redeeming him as a too-pretty boy in her mind, strong hands that could make Darcie moan. Soon, she hoped. Important point in his favor. He had deep-blue eyes to her own bland hazel gaze, a sexy mouth that made Darcie feel positively thin-lipped without those silicone shots. But of course he dressed like a GQ model—Ick—and had a too-cool name, when hers was just a name, and he came from old Connecticut money while she sprang from middle-class Ohio. He made Darcie, a product of public schools, feel she didn’t have the inside track somehow. His education— Choate and Yale—reeked of class and privilege and had, naturally, led straight to his job on Wall Street where, without a Greta Hinckley in his path, he made tons of money…as he kept telling Darcie.
So he was a jerk.
Holding her smile, she started across the room. And felt a swift kick of anticipation when Merrick didn’t smile back. He didn’t seem distracted now. His eyes had taken on that darker, intent male look that meant business, and heat streaked along Darcie’s spine. Sexual business.
He said, “You’re sure taking your time.”
“I’m meditating. On your sheer physical perfection.”
“Jesus, Darce, will you just get over here before I lose my hard-on?”
Despite her own practical mood, a flutter of disappointment slowed her steps.
“That’s romantic,” she murmured.
He frowned. “I don’t have time for romance. It’s not like we only met, or something. I have to get up at 5:00 a.m.”
Slightly peeved again, Darcie reached out to help him unfasten his French cuffs. Those gold-and-onyx links must have cost a fortune. Well, he had one to spare. Another thing they didn’t have in common. Sex would have to do. She peeled off his shirt, dropped it to the carpet, then moved in close to run her fingers over his warm, naked chest, down to his belt buckle. She purred in his ear.
“I thought you were already up.” Big Boy.
“Ha-ha. You know, comedy in the bedroom isn’t the biggest turn-on.”
Darcie made a pouty face. “Gee, now I’m losing my hard-on.”
Merrick didn’t respond. Apparently tired of talk, he hauled her tight against his chest and kissed her. Darcie felt his teeth push hard at her lips, then his tongue entered her mouth and she went limp in his arms. She was such an easy mark tonight, it was pathetic.
Her knees weakened. Her thighs loosened. Desire oozed from every pore.
When Merrick started breathing fast, so did Darcie. His hands were all over her now, pulling up her sweater, then with one deft flick of a finger, opening her bra. Darcie’s breasts spilled free. Or so she liked to think. They weren’t really big enough to spill or jiggle with any degree of success.
With a growl he palmed her breasts, and another streak of fire flashed through Darcie so fast she thought she’d eaten too big a wad of the wasabi—Japanese horseradish—that Merrick always encouraged her to try. It sure opened the sinuses. His touch, his mouth on her, did the same now to every orifice of her frustrated body.
Darcie fumbled at his belt. If only she didn’t have these reservations, and she didn’t mean about the hotel room they were in. She pushed away her misgivings but couldn’t manage to deal with Merrick’s fly.
“Move a little. I can’t unzip your pants.”
He eased back. “Do it quick.”
The zipper jammed. “Merrick…”
“Quicker.”
He pushed off her skirt, tossing it aside. Next her panties flew across the room, landing on a chair like one of her grandmother’s tea cozies. Except that Gran was more the sort for peach schnapps or Jell-O shooters. Darcie slipped off her shoes, he did too, and then they were naked. Phew. The air-conditioned room felt suddenly too cool, and her nipples hardened into knots—not love knots exactly, but oh well.
Legs entangled, they stumbled toward the king-size bed. Darcie hit the pillow-top mattress and Merrick rolled beside her. He took her in his hard, health-club muscled arms and kissed her with a hint of tongue. Not bad. Maybe she’d overlook his earlier rejection.
“You hot yet, babe?”
Darcie gasped. “I’d say so. Yes.”
“Then let’s do it. That’s why we’re here.”
His words lacked something, the stuff of her mother’s dreams—Janet would agree if Darcie ever talked about her “love” life, which she didn’t—but it was the twenty-first century and knights in armor on white horses were long gone. Men were…men. In the postsexual revolution, in the middle of a societal upheaval littered with women like Greta who had no partners, Darcie took her pleasure where she could find it.
“Ready?” he said.
“Move right in.”
Merrick braced himself above her. Silently, she opened her legs, and without another word he slid inside her, deep and full.
“Man,” he murmured in obvious appreciation.
“Woman,” she managed because she wouldn’t let him be a Neanderthal alone.
He started moving and she stopped caring about Janet’s plans for her, her own dubious future at Wunderthings or some elusive happiness she couldn’t quite grasp. Eagerly, she joined his rhythm. When orgasm caught them, it hit hard and fast—first Merrick, then Darcie. Nothing new there, either, in a whole day of nothing new. Merrick Lowell wasn’t her dream, but even as an optimist she’d never had that kind of luck—or for that matter, a mutual climax. He would do. They would. For now.
Until the “right man” came along.
Like that would happen any time soon.
“He’s lying, Darcie. Don’t believe a word he tells you.”
In Claire Spencer’s opinion, for which she was highly paid in her job, Merrick Lowell was a bigger problem for Darcie than Greta Hinckley. Worried about her friend, on Tuesday night Claire watched Darcie pace the living room of her grandmother’s apartment, which Darcie shared. Roommates? The odd couple, she thought. The duplex apartment, perched high on the Jersey Palisades in the same building where Claire lived with her husband two floors down, overlooked the Hudson River but, too tired to care about the view, she couldn’t enjoy it. Even here, she imagined she could hear tiny Samantha’s wail from her apartment’s new nursery.
“Why would Merrick lie?” Darcie wondered, bringing Claire back to reality.
“You can’t be that naive.”
“Oh, yes I can. I’m from Ohio.”
Her grandmother was watching television in another room, Claire knew, with her demonic cat, and Claire gave thanks for privacy. That, and Eden Baxter’s famous macadamia chocolate chip cookies. Claire snatched another one from the Wedgwood plate on the coffee table. Maybe Darcie should eat more of them, add twenty pounds to her frame, turn her legs into protective pin cushions, and forget men, especially Merrick Lowell. How could she stand him?
“We
