IT WAS LINDA. And it wasn’t pleasant. Not for her, and not for Joe. Ten minutes into the conversation, with him naked and sitting on the side of the king-size bed with Meg, his back to her, Joe ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Look, I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It wasn’t something I planned or could have foreseen…. What?…No, I did not haul ass for a cheap beach motel with the first willing chick I came across. Come on, Linda, it’s not like you to say something like that. Besides, where I am right now is about the farthest thing from a motel you could ever—”
He listened to her strained, tense voice telling him that the number of stars the hotel might have earned from the travel guides was not the point. “I agree. I was just trying to get that image out of your head. Look, the truth is, there’s a situation here with Uncle Maury—I know you talked to him and I know he sounded fine, but he isn’t.” On one level, Joe was thrilled Linda had reached the old guy. Where the hell could he have been all evening? “Look, he might even be delusional right now…. Oh, come on, just listen to me a minute—”
He pulled the receiver from his ear and stared at it.
“Did she hang up on you again?” Meg said drowsily from behind him, the swishing of the sheets telling him she was shifting position.
“You could say that,” Joe said, putting down the phone. “Well, at least we know Uncle Maury’s all right.”
“I heard you say that about her talking to him. That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Joe still stared at the phone, feeling both guilty and relieved.
“Joe?” Meg softly asked. “Are you all right? You want to talk? I’m a good listener.”
That made the decision easy, didn’t it? Joe replaced the handset in its cradle. Goodbye, Linda. He pivoted to see Meg…and froze. Damn, she was something. Despite the myriad emotions he was feeling right now, he was after all still a man who could not help but notice how sexy Meg was without even trying. She just oozed an earthy sensuality, with her lightly tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. A total seductress…naked in his bed…and so far, nothing had happened. Actually, he didn’t see how it could, either, after Linda’s mood-shattering phone call.
Meg shrugged the sheet down far enough to get her left arm out from under the covers, and her movement left the soft mound of her breast only barely covered. Joe swallowed, not feeling the least bit guilty anymore. Just turned on. After all, there was nothing he could do about Linda—it had ended badly. He’d hoped it wouldn’t have to, but it had. Maybe it was cleaner this way. Maybe…He couldn’t take his eyes off Meg. He’d thought she was going to stretch like a cat, but instead she held her hand out to him.
“Give me the phone. I want to call Carl. It’s only fair we both get hung up on in the same night by former lovers, don’t you think?”
Joe chuckled, surprising himself that he could. He passed her the phone’s handset. “And just where are you going to call him? Here or at his place?”
“Both, if I have to. Maybe on his cell phone.”
“You’ll blow your cover.”
“I don’t care anymore. I just want this dealt with and over. So, what do I dial for room-to-room calls?”
Joe studied the phone’s cradle with all its instructions. “Uh…eight and then the room number. Which we don’t know. Hell. Call the front desk and ask them to connect you to his room. Easy enough.”
Meg nodded, pushed zero and put the receiver to her ear. She smiled at Joe. He winked at her. Without looking away from him, she spoke into the phone. “Yes, good evening. Could you connect me, please, to Mr. Carl Woodruff’s room?…Thank you.” Cool as an ice cube, she waited, blatantly running her gaze up and down Joe. “Hey, cowboy, what happened to your little rubbery buddy—Yes, hello…. I’m sorry, what?” Talking to whomever was at the other end of the line, she grinned triumphantly at Joe. “I see. Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff checked out? Really? How long ago?…Thirty minutes ago? Well, I can’t imagine what must have happened. Thank you.”
As soon as she hung up, she curled up in a delicious little ball of naughtiness under the sheet, clamped a hand over her grinning mouth and laughed. “Oops. Trouble in paradise. We are so bad.”
Feeling smug, Joe took the handset from her and hung it up. “No more than he deserved, the jerk. You want to try his cell phone?”
“Sure. He wouldn’t have had time to get home yet.” A perfectly wicked light suddenly shone from Meg’s eyes. “So I wonder if that means—”
“Gotcha. Mrs. Woodruff is still in the car with him—assuming she rode over here with him, right?”
“Right. Ten bucks says she did.” Meg abruptly sat up, apparently forgetting her state of undress as the sheet fell away from her and pooled in her lap.
Joe stared at her.
“Joe? What’s wrong—” She followed his enraptured gaze to her chest, gasped and tugged the sheet up to hold it modestly over her bare breasts. “Shame on you, sir.”
Joe inhaled sharply as if he’d just been given a much-needed hit of oxygen from a scuba tank, shook his head and came to himself. “You have very nice breasts, ma’am.”
“Yeah?” She tugged the sheet out—but not enough for him to be able to feast his eyes on her again—and stared down at herself. “Hey, they are kind of nice, aren’t they?”
“No doubt about it.”
He watched her dial. “Go get ’im, tiger.”
“Thanks. I do wish I could be nicer, but he really doesn’t deserve—Hello, Carl, it’s Meg. Where are you?…On your way home? From where?…Oh, a family wedding. How nice. Where was it? Yes, that is a nice hotel. Very romantic. So, who got married? Your niece?” Meg put her hand over the speaker part of the handset and whispered fiercely to Joe. “The lunkhead! He can’t have a niece. He doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. What a crock of—What? No, I’m not talking to someone. I thought you were. Did you go alone to the wedding? You did?” Meg rolled her eyes. “Well, that couldn’t have been any fun. So, listen, I won’t keep you. I just called to tell you I thought about your proposal and, I’m sorry, but I have to say no. It was nice of you to ask, but I don’t think your current Mrs. Woodruff there in the car with you—Hello?”
Meg held the receiver out and stared at it. She raised her mock-concerned gaze to meet Joe’s thoroughly amused one. “I think we got cut off.”
Joe took the phone from her and hung it up. “Imagine that. Come here, you sweet little naked thing, you. Nothing’s going to stop us this time.”
AND NOTHING DID. Joe could not believe he finally got to hold this delicious woman in his arms and breathe in the perfume at the nape of her graceful neck. The way it mingled with the flowery scent of her skin made him wild. If only the very air could smell like her. Lying atop her, kissing her, feeling her arms around his neck, her breasts pressed against his chest, her soft mound against his hardness, it took everything Joe had to hold back long enough to get to know her body.
Already she was urging him downward on her. Joe obliged, but only as far as her firmly rounded breasts with their deep-rose nipples, already hardened by desire to tight buds. Joe softly took one in his mouth, sucking and nipping and flicking it with his tongue. His reward was Meg arching her back and entangling her hands in his hair. Her breathing quickened until she was panting and saying his name. Her response only inflamed his. Giving up one breast, he kissed his way over to the other, offering it the same indulgent treatment…laving soft circles, with his tongue, around its peak—
“Joe!” Meg bucked under him and arched her back. “Oh my God, you’re killing me. I’ll pass out—”
“Don’t do that. I wouldn’t want you to miss this.” Showing no mercy, Joe encased her ribs in his hands and languidly kissed his way down her, tasting the sweet wine of the taut skin over her ribs, her concave belly, her navel and down, down to the dark, crisp triangle at the apex of her thighs. “Oh God, Meg, you are beautiful,” he said, staring his fill at her goddess’s body. “I have to taste you.”
“Joe,” she moaned.
“I know, baby.” Joe dipped his head down and, using his tongue, swirled and separated the protective nest of hair until he found the very center of her. He pressed the tip of his tongue against the tiny bud, holding his place there until she throbbed against him. At that simple touch, Meg made a helpless, gasping noise at the back of her throat that engorged Joe’s own desire to an almost painful fullness.
Under him, Meg spread her legs, opening herself to him. Such a sweet, trusting vulnerability she offered him. Moved beyond words, Joe nevertheless feared he would burst with wanting her. Holding her hips gently but firmly in his hands, Joe pulled Meg to him, all but burying his face in her heat. Reveling in the rich, musky smell of her, his own senses on fire with need, Joe forced a discipline on himself that his masculine brain and body bucked hard against. But he held firm, wanting this to be good for Meg, too.
His touch on her most sensitive of places was alternately gentle then demanding, invasive then yielding…until her muscles tightened, her breathing changed and her womanhood began opening to him. She was close. So very close. Joe concentrated his efforts on the tight bud itself, feeling it grow, hearing Meg’s fingernails raking up fistfuls of the sheet…. Then she cried out as the rhythmic undulations seized her and convulsed her abdominal muscles.
Burning with desire, Joe rode the wave of her satiation as long as he dared, as long as she would allow. When she moved away from him, begging, “No more, no more, oh God, no more,” Joe pulled himself up and held her in his arms, kissing her jaw, her neck, her ear. She again bumped her hips against him.
“Take me, Joe. I need you so badly.”
“I need you, too, Meg. God, you don’t know how much I need you.”
“Then…hurry, cowboy.”
Joe raised his head from her neck. “I’m not really a cowboy, you know.”
Her eyes popped open. “Is this my fantasy or yours?”
“Ah. Point taken, ma’am. In that case, you’re a dance-hall girl.”
“Whatever, Joe.”
Done torturing her and himself, Joe placed a pecking kiss on her nose and, with quick practiced movements, rolled off her, applied a condom and rolled back to her. Her knees bent and parted, she held her arms out to him in clear invitation, one Joe accepted. He moved up and over her, slowly lowering himself onto her pelvis. She clutched at his shoulders, her eyes half closed, her lips parted.
Almost of its own accord, Joe’s sex pushed against her, seeking entry into her warm and willing body. Holding himself up on his elbows, watching her face, drinking in her delicate features, loving how she wantonly tossed her head from side to side, Joe entered her, sliding in smoothly, filling her.
A great shudder seized his body and it took all he had not to succumb right there. She was so hot and tight. And then…she lifted her hips, taking him more fully inside her. Her body tensed around his shaft and sexual urgency exploded in Joe’s body, whipping his very blood into foam. Beyond thought, reason and finesse, he pumped his hips in long and steady strokes that had them both making the unmistakable noises of passion being consummated. Meg wrapped her legs around his hips. Joe responded by pounding into her, knowing instinctually that he wasn’t hurting her, even though her fingernails raked his back and she groaned deliciously.
And then…it was there. The moment. The heightened tension. The increased sensitivity…and the peak instant when Joe thrust one last time and held himself rigid over Meg. She took over the thrusting motion with her hips and brought them both to a shouting crescendo of release so hot that it threatened to set off the fire alarm mounted in the ceiling.
With one last, weak motion, Joe collapsed atop Meg, burying his face in the crook of her neck. They were both so slick with lovemaking’s sheen that he figured he’d slide right off her and onto the floor, where he would stay until he passed out or died. But Meg had her arms up under his and wrapped around his back, as if holding on to him for dear life. That was good enough for him. Joe laid there, one big charred hunk of love.
About a millennium later, when he was certain he would live, not that he much cared either way right now, Joe raised himself and smiled down into Meg’s beautiful face with her dark eyes, pert nose and expressive mouth. She’d never been more beautiful to him than she was at this moment.
A wave of sweet tenderness and fierce protectiveness unexpectedly seized Joe, giving him that feeling that told him this woman was the one who could toss his heart right over a high cliff in gale force winds…and make him love it. Son of a gun. He’d met his match. A willing victim, Joe chuckled as he gently pushed back dampened tendrils of Meg’s long dark hair from her very pink cheeks.
“What’s so funny, cowboy?”
“Nothing. All I have to say is…damn, woman.”
Sighing, Meg nodded, tipping her tongue out to wet her lips. “I’ll say. You’re pretty good at this, too.”
“Thanks. I was trying out some of my new stuff.”
Meg bumped a shoulder against him. “So, you want to do it again?”
“Yes, until I’m a hundred and seventy-four years old. But I’d settle for all night tonight.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Braggart.”
“Not me. But I do have a certain reputation to maintain.”
“I see. Well, I have one thing to say about that.”
“An endorsement?”
“No. You’re on my hair, stud.”
“Oh, hell, sorry.” Joe shifted enough to disengage his body from hers and pull himself off her. “Excuse me a minute, okay?” With that, he rolled to the side of the bed, got up and padded naked around the king-size bed to the bathroom to divest himself of the condom. After washing up, he came back into the bedroom.
“You sure do have a nice butt, Joe.”
He stopped short, pivoting so he could see her. Covered by the sheet, Meg lay propped up on her side, her knees bent, her head supported by a hand. Her elbow rested against the mattress. But it was her dark eyes, bright with mischief and boldness, that captured his attention.
“Are you always this forward, lady?”
“Yes. You ought to see me in art museums checking out the ancient statues of naked gods and kings and Greek wrestlers. Have you ever noticed how it’s never their package that’s gotten lopped off somehow over the centuries? Just their noses or arms or even their whole heads, but not that particular part?”
“Ouch. But no, I can’t say I have. And, by the way, have you ever been thrown out of any museums for unseemly behavior?”
Meg shrugged. “Once or twice. Hey, I can’t help it if I was curious.”
“Yeah, I bet you were. Are you still?”
She rolled over onto her back and held her arms out to him. “Come here and I’ll show you…”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON as they headed back to Tampa in The Stogie, Meg reflected that they hadn’t done it until Joe was a hundred and seventy-four, but they had done it all morning, until dangerously close to check-out time. All in all, a good compromise. Sitting next to him now, her hand resting on his bare thigh below the hem of his khaki shorts, she smiled dreamily as she reveled in the achy soreness of her muscles and the swollen throbbiness of a certain other place.
“Man, those guys just don’t give up. They’re still back there,” Joe said, breaking into Meg’s reverie.
It took her a moment….”Oh. Our official escort, you mean?”
“Yep. In a big black stretch limo. They’re about as subtle as a sledgehammer for people who’ve been on our tail since the hotel. Like we wouldn’t spot them.”
“I don’t think they care if we do.” Meg smiled and suppressed the impulse to glance over her shoulder. “But is it really them, Joe? They could just be innocent rich people or newlyweds in a rented limo.”
“Could be. But the driver, from what I can see in the rearview mirror, is a big muscled guy dressed in black.”
“Really? Can you see if it’s one of the guys I ran into by the elevators?”
“It might be. He’s staying too far back for me to tell.”
“You know what? I am so over them. I don’t even care who they are. Pull over to the shoulder, Joe. If they stop behind us, then we’ll have our answer—”
“And then what?”
“And then I’m going to get out and give them a piece of my mind and pepper spray them like I should have done last night.”
“There’s a good plan.”
“Well, you think of something, then. You’re the one who brought them up. I was sitting here happily thinking about…” She’d barely caught herself before revealing her innermost thoughts and had to finish lamely with “…stuff.”
But it wasn’t lost on him. Joe nudged her with his shoulder. “Stuff, huh?”
Meg pinched his thigh. “Turn the page, Joe.”
Though he laughed at her teasingly, he heeded her warning. “Okay, forget the car behind us. New topic.”
“Like what?”
“Like all these exotic flowers and the jungle vegetation and big, leafy palm trees everywhere.” His window was rolled down so he could rest an elbow there. Earlier he’d told her he wanted to work on his trucker’s tan. “Complete culture shock, you know, coming from Denver. Makes me feel…”
He’d paused, frowning as if searching for a word, one Meg was happy to supply.
“Tropical? Like you might want to wear a grass skirt and a coconut bra?”
He grinned over at her. “Well, I would, but the big kids on the playground would tease me. However, I would like to see you dressed like that.”
Ever cooperative, Meg shrugged her willingness. “Okay, but you’d have to wear a Stetson and chaps for me. And nothing else. Well, except for cowboy boots.” She pictured that little vision in her mind’s eye—and started adding to it. “And spurs. Oh, and a gun. A big, shiny six-shooter strapped to your hip in a holster. And maybe—”
“And maybe try out for the Village People? All I said was I like your palm trees, and the next thing I know, I’m suited up for a pornographic cattle drive.”
Meg chuckled. “So, I take it there aren’t a lot of those in Denver? Palm trees, I mean.”
“No, I’d say there are about as many palm trees in Denver as there are inches of snow in Florida.” Joe breathed in deeply, contentedly. “Man, smell that air. I never knew before that you could actually smell sunshine and warmth. Wow. I am really going to miss all this.”
Miss all this? Meg froze in place, despite the warm air billowing through the car’s interior. “What do you mean—” she had to stop and swallow hard “—you’ll miss it?”
Joe glanced over at her. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “Where are you going, Joe?”
Joe frowned his obvious confusion. “We’re going back to Uncle Maury’s, remember?”
Meg shook her head. “Not that. The bigger picture. Are you going back to Denver? Is that what you mean?”
He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Well, yeah. Of course I am. I live there. But we still have a week before—”
“Stop this car, Joe Rossi.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Stop this car.” Anger and betrayal wormed their way into Meg’s heart. She scooted across the seat, as far away from him as she could get, until her shoulder was pressed against the passenger door. She fought her seat belt. At last she had it undone and—
“What’d I say? What’s wrong, Meg?” Joe reached out for her, but Meg batted his hand away. Looking thoroughly confused, he returned his hand to the steering wheel. “Okay, I’m not even going to pretend I know what’s going on.”
“Oh…ha! You know exactly what’s going on, mister. And if you don’t, you should. And I said stop this car right now.”
Joe glanced from the road to her. “Where, exactly? We’re in three lanes of traffic and about to get on a long bridge. Just tell me what’s wrong or what I did.”
Meg poked out her bottom lip. “How can you not know what’s wrong? You just breeze into my life, whisk me away from my home, break up my romance—”
“Break up your romance?” Joe looked at her as if she’d just sprouted horns. “Oh, please. You broke up with Carl a week before you ever met me.”
“All right, fine, but then you take me to hotels and weddings and make mad, passionate love to me—and now you’re just going to abandon me and go home? Just like that?”
Apparent enlightenment dawned. “Oh, honey, is that why you’re upset? Come on, Meg…no, it’s not like that at all.”
His obvious striving for a reasonable tone only further irritated her.
“I live in Denver. My job is there. My family’s there. It’s not easy to simply—”
“What about Maury? He’s your family, and he’s here. And there’re lots of construction jobs here, too. Year-round.”
“All that’s true. But…hell, Meg, I don’t know what you want me to do. I love Denver. The mountains, the snow, the cold. The wild West is all I’ve ever known. And you and I are still so new with each other that we haven’t even—”
“Don’t you dare say you have to think about us, Joe Rossi, because we both know what that means.” Meg looked up and away, determined, by sheer will, that the tears blurring her vision would not fall. When they did, anyway, she turned away from Joe, staring out the window to her right as she miserably wiped them away.
“Meg? Are you crying?” He sounded surprised, even upset.
“No,” she said, a sob catching in her voice and giving her away.
“Oh, man,” he drawled, sounding sick about it, “now I’ve made you cry.”
The Stogie suddenly jerked to the right, forcing Meg to grab for the door. Startled, her tears instantly dried, she looked to Joe, whose eyebrows were lowered dangerously. “What are you doing? Where—”
“I’m doing exactly what you said earlier. I’m pulling over. And this time you’re going to listen to me—for once.”