Bitter Spirits

SIXTEEN

THEY LEFT THE PALM COURT WITHOUT EATING DESSERT. WINTER’S body was flying, but his brain was stuttering along, half a step behind, still in disbelief. They stopped in the main hall that led to the lobby, allowing a bellboy to pass with two luggage carts.

“How do we do this?” Aida said, almost whispering. “We can’t go to my place. Mrs. Lin doesn’t allow men in the apartments.”

Winter pulled her off to the side. “We could go to mine, but it’s still early. Might have to sneak you past Greta and Astrid, otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it. Everyone’s still ribbing me about you calling on me in my study that afternoon.”

“Your car?”

He stared down at her. No way in hell was he taking her in the car. “Jonte would certainly get a thrill straining his gnarled old ears trying to hear us, but no.”

Aida glanced around. “Well, we are in a hotel.”

No need to tell him twice. “Stay here. Do not move. Do not talk to anyone. I’ll be right back.”

He rushed off to the registration desk, rushed back with a golden key to a suite and their coats. Part of him expected her to be gone when he got back, but she was still there, looking like an exotic goddess, freckled and golden and sparkling. Not a dream. Not a figment of his overactive imagination. Not a ghost. He touched her bare shoulder, just to make sure, and the heat from her soft skin nearly made him drop to his knees in prayer.

“Elevators are this way,” he said, gripping her hand as if she might blow away.

As they ascended to the top floor, he watched her laugh at the elevator operator’s jokes. On the surface, she was open and carefree, as she often was. But the way she clutched her handbag made him realize how anxious she was. He was anxious, too.

The room was on the top floor, at the end of the hall. No one occupied the neighboring suite. His hand shook as he unlocked the door.

“Oh, good,” she said, noticing. “It’s not just me.”

Once he got his hands on her, he’d calm down. He was too keyed up. He felt like a boy, overexcited and bouncing with energy. Practically ramming the door open, he hurried her inside, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign, and locked the door behind him.

She switched on a lamp and set her handbag and coat down. He watched her inspect their surroundings. The suite was big. Clean, but not properly prepared for guests: no fresh flowers, no turned-down linens. He was in too much of a hurry to wait for niceties.

Strolling to the window, she looked out over downtown. Hazy fog clung to the rooftop. “I’ll never get over the views here,” she said. “Everywhere you go, there’s something to see. I think some of these views must be stuck inside my head from childhood, because nothing out East compares. Everything seems so flat and claustrophobic out there.”

She turned to face him. He saw her throat working as she swallowed hard. Noticed the way she tightly held one arm beneath her breasts, gripping her opposite elbow, as if she was trying to shield herself. He hated that. She glanced at the bed. “Oh, Winter, I’m so nervous.”

Her voice was small. She was small. How had he not noticed how small and fragile she was? That blustery attitude of hers was deceptive. And now that it was gone, and she was unable to meet his eyes, he was reminded of Paulina, timid and guarded—worse, he was reminded of how he used to feel around her. Like a monster and a bully. Like the bad guy.

Her fingers touched her breastbone as if she were searching for something, and then glanced down in panic when she didn’t find it. She snatched her hand away and exhaled heavily.

A pang of worry went through him. This was not at all how he’d imagined this going, and he’d imagined it plenty of times, plenty of ways. It definitely wasn’t what he had in mind when he proposed this harebrained idea in the restaurant. Maybe she’d been right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be done. He should’ve been patient and let things happen naturally.

But God, how he wanted her.

It’s just that he wanted free-spirited Aida, not this tense, nervous rabbit version.

He approached her and held out a hand. “Let’s just sit here on the sofa.” It faced the window. Maybe the view would be soothing. He removed his tuxedo jacket and laid it on the back of the sofa, unstrapped his leather shoulder holster and gun, then sat down next to her. “Deep breath, cheetah. It’s just me.”

She exhaled and anxiously laughed at herself, smoothing her dress down her legs.

He made a quick decision.

“I changed my mind. We’re not going to have sex tonight.”

She looked up, eyes big and brown. “Why?”

Because you are scared of me. “Because we need to get used to each other.”

“Maybe that’s wise,” she said. “I mean, if you think so.”

Enough of this awkwardness. “Come here. I want to hold you.” He pulled her sideways onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her, then spoke to her in a hushed voice. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

So warm. He stroked a palm across her back and felt tense muscles relax against his thighs. “This is better.”

“Yes. Much better.” Her fingers fluttered over his bow tie. She fiddled with the knot, then glanced up at his face and smiled. All her lipstick was gone, wiped away on her napkin at dinner. Now he could see every freckle on her lips, including the one near the right corner of her mouth that he liked so well.

He spoke without thinking, his voice sounding rough to his own ears. “I swear on my life, you are the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She softened in his arms. He held her closer, running a hand down her bare arm, feeling chills race down his own arm in response. His mouth brushed her face. He kept himself in check, slowly relaxing, enjoying the weight of her body. Grateful for it.

“Please kiss me, Winter,” she said against his cheek. “Or I’ll be forced to attack you again.”

There she was. His Aida.

He complied, trying to go gentle, but her mouth was so hot and eager, and her hands were slipping over his shoulders. His cock stirred, pulsing to life against her leg. She twisted in his arms and pressed closer.

He forgot all about the tense start. “C’mere,” he murmured against her lips. “Like this.” He prodded one of her legs across his until she was straddling his lap. “Oh yes. That’s better.” He slouched lower and gathered her closer, until her gown hiked up. Soft breasts pressed against his chest as her mouth returned to his. His hands slid up the back of her thighs. He stuck his index fingers beneath the tops of her stockings, under her garters. Two fingers. Three. He wanted to rip them off. And he almost did when her hips shifted and her soft heat covered his cock.

“Oh,” she said in a high voice. He extracted his roaming fingers from her stockings and pulled her down more firmly, fitting himself along her sex, nothing but a few thin layers of fabric between them. “O-oh,” she said louder.

His thoughts exactly.

He gathered her closer, thrusting up against her heat. She rocked in reply, rubbing herself against him. Christ, he was hard as iron. He thrust harder against her, drunk with pleasure, craving more . . . wanting to be inside her. She flinched. “Oww.”

He pulled away.

“I’m sensitive, sorry.” She let out a little breathy laugh, then settled back down and rubbed against him again, softer, studying his face.

He pushed her bangs away from her forehead and kissed the exposed skin there. “Never apologize.” He was the one who couldn’t control himself. If he didn’t get her off his lap, he’d be inside her in another minute. “Hold on to me.” He secured her against him with an arm around the small of her back, then pushed off the sofa, taking her with him. Her weight felt good in his arms. He walked her across the suite and climbed onto the bed with her clinging to him. She made a noise when he set her down on the mattress.

Anxiety reappeared in her eyes.

“I’m just going to touch you a little,” he reassured her, kissing her softly. “Yes?”

She nodded and kissed him again. Her hands slid up his chest. “Can we take this off?” she said, tugging a button on his vest.

He blinked at her in surprise. “Yes.”

“It will make me feel more comfortable,” she said defensively, as if he was going to protest, then, in a softer voice, “I want to see you. Again,” she added with a coy smile.

God only knew why, but whatever she wanted, she could have. If she asked him to sign over the Pierce-Arrow to her, he’d do it in a heartbeat. He fumbled with the top button on his vest while she started on the bottom button; they met in the middle. She pushed the vest over his shoulders, then his suspenders.

“No need to rush,” he said, untying his bow tie under the wingtip collar points of his formal shirt, which tiny fingers were already busy unbuttoning. He yanked shirttails out of his pants with one hand while she struggled with his cuff link on the other.

“How?” she asked.

He showed her the mechanism, and together they unfastened them. She kissed him as he pocketed his cuff links and shrugged out of his shirt. He tossed it behind his back. Warm hands slithered up the front of his undershirt. Shivery pleasure blanketed his skin. She lifted the cotton and peered at him. He watched her gaze follow her stroking hand down the line of dark hair bisecting his stomach, down to the intrusive bulge of his cock straining the fly of his pants.

Her mouth opened with a garbled noise.

He could only imagine what she was thinking. Jesus—it looked lewd and mammoth, even to his eyes.

“Oh my.” Her eyes tilted up to his. One corner of her mouth curled.

Well.

“Ignore that,” he said. Then added, “For now.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can—I do, every day. Especially around you.” He halted her reaching hand. “But I can’t if you touch me.” Christ! Was he really stopping her? He had to, or he’d be finished before they even started, and both of them would be embarrassed. “Hold that thought, and just let me . . .” What? Possibilities crowded his mind, but he pushed them away for one specific starting place, first conjured during dinner, when it was all he could do not to take a bite out of her shoulders. Her dress was held up by golden cords tied into draping bows at the tops of her shoulders. He tugged one to loosen it. A second tug, and the entire right side of her bodice dropped to reveal one pert breast.

His mouth went dry.

Her freckles were lighter here, but they dusted every inch of her skin. They even covered her nipple, which was high and small and peach, jauntily standing at attention. He cupped the lush weight of her breast in one hand. A scant palmful—not too big, not too small. Just right. Encouraged by a moan, he stroked her nipple with his thumb and felt her shudder. It did him in. He hastily untied the cord on her other shoulder and bared her to the waist.

His brain emptied as he gazed at her, tracing the curve of her shoulder, the elegant ridge of clavicle. “Goddamn,” he murmured. “You’re beautiful.” He kissed her mouth and trailed his lips across her jaw, urging her back onto the mattress. “Beautiful,” he repeated, drawn to the rise and fall of her breasts. Stretching out next to her, he captured one dusky peak with his mouth, worrying it with his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

“Oh . . . yes,” she mumbled, as the warm pressure of her hand clasping the back of his neck held him in place. She liked it. He felt like a jockey jumping a hurdle, breathless and triumphant. His cock kicked inside his pants, as if to cheer him on.

He released her flesh with a soft pop and licked his way to her other breast, giving it the same treatment as he rolled the now-wet abandoned nipple between his thumb and finger. She bowed her back and moaned so loudly, goose bumps rose over his arms. He plucked harder, sucked harder, savoring the taste of her skin as he pressed himself against her soft thigh like a schoolboy, desperate for any sort of relief.

His mouth returned to hers as his hand wandered lower, over her soft belly, half covered with her fallen gown. He went lower, running the heel of his palm over the hilly apex between her legs. “I just want to touch you,” he assured her in a gravelly voice.

“I . . .” she began, mumbling something incoherent.

He slipped his hand down her stocking, to the inside of her knee, then back up her inner thigh. He stilled halfway to his goal.

Just above her garter, her thigh was shockingly slick. He took a ragged breath and went higher. Slippery, everywhere. “Christ alive,” he whispered in amazement. He hadn’t even touched her!

“Oh, God,” she said, as if she were ashamed. Her cheeks reddened beneath the freckles.

“Aida, you are . . . Jesus—you are a miracle.” He kissed her mouth to quell her unspoken protests and slid his hand to the silk between her legs. “Soaked,” he reported in amazement, as if she didn’t know. He plundered beneath the thin fabric. Greedy fingers glided along one slick fold bordered in damp curls, then the other. And without any trouble at all, his thumb found her taut bud between them, sweet and ripe and stiffening beneath his touch.

She cried out and bucked against his hand.

A mad sort of joy rose up inside him.

“Yes, you were right,” he murmured against her ear. “You are sensitive. What if I rub you like this?”

Her breath hitched, then a garbled string of words came out of her mouth in a rush as she grabbed his arm. She squirmed. Cursed. Her hips jerked this way and that as he rubbed and circled and flicked, experimenting . . . listening to her response in the pace of her breathing, the sounds she was making in the back of her throat, the intensity of her grip.

But he wanted more.

He withdrew his hand for a moment to give himself better access. Shifted his weight and hushed her complaining moan as he eased her silky tap pants down. They matched the color of her nipples, peachy and golden, trimmed in lace. He leaned up on one elbow and slipped them over her knees. They tangled around the heels of her shoes. She laughed, a little breathless, until he finally got the wretched things off.

But when he went to push her gown up her legs she sat up and slapped her hands over his. “No,” she said, panicked. “I don’t want you looking at my hips.”

“What?” He could barely get the word out. She might as well have said “I hate bacon,” because who in their right mind hates bacon? No one, that’s who. Why wouldn’t she want to let him see her hips?

“My scars,” she clarified.

“What?” he said again.

“My lancet scars. I don’t want you to see them. Please, Winter.”

Dear God. She’d scarred herself? He shouldn’t be surprised. God only knew how many times she’d cut herself. Several times a night for the last couple of years? Of course she had scars. But—

“Do you not see the gash around my bad eye?” he asked.

“That’s different. I’m not ready for anyone to see mine.”

Why this smarted, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to let it spoil things. He pulled his hands out from under hers and shifted them to her inner thighs. “I’ll keep my eyes closed,” he lied as he urged her legs apart.

With her hands holding her gown over her curving hips, propped up on her elbows, she watched him as he kissed the inside of one knee, then the other. The edge of one garter, then the other. The slippery inside of one slender freckled thigh, then the other.

“What are you doing?” she said with a look of astonishment in her eyes.

“I just want to taste you a little.” His gaze roamed over more of her beautifully freckled skin, a nest of golden red brown curls, and the glistening pink flesh below. Luxuriously, gloriously wet, and all for him.

He pushed her dress up above her sex while she stubbornly clutched the loose fabric of her gown over her hips. “You . . . I . . . no one’s ever . . .” she tried to say.

No one had? Not those two idiot lovers of hers? This thrilled him to no end. Spurred on, he stuck his nose into her curls and breathed in deeply, groaning with pleasure at her heady female scent. He gave her a long, lazy lick and she gasped. Then he set his lips to her and drew her delicate, swollen flesh into his mouth.

She flopped back against the bed and said, “God, yes,” to the ceiling.

He kissed. He suckled. He licked.

She moaned. She panted. She swore.

But nothing happened. He tried slow and fast, soft and hard, side-to-side flicks—he tried every trick he knew. She wasn’t nervous anymore. Seemed to be enjoying it. Was certainly moaning loud enough and twisting beneath his mouth. Still extraordinarily wet. Most women he’d tried this on had no trouble coming. Most women he’d bedded came—period. Except Paulina, but he refused to conjure her face at this moment.

He thought of Aida’s confession about her past lovers, implying she didn’t enjoy the encounters. It wasn’t a leap to assume she didn’t climax with them. But she certainly wasn’t frigid. Anything but. A wildcat on the outside and inside—he’d bet his life on it.

All women were different. He just needed to recalibrate his efforts.

Keeping his mouth where it was, he slid one finger inside her. Christ. So tight and slick and petal-soft. She inhaled sharply, then cried out, “Yes, God . . . please.”

Much better.

He stroked her on the inside until she widened her legs welcomingly. When he added a second finger, she began shivering and shaking so hard, he nearly lost his mind. Forgetting herself, she released her dress and grabbed his head, fingers diving into his hair. She tried to pull him closer, rubbing herself against his mouth, as if this would alleviate the tension building in her trembling thighs.

She was wild. Beyond shame. Beyond anxiety.

All his.

When her hips swayed off the mattress, he laid his arm across her lower belly to give her something to rock against. Then he crooked his fingers and rubbed the small, spongy patch of skin he found inside her as she tightened fiercely around his fingers. Aha!

“Oh, Winter. Oh, God. Oh, Winter.”

That’s right, he thought, drunk on power. One and the same.

Her arms fell to her sides, gripping the bedcovers. She was very close. He slowed his pace to tease her, draw it out.

For the briefest moment, big eyes looked down at him in bewilderment.

She turned one cheek to the mattress and broke apart, crying out in long, wavering sobs.