Cruise Control

by Sarah Mayberry

  “It’s the sexiest damn dress in the whole world,” he said. “Now take it off.”

  AFTERWARD, she reveled in the warm weight of his body across hers. He choked on a snort of laughter, and she poked him with a finger.

  “What?” she asked, ready to share the joke.

  “I was planning on an early night and a cold shower,” he revealed.

  She laughed self-consciously. “Me, too.”

  They held eyes for a beat, sharing each other’s amusement.

  “You have amazing eyes,” he said, ducking his head to kiss the corner of her left eye.

  “Thanks,” she said, trying to hide her surprise. She didn’t expect—or need—those kinds of compliments from him.

  He rolled off her, smoothing a hand down her body as he did so. She shivered, and realized that she wanted him again already. The glint in his eye said he felt the same—round two was just around the corner.

  Suddenly a knock sounded at the door. They stared at each other.

  “Did you order room service?” she asked after a moment.

  Marc winced. “Yeah. I forgot, sorry. Just some champagne and a club sandwich,” he explained ruefully.

  Another knock sounded. “Room service,” a muffled voice announced this time.

  Anna wriggled under the sheet and pulled it all the way up so that just her eyes were peeping over the top. “He who orders opens….” she said mischievously.

  He swore under his breath and tweaked her nipple through the sheet before pushing himself up off the bed.

  Snatching a towel from the bathroom, he started wrapping it around his waist as he reached for the door handle. Anna stifled a giggle as she realized he’d grabbed the bath mat. The towel only just met around his waist, leaving a huge patch of ass and thigh exposed. He stared down at himself, annoyed—but it was too late, he’d already opened the door. Anna’s eyebrows shot up and she bit her lip to stop from laughing out loud as the room service waiter walked in.

  “Evening, ma’am, sir,” the man said, eyes carefully straight forward. Standing to one side, Marc held her eye, his expression daring her to say anything about how ridiculous he looked.

  In a matter of seconds, the tray had been placed on the dresser, and the waiter was reversing from the room, still resolutely poker-faced.

  “Thanks,” Marc said drily.

  Once the door was closed, Anna let out a huge guffaw of laughter and threw her head back against the pillows.

  “You find that amusing, do you?” Marc asked, a smile curving his own mouth.

  “Oh, yes. Very,” she said.

  “Hmm. Well, since I did all the hard work to earn this club sandwich, I think I might just keep it to myself,” he said, propping himself against the dresser and lifting the cover on the plate. “Mmm, it smells delicious, too.”

  Anna sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. “Are there fries?” she asked hopefully.

  “Oh, yes. Lots,” he said, popping one into his mouth, his eyes dropping to her breasts.

  Knowing he wanted her to plead with him, Anna didn’t say anything, just gave him her best sad-puppy-dog look.

  “Very effective. Bet that won you a few court cases,” he said as he popped some more fries into his mouth, deliberately torturing her.

  “As a matter of fact, I have it on good authority that I had a reputation for being formidable in the courtroom,” she said archly.

  “Formidable.” He cocked his head to one side as though he was considering the issue. “Nope, can’t see it.”

  “If I come all the way over there, do I get half the sandwich?” she asked, ignoring his gibe.

  “Why don’t you try it and see?” he suggested. Anna smiled slowly, then rolled leisurely onto all fours. Doing her best cat impression, she stalked her way across the bed, breasts jiggling, butt wiggling high in the air. She quirked an eyebrow as the bath mat around his waist transformed into a big top in the time it took her to reach the end of the bed.

  “Touché,” he said.

  Sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, she helped herself to half the sandwich.

  “I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” Marc said as he demolished his half in just a few bites.

  “Didn’t you eat at your business dinner?” she asked, surprised.

  He pulled a face. “Too nervous,” he said ruefully.

  She stared at him. “I can’t imagine you being nervous about anything,” she said. He always seemed so confident, so in charge.

  “Okay, nervous wasn’t the best word for it. I just meant it was a tense meeting. Lots of back and forth and bullshit.” He shrugged. “Getting that new data platform could make a big difference for the business.”

  But she knew he’d meant what he’d said the first time—he had been nervous.

  “Work means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she asked quietly.

  His dark gaze was stern as he glanced up at her. “Hundreds of people and their families rely on me to pay their mortgages and put food in their mouths. Yeah, I take it pretty seriously,” he said.

  The way he said it, it was almost as though he was talking about his own family, and his employees were his children. She remembered what he’d said about his mother having to work a lot. And how he hadn’t mentioned his father at all.

  There was a grim set to his mouth, and she wondered what he was thinking. She wanted to ask, to soothe the creases from his forehead, to rub his shoulders and sympathize with him about his tough day.

  She shook herself. It wasn’t her place to bring him his pipe and slippers and tell him the pot roast was almost done. They were here for sex, nothing more. If she was in any danger of forgetting that, the fact that they were having this conversation naked, sitting on a large bed, was a pretty potent reminder. There wasn’t room—or the inclination—for anything more. Not for either of them.

  MARC FELT SELF-CONSCIOUS all of a sudden. He hadn’t meant to say all those things about the meeting and the business and the responsibility he felt toward his employees. Anna was studying him, her eyes thoughtful, and he was a little shocked to realize that he was almost waiting for her to ask him something more, to probe his feelings, tease him out a little. He wanted to talk to her, wanted to share his day with her.

  Quickly his guarded, rational self kicked in. Of course he wanted to download to someone. It had been a tense meeting, a real pressure cooker. And Anna was a smart lady, he knew she’d understand. That was all it was—he was just keen to let off steam.

  Deliberately shifting the mood, he popped the champagne cork. She eyed him for a moment, almost as though she was going to say something, to name what it was they were both doing. Then she smiled faintly and passed her glass across for him to refill. As she sat back on the bed, she took a mouthful of champagne and eyed him appreciatively.

  “French. Only the best for Mr. Lewis,” she said, keeping it light.

  “Of course,” he said, taking a sip of his own champagne then leaning across her body to place the glass on the bedside table. Taking advantage of the fact that his body was angled across hers, she spanked his bare butt, hard.

  He almost spat out the champagne. “That’s going to cost you,” he said darkly.

  “Hope so,” she said, rolling out from under him and darting into the bathroom. He stood to follow her, but his eye was caught by a business card resting beside her evening bag on the beside table. Kirk Bowman, account manager. Who the hell was Kirk Bowman?

  Card in hand, testosterone charged, he stalked her to the bathroom.

  She was bent over the two-person tub, her butt high in the air as she adjusted the taps. He could see the pink folds between her legs, and his penis stiffened further.

  “Who’s Kirk Bowman?” he said, holding the card up as though it was evidence.

  She glanced over her shoulder, a frown wrinkling her brow. It cleared when she saw he was holding the business card.

  “He was down in the bar,” she said, squeezing bath gel into the water. “He wa
nted to take me out for dinner.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” she asked, swishing the gel around in the water to disperse it.

  “And are you going?” he asked.

  She looked over her shoulder at him again, perplexed.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but no,” she said a little coolly.

  Marc felt a twist of jealousy and anger. The idea of Anna being with another man while she was with him was anathema to him. Everything in him rejected it.

  “Maybe we should clear something up. This thing between us might be only temporary, but while it lasts, it’s exclusive. You got that?” he heard himself say.

  She straightened, one hand finding a hip. Said hip jutted to one side in the age-old posture of a woman about to give as good as she got.

  Suddenly he caught his reflection in the mirror behind her. His face was twisted into a dark scowl, and he was standing there naked, with a boner, and another man’s business card in his hand.

  He looked like a dick.

  Before she could open her mouth, he held up both hands. “Forget I said anything. I don’t know what got into me,” he said gruffly.

  Her expression softened, and she crossed the room to his side. Her breasts swayed with the movement, and he eyed their pink tips avidly. Smiling slightly, she plucked the business card from his hand and walked to the toilet. Tearing the card into small pieces, she dropped them in and closed the lid, then hit the flush button.

  Then she turned to face him. “For the record—I’m a one-man-at-a-time kind of a woman, okay?”

  He nodded, and she walked to him and grabbed his erection. “Now, you planning on doing anything with this?” she asked saucily.

  He shook his head at her audacity. “That’s a spanking, and a damned good lesson in manners I owe you,” he said.

  “Yeah?” She sauntered away from him, stepping daintily into the bath and lying down beneath the sudsy bubbles. Picking up a bar of soap, she began rubbing it over her breasts suggestively.

  “Now you’re really asking for it,” he said, moving toward the tub.

  And for the next two hours, he proceeded to show her exactly what he meant.

  HE WOKE to the alarm. He reached across to flick it off and realized he was alone. Again. He frowned. Was it just him, or did Anna have an aversion to sleepovers? He hadn’t seen a sunrise with her yet. He wondered if it meant anything. Then he wondered why he was even thinking about it at all. What did it matter? They were having sex for as long as both of them wanted it to last. A very adult meeting of minds and bodies. No fuss, no muss. Whether she stayed the night or not shouldn’t mean diddly.

  Rolling out of bed, he walked through to the bathroom and winced at the huge pile of wet towels mounded in the bathtub. Probably they should have taken their horseplay back into the bedroom last night. But then, that was why people paid big money to stay in five-star hotels—someone else got to clean up after their excesses.

  Twisting the shower on, he stepped under the jets and reached for the soap. Fifteen minutes later, he was dressed in his rumpled suit and on his way down to reception to pick up the bill. Another surprise awaited him there, too—Anna had paid for the room. She’d even picked up his valet parking tab.

  He didn’t consider himself a chauvinist or a traditional man in any sense. But he was the millionaire in this equation, and Anna was the self-employed ex-lawyer limo driver. Granted, her limo was a Merc, and she had a very nice flat in Rose Bay…but still.

  Irritatingly, there was nothing he could do about it. He handed over his key receipt to the valet, and waited for the Jag to be brought up. The valet clearly thought all his Christmases had come at once when Marc tipped him a fifty as he handed the car keys over. At least that was one thing Anna couldn’t beat him to.

  It was just shy of seven, and traffic was still light. It occurred to him as he drove that he didn’t remember setting the alarm last night before he fell asleep. Anna must have done it for him. Nice. Of course, it would have been even nicer if she’d been there when he woke up. They could have enjoyed a bit of morning glory, started the day off right.

  Turning into his street, Marc shunted the thought aside. It was none of his business if Anna didn’t want to stay the night with him. He’d got what he wanted out of the deal, hadn’t he?

  He punched the coffee machine on as he breezed through the kitchen on his way upstairs, sparing a passing glance for the boxes still stacked in the spare bedroom. He really needed to get around to sorting the house out. When he’d moved in four months ago, he’d furnished the essentials and left the rest for later. There were two living areas still empty, as well as the pool house, the five guest bedrooms and the dining room. Idly he toyed with the idea of asking Anna to come shopping with him. He liked what she’d done with her place; she obviously had a good eye.

  He was picking a shirt out of his closet as he pondered the idea, and his eyes narrowed as he registered what he was doing. He cursed, and threw the shirt onto the bed, adding a navy pinstripe suit to it, and a red-toned tie. He wasn’t going furniture shopping with Anna Jackson. What was he, crazy all of a sudden? The rules of their involvement were pretty damned clear—no commitment, no strings, no future.

  It was amazing what a few doses of sensational sex could do to a man. Shaking his head, he walked through to the study to check his schedule for the day. He stared at the glowing readout on his laptop with hard eyes as he read the diary entry over again: 3:00 p.m., meeting with Tara and lawyer to discuss settlement.

  He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it. The meeting had been scheduled over two months ago to allow for a mutually agreed cooling-off period. At the time, he had felt certain that nothing would alter the rancor he felt at Tara’s betrayal and the date had loomed large on the horizon. Now he’d practically forgotten the bloody thing entirely.

  His jaw muscles tensed as he considered why he’d been oblivious to the impending appointment. Anna. He’d been so busy obsessing about Anna that he’d lost track of everything else. Being brutally honest with himself, he admitted that he’d blown off work every night this week to get home in time to sleep with her again. He’d even deliberately curtailed last night’s dinner—all the while pretending to himself that it was so he could get a good night’s sleep.

  So much for no strings.

  Walking back into the bedroom, Marc began to pull on his suit. This was the wake-up call he needed, he realized. He’d almost forgotten what he’d lost the last time he trusted a woman. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  9

  THE LIGHT WAS FADING from the sky as Anna stepped out of her car. The push button on Marc’s intercom glowed golden in the dusky night, and she smiled to herself, remembering that first time when she came to see him. She’d been so nervous, so uncertain. A world away from how she felt now. She pressed the intercom button, waiting for the familiar sound of Marc’s footsteps as he came to let her in.

  The thin string handle on the carrier bag she was carrying dug uncomfortably into her hand, and she bent her knees to rest it on the ground while she waited. She mentally reviewed the bag’s contents: delicious gourmet extra-virgin olive oil; a selection of marinated olives; a decadently oozing round of brie; a warm, spicy bottle of her favorite Australian red; and a selection of other luxurious goodies, including Swiss chocolate and Brazilian coffee.

  For a second an arrow of doubt raced through her belly. Had she overdone it? After all, she and Marc didn’t exactly have a give-each-other-gifts kind of relationship. But, she argued against her more cautious self, this was food. Food they would eat together. Granted, she’d selected things that she knew he loved—his favorite Greek olives, coffee he’d raved about, cheese he admitted as being his one true vice. But it wasn’t really a gift. Was it?

  She stared doubtfully down into the bag. Maybe she should leave it in the trunk? A car drove past, its headlights illuminating her briefly, and she suddenly registered that she’d been waiting too long. W
here was Marc? Had he forgotten that he’d told her to come to his place once she’d finished work? They’d discussed it in the hazy time after making long, slow love in the hotel last night. She remembered it very clearly—but perhaps he didn’t?

  She tried one last time, and again the silence stretched, unbroken, for too long. She’d given up and was turning away when the intercom at last buzzed to life.

  “I’m on the terrace,” Marc’s disembodied voice said. “Round the side of the house.”

  The door clicked open, and Anna blinked. He’d always come and let her in before, not leaving it up to technology to greet her. Grabbing her bag of goodies, she pushed the gate all the way open and stepped through, ensuring it closed properly behind her. Garden lights flanked a path that led around the side of the house. She followed it, inhaling the lush, heavy scent of tropical flowers. It was hard to see properly in the dying light, but she sensed that the garden was very beautiful. He must have a gardener. For the life of her she couldn’t imagine him holding secateurs or a trowel.

  She was still smiling faintly at this image as she rounded the house and walked onto the terraced patio at the rear of his property. She’d only ever been in a small part of his home—the bedroom, mostly—but now she gasped as she took in the full impact of his spectacular view. Three graded terraces swept down from the house to the edge of the harbor—the first completely flagged with sandstone like the path, the second covered with a thick, vibrant green turf and a series of ornamental trees, and the final and lowest level boasting a pool. The sun was sinking on the horizon, setting off his insanely amazing view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ferries and smaller boats cut their way across the harbor, leaving white-spumed trails in their wakes, and the overall effect was of overwhelming wealth and privilege. For the first time in her fling with Marc she was acutely conscious of the disparity between their lives. She was comfortable, content with her apartment and beautiful car and low-key career. But he was in another stratosphere. She knew he owned three cars—the Jag, a four-wheel drive of some sort and a vintage Ferrari that he only drove occasionally. And she knew that he had a building with his name on it in north Sydney. But this view…this view was the ultimate status symbol.