Stranger Page 12

  “I’m sure. I think I’d know if I ordered a pizza or not.”

  He frowned and made a show of looking at the front of the door. “This is the room they told me. Are you sure?”

  I put my hands on my hips, bunching the silk of my nightgown. “Yes! I’m sure!”

  The pizza boy looked confused, then annoyed. “Look, this is the third prank pizza delivery I’ve had to put up with this week, and I’m getting pretty tired of it.”

  “Are you saying I prank ordered?”

  He pushed forward, pizza in hand, and set it on the table. “Someone in this room ordered a pizza. You’re the only one here.”

  My heart thumped. He looked really angry. I looked at the door, ajar behind him, and he turned to look at it, too. But then he closed it with a swift shove and faced me again.

  “Pay up.”

  “But I don’t have any money!” I protested.

  I stepped back. He moved forward. Beneath his unbuttoned blue shirt he wore a white Tshirt that clung to him like a second skin. Beneath the ball cap’s brim his eyes flashed, brilliant blue. His hair was hard to see but I knew it was dark. His gaze raked me up and down, taking in my black silk nightgown and the glisten of glittery powder across the top swell of my breasts.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to think of something else.” His mouth tilted, half up and half down, and his voice dipped low.

  “If you think—” I started, intending but unable to sound angry. My voice shook just a little, and I had to stop to swallow against my dry throat.

  “Turn around. Put your hands on the table.”

  I did, one on each side of the pizza box, still warm and smelling of cheese and sauce. I didn’t dare turn, not even to glance over my shoulder. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch my fingers clutch against the sleek laminate of the hotel table, and I waited, every muscle tense and atremble, for him to touch me.

  He didn’t. Not as soon as I’d thought he would, and the waiting became torture. I felt the heat of his body behind me and caught a whiff of something more delicious than cheese and sauce. I heard the rattle and hum of him pulling down his zipper, then the shush of the material sliding over his thighs. I shifted my weight, leaning forward and moving my feet farther apart.

  The silk rode higher on my bare thighs. And still, he didn’t touch me.

  The sound of our breathing mingled and grew loud in the silence. I counted seconds like drops of rain on a roof, a steady rising pattern of them. My fingers ached from their grip upon the slick surface, and I relaxed them. I opened my eyes. Started to turn, a question hovering in my mouth.

  Then, he touched me.

  His hands lightly clasped my ankles and slid up the backs of my calves, then my thighs, both at the same time and in one, swift motion that left me gasping. His hands slid up, over my ass. He cupped my flesh briefly, and in the next moment the whisper of his breath moved over all the places his hands had just touched.

  Oh, God. He was on his knees behind me.

  He tasted the invisible trail his hands had left, mapping the path of his touch with his tongue. He paused to lick the back of my knee, then moved to bite the back of the other. If the table had not been so stubbornly slick, my fingernails would surely have gouged out runners in the surface, so fiercely did I clutch it. I opened my mouth but immediately bit back the cry as his mouth shifted higher. His tongue flicked the underside of my buttocks, a place nobody had ever kissed, much less licked. It was a good thing the table was in front of me, because his caress had buckled my knees. His tongue slid higher, along the seam of my ass. When it reached the bottom of my spine, that magic, secret spot that made me writhe, I couldn’t have held back the cry if I’d tried.

  Pain sizzled in my lower lip; I’d bitten it. My hair fell down over my face, and I closed my eyes again. I didn’t want to be staring at a pizza box when this happened to me.

  His hand moved between my legs as his mouth moved upward along the line of my spine.

  His fingers found my clit at the same time his teeth found my shoulder, and at the twin bursts of pleasure rocketing through me, I cried out again.

  The softness of his T-shirt brushed my back as he leaned in and the hard, small chill of his buttons pressed my hip. His fingers played upon my clit a moment more, not long enough, but when he withdrew to use that same hand to push my legs wider apart, I could make no protest. I licked away the salty heat of blood from my lip.

  His hand found my heat again. His fingers traced the outline of my cunt and parted me, nudging inside just enough to make me tremble again. The chuff of his breath blew hot on my shoulder, left damp from his mouth. His other hand anchored my hip and held me still. I waited again, tense, for him to replace his fingers with the thickness of his cock.

  I felt him all over my back. His mouth again found the flesh left bare around the thin straps of my nightgown, and he fastened his lips there with the hard promise of his teeth beneath.

  The silk of my gown crumpled in his fist and fluttered around my hips.

  His hand replaced his mouth on my shoulder, and he pushed me forward. I bent and my hands jittered across the tabletop. I opened my eyes to see the pizza box teeter on the edge, then tumble off. The hand on my hip now guided his cock between my legs.

  He found my entrance with unerring efficiency but took his damn sweet time pushing inside me. He twisted a little, thrust a little, eased out and then in again while his hands kept me from moving.

  His low moan moved across the back of my neck as physically as if he’d used his hand to touch me there. For one endless moment we didn’t move, both of us still like a frozen river; solid and unmoving on the top and rushing, rushing underneath.

  “Please,” I said then, in a voice so small and faint with pleasure I wasn’t sure he’d hear me.

  The first real pull and push caught me unawares even though I’d anticipated it, nearly begged for it, even. He did it all at once, nothing like the cautious way he’d pushed inside me, but fast. Hard. And harder, then, with the second. Hard enough to move me forward on the table, hard enough to move the frigging table itself.

  His hand returned to my shoulder. His thumb pressed the place that on angels sprouted wings, but there were no angels here. His fingers gripped me as he pounded inside me in the smooth rhythm he set all on his own without effort from me. I wanted to push back against him, or to lean forward and lift my ass so he could drive into me deeper, but his hands anchored me.

  Kept me still, no matter how I tried to writhe. His cock slid inside and against me, hitting spots unused to such attention.

  I was caught between pleasure and pain, feeling too good to protest though I wondered if I’d regret it later. Rough sex had a price, but at the moment I was too wildly turned on to care.

  Every thrust, each pinch of his fingertips on my flesh, sent me soaring closer and closer to the orgasm I craved.

  My mouth parted and a low moan seeped out. I closed my eyes again, wanting to get lost inside the sensations sweeping over me. The feeling of advance and retreat inside my body. The slap of our bodies against one another sounded louder with my eyes closed, and so did the harsh pant of his breathing. His low moan answering mine. Even the burble of voices from outside the hotel room sounded louder, and I gasped a small laugh at the passing conversation. They were talking about where to go for lunch while inside we were fucking like animals.

  I reached between my thighs and pressed my palm flat against my clitoris. I didn’t have to rub or stroke; his thrusts did that for me. I simply needed a little extra, just a little…

  “I want you to come.” This, said in the low, thick voice laced with desire, earned another whispering gasp from me. Something about the words, the way he said them, the command behind them, pumped my hips forward against my palm. His hand tightened on my shoulder.

  “Grace, I want you to come.”

  The sound of my name destroyed any final illusion I’d been trying to keep about him, but I didn’t care. He wanted
me to come, but he didn’t say he expected me to answer. I wasn’t sure I could form words. I let my body reply, instead, as my cunt bore down on his cock and I spiraled into ecstasy.

  Release. It was so good, so strong, so…necessary. So freeing. In that moment I could do nothing but feel. I could think of nothing but pleasure.

  I went up, up, and then floated down, sated, the table beneath my cheek still warm from the pizza box. Jack thrust a couple more times and finished with a grunting sigh. His hands relaxed, letting me go, and it wasn’t until he was no longer holding me that I really felt how hard he’d been gripping.

  For a few moments we stayed still. I moved first with a subtle shift of my hips, and Jack pulled out. I took a second longer to lean against the table we’d so abused, giving myself time to catch my breath and my legs to stop shaking. I turned to rest my butt against the table. The strap of my gown had fallen down my shoulder, so I pushed it back up, and I let the hem fall back down to my thighs. Jack had turned to take care of the condom, and when he turned back to me, he was already tucked away and zipped closed.

  We stared at each other in silence.

  Then, the smile.

  “That,” Jack said, “was totally hot.”

  I laughed. “Mmm, hmm.”

  He shook himself a little like a puppy coming out of a bath, then bounced up and down a few times. He took off the cap and looked at it, then tossed it to the dresser. His hair fell forward over one eye at once, and impatiently, he brushed it away.

  “My buddy Damien would have a cow if he knew what I was doing with his uniform, though.” He took the shirt off, too, and laid it with the hat.

  “I wondered where you got that.” My heart had stopped pounding and my thighs no longer trembled. I was too languid and sated to move, but the table had started biting into the back of my butt. I bent to pick up the fallen pizza box, which had landed on its front. “And you brought a real pizza, too.”

  Jack laughed. “Well, sure. Of course.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him as I set the box, right side up, back on the table. “It was a nice touch.”

  He looked pleased. “I was afraid I was going to show up at the wrong room by accident and I figured if I had a real pizza, I’d be more convincing.”

  I lifted the lid. Some of the cheese had glued itself to the top of the box, but most of it was all right. “This looks good. Double cheese?”

  “Yeah.” He came closer and took the slice I pulled free to hand him. “Thanks.”

  Without plates or napkins we had to make do with resting the pizza on our hands, but it was cool enough by that time. “I’m starving. Sit down.”

  He pulled up the chair next to the table and I took the other. “My friend Ricky Scorza’s uncle owns this pizza shop, and they make the best frigging pizza.”

  I bit into my slice and had to agree, it was pretty damn good. Of course, when you’re famished, anything tastes good. The sex had left my stomach growling. “Scorza’s Pizza Stop?”

  “Yeah.” Jack chewed and swallowed. “You know it?”

  “I’ve passed it.” Scorza’s was stuck between a massage-therapy office and an old brownstone divided into apartments on Third Street. I’d driven by it a few times on my way through town, but never stopped.

  We ate in companionable silence after that. Jack wolfed down three slices and I put away two, but I was the one who belched behind my hand. He laughed after a moment and followed suit.

  “Nice one,” I told him with a sigh, and leaned back in the chair to rest my hands on my stomach.

  Jack leaned back, too, and crossed his legs at the ankle. “You’re not like I thought you’d be.”

  A statement like that could either be a compliment or an insult, depending on who said it, but from Jack I was going to assume he meant it in a good way. “How’d you think I would be?”

  He shrugged and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “The other ladies…aren’t…”

  I watched his face work as he struggled to find words. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about his other ladies. I sure wouldn’t have been happy to know he spoke to them about me. I got up to wash my hands free of pizza grease in the bathroom sink. In the mirror I could see his reflection as he watched me without knowing I could see.

  He was looking at my ass, no mistaking that, in the way men have that’s boyish and lascivious all at once. They look at new cars or power tools the same way they assess a woman, sometimes, pulling her apart piece by piece the way they’d lift up the hood of a Lamborghini and coo over the engine. But when I turned and came back into the room, he wasn’t looking anymore. At least not so blatantly.

  “So much fun,” he finished, though I hadn’t prompted him.

  That surprised me. I’d expected him to say young, maybe. Or even hot, if I wanted to be bold enough to make an assumption. “Fun?” I smiled at that word, an unexpected and therefore more appreciated comment.

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “The pizza-boy stuff. Nobody else wants to do stuff like that.”

  “Ah.” I found the clothes I’d worn here, stepped into my panties, tugged the nightgown off over my head so I could put on my bra. I felt him watching me, but again when I looked, his eyes were turned away. “Well…everyone has their own ideas of what’s fun, Jack.”

  “Yeah.” He stood and stretched, then ambled into the bathroom. Unlike me, he closed the door, and in a minute I heard the toilet flush and the sound of the water running in the sink. By the time he came out, I’d finished dressing.

  “I have to run, I have an appointment at three-thirty.” I rustled around in my wallet to find some cash. “How much do I owe you for the pizza?”

  Silence greeted that question, and I looked up. “Jack?”

  “Nothing,” he said after a second. “My treat.”

  Technically, I was supposed to pick up the cost of anything extra, but since the search for cash in my wallet was revealing only a few limp, dog-eared dollars and a coffee-club card from Sheetz, I didn’t argue. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He slaughtered me once again with his smile, and I didn’t want to leave. “It was fun.”

  “It was fun.” I paused, frozen, knowing I should just leave. I was going to be late. Yet I stood, captured in place by the tilt of Jack’s mouth and the glint in his eye, trapped by the fall of his silky black hair.

  He saved me from myself by turning toward the pizza. “Mind if I take this home?”

  “Of course not.” The moment broken, I slung my purse over my shoulder and snatched up the key I needed to drop off in the office on my way out. “Don’t forget your uniform.”

  “Hell, no. Damien would beat my ass.” Jack laughed and balanced the pizza box in one hand as he grabbed up the shirt and hat with the other.

  At the doorway, we collided, bouncing like pinballs until we laughed and he stepped back to let me through. The door closed behind us. Clouds had covered the sun while we dallied inside, and I smelled rain. A breeze flipped Jack’s hair back from his face and fluttered the edges of the borrowed shirt he clutched. I spotted his motorcycle parked a few spots away.

  “How are you going to drive with that pizza in your hands?”

  Jack squinted up at the sky. “I’ll be okay. I’ll strap the pizza to the back of the bike, no problem.”

  “Jack.” I also squinted up at the sky, which had grown darker even as we stood there. “It’s going to rain.”

  Thunder rumbled.

  “See?”

  “I’ll be okay. I won’t melt.”

  I raised a brow at him. “Your pizza will get soggy.”

  “You offering me a ride?”

  “I hate to think of you riding in the rain, that’s all.” I’ll admit it, I was hoping for another glimpse of the panty-dampening smile.

  I got it.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I feigned innocence. “What? You’re telling me you’d rather get soaked and have soggy pizza? Fine, forget I offered.”

  I�
�d taken only two steps toward the office before he caught up to me and snagged my sleeve. “Wait.”

  I stopped. To our left, lightning crackled in a bruised sky. Thunder like the beat of drums followed it a moment later.

  “You can give me a ride. I’ll have one of my buddies drive me over to pick up the bike later. Thanks.”

  Again we stared at each other, but I was the first to look away. Offering him a ride had been spur-of-the-moment and probably not wise, but it was too late to retract the offer now.

  Besides, I didn’t feel right sending him off in the rain on a motorcycle with a pizza. I had too much personal experience with the aftermath of bad motorcycle accidents. If something happened to Jack that I could’ve helped prevent, I’d never forgive myself.

  I took only a few minutes to drop off the key and check out of the room. Once again the clerk didn’t do more than glance at my face, a habit I usually appreciated but that today seemed to make what I’d just done feel illicit in a way I’d stopped feeling quite some time ago. By the time I got to my car, Jack had grabbed his helmet and balanced it on the pizza box with his buddy’s shirt draped over one arm and the baseball cap dangling from one finger. He was looking at my car almost the way he’d been ogling my ass earlier.

  Behind the wheel, I reached over to unlock the door for him. Jack slid in just as the first fat drops of rain splattered on the hood. He closed his door to the accompaniment of thunder. He twisted to put the pizza and extra clothes on the backseat and buckled himself right away as I started the car.

  Betty roared like a lion, though maybe a lion with bronchitis and not one in the peak of health. I let the engine rumble for a minute before I shifted into Reverse and backed out of the parking spot. By the time I pulled to the edge of the lot, the skies had opened and rain poured down so hard the wipers had a hard time keeping the window clear.

  “Wow.” Jack craned his neck to look out the window. “I’m glad you offered me a ride.”

  I risked a glance at him, then put my gaze firmly back on the road. “Which way?”