is she? Who the fuck is this woman, where’d she come from? The question was like a whining voice in his ear. Five years ago he wouldn’t have even heard it. Five years ago he would have been thanking God and all the stars for dropping her into his bed like this. But he was thirty now. There were considerations.
Still. Considerations didn’t soften him and they sure as hell didn’t make him want to pull out. She grinned down at him, ran a tongue round her full, hungry lips and pressed her chest out at him. A brown nipple wobbled invitingly in his face, brushing his cheek and eyelids.
‘Bite it …?’ There was a pleading note in her voice. Instinctively Ryan caught a nipple between his teeth, slowly squeezed it between his teeth. Her back arched, her middle pushing down onto his as though desperate to keep him still.
‘F-fuck … fuck!’ The word came out of the depths of her throat. She hadn’t come yet, but she was pursuing her climax with a ferocious determination, working her hips faster and faster. Loving him. Grinding him into the bedding.
He was close to spilling, but he restrained himself with an effort. Just push, just keep on keeping on …
She came, eventually, with spasms. As if an electric current were running through her. Her back went straight and stiff and her mouth opened wide as her eyes shut.
Say aaah-hh, Ryan thought. Stifling an urge to giggle until the tightness of her sex around his shaft got him, made him crane upward and burst finally. She fell sideways off him, curling up and holding herself, sighing with pleasure.
Ryan lay breathing for a long while, staring at the ceiling. There was a box of tissue on the nightstand. He cleaned himself and rolled himself onto her back, arms going around her middle as though they’d been pre-programmed for that very action.
This is what she likes, when we finish. Spooning. Me holding her. She waits for this, she loves it.
Strange thought. He no idea why he would think such a thing, because …
‘Who are you?’ He whispered the word, asked her ear. ‘Where’d you come from?’ Because you’re wonderful? No, that would be smarmy. Might as well ask if heaven was missing an angel.
She laughed, reached for his hand and pressed it hard against her shoulder.
‘Why? You want to take me back, exchange me?’
‘You know what I mean …’ He tried, unsuccessfully, for a serious tone.
‘No, I don’t know. Tell me.’ She sounded sleepy, ready to drift off. And why shouldn’t she? That good old post-coital snooze, you can’t beat it. Except when you have a plane to catch at La Guardia. Except when you have a strange woman in bed with you who acts like she knows you when you’ve never seen her before.
Her bare feet found his. They were icy cold. He caught them between his, thoughtlessly. Warmed them.
His eyes made a circuit of the room, viewing it more critically, his mind sharper. There were his laptop and papers, yes, and his suitcase, open but still neatly arranged. But the rest of the place, he saw now, was a disaster; shopping bags and uneaten carry-out and small piles here and there of underwear and cosmetics. Women’s shoes everywhere. Many, many fashion magazines, hung on the arms of chairs or lying flat and spread open like grounded birds. The room smelled of her, a sweet mixture of perfume and skin spiced with unwashed female laundry. Like a room that had been lived in by the same woman for at least a week. But they – he – had only checked in yesterday. He didn’t like the thought, so he pushed it from his head. He had to find out who she was.
How do you start a conversation like this? An unpleasant thought was occurring to Ryan, that his new friend might be crazy, or some kind of scam-artist. What other woman just gets in bed with you and pretends you’re old friends?
He didn’t get a chance to phrase the question. She was doing something with his hand, prising his fingers apart, looking at them. ‘Where’s your ring?’ Her voice was concerned.
‘Ring?’ At the moment, the word meant nothing to him. She might have been speaking Cantonese.
‘You didn’t lose it? Ryan!’ Panicked now. She sat up, refusing to let go of his hand.
All right, she’s crazy, then.
‘What ring?’ he asked carefully.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth tightened. What would have been humour a moment ago was now sarcasm and hurt. She held up her right hand, her long fingers spread and wriggling. A plain platinum band rode on the fourth.
Oh, my God. My God. She thinks we’re married. He had to break this to her easy. Gently. But firm as well. He had to be very firm with her.
‘I … I just took it off for a while. It was … hurting.’
Her shoulders lowered, eyes went soft again. Mercurial. Her temper came and went. That’s why you fell in love with her, a voice whispered to him. He ignored it.
She seized his hand, covered his fingers with soft kisses. ‘I told you we would get it resized. It’s not that much money.’
‘Yeah … yeah.’ He began disengaging himself from her embrace, which was accordingly tightened.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Just … bathroom. Back in a minute.’
She let him go and leaned back on the covers, pouting. ‘OK, but don’t be long. We’ve both got to shower. We’ve got a plane to catch, don’t forget. And you know what a nightmare security is these days.’
Nodding and smiling, he made his escape.
‘Oh, and be careful! Your clumsy princess spilled the mouthwash.’
The small rug in the bathroom was, in fact, soaked green with mint-smelling liquid. A pair of nylons hung over the shower rod. Ryan found her wallet resting on a fat paperback behind the toilet. He tore it open and found her driver’s licence.
Under her smiling, happy-looking picture was the name IRENE CARSON.
Ryan sank down onto the toilet, feeling sick. She had his last name. The DC address on the licence was his. If this was some kind of scam, it had been planned well in advance, though for what purpose he had no idea.
Fingers rapped on the door.
‘Darling!’ The woman’s voice – Irene’s voice – called gaily. ‘Done yet? I have to tinkle!’
* * *
Ryan left while she was in the shower. He moved fast, snatching up his laptop and shovelling clothes into the suitcase. He didn’t stop to put on anything but jeans and a T-shirt and his running shoes.
He shut the door gently behind him, then ran for the elevator, the sound of the shower fading to nothing as he barrelled down the hallway. He’d tell the front desk that some insane woman had broken into his room. Let them deal with it. He had a plane to catch.
But as he waited for the elevator, he began feeling the plan was basically unsound. She – Irene – had his address. And a Washington, DC driver’s licence that as good as said she was his wife.
And there was the little matter of the sex. He could see the concierge nodding sympathetically, then, with an ever so slight creasing of his brow, inquire why, since Sir was so put out over the strange woman in his room, Sir had, with such evident enthusiasm, fucked her cross-eyed?
He told himself these things, but there was something else he couldn’t quite escape, that he couldn’t quite face.
He didn’t want to leave her. Even though he was on the move, walking with great determination to a particular destination, the world around him seemed oppressively quiet without her sexy chatter. Less colourful without her clothes thrown everywhere. It was as though time moved more slowly without