by Nancy Warren
“You don’t suppose right.”
She sighed. Still, all was not lost. If he could dig beneath her clothes to reach her breast, then . . .
Chapter 4
Rob felt Marisa’s fingers trailing downward, over his belly, following the length of his jacket to the thigh where it ended. Then her hand snuck underneath and began inching upward with obvious erotic intent.
He quivered with anticipation, even as he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. He didn’t want this, he realized. He didn’t want some furtive making out on the corner of a rooftop.
“I want our first time to be amazing,” he whispered in her ear, feeling the soft fall of her hair against his lips, smelling roses and almonds from whatever fancy shampoo she used.
He kissed her cheek. “I want to spread you out on my bed and touch and taste every inch of you. I don’t want to be trying to reach you through your jeans. It’s too much like high school.”
Her hand didn’t stop its journey, but she didn’t try to unzip him either, merely caressed him through his jeans which was a decent cross between heaven and hell. As his cock began to take over from his brain, rooftop groping looked better by the second. “So, what are we going to do then? “
“We could talk.”
“Talk.” Her voice was husky and sexy.
He tried to think. “You could tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
“That’s pretty intimate.”
“Not as intimate as what I plan to do to you when we’re alone in my bed.”
They settled with him sitting on the bench and her in his lap. By tacit agreement, there was no more delving beneath clothes, but they kept each other on simmer all the same. A rub here, a caress here, a kiss there. It was like uber-foreplay .
Rob promised himself that for every hour they spent up here torturing each other, they’d spend two in his bed bringing each other pleasure.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked him.
“What did you do for your last holiday,” he asked her.
“I went to Paris.”
Oh, that was so typical of little rich girls. “To buy shoes?”
There was a moment’s rigidity from the woman in his lap. Then he felt her shrug. “Sure. Shoes and other things. You?”
“I flew to Ecuador to help build a school.” God, could he sound any more nauseatingly smug? The big eco-philanthropist. Besides, his trip hadn’t been all unselfishness. “And I hiked an ancient Mayan trade route I’ve always wanted to hike. Plus snorkeled in the Galapagos.”
The flames flickered, but not so high anymore. He’d used up all the wood from the rotting table outside, and this one hadn’t been sitting out in the elements. It seemed remarkably strong to him. Still, if worse came to worst, he’d do his best to break it up. It was going to be a long night.
“I guess we are pretty different,” he said, rubbing his hands over her chest, teasing himself with the mounds he’d soon be seeing and tasting. So she flew to Paris for shoes. Everyone couldn’t be Mother Teresa.
“Maybe we’re not so very different,” she said slowly. “I really went to Paris to nurse my grandmother after she had a stroke. That’s why I quit my last job.”
“And when you came here three months ago?”
“She died,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. She had a wonderful life, and I’m so glad we had time together at the end.” She chuckled, but her voice was filled with emotion. “Grandmere loved shoes. We did go shoe shopping.”
“I’m a sanctimonious pig,” he said.
She tipped her head all the way back and kissed him upside down. “And that’s one of your finer attributes.”
They talked a little more about family, and the people at work, and he suspected she was trying as hard as he was to ignore hunger pangs. He glanced at his watch. After midnight. They’d been here almost six hours. A few emergency generators had kicked in, so there were lights in some of the buildings, including, ironically, the one they were on top of, but the generators obviously didn’t power the doors to the roof.
Well, the situation wasn’t one he’d wish himself in, but it could be a lot worse. “We’ll be fairly comfortable even if the fire dies in the night,” he said, vowing silently to keep her warm no matter what.
While she snuggled against him, he looked past the smoking can outside where the flakes fell thick and white and there was nothing but snow. “It’s so quiet here, just us and the elements. It’s beautiful. It’s like settling down for the night after a good climb in the mountains.” He kissed the top of her head. “Without the tired muscles. It’s really pretty special.”
They wouldn’t freeze to death out here, thanks to the shelter, but it would be uncomfortably cold once the fire died.
She chuckled. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Did what?”
“You tried to cheer me up. You were perky.”
Damn, so she’d seen right through his lame attempt at false optimism. “I’ve never been perky in my life.”
“Yes, you were.” She insisted. “You were perky.” She looked up, her eyes twinkling up at him, her teeth white as the falling snow as she grinned. “And I appreciate it.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around Marisa, and within minutes, he realized with a rush of tenderness that she’d fallen asleep in his arms.
He kissed the top of her head gently, so as not to wake her.
“Sleep well.”
Rob didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he was woken. “Rob, Marisa, are you all right?”.
Rob woke to a crick in his neck, a dead weight in his lap, and an even deader, heavy feeling in his legs that told him they’d, gone to sleep, as well. In that blinking moment of disorientation before where he was and why came rushing back, he heard his name called again.
“Rob! Marisa! You’re all right?”
“Mmm. Yeah. Fine,” Rob managed. He opened his eyes and then stuck a hand in front of his face. “Get the light out of my face.”
Marisa’s head rose from his chest, and he felt her relaxed body stiffen as she glanced up at the station manager, Lester Krajik, who was standing there with a maintenance guy shuffling from foot to foot holding an industrial flashlight.
She scrambled off Rob’s lap, looking flustered. “I’m so glad you made it,” she said.
“It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here,” Lester said. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again.
“Yes,” Marisa answered. “We’re fine. Rob built a fire, and we stayed in here. Apart from missing dinner, the night was fairly uneventful.”
Uneventful? Rob wanted to shake the woman. What was uneventful about’sharing his deepest feelings?
Then she sent him a look of intimacy and promise. “So far,” she murmured, so only he could hear.
“Well, let’s get .you off this roof. In all the panic after the lights went out, and everybody wanting to get home before the storm worsened, I guess . . . I can’t believe we forgot about you up here.”
“It’s all right. Really.’’ She was back to being miss perkiness and sunshine. So they might lose a couple of limbs to frostbite; she wouldn’t want Lester feeling bad.
“Well, the storm’s still raging, and we could lose the power again, so I’d feel happier if we all got off this roof.”
Rob struggled to his feet, trying to be manly and ignore the pain coursing through his legs as the feeling came back. He almost wished it wouldn’t.
As he stumbled out of the shelter, he felt like a space traveler returning to earth. For the last few hours there had been only him and Marisa in all the silent, dark world. Now the lights were back on. From the rooftop, even through the fat snowflakes waltzing around him, he could see the lights below, the billboards, the ads. Traffic lights were back. Traffic was back. Not much of course, and what was down there crawled along, but he was definitely back in the world.
&
nbsp; Already, he was beginning to miss the not-real world he’d lived in for the past few hours, legs going to sleep and all. He wondered if he’d forever ruined his work relationship with Marisa, now he’d babbled all that stuff he should have kept to himself.
“I’m going to stay and put some things together for the morning,” the station manager said when they got back down to their floor.
“Do you want us to help?” Marisa asked.
Us? After the station had nearly suffered a double fatality in their weather team, he for one didn’t feel much like giving up what was left of the night to pull together some perky bullshit that was bound to feature the words Winter Wonderland if Marisa had anything to do with it. He needed food, a shower, a toothbrush, and a real bed.
Fortunately, Les seemed to have the same idea. In fact, he was so nervous and agreeable, Rob. wondered if he was afraid they’d sue the station. He stifled a tired grin. Marisa was probably planning to work extra hours to make up for the lost broadcast time. “No. No. You two go on home . . . unless you think you should go to the hospital and get checked out?” he asked uncertainly.
“We’re fine,” Rob said, before Marisa got her mouth open. “Well, I insist you take a few days off. Tomorrow’s Christmas. I know you’re both scheduled to work, but I’m ordering you to stay home. No sense coming down with a cold at this time of year. Call me day after tomorrow and we’ll see.”
“But . . .” Marisa seemed about to argue.
Not Rob. He grabbed her arm and squeezed it in a message he hoped she correctly interpreted as shut the hell up before Lester recanted his generosity.
“I’ve got snow tires on the van, and chains if we need them. Can I drive you both home? “ Les asked so eagerly, Rob felt like mentioning the word lawyer just for the fun of it.
“I’ve got four wheel drive, thanks,” Rob said. “I’ll drive Marisa home.”
The building seemed oddly alive after hours of darkness. There was almost no one within. Few souls had ventured back when the power came on. It was Christmas Day, after all. Under lights that suddenly seemed bright, they walked past offices that had been left in a hurry, computers that hadn’t been shut down, desk lamps shining on papers in progress.
“Are you all right? “ she asked as they got into the elevator. “You seem like you’re limping.”
“I’m fine,” he said, “just stiff from the cold.”
“I know. I feel like I’ll never be completely warm again.”
Given half an hour alone at either of their places, he thought, he’d like to give warming her up his best shot. At this point, he wasn’t certain he’d get the chance, though. They’d fallen asleep with a certain intimacy promised, and woken with the awkwardness of strangers.
He swore silently as the elevator descended to the parking garage. If only he’d let her think he didn’t like her.
Romantic fool.
Well, he wasn’t going to shove himself at her any more tonight. He’d be cool. Let her send out some kind of subtle girl signals if she wanted to take this any farther.
His stomach growled audibly as the doors opened at the parking level. He’d been so busy suppressing his raging lust, he’d forgotten about his more obvious appetites.
“I’m starving,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“Do you want to get something to eat?” Suggesting dinner wasn’t throwing himself at her, exactly. There must be restaurants open again now that the power was back on. Even at this time of night. He knew a few places they could try.
She sent him a glance upward through her lashes that he’d seen on plenty of centerfolds, but never on her. Certainly never aimed his way. A dark cozy corner in a snug bar somewhere. That’s where he’d take her.
“Sure I want something to eat. Do you have food at your place? It’s a lot closer than mine.”
He swallowed hard. She knew where he lived. That suggested she’d been checking up on him in the same juvenile way he’d checked up on her. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said, giving him the come-here smile that went with the glance up through the lashes. “We’ll eat in bed.”
He would have answered-he would have said something smooth and sophisticated-except that his tongue had lodged itself somewhere underneath his tonsils.
Chapter 5
Marisa wasn’t normally the kind of woman to reduce a man to a speechless mass of quivering needs. Normally, her relationships progressed a little more slowly. But tonight was so far out of the realm of ordinary, she might never get back.
And she owed Rob some serious punishment for the way he’d treated her, as though being attracted to her was such a terrible thing. She decided reducing him to a speechless mass of quivering needs was a good start.
At least, temporarily.
It had been a no-brainer to choose his apartment, since he lived so much closer to work than she did, but she was also curious to see who he was when he wasn’t working, and how he lived.
Her initial fear that he lived like a slob and slept on the floor in an old patched sleeping bag he’d worn out in the Himalayas was quickly put to rest when they entered his apartment.
He shut the door behind them, and she had a glimpse of large black-and-white photographs on white walls, furniture that was mostly beat-up oak, but beat up in a good way, as though families had lived with it for half a century or so, a hardwood floor that needed refinishing, and a rug that made her mouth water.
Maybe she didn’t know much about the climbing peaks of Nepal, but she knew a great rug when she saw one.
Before she had a chance to really look around, he’d hung his jacket on a fifties-style coat rack, helped her out of her coat, then hung it on top of his own. Her coat ought to go on a hanger, especially now that it was wet, she thought vaguely, but with the heat churning inside her she couldn’t bring herself to worry too much about her wardrobe. She pulled off her gloves and stuck them in her coat pocket.
They stood awkwardly for a moment in the tiny vestibule. She didn’t like to go any farther without an invitation, and he seemed rooted to the deco tile.
She turned to him in a silent question, and he muttered, “I can’t help myself,” and pulled her to him.
He kissed her, and she felt that all those hours on the roof had been agonizing foreplay and that the real game was about to start. She pressed up close, loving the feel of the body that had carried this man up the highest mountains. It was tough, rangy, with long, lean muscles and light-footed agility. He’d be hell on a hiking trail, she figured.
More to the point, based on his kissing, she suspected he was going to be heaven in bed.
She shivered as the knowledge of what they were about to share skipped over her skin.
Rob pulled back slightly, and his eyes, which normally never even looked at her, now seemed to see right inside her to where all her secrets lurked. “You’re cold,” he said, misinterpreting her shiver-deliberately, she suspected. He put a hand to her brow like a doctor examining a patient. “I bet you’ve got hypothermia.”
“Wrong,” she said, pressing closer. “I’m something else that begins with the letter H.”
His eyes glinted with amusement, but he kept up his charade. “Look, I’ve got a lot of experience in wilderness survival. You’re probably feeling a little disoriented now, right?”
Well, sure. She was in the apartment of a man she believed had despised her not eight hours ago, about to make love with him. “Yes,” she realized. “I am a bit disoriented.”
He nodded gravely, running his hands slowly down her arms and catching her wrists, He placed his thumbs over her pulse points, then shook his head. “Pulse is racing,” he informed her.
And getting racier by the second as his thumbs caressed her.
“There’s no time to lose. We’ll have to try the emergency hypothermia survival technique.”
“And what does that involve?”
“We have to get naked so I can share my body heat with you.”
> “Okay. Probably I have a really bad case of hypothermia. In fact, I think it’s an emergency.” She knew, and was fairly certain he did too, that getting naked with a hypothermia victim was not, in fact, the correct procedure, but this was too much fun to ruin it with medical facts.
Her body was so warm right now she could melt the snow outside, but why spoil the fun? She shuddered artistically one more time, and was surprised and delighted when she felt herself scooped up and carried, Scarlett O’Hara style, to Rob’s bedroom.
He bent, with her still in his arms, to flip on a lamp, and once more she had the impression of decent furniture that had been well lived in, and a headboard with solid posts that gave her ideas.
He twitched back the bedspread and laid her down, then rose and stood looking down at her. She shivered again, and this time no playacting was required.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said in a low, husky voice.
“I can’t believe I’m here, either,” she said. He stood gazing at her, and she wondered if he was so used to staring at her through the camera lens while she did all the work that he couldn’t adjust to a new role.
“You said we had to get our clothes off,” she reminded him, reaching for the top button on her sweater.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“You said that already. Maybe you’ve got hypothermia.” She got to her knees. “Let’s see, do you feel disoriented?”
“Very.”
She put her hand to his forehead. “Fever?”
“I’m burning up.”
The light from the lamp was a warm circle of yellow against his bed. He’d kicked the door shut as they’d entered the room, so there was no other light. She felt a bit like she was at work, lit up and displayed by the spotlight while Rob was a dark and shadowy figure outside the circle.
He took her hand from his forehead, brought it to his lips, and kissed her palm, and the pure romance of the gesture flooded her with sharp-sweet desire.
She tightened her grip and pulled, bringing him into the circle of lamplight with her.
