as he curved his fingers under one heavy breast and lifted it, then opened her mouth wider to invite him deep inside.
His last coherent thought was that he was responding to her the same way he had the night before, losing himself to her with a velocity and intensity that surpassed every other reaction, every other emotion, he had. The moment he touched her, everything else in the world ceased to exist. There was only heat and hunger, demand and desire, all of it commanding satisfaction.
Della seemed to understand that, too—or maybe she was feeling the same thing herself—because she was suddenly working feverishly at the sash of his robe, jerking it free so that she could dip her hands inside and explore him. Her fingers fumbled a bit as he gently began to knead her breast, but she recovered quickly, pushing his robe backward, over his shoulders and arms, spreading the fabric wider still. The next thing Marcus knew, she was on her knees in front of him, one hand curving over his taut thigh, the other moving on his hard shaft.
He nearly exploded at the contact, closing his eyes and sucking in a desperate breath as she gently palmed him. For long moments, she pleasured him that way, making his heart pound and his blood race until the rhythm of his passion roared in his ears. And when he felt her mouth close over him …
Oh, Della … Oh, baby …
When his fingers convulsed in her hair, she must have sensed how close he was to coming apart, because she stood and she took his hand in hers, then led him to the bed. When she pushed his robe completely from his shoulders and nudged him down to the mattress, he went willingly, watching with great interest as she shrugged out of her robe, too. She joined him in bed, but when she tried to face him, he cupped his hands over her shoulders, gently turned her around and positioned her on her hands and knees. Then he moved his hands to her hips and knelt behind her. He splayed his palms open on her back, skimming them up and down as he slowly entered her, then leaned forward until his chest was flush with her back. He caught her breasts in his hands and held them for a moment, thumbing her stiff nipples and eliciting a wild little sound from deep inside her. Then he withdrew himself slowly and thrust forward again. Hard.
She cried out at the depth of his penetration, curling her fingers into the fabric of the sheet. Marcus filled her again, even harder this time, eliciting a response from her that was hot, erotic and demanding. So what could Marcus do but obey her? He had never been with a woman who was so uninhibited about sex. Della both commanded and surrendered in ways no other woman ever had. She rode astride him, wrapped her legs around his waist when she was beneath him, demanded he take her kneeling and sitting and standing. When they finally surrendered to the climaxes that shook them simultaneously, she was bent over the chair where they had started as Marcus pummeled her from behind again. They came together, cried out their satisfaction together, rode out the waves of their orgasms together. Then, together, they relaxed and reined themselves in, and collapsed into the chair.
For long moments, they sat entwined, Marcus on the chair and Della in his lap, neither willing—or perhaps able—to say a word. Della opened her hand over the center of Marcus’s chest, and he mimicked the gesture with her, noting how the rapid-fire beating of her heart kept time with his own. Gradually, it slowed along with his, too, until both of them were thumping along in happy, contented rhythm. At least, for now. Marcus suspected it wouldn’t be long before their desires overtook them again.
But there had been something different in this coupling that hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t sure what it was or how it mattered, but it was there all the same. Yes, the sex had been hot, intense and carnal. Yes, they had both been consumed by an almost uncontrollable passion. Yes, they had said and done things they might not have said and done with other partners.
But there had been something else there that Marcus hadn’t had with other partners, too. Not just a lack of inhibition, but a lack of fear. As if coming together with Della was simply a natural reaction to feelings he’d had for a very long time. He didn’t know any other way to describe it, even though they’d known each other only a matter of hours. Sex with Della felt … right somehow. As if everything up until now had merely been a warm-up. Della felt right somehow. As if every woman before her had been practice. It meant something, he was sure of it. If he could only figure out what …
Marcus knew the moment he awoke that Della was gone. Even though it was still dark in the hotel room. Even though her fragrance still lingered on the pillow beside his own. Even though the sheets were still warm where she had lain. Maybe it had been the snick of the hotel room door closing behind her that woke him, he thought with surprising clarity for having just woken. Maybe if he hurried, he could still catch her before she made it to the elevator. Or if she had already disappeared into it, maybe he could hurry faster and catch her in the lobby before she made it out of the building.
But even as the thoughts raced through his head, he knew, too, that none of them were true. Because, somehow, he knew what had woken him wasn’t a sound at all. What had woken him was the simple awareness, on some subconscious level, that Della was irretrievably gone and that he was irrevocably alone.
Alone, he marveled as he jackknifed up in the bed and palmed his eyes. It was a familiar condition, but it had never felt quite like this. It had never bothered Marcus to live alone or eat alone or work alone or do anything else alone. On the contrary, he’d always preferred his own company to that of others. Well, except for Charlotte, but that was because she had been a solitary creature herself. Marcus had never really felt as if he had that much in common with others, anyway. If he wanted companionship, it was easy to find it. There was always someone he could call or someplace he could go where, in a matter of minutes, he would be surrounded. Sometimes by friends, more often by acquaintances he pretended were friends, but the point was, he liked being alone.
He didn’t like it this morning. Della’s absence surrounded him like a rank, fetid carcass.
He rose and shrugged on his robe, knotting it around his waist as he moved to the window. In the sliver of moonlight that spilled through a slit in the curtains, he glimpsed a piece of paper lying on the table between the two chairs where he and Della had sat only hours ago.
Something hitched tight in his chest as he reached for it, because he thought it was a note from her. But it was the paper on which he’d written his numbers for her the day before. She’d left it behind. Because she’d wanted to make clear to him that she wouldn’t be contacting him in the future.
She’d said she’d found trouble in New York. He couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble a woman like her could be in. But if Della said she was in trouble, then she was in trouble. And if she’d said he couldn’t help her …
Well, there she could be wrong.
Marcus crumpled the paper in his palm and tossed it onto the table, then pulled back the drape. The sky was black and crystal clear beyond, dotted with stars that winked like gemstones under theater lights. Uncaring of the bitter cold, he unlatched the window and shoved it open as far as it would go—which was barely wide enough for him to stick his head through—then gazed down onto Michigan Avenue. He’d never seen the street deserted before, regardless of the hour, but it was now, even though the snowplows had been through. People had yet to brave their way out into the remnants of the blizzard and probably wouldn’t until after the sun rose.
For some reason, Marcus looked to his right and saw the red lights of a retreating car disappear around a corner some blocks up. Another light atop it indicated it was a taxi. Della’s taxi. He knew that as well as he knew his own name.
As well as he knew her name, too.
Never had he been more grateful for his lack of decorum than he was in that moment. Had he not rifled through her purse, he would have nothing of her now save her first name. Well, that and
