A Novel Seduction (18 page)

“I thought you liked specific. Do you still need it?”

“What? The book?”

“Yes,” she said, imitating his sarcasm. “The book.”

“I, ah, guess not.” He handed it back uncertainly.

“Then I guess we’re set.” She settled back into her seat and found her page.

They were kissing—those hard, hunger kisses that taste like mistakes. Ellery’s mind wandered, feeling those determined lips on hers, their pungent mixture of sadness and lust. She tempted them, teased them, bit them—

She jerked so hard, the tray shook.

She’d bitten Axel. On the lip. Last night. She was sure of it.

With a sidelong glance, she scanned the battlefield. There it was. That curved red contusion on the stubbled
skin above his mouth. Those were definitely tooth marks.

Oh, God, what else had she done? And why hadn’t Axel said something? And what about Joe/John/Jake?

She scoured her memory for details, but it was all too fuzzy.

She couldn’t take it. “Axel.”

“Mm.”

“Did we kiss last night?”

He turned the page he’d been reading without looking up. “That would be a yes.”

“Before or after the other guy?” She prayed before. After seemed to leave room for too many other possibilities on the malt sacks in the brewery.

“After.”

“Did we…?”

“No.”

No? Her ego bridled. Why not? But while the soft grassy green in his eyes radiated sympathetic warmth, it revealed nothing.

“Was it me kissing you,” she asked, “or you kissing me?”

“I’d say it was pretty equal.”

All right, then. So Harold and Ynez had had the power to get her to strip half naked, come on to a stranger and lock lips with her ex-boyfriend. You wouldn’t hear anyone making that claim for John Updike or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

She didn’t care for the unsettling footing this put her on with Axel, but there didn’t appear to be a remedy for it. Already the air between them was crackling with some sort of odd potential energy, though Axel, reading his book, was oblivious to it all. She wished she could recall
more about the kissing. The only thing she could remember clearly, apart from the nip, was a disconcertingly clear sense that even if they hadn’t done it, she would have if he’d given her half the chance.

“Well,” she said primly before settling back into her seat, “all I can say is that pill must have been pretty magical.”

He grunted and returned to his reading.

London Hilton, Park Lane

Axel stared at the rain beyond the window, turning over her words. Magical pill, eh? That’s what she thought had inspired that kiss? He was half tempted to tell her the pill had been ibuprofen, but the point was if she thought that was the origin of the kiss, nothing he could say would make a difference.

Despite the fact he suspected he might learn something on the topic of dealing with uninspired kissing partners from Jemmie, the words on the page could not hold his attention.

And in any case, what he had already learned from the man could, well, fill a book.

Jemmie was quite the hero. In the few chapters of
Kiltlander
that Axel had been able to read, Jemmie had, in no particular order, dislocated a shoulder, killed a marauding English soldier, fought off six more with nothing but a barrel stave and a targe, rescued a child about to be hanged, captained a vessel at sea, held his breath underwater for almost two minutes, taught a priest how to use a
dagger, beat a dirty card player at his own game, winning a brothel in the process, authored a pamphlet on liberty, escaped from the king’s secret prison, sworn a vow to honor his dead brother and lost his virginity to his new wife.

Sadly, Axel lacked the skill to do any of those things except dislocate his shoulder, which he’d done once with a Homeric amount of crying, and lose his virginity, though that had happened so many years ago, it didn’t seem to be of much practical consequence.

It was enough to make a man feel quite humble. Which was a shame, given the fact that he was stretched out on the couch in Ellery’s room.

He had managed this enviable feat by entering a different check-in line in the lobby, waiting until she disappeared into the elevator, stepping out of line, counting to two hundred, appearing at her door and telling her there was a problem with his room. She’d agreed to let him stay until the front desk called to say his room was ready, and since he wasn’t registered nor had any plans to be, that was likely to be a long time—long enough, at least, for him to capture a nice long nap.

He would pocket the per diem and now had the chance to watch Ellery walk around, fresh from the shower, in the hotel’s fluffy towel, waves of damp black hair streaming down her back.

“So the appointment at London College is confirmed,” Ellery said, looking at her phone.

“Great.”

“And I’ve put together a list of questions. I figure we just need a few head shots of the professor. Maybe one of the college.”

“Can do. And the book club meets at seven.”

“And I have those questions too. But I have got to get a quick nap if I’m going to make it through the evening.”

He watched the sway of her towel over those fantastic legs. “Always the best way to tackle jet lag.”

In the chapter Axel had just begun, Jemmie was heading into battle and, things being what they were with Highlanders, felt the need for a quick, er, respite in his new wife’s arms. Axel had never headed into battle but felt there were very few things that couldn’t be improved with a quick respite.

However, Jemmie wasn’t technically in her arms. Her arms were on the wall of an abandoned cottage and Jemmie’s appeared to be stuffed deep in her gown, drawing her nipples “into sweet, hard musket balls” as he stood behind her. All fine on that front—Axel could even roll with the musket ball analogy given the incipient battle—but according to the author, her gown wasn’t the only thing Jemmie was deep inside of. Even that, Axel
might
have been able to accept, but the author had made the point several times that Jemmie was a good ten inches taller than his wife.

“How tall are you?” Axel asked Ellery.

“Five six,” she said, continuing her unpacking. “Why?”

“No reason.” Axel was six foot one. That was a seven-inch difference there. And while Axel had certainly made the same sort of approach with Ellery before, they had been fully horizontal at the time, ensuring the battlefield on which they met was, if not level, then at least contiguous.

“Lemme ask you a question.”

Ellery made a slightly bored “Mm?”

“Would you be flattered or offended if someone described your nipples as ‘musket balls’?”

The unpacking stopped. She gave him a curious look. “I’m going to have to say no one’s ever asked me that before.”

“I’m not saying I’d describe them that way, of course.”

She lifted a brow. “How
would
you describe them?”

Oh, boy. A minefield. “Er, rubies?”

She shook her head, the shiny strands of black moving like beaded fringe. “Clichéd.”

“Summer berries.”

“Minor improvement.”

“It’s been a long time. Perhaps if you could refresh my memory.…”

“Nice try.” She smiled, then paused, hesitant. “So at least
you
didn’t see anything at the bar last night.”

He had seen her ample assets in that damned hallway, but he knew that isn’t what she meant. “Oh, no. Like the other hundred and seventy-two people there, I was definitely a beneficiary of a grant from the Ellery Sharpe ‘Incautiousness “R” Us’ Foundation.”

She groaned.

“Don’t worry. It was tastefully done and integral to the character.”

“Character?”

“Determined ingenue achieving her martini-inspired dream. Very
Flashdance
.”

“You’re such a Pittsburgher.” She slipped into the bathroom to change.

“I take that as a compliment,” he called. He felt his
phone buzz with incoming e-mails and checked it. Christ, he’d forgotten Black. This was not the way to win friends and influence people. Axel was still considering his response when Ellery emerged in a black see-through blouse and purple bustier over his jeans.

“Wow,” he said, and got up to hit the now-empty restroom himself.

She tugged the burlap belt tighter. “I need to go shopping.”

“Not on my account.”

“Hey.”

He stopped. Her face held an interrogatory look. “Yes?”

“I have a question,” she said.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“If I was leaning against this wall here”—she leaned against the hallway wall and moved her back up and down it a little—“how hard would it be for you to, say, hold my leg up in the air?”

He frowned. “Not hard at all.”

“Because my yoga teacher—I do a lot of partners yoga now—says that’s a really hard move for a man.”

“Like this?” He caught her knee and lifted until her thigh ran perpendicular to the ground.

“Sort of. I think it’s more open.”

“Open?”

“You know. Pressed to the side.”

He pushed the knee back a few inches.

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

He pushed until her skin touched the plaster. He could smell traces of grapefruit on her hair. He wondered if he could get into her partners yoga class.

She closed her eyes and lifted her chin toward the ceiling. Her hair fluttered in the air currents from the heating vent.

“Oh,
yes,
” she said. “That’s it.”

There was something odd about the way she’d said it. “Hang on.”

Her lids popped open. “What?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re thinking about having sex.”

“No I’m not.” She flung her leg to the ground.

“You’re thinking about having sex with someone else,” he said, then added uncertainly, “You
are
thinking about having sex with someone else?” If she was thinking about having sex with him, he could happily accommodate her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stoutly, but there was a twinkle in her eye, and when she tried to hide it, she began to giggle. “Stop looking at me.”

He laughed too. “Yoga, is it? Partners class?”

“I can’t help it.” She convulsed in laughter. “There was a scene in the other book.”

“I know!” he agreed. “Mine too!”

“On a balcony, and I mean, can you even get your thingy in when you’re standing like this?”

“Wait, wait. Try this one.” He turned her toward the wall and lifted her hands above her head, threading his fingers in hers. “You’re a foot shorter than I am, okay? And I’m able to lift my kilt and enter you? I mean, am I
as long as a broadsword? Maybe if it was articulated, you know, like one of those big buses—”

“Stop!” she howled. “I’m going to wet my pants.”

“Wait, there’s more. I’m lifting my kilt, I’m hammering away down there like a Scottish John Henry and I’m cross-armed across your chest, teasing your nipples into musket balls?” He brought his hands over her breasts, and suddenly he didn’t want to laugh anymore.

She didn’t move. He could feel his heart pounding, and the scent of that damp hair was making him stupid.

He squeezed, and the scant weight of the flesh settled into his palms. The boning of the velvet bustier through the sheer blouse entranced him as did the stiffening of the flesh beneath.

“Take it off,” he said.

“What?”

“All of it.”

He skinned the blouse off her, and her hair swung loose as it fell. Then he undid the bustier bow and loosened the laces. He wanted to see those breasts fall free, just as he had the day before.

She pulled the velvet over her head, and he caught the soft mounds, letting the nipples graze his palms.

She turned to kiss him, a long, needy kiss that set his balls on a slow burn. Then she held up a finger and walked into the bathroom, her long, straight back an intriguing counterpoint to the easy bounce of her breasts. He loosened his belt. This wasn’t going to take long. In a moment she emerged, naked except a pair of impossibly high stilettos.

He was hard instantly. Those curved hips and that neat
triangle of fur were stunning. She held out a condom and he took it. She turned, jutting that lush bottom toward him, and put her hands back on the wall.

He brought his arm around her, holding both breasts, and unzipped his fly. She pressed her hips against him. The heels brought her ass right up to his lap.

Reluctantly he released her breasts and let his hands trail down to her buttocks. Cupping them, he imagined a moment or so from now when he’d split the dark seam below. He wondered if she’d inhale the way she used to when he entered her and whether the delicate throaty cries, so close to tears, would drive him to the edge of beautiful heartbreak.

He caught her around the waist and brought his fingers to her crease. Her wild shiver nearly spent him, but he found her bud, warm and stiff, and plied it lightly. She twisted on his fingers, more practiced than he remembered, and the movement enflamed him with jealousy. He hated that other men had touched her, hated that she’d known their pleasure. Once he had thought what they’d had was forever, and a part of him ached for that feeling in this joining.