Manhattan Heat

by Alice Orr

  The suite was actually leased to her father’s firm. Business guests and occasionally family visitors were housed here when they came to the city. Bennett had assisted in hostessing small receptions in the elegant receiving room. She had even stayed overnight here herself on the occasion of one debutante ball, charity affair or another. She also knew for a fact that Forth had held more than one impromptu party here for his carousing friends. However, as she had already noted, this was the first time she had brought a lover to the Plaza Hotel. The thought made her heart race even faster than the express elevator they were in.

  MEMPHIS HAD NEVER FELT SO much like a fish out of water in his life. He’d wanted to turn tail and take off the minute he first set foot on that red carpet outside. If he hadn’t been with Bennett he probably would have. On the other hand, she was beautiful and the kind of wonder of a woman he had always wanted to meet but never seemed to. She was taking him into a hotel with her, maybe even to the same room together. He wasn’t going to let feeling a little outclassed interfere with that. He wasn’t so sure any of this was really happening anyway. He could fully imagine being jolted awake out of this fantasy at any moment.

  All the same, they’d made it past the bruiser guards with the crests on their jacket pockets. They’d even made it past the woman at the registration desk who’d glared holes straight through his leather jacket, just about the same way the limo driver had done. Now they were up on one of the high floors of this palace of a place, headed for the St. Simon family suite, no less. He couldn’t help chuckling at the thought of Memphis Modine, the motherless child with a foundling basket blanket for a pedigree, on the arm of a woman whose family kept digs in the Plaza Hotel.

  “You seem to be having fun,” Bennett said. She must have heard him chuckling.

  “Why not?” he said, managing to sound cool.

  If truth were known, he could hardly have felt less cool, and not just because of where he was. He had a strong case of the jitters just about to break surface, and she was the reason. He couldn’t think of anything in creation he’d rather do than take her in his arms and carry on where they left off back on that stoop on Ninth Avenue. Even the memory of that kiss made his lips burn to touch hers again. He thought she might have been giving him some signals that she wanted the same thing.

  It was hard to tell about women and signals. Maybe he’d read her wrong. He’d sure enough done that before in his life. Usually he wouldn’t have cared much about that. He’d go ahead and take his shot and see what happened. Tonight was different because she was different. He cared about not doing anything she wouldn’t want. He cared a lot about that, maybe more than he’d ever thought he could.

  The opening of the door into the suite pushed all of that out of his head for the moment. He was glad Bennett had insisted they could make it up here on their own. The woman in the lobby had been set on sending a bellman along, even though there were no bags to carry. Then Bennett put that firm tone in her voice that he imagined got her just about anything she wanted most of the time. Lucky for him, it had worked tonight like a charm. He wouldn’t have wanted to have some bellhop here to see him right now, almost too intimidated to step across the threshold into what had to be the most elegant room Memphis had ever seen outside the pages of a magazine.

  He’d never seen so much gold in one place in his life. There was some of it woven into the rug, more into the drapes and across the windows, tall windows like the ones at the Stuyvesant Club. He didn’t like being reminded of that place or what happened to the draperies there, so he turned away to take in the rest of the room.

  There were chairs like those he’d seen in museums. The seats were striped and satiny and, sure enough, some of the those stripes were gold. Fresh flowers stood in vases on the tables, as if someone had known ahead of time that these rooms would be used tonight. Maybe the management kept it this way all the time, just in case one of the St. Simons decided to drop in.

  Memphis not only chuckled this time, he shook his head, too. He’d have to think about whether all of this was too much or not. He’d known too many folks having hard times in his life not to think there was such a thing as some people having too much when others had so little. Sometimes, he thought that about the yacht owners he worked for, but he’d never had it shout in his ear quite as loudly as it was shouting right now.

  “What do you think?” Bennett asked as she closed the double doors behind them.

  “They tell me the rich are different,” he said. “I guess it’s true.”

  “Maybe not as true as you think.”

  Memphis heard her voice go deeper than usual at the same moment he heard her turn the key in the lock. He felt his heart trip into his throat, telling him not to move or the fantasy might end. He wanted it not to so much he was holding his breath like a kid making a wish. He turned around anyway, slowly enough not to break the spell. She was standing very still, looking up at him. There was waiting in her eyes—and expectation. He’d seen that look before, but it had never made his heart leap in his chest before, as if he were being pulled toward her and it wouldn’t do any good to resist.

  Resisting wasn’t what he had in mind. He lifted his hands, and his arms seemed to float upward. He touched her shoulders with the lightest touch, as if she might disappear in a puff like a cloud of mist if he grabbed too hard. She stepped toward him as if to let him know it was okay to keep going. That would be the last signal Memphis needed. He could take charge from here on.

  He drew her to him, close and up onto her toes. She was tall and narrow, but soft, too. She even smelled soft. He was thinking about how much he loved the smell of her when his lips touched hers. After that, he wasn’t thinking much at all. He was only feeling. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed her deeply, as though he would have liked to swallow her whole. He did want that if it was a way to get her under his skin, make her part of him and keep her there. He didn’t let himself think about what would happen when it came time for her to leave him.

  His tongue was in her mouth. He could hardly believe how warm and good it felt there. He wanted to stay there forever. She pushed her tongue past his and into his mouth, too, the small point touching every part of him there was to touch. The feel of that shot straight as an arrow to his groin. He groaned and held her tighter.

  She was still on her toes and pressed so close again him that one of her legs was between his. She started to move, back and forth and closer still. She slid her hand down his back to his waist, then below, over his buttocks. Her hands on him made him want to cry out with hunger for her to touch him everywhere, against his skin, not through his clothes.

  Bennett eased herself lower so she could reach to move her hand under his thigh. She pulled that thigh upward between her legs till it was pressed against the cleft of her. He vaguely remembered how thin the material of her leggings had been and wished his jeans were made of the same flimsy stuff. Even so, he was sure he could feel the heat of her through the denim, especially when she began to slide back and forth along the hardness of his thigh. She moaned, over and over as she rubbed her body against him.

  Their mouths devoured each other still. They couldn’t get enough of each other. He could tell that was as true for her as it was for him. He slipped both hands down her back, into the curve of her waist, out over the swell of her hips until he was gripping the roundness of her buttocks in both hands. He shoved her against him, even closer than she was already, and maybe harder than he had meant to. She cried out amidst her moans, but he knew it wasn’t from pain, because she didn’t want him to stop. He knew that by the way she pulled his thigh tighter to her and tortured her body against it.

  He probably couldn’t have stopped anyway. The way she was moving tortured him, too, the most delicious suffering he had ever known. All he could think of was wanting more and more, harder and harder. He was so aroused now he thought he might burst through his jeans. He let go of one wonderfully round cheek of hers to reach between their m
oving bodies for his fly button and zipper so he could free himself before the pressure became too much to bear.

  She pulled her mouth back from his then and said, “Wait.”

  Memphis only partly heard that she had spoken and didn’t take in her meaning for a moment. All he knew was that she had suddenly stopped moving against him. She was even drawing her body away from his. He didn’t quite understand what was happening, and he wasn’t sure he cared. He was about to sweep her into his arms and lay her down on the floor when she raised her hands against his chest and pushed gently. That wouldn’t have been enough to stop him if she hadn’t spoken.

  “Let’s slow down,” she said in a voice so gravelly it barely sounded like it could be her. “I want this to last a very long time.”

  He eased slowly away from her then. He would have thought his mind had turned completely off by now. Still, he couldn’t help thinking that even though she might want him now, to her he was just a one-time thing. The pain of that possibility was almost as sharp as the urgency throbbing in his jeans. He told his mind to shut up. If all they had was one time, then that was the way it had to be. They would make it the one time neither of them could ever forget as long as they lived.

  She slipped her hand into his and twined their fingers together. “Come with me,” she said.

  He followed her across the gold carpet with red and green square designs woven into it. She opened a door out of the living room part of the suite and into the bedroom. There was a marble fireplace with a mirror above it, more window drapes, but not anywhere near as much gold. A crystal chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, but the most amazing thing about the room was the four-poster between the two windows, complete with white brocade canopy above the extra king-sized width of the biggest bed he’d ever seen. He was headed toward it, already imagining what they could do with all that room, when she steered him away.

  “In here,” she said, and pulled him toward a door near the fireplace.

  Memphis didn’t mind her taking charge. He didn’t always care for that in women, but with her he felt different about it. With her, he felt different about lots of things. There was a whole part of life she opened up for him, the same way she was opening the door near the fireplace.

  If the rest of the suite was elegant, then the bathroom could only be described as out of this world. Out of any world he had ever lived in, anyway. He was reminded of a movie he must have seen as a kid, about ancient Rome or Greece. The tub was what he clapped his eyes on first and couldn’t seem to look away from. It was white marble and very big, set back into an alcove between sets of double pillars, cream colored with gold trim. The faucet for filling the tub was also gold and shaped like a swan. Cut crystal jars lined the shelf along the side of the alcove.

  Bennett let go of his hand and walked to the tub. She turned on the water and picked up one of the jars. Then she pulled out the crystal stopper and poured a slow stream of thick, shimmering liquid into the water. Almost immediately, mounds of foam began to form. She bent down to touch the water then adjusted the handles near the faucet and touched the water again. Memphis watched her as if he might be looking at a dream. She moved like a dream woman. For him, she was a dream woman.

  She touched the water one more time and said, “Just right.”

  “Yes,” he replied so low he wasn’t sure she’d hear. “Just right.”

  He might not have thought the dream could get any lovelier until she stepped away from the tub and shrugged the oversize man’s shirt off her shoulders. Memphis watched it drift to the floor as she slipped her feet out of her shoes. She wasn’t looking at him, but she would know he was looking at her. She moved smoothly as silk, as if in a dance, a dance she was performing for him. He could hardly catch his breath from watching her and knowing he would see her like this in his mind till his dying day.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bennett lifted her arms slowly and pulled her top up with them, inch by inch, baring her white skin and then the lace of her bra with the dark rounds of her nipples showing through. Memphis felt the urgency in his groin again. He had to clench his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her. She had said to make it last, and he wanted that, too.

  The top was off and tossed away now. She hooked her thumbs beneath the waistband of her leggings and pushed down. They peeled off her like a second skin. She had on lace panties to match the bra, with another pattern of darkness showing through. Memphis groaned low in his throat. He knew she heard him because the glimmer of a smile curved her lips..

  He could see the skin of her thighs now, creamy and gleaming smooth. His palms itched to stroke her there. He would soon. She rolled the leggings down over one slender foot and then the other. She stood up straight, turning fully toward him. Till now, she hadn’t looked at him, had moved as if she were in her own private world. She looked at him now, right into his eyes, even as she reached down and turned off the water just as the bubbles were about to spill over into the room.

  Bennett held her gaze on his face as her hands moved behind her back and opened the catch on her bra. She pushed the straps forward. The delicate lace clung to the swells of her breasts until she lifted it with her fingertips and pulled the bra slowly, a very little at a time, free from her skin.

  “Ohh,” he breathed as the wisp of lace fell to the floor. “You are so beautiful.”

  So beautiful and surprising, too. She had seemed very slender with her clothes on. The naked flesh of her was more voluptuous than he had expected. Her breasts were full and round and perfect, with dark pink nipples taut now and thrusting forward. He couldn’t stand the waiting any longer. He stepped forward and reached out for her.

  His fingers closed over her breasts. She eased them away only long enough to peel his jacket from his shoulders and get his T-shirt over his head. She fumbled a little opening his fly to push his jeans down over his hips. He would have helped her, but he couldn’t bear the thought of taking his hands away from the tantalizing softness of her breasts like ripe, round fruit beneath his kneading fingers.

  She stepped backward to the tub and led him with her. He wanted to touch her all over, but he wasn’t finished ravaging her breasts, emblazoning his palms with the feel of them, he knew he would never forget. She stepped up into the tub, and he stepped in after her. The water on his legs was a shock at first, especially since his nerves were keyed so tight and his senses so extra keen at the moment. He even noticed the whispery sound the foam made as they lowered themselves into it.

  Memphis had never been in a bubble bath before. He wouldn’t have guessed how sleek and smooth it would feel, water and foam sliding warm and softly scented along his skin. He wouldn’t have guessed he’d like it so much. But then, he might just possibly like anything at all as long as he was doing it with Bennett St. Simon. The thought of her name, so much a part of that other world she would have to go back to soon, might have put him off for a moment, but her movements distracted Memphis.

  She picked up a gauzy yellow sponge made out of plastic lace, and poured some oil onto it from another of the crystal jars along the side of the alcove. She worked the oil through the sponge and was about to begin rubbing his chest with it when he gently took it from her.

  “My turn,” he said. “You’ve been doing all of the work.”

  “I love my job,” she said in a purr as silky as the foam that surrounded them and framed her glistening breasts.

  “I can tell,” he said.

  That was also a surprise, how this cool pale goddess from an ivory tower world was turning out to be the sexiest, most fully alive and hot-blooded woman he had ever known.

  “Now let me show you what I like,” he said.

  Memphis scooped his arm around her and lifted her onto his lap in the spacious tub. Water spilled over the sides onto the floor, but he didn’t care. He ran the sponge upward between her breasts, covering first one, then the other, dragging the rough-soft texture over and around her nipples, pressing harder with
each circle, watching the flesh there grow tighter and darker by the second.

  Bennett let her head fall back against his shoulder. Her eyes were hooded nearly closed, and her lips were parted in a sigh. He bent over her with a long, probing kiss, as he moved the sponge downward beneath the surface of the water, over her belly through the wet tendrils below. He trailed the edges of the lacy surface through those tendrils and along the silken cleft just above the opening of her thighs. She stiffened in his arms, arching against his hand, and cried out beneath his mouth.

  He dropped the sponge then, unwilling to share the feel of her with anything. He rubbed the cleft gently, for it was sleek and slippery from the bath oil. He used that lubrication to help his fingers slide around and around then farther down, between her thighs and into the open mouth of her. She was warm there, warmer even than the bathwater, and smooth in a way that needed no oils or lotions other than its own.

  She had moved her hands beneath the water, too, and stroked the hardness of him there. At the same time, she had begun to move against his hand, helping his fingers do their maddening magic inside her. He was moving, also, in rhythm with her stroking. They moaned together and spoke wordless sounds, full of longing and desire, against each other’s lips. More water splashed over the marble onto the elegant tile floor. They neither heard nor cared.

  Then she was apart from his body for a moment, still holding on to him beneath the water as she straddled him. She fitted herself over him and pushed herself down until he was deep inside her. Her head fell back again as it had before, her lips parted as she murmured words only barely intelligible about how much she needed him, how she had needed him for so very long.

  He gripped her slender waist in both hands and lunged upward into her, once and then again and again and again. They moaned and called out and rocked together until one last long cry and the deepest thrust of all carried them to a place of pulsating bliss and then brought them slowly back again into the most exquisite peace they had ever known.