Suite Seduction

No. Tonight would be about chocolate cake and laughter and champagne. His hands on her body, her lips on his mouth, her scent filling his head and her sighs of pleasure would all come another night. No question about it.

“Yours, I believe?” she said as she pulled herself up, still using his knee for leverage. He didn’t know what she meant until she dropped the condom on the table with a smirk. “Even though you say you don’t need it, I don’t suppose we ought to leave it here on the floor for the staff to find!”

He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He glanced down. “See the other room key down there anywhere?”

He didn’t spot it right away, but Ruthie apparently did. She pointed to the foot of the table. “Right there. I would offer to get it, but I’m wobbly enough on these stupid shoes and don’t think I could manage bending over again! Although, I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed if I fall on my fanny right in front of you, do I? I mean, you’ve already pretty much seen me at my worst.”

“This is your worst? Piece of cake!”

They both looked over at the remains of the decimated chocolate cake resting on the table and laughed in unison.

Sliding off his stool, Robert stooped down to retrieve the key, not even thinking about how close she stood. He found himself practically kneeling at her feet, his face level with her right hip. His mouth was close to her body, close enough that he could see her dress ruffle with his every exhalation. He swallowed hard.

As if he wasn’t distracted enough by the sight of her hip and the tempting curve of her sweet backside just inches from his face, she chose that moment to turn toward him. “Having trouble?” she asked, leaning over to look down at him.

He stifled a groan. Oh, yeah, he was having some serious trouble. Trouble breathing. Trouble swallowing. Trouble thinking about anything except that she now stood directly in front of him and if he leaned forward he could press a hot kiss onto her stomach. Elsewhere. Everywhere.

She’d taste sweet—chocolate and champagne and the joy that was the essence of her.

“Do you need help?”

He definitely needed her help. But not now, not this soon, not with her in mourning for a newly ended relationship with another man. At least, he hoped it was ended.

Tomorrow, however, was another story. He’d camp out in the lobby of the hotel, if he had to, to find out who she was and where she lived. Suddenly, the upcoming months filled with business trips to Philadelphia seemed much more appealing.

“Did you find your key or not? I could have sworn I saw it there by the table leg,” she said, her tone concerned.

The key. Monica’s room key. He felt it with the tips of his fingers and quickly palmed it. Still kneeling, he slowly shifted his gaze upward, until his eyes met hers and locked. He knew his expression revealed too much of what was going on in his head and the rest of his body. There was no hiding it. There would definitely be no hiding it when he stood up, considering the uncomfortable tightness in his trousers.

She understood. Her cheeks suddenly suffused with color. Her mouth fell open as she pulled in a deep breath. He heard the rustling of her dress as she moved her legs close together and Robert had to close his eyes to shake the image of her clenching those pale thighs.

He rose to his feet slowly, as if someone was pushing down on his shoulders from above. They stood, toe to toe, and he marveled at how petite she was, the top of her head only reaching his nose, even though she wore high heels.

“Meet me for breakfast,” he urged, trying to find something to say, something else to do with his mouth so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to lean forward and lick the chocolate off her lips.

She hesitated, biting the corner of her mouth. “I have a meeting here in the hotel in the morning.”

“Lunch then. Better yet, why don’t you meet me back here tomorrow night at midnight? I’ve heard this place serves a pretty wicked cheesecake.”

“They do,” she said with a tiny smile. “But I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

He watched regret cross her features as she took a step back, pulling her pocketbook up to her chest as if using it as a shield. “Look, I said a lot of things tonight, things I should never have said to a stranger. I’m not normally like this. Tonight was brought on by champagne and a good heaping helping of self-pity. But tomorrow, when I remember all of this, if I remember all of this, I’m going to feel like an idiot.”

“So we can both feel like idiots together.”

She shook her head. “If you see me tomorrow, if we bump into each other in the elevator, please pretend tonight never happened, let me think I imagined or dreamed it all, because it would be too humiliating to know it was true.”

He could see by the determined set of her chin that she meant it. Of course, there was no way Robert was going to let that happen. But there was no point arguing about it tonight. She’d find out soon enough that when he found something he truly wanted, he could be relentless in pursuit of it.

And now he very much wanted her.

RUTHIE LEFT HER dream man at the entrance to the restaurant. He went one way, toward the elevator, and she headed toward the lobby. Part of her was relieved he’d agreed to forget tonight had ever happened. Another part was sad she’d ever asked him to. She had a feeling it was just as well she didn’t know his name. He’d never mentioned it, and she’d never thought to ask. If she had, she might have been tempted to peek at the registration records for his room number. “No, Sinclair. You’re swearing off men starting right now,” she muttered as she rounded the corner next to the front desk.

“Swearing off men?”

Ruthie glared at her cousin, Chuck, who’d obviously heard her comment. Chuck, Celeste and Denise’s only brother, worked as the night front desk manager. He’d left the wedding shortly before Ruthie had, so she didn’t ask him what happened after she’d slipped out. “Yes. You’re all a bunch of heartbreakers!”

“Guess ya didn’t have such a great time at Celeste’s wedding, huh?” Chuck replied. A goofy grin creased his face and he suddenly looked like the surfer dude he wanted to be. Chuck didn’t exactly match the hotel’s clean-cut image, with his shoulder-length, bleach-blond hair, tanned complexion, and perpetual lazy grin. “So’dja catch the flower thing or what? I had to leave early and didn’t see that part.”

“No, I didn’t catch the bouquet. Thank goodness.”

He shrugged. “I thought you old single chicks dug that, you know, getting your hopes up and all.”

Ruthie leaned across the three-foot-wide expanse of polished oak that made up the front check-in desk and grabbed a fistful of her cousin’s shirt. “Old? You think I’m old?”

He grimaced and held his hands up protectively. “Nah, not old. I mean, it’s not like you’re pushin’ thirty or anything!”

“You’re on a roll now, Chuckie,” she snarled. “Why don’t you dig yourself in deeper?”

He suddenly looked shocked. “Oh, man, Ruthie, you’re thirty? When did that happen?”

Ruthie sighed in exasperation. “Chuck, sweetie, remember when you were six and you ruined my twelfth birthday slumber party because you kept coming to the door of my room and trying to throw spitballs at my friends? And I told you I was going to make you eat six of them, one for each year I’d had to suffer with you on the planet?”

The head bobbed, slowly. A grin creased his face. “Yeah, and I hit Denise in her head and she ran crying to your mom.”

Ruthie had forgotten that. “Okay, so it wasn’t all bad.”

He snorted a laugh. “She sure was ticked. So why’d ya mention that?”

She explained slowly. “I was turning twelve. You were already six. Uh, how old are you now, Chuck?”

He hesitated for a moment longer than anyone should have when asked that question. “Twenty-three next month.”

She waited, watching the wheels churn behind the bright blue eyes. Saw him calculate. “Oh, yeah, right,” he finally said with the lazy nod. “See, I toldja I didn’t miss it.”

“There’s a reason you’re so gorgeous,” Ruthie muttered beneath her breath. Her mother’s favorite saying suddenly popped into her head. Heaven distributes its gifts.

Chuck got the tall, blond, lean and gorgeous genes. He was like Ruthie’s late father and her uncle in that respect—and like Celeste and Denise. But Chuck had been just a bit shortchanged in the “quick” department. “I guess there are worse things than big hips and kinky red hair,” she continued with a yawn.

“Huh?”

“Never mind, sweetie,” she said as she wearily turned toward the elevator. “I was just coming in to say good-night. I’m going up to my room. Don’t call me in the morning, as I’m quite sure I’ll be sleeping off a champagne headache.”

He smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet. You must’ve had a hellish good time. I’ve never seen you rockin’ when you’re walkin’.”

She didn’t ask what he meant, too tired to try to follow his reasoning tonight. “The ceremony was beautiful,” she conceded. “But I’d rather forget everything else that happened this evening.”