Crush (17 page)

Miranda nodded, having decided to use her lips for something far more interesting. She cupped Lucas’s face and lowered it to hers, until his warm and eager lips touched hers. He didn’t know which thrilled him more, the sweetness of her chaste kiss or the semblance of nudity offered by the scandalously low-cut back of her dress. Both combined to ignite a blaze behind the zipper of his tailored trousers.

He broke the kiss, hoping to quell the rising heat in his loins. “You drove the men in that bar crazy tonight. Is that what it’s like when you’re on assignment? Are you swarmed by handsome, athletic superstars clamoring for your attention?”

The light dance of his hands over her back made her itch for more intimate contact. “For every athlete that’s hit on me, there are a thousand women willing to give their souls to be with you. What’s it like, being adored by every woman you see?”

His fingertip lovingly glanced off the tip of her nose. “Not a fraction so good as being adored by the one woman I adore.”

She locked her fingers at his nape. “You adore me?”

“Yes. Well…most of you, anyway.”

Miranda blinked, her eyes wide. She was no swimsuit model, but still…

Lucas chuckled lightly. “I adore your eyes,” he said, softly kissing each of them. “And your chin.” Her head tilted back as he placed a nibbling kiss on her chin. “And your freckles.” The innocent kisses he planted on her cheeks sent a wicked heat straight to her center. “I’m rather partial to your ears, and this sweetly scented place just beneath them.” She hugged his head to her and pressed her body even closer to his as he suckled her earlobe and teased it with his teeth.

“Anything else?” she sighed dreamily.

“Yes,” he whispered in her ear. “Everything.”

He would have gone on singling out his favorite parts of her, tasting and taunting them each in turn if room service hadn’t arrived with the meal he had ordered. Miranda scurried out of sight while Lucas opened the door for the waiter. The shorter man wheeled the food in and took the time to arrange the silver-domed plates on the linen-draped dining table.

“Thank you, Mr. Fletcher,” the man said exuberantly, his long, needle-thin braids bouncing after Lucas pressed a large folded bill into his hand.

“Thank
you
, sir,” Lucas said. He was turning to call Miranda out of hiding when the waiter doubled back.

“Mr. Fletcher, I’m not supposed to do this, and I could lose my job, but would you mind giving me your autograph?” the waiter asked, a hot blush heating his bronze cheeks. “It’s for my wife. She’s your biggest fan.”

Miranda peeped around the corner to see Lucas graciously accepting the pen and hotel notepad the waiter offered.

“What’s your wife’s name?” Lucas asked.

“Johnetta,” the waiter said. Lucas hastily scribbled the autograph and handed it to the waiter. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. This is so good! My wife will be so happy when she sees this.”

“No problem,” Lucas said. “Goodnight.”

The waiter headed for the door and Lucas turned to retrieve Miranda. “Mr. Fletcher?” the waiter called. Lucas froze in his tracks, smiling around his gritted teeth. Miranda pinched back a laugh.

“Yes?” Lucas said. “Is there something wrong?”

“Well,” the waiter began nervously, “it’s just that my daughter really likes your music, too. Her walls are covered with posters and pictures of you and your band.”

Then she likes more than just Lucas’s music
, Miranda thought, surprised at her sudden flash of jealousy.

“Could I get your autograph for my daughter?” the waiter asked. “She’s seventeen and she just loves you.”

“Certainly,” Lucas said. “What’s her name?”

“De’Nosha,” the waiter said. “It’s spelled like it sounds. And, Mr. Fletcher, while you’re at it, could I get one for Kesse, Alison—with one “l”—Martika, Cassie, Rachel, Jessica and Dimitri?”

“Dimitri?” Lucas questioned.

“Those are students in my daughter’s dance class,” the waiter explained. “They all love you. Dimitri, he’s…you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Lucas chuckled.

“He’s a fan, too,” the waiter said innocently.

Momentarily, Lucas handed the waiter the notepad, which was now filled with autographs for the varied and sundry women—and men—in the waiter’s life.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Fletcher,” he gushed, bowing as he backed toward the door. “You don’t know how good it’s been meeting you. We get a lot of stars here, but you are by far the coolest one I’ve ever had the pleasure to serve.”

“Thank you,” Lucas said.

The waiter kissed the pile of autographs. “This autograph just bought me a thousand soft kisses from my Johnetta!”

“Wonderful,” Lucas muttered through an impatient smile.

“Mr. Fletcher, one last thing—”

“Sir,” Lucas said, “please forgive me for being so abrupt, but I’d like to have dinner before it gets cold. You see, I need to be well-nourished so that I have the energy to make love all night to the beautiful woman currently hiding in the nether regions of this penthouse.”

Miranda’s eyes grew as wide as those of the stunned waiter, who began to laugh. “I can’t wait to tell my wife about this, Mr. Fletcher,” the waiter said. “Good night, sir, and thank you!”

* * *

After a dinner of lobster with roasted figs and a sumptuous chocolate tart, Lucas directed Miranda to the view while he went to the bar to pour two brandies. A glass in each hand, he turned to see Miranda awkwardly using her right hand to tug at the right underarm seam of her dress.

“This thing has been pinching my armpit all night,” she complained. “Bernie picked it out because he said it highlights my best features.”

“Indeed,” Lucas agreed.

“Highlight, schmighlight,” Miranda fussed, accepting the dark beverage Lucas offered as he joined her at the sofa facing the one-way glass. “I can’t wait to take this thing off.”

Lucas’s eyes seemed to darken to the color of a midnight sky as he swirled the liquid in his brandy snifter. “Why wait?”

Two perfectly ordinary words became a thrilling invitation that Miranda readily accepted. She set down her glass and stood framed in the sprawling window. She kept her eyes on his face as she crossed her arms over her chest and slipped the straps from the caps of her shoulders. Lucas seemed to hold his breath as she held the dress in place for a brief instant before letting it slide to the floor.

Lucas’s breath left his body in a low groan that sounded almost painful. His eyes tried to take in her features individually and all at once. He said nothing, but his expression and the deep heaving of his chest told Miranda that he wanted her perhaps more than she wanted him.

His hungry gaze moved over her, making her burn from the inside out. Standing before him in nothing but her G-string, stockings and high heels, she felt brazen and truly sexy for the first time in her life. She liked it. When she freed her ponytail and tossed her head back to shake out her hair, Lucas vaulted to his feet to cover her exposed throat with kisses.

Her hands went inside his jacket, removing it from his shoulders. She blindly worked at the buttons of his shirt, driven to feel his bare skin against hers. An animal surge of want took control of Lucas, and with one hand, he ripped his shirt open and shrugged out of it. With the other he cupped Miranda’s breast. He used his thumb to tease the dusky-rose tip of it into hardness before he took it in his mouth and drew long on it.

Miranda raised her right knee, resting it against his hip. Lucas clasped her right thigh and drew her closer to him, grinding the damp triangle of silk between her legs against the hardness tenting the front of his pants.

“I can’t wait to get you into that bedroom, Miranda,” he said into her breast.

“Why wait?” She turned and took a step toward the bedroom. As much as he liked the sight of her backside, Lucas liked the feel of it even more. He took her arm in a firm but gentle grasp and pulled her to him, hugging her back to his chest. He lowered his head to nuzzle her neck, his hands roaming down her sides, over her garter belt and to the tops of her stockings. His fingertips, calloused from years of plucking bass strings, could barely distinguish the silk margins of her stockings from the silk of her skin. He pushed his fingers under the top edge of her stockings before bringing his hands together between her legs.

Miranda curled an arm around his head, guiding his mouth to hers. Her right hand covered one of his, urging him to continue his exploration of the sensitive territory between her thighs. She pressed her backside into his hips, grinding her flesh against the hot knot burning through his pants. One of his hands moved over her abdomen and up to her breast to tease its tender tip. His luxuriant kisses moved from her mouth to her neck and shoulders. Miranda turned, clapping her body to his as she kissed him. Lucas spun them, sending a surge of adrenalin washing through Miranda. She half expected to hear a sizzle when the hot skin of her back touched the cold one-way glass. When she reached down to free her stockings from her garter belt, Lucas closed his hand over hers.

“Leave them on,” he murmured into her mouth. “Please.”

As if rewarding her acquiescence, he kneeled before her. His hands glided over the whispery soft lengths of her legs as he parted them, and nestled himself between them. He shifted the silk concealing her glistening curls and her breath quickened. His expert touch parted the slick curtain hiding the swollen seed of her passion. His thick, soft hair brushed her lower abdomen and her thighs as he took that supersensitive pellet between his lips and nursed it as he’d nursed her breasts. She melted into the glass at the first leisured rasp of his tongue, her breath leaving her in a guttural hum of utter pleasure. He held it between his lips and flicked his tongue over it. Her legs went weak and her body seemed to float, as if the glass had vanished and she was freefalling the twenty-five stories between the penthouse and the ground.

Lucas’s strong hands and arms supported her, holding her to his busy and talented mouth. His tongue slipped inside her, and a desperate whimper of tortured bliss escaped Miranda. He hummed his approval, his voice creating a vibration that added another layer of unbearable pleasure. His lips, tongue, teeth and voice worked in concert to bring her to sparkling, soul-shattering life. Her hands tightened in his hair as her hips bucked, an aching emptiness within her yearning for deeper fulfillment.

Lucas’s want of her turned savage as he heeded her body’s unspoken call. He wondered how it was possible to want a woman so much, to be enslaved by animal cravings for her tastes and scents. Each coupling had only made him want her more.

He stood, opening his trousers as he went. He seemed to spring from them, his heat drawn magnetically to hers. He clasped the firm, supple rounds of her buttocks and lifted her. She assisted by wrapping her arms around his neck and fastening her legs around him. Awkwardly, he used one hand to tug aside her G-string just enough to lunge into her, his muscles taut from the strength it took to hold off the eruption building within him.

Her strong, lean thighs gripped him, flexing minutely as she moved to meet each of his thrusts with unrestrained anticipation. She hugged his head to her breasts, glorying in the scrape of his teeth and the texture of his tongue against her straining nipples. He braced her against the glass so he could gain more leverage as he forged a primitive pact between them with each thrust into the dark furnace of her body. Her thighs pulsed around his hips; her flat abdomen kissed his over and over with each stroke.

Miranda panted for breath as she felt him grow larger within her. She raised and lowered herself, displaying a selfish nature she never knew she possessed. Every cell of her body cried out for Lucas and the wonderful release only he could give. His hands moved into her hair, to brush it from her face. He murmured her name, gasping it at turns when the sweet torture of her movements threatened to rob him of his resolve to make this interlude last. With one arm he supported her weight while he used his other hand to frame her face and guide it toward his. He fought for her gaze, but she kept her eyes closed as she kissed his forehead and his temples. Lucas lapped at the mist of perspiration coating her collarbones. He dipped his head farther and kissed her breasts, exuberantly laving their pebbled peaks before taking the tempting buds full into his mouth.

Miranda grew noisy as she climbed closer and closer to the pinnacle of her bliss. When he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her away from him, setting her on her feet, she almost cried out in frustrated surprise.

“The cap for the cannon,” Lucas breathed heavily, tucking himself back into his trousers as he backed away from her. “I forgot.”

She slumped against the glass, panting to catch her breath as Lucas fell heavily to the sofa. She went to him on legs quivery with unspent desire. Lucas’s shoulders heaved with his deep breathing. His hands trembled as he swiped them over his sweaty face.

“Lucas?” She set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m fairly certain that you stopped in time.” She did a quick calculation in her head, then said, “If my math is correct, this isn’t one of my fertile days. I’m as regular as Big Ben in that department.”

“It’s not that.” He rose and headed for the bedroom. Miranda grabbed his discarded shirt and slipped it on before following him. He was coming out of the master bathroom, a boxed hotel courtesy kit in hand, by the time Miranda caught him.

She stood in the doorway and watched him dump the contents of the kit on the bed. From amidst the tiny toothpaste and toothbrush, mouthwash, shampoo, conditioner, hand lotion, face and body soap, shower cap, breath mints and lip balm, Lucas selected a strand of three condoms. His apprehension made him clumsy as he sat on the foot of the bed, his head bowed. He turned the condoms over and over between his fingers.

“Lucas, you don’t think that I…” Her mind fed her a rapid replay of the various ways their bodies had combined in the past forty-eight hours. “…have something,” she finished.

“Of course not. As I said, it’s not you.” He braced his elbows on his thighs and sank his face in his hands.