, to the renewed glitter in his dark eyes. Darcie wanted him, again, too.
Swathed in the white cotton duvet, she lay on the king-size bed amid big goose down pillows and grinned at him. Even though she didn’t like beer, she said yes.
“And after that…?” she added, hoping for more.
“We’ll rehydrate, then negotiate.”
Like Scarlett O’Hara the morning after Rhett, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
I’ll make it better. “I won’t give you a fight.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t.”
“I have to say, I like a man who keeps his promise.”
With
