Pleasure Seekers (22 page)

“B
artholomew, John Reynolds is on line three.”

Bart picked up the receiver. “Thank you, Mrs. Urquhart.” He depressed another button. “Mr. Reynolds—may I call you John?”

“Yes, of course. Mr. Houghton—”

“Bart,” he interrupted softly. “Please, call me Bart.”

“Okay, Bart. How can I help you?”

“I’d like to set up a meeting with you to discuss a marketing program for a special construction project in Harlem.”

“When would you want us to get together?”

Leaning back in his chair and propping his heels on the edge of the desk, Bart stared at a black-and-white photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge. “Sometime next week. However, before we decide on a date and time I want you to be aware that I want a pitch that will target the African-American segment of our city’s population.”

“We have an award-winning ad exec on our staff who can put a campaign package together that’s certain to meet your requirements and approval.”

“I like the sound of that. Perhaps he can sit in on the meeting.”

“The person I’m referring to is female. Unfortunately, she’s going to be on vacation until the end of the month. But, not to hold you up, I can bring someone else in who’s just as good.”

“What’s her name?”

“Which one, Bart?”

“Your award winner.”

“Faye Ogden.”

“Faye Ogden,” Bart repeated, as if hearing her name for the first time. “I’d rather wait for Ms. Ogden. We cannot afford to entrust the marketing of a half-billion-dollar business venture to a summer replacement. Better yet, I thank you for your time—”

“Don’t hang up, Mr. Houghton,” John said quickly.

“Bart,” Bart said softly, correcting him.

“Yes, Bart. Perhaps I can contact Ms. Ogden and have her get in touch with you.”

“I thought she was on vacation.”

“She is. I don’t know whether she’s still in town, but I’ll leave a message on her voice—”

“There’s no need to contact her until she returns.” It was Bart’s turn to interrupt. “Our projected date of completion is late spring, so we want to begin advertising the specs of available units this fall.”

“I can assure you that Ms. Ogden will come up with something that will meet with your approval.”

Bart was certain John Reynolds was grinning from ear to ear. “Even though I will not be involved in the ongoing
process, the final decision will rest with me and the other members of our executive staff.”

He ended the call and lowered his feet. He’d set a plan in motion he was certain would secure Faye’s uncertain future at BP&O. Standing, he walked over to the closet to retrieve his jacket. His day had begun with a breakfast meeting that continued through lunch and into the afternoon. He’d had enough and he wanted to go home to see the woman who unknowingly made him reassess all he’d sacrificed to prove his worth to those who no longer mattered.

Faye exited the elevator, stopping short, and gasping in surprise. She hadn’t expected Bart to be waiting for her. He smelled of soap and clean laundry. A white T-shirt and jeans were molded to the contours of his slender body. His defined pectorals and biceps were blatant indicators that he worked out regularly. His feet were bare and his damp hair stood up on his head in silvery spikes.

“You frightened me.”

Bart reached for the shopping bag she’d cradled to her chest. “The doorman told me you were on your way up,” he said by way of explaining his sudden appearance. He kissed her cheek before peering into the plastic bag. “What on earth did you buy?”

“I picked up some fruits and veggies. I noticed there weren’t any in the refrigerator.”

“That’s because we’ll be leaving for Southampton tomorrow morning.”

“Why didn’t you say something, Bart?”

“I would’ve told you if you’d stayed over last night.” Shifting the bag to one arm, he wound the other around her waist as he led her in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll give you a list of what I have planned for us tomorrow.” Bart gave Faye a sidelong glance. “What did you do to your face? Your skin looks nice.”

“I have you and the esthetician at Madame Fontaine to thank for that. I took my friend with me as a guest.”

“How is she?”

“I’m certain she’s a lot better after a facial and a hot-stone massage.”

His fingers tightened on her waist. “She’s lucky to have you as a friend.”

“I’m blessed to have Alana as a friend because she doesn’t tell me what I want to hear but what I
need
to hear. In other words, she always keeps it real.”

Bart felt his stomach muscles contract. It was apparent Faye equated friendship with truth, and unfortunately he hadn’t been completely truthful with her. He knew he was falling in love with her. Although he hadn’t verbalized what lay in his heart he’d tried demonstrating the depths of his feelings. He’d moved her into his home, made himself available to her at all times and had tried to put in place things that would make her life more comfortable and stress free.

But there was someone from his past he hadn’t been able to give up or let go; and until he let her go, he would never be able to move forward to share his future with Faye Ogden.

Bart placed the bag on a countertop next to a double stainless-steel sink. He took out clear plastic bags of seasonal fruits: cherries, white grapes, peaches, pears, blueberries and kiwi. There were vacuum-sealed bags of fresh spinach and herbs. He held up the packaged vegetables.

“What do you want to do with these?”

Faye took charge. “Put them in the fridge’s vegetable drawer. I’ll put the fruit away after I wash it.” Reaching for a large aluminum bowl hanging from a hook over the cooking island, she emptied the fruit into the bowl then washed it with cold water from a retractable nozzle.

She froze when Bart came up behind her and pulled her to rest against his chest, giggling like a little girl when he nuzzled her neck. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to see if you smell as good as you look.”

“Do I?” she asked, laughing.

“It’s a tie.” His lips moved down the column of her neck in an agonizing slowness that caused a shudder to ripple through her body. “What’s the matter, baby?” Bart crooned as the ripples continued.

Faye’s hands curled into tight fists. “Nothing, Bart.” Smiling, she closed her eyes.

“Liar,” he whispered close to her ear.

“I’m not lying,” she whispered back. She was aware
and
Bart was aware than she hadn’t told him the truth. His closeness, the hardness of his body, and his mouth moving over her sensitized flesh ignited a heat that threatened to devour her whole.

Turning in his loose embrace, Faye stared up at Bart.
His eyes shimmered like sparks of flint. Although she’d insisted they were just friends, she knew it would be just a matter of time before they’d become lovers. Even Alana had predicted it.
If he’s paying for you to spend the summer with him it has nothing to do with you being his social companion. You’re his girlfriend and soon-to-become lover.

She blinked once. “You’re right, Bart. I was lying.” Her voice was soft, even. She took a step, her legs sandwiched between his spread-eagle ones. “Now it’s time for the truth. What do you want?”

Bart was rooted to the spot as he held his breath. Faye was asking what he wanted, what he’d wanted from the first time he saw her at Enid Richards’s Soho loft, and like a bumbling adolescent about to embark on his first sexual encounter he couldn’t tell the woman in his arms what he wanted.

He’d given Faye everything he thought she’d want while waiting patiently for her to come to him of her own free will. He’d slept with Felicia twice since he’d come to know Faye, and both times he’d felt as if he was cheating on her.

Felicia was a call girl he paid to have sex with him and Faye was a social companion, someone he paid to keep him occupied during his free time, yet he felt like an unfaithful husband—something he’d never been. How had morality crept into the picture when he wasn’t legally bound to any woman?

However, he knew the answer to his troubled thoughts before they’d formed in his mind. He was in love with Faye Ogden.

The realization that he’d fallen in love with a woman for the second time in his life left him reeling. He still loved Deidre Dunn, but he was also in love with Faye Anne Ogden.

He blinked as if coming out of a trance. “I want you.”

Faye swayed as if buffeted by a strong wind. “How do you want me?”

“I want you in my life—”

“But I’m in your life, Bart,” she said, stopping his explanation. “I’ll be living with you this summer.”

Reaching up, he placed a forefinger over her mouth. “You didn’t let me finish,” he chastised, smiling. “You’re right. You’ll be living with me this summer, but I also want you to sleep with me.”

“You want to make love to me?”

“I want to make love
with
you, but only after you feel comfortable sleeping with me.”

A knot rose in her throat at the same time the rapid beating of her heart slammed against her ribs. This time she heard the soft, drawling voice of Enid Richards in her head:
I must caution you about sleeping with your clients. It always spells trouble.
What she wanted to ask Enid was, would it spell trouble for the clients or for your exotic jewels?

It was she and not Enid who’d found herself ensnared in a world where she found it more and more difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality; and Bart Houghton had become her fantasy—a man she never would’ve met or considered dating if it had not been for a business card that had piqued her interest.

But Bart Houghton had also become her reality when he’d made it possible for her to earn enough money to give an attorney his retainer to take on her brother’s appeal. And sleeping with Bart would be no different from her encounters with the other men in her past, with the exception that what they’d share was business. She would enjoy the intimacy, and when it ended she knew she would not have any regrets.

Rising on tiptoe, she brushed her mouth over his. “Let’s go to bed.”

F
aye barely had time to catch her breath when Bart swept her up in his arms and carried her out of the kitchen. Tightening her arms around his neck, she buried her face against the column of his neck, enjoying the lingering scent of soap on his skin.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve shared a bed with a man,” she confessed.

Bart smiled as he mounted the staircase to the second floor. He hadn’t known why she’d waited to share her bed or body with a man, but her admission filled him with a rush of smugness that perhaps she’d been waiting for the right man; and he hoped beyond hope that he was right for her.

“We’ll take it slow, baby. And any time you prefer sleeping alone then you must let me know.”

Faye, apprehensive about what she was about to embark upon, what she’d agreed to, closed her eyes and mumbled a fervent prayer that she was doing the right thing. And once she opened her legs to Bart things would not and could not remain the same between them. She was realistic and had matured enough to acknowledge that fact.

She counted the steps that took him from the staircase,
down a hallway separating her rooms from his, and ended at thirty-two when he placed her on his bed, his body following hers downward. Reaching over, he took off her shoes.

The wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows facing the East River provided a sensual backdrop for the sensual joining between two people who, up until two months ago, didn’t know the other existed. Streaks of orange crisscrossed the sky as long shadows indicated the approach of dusk. They lay together, their measured breathing coming and going at the same cadence.

Faye turned on her side, facing Bart, one jean-covered leg moving over his. “Aren’t you going to draw the shades?” Where the windows in her bedroom were covered with sheer panels of silk, his were fashioned from finely woven mesh shades that lowered with a flick of a wall switch.

His eyes shimmered in the light coming through the windows. “Does the light bother you?”

“Not as much as someone seeing us.”

“The only people who can see us are those flying overhead. We’re thirty-two stories above the roadway.”

Bart’s explanation seemed to satisfy Faye because she closed her eyes and snuggled closer to his chest. They lay on the crisp pale gray sheets, sharing each other’s body heat, scent, as the sun set and lights came on all over the city.

He rarely drew the shades. Whenever he’d found himself too wound up to sleep, he’d lie in bed and stare out the window. The triplex was high enough not to hear the sound of vehicular traffic along FDR Drive or on the
bridges linking Manhattan with the outer boroughs. His home had become his sanctuary, a place where he forgot about business and a place that reminded him of how selfish he’d become because of his reluctance to share his life with a woman.

Bart didn’t know what it was about Faye that made her so much different from the other women he’d encountered since becoming a widower. He admired her beauty and her strength; but it was her vulnerability that tugged at his heart the way no woman had been able to do, and that included Deidre.

“Do you plan to sleep in your clothes?” he whispered near her ear.

Faye moaned but didn’t stir. She’d dozed off. “I’m too exhausted to move. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I usually don’t do sofas.”

“You don’t have to move. I’ll undress you.”

Bart sat up and unsnapped the waistband to her jeans. Anchoring a hand under her hips, he eased the denim fabric down her hips and legs. Her tee followed. Faye lay on the bed clad only in a sheer café au lait bra and matching panties.

“You’re practically naked!”

Faye opened her eyes and tried making out the shadowy face inches from her own. “What are you talking about?”

“I can see through your bra and panties.” There was no mistaking the huskiness in Bart’s voice.

Rolling over and coming to her knees, she pulled back the top sheet, lay down and pulled it up over her body.
“Are you getting into bed or are you going to ramble on for the rest of the night?”

Moving off the bed, he undressed quickly, leaving his jeans, shirt and boxers on a chair. He slipped under the sheet beside Faye, put a hand on her waist and drew her to him.

Faye went completely still when she felt his erection pressed against her hips. “Bart?”

“What is it?”

“Can you please put your underwear back on?”

“No, I can’t, because I always sleep in the nude. Go to sleep, darling. Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”

He was sure nothing was going to happen, when she wasn’t sure how long she could ignore the hardened flesh thrumming against her buttocks as if it had a life of its own.

Sharing a bed with Bart had awakened a response deep within her that reminded her that she was a woman capable of grand passion. Her hand covered the larger one splayed over her belly.

“Good night, Bart.”

He chuckled softly. “Good night, baby girl.”