Hot Streak

CHAPTER 47

T hey should have food sent up, he said, scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast maybe, something light for her stomach, and champagne to celebrate. He added with a grin, “I'll drink yours.”

And he ordered flowers, baskets of white roses.

Too many flowers, she anxiously said, watching a parade of young men carry in the white wicker baskets. But Carey only shrugged, took off his jacket, pulled off his tie, and asked, “Would you like mousse for dessert? I'm trying to think of digestible foods. Or a sorbet or maybe a fruit… strawberries?”

“Okay,” she said, and he knew she was feeling better.

“All three,” he told the waiter, who stood at attention, his pen poised. “And maybe some ribs, for me,” he ordered, with a smile at Molly. “And steamed fish for you?” He looked at her for confirmation and nodded. Dropping into the chair beside her, he leaned over to kiss her lightly on her cheek. “I'm going to adore watching you get fat,” he murmured. “We need a vegetable,” he asserted, as if remembering the additional food group like a dutiful father, “for junior or juniorette,” he whispered in Molly's ear.

“Do you have asparagus?” he asked the waiter.

“Green or white; sir?”

“Green, we're trying to be healthy.”

“That's enough,” Molly cautioned. “You're beginning to sound like a nutritionist. I can't eat all that.”

“Humor me,” he said, his voice low, cheer radiating like sunbeams from his eyes. “This is my first baby.” And he kissed her again.

“The waiter,” Molly murmured, not accustomed to living her life as Carey did, with servants continually around.

“He doesn't mind.”

“Please?”

“That'll be it,” Carey said to the waiter. He smiled then, to mitigate his crisp dismissal and said, “Thanks a lot… appreciate your patience.” Rising from his chair, he followed the man out into the small hallway. “She's having my baby,” he quietly told the waiter, holding the door open, “so she's a little touchy.”

“Congratulations, sir,” the young man said. “I understand.”

“Oh, and bring up some rice pudding. She likes it.”

“Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

“No rush… really.”

“Yes, sir, I understand, sir,” the waiter immediately interpreted. “We won't hurry.”

“Thanks. It's a great day, isn't it?”

“Yes, sir, I know what you mean, sir. It certainly is.”

“Now let's get your dress off,” Carey said as he reentered the sitting room. “Hey, altruistic motives only,” he went on, his arms out, his smile wide. “I just thought you might like to-ah, send that to the cleaners.”

They showered. Wrapped in the hotel robes, they lay on the satin-covered bed and smiled and talked and lightly kissed. Carey apologized for the decor; Molly said it didn't matter a bit. He promised her the real thing-rococo palaces in France and Bavaria-as soon as they left on their honeymoon. She said a tent in the backyard would be palatial, if he were beside her.

He said he'd be happy to arrange it. Her backyard or his? He didn't mention, cautious to keep the dialogue discreetly removed from controversial facts, that his backyards were in California, Tahiti, London, and Greece.

She only wrapped her arms around his neck and languorously murmured, “Mmmm.” The literal translation was hazy, but her meaning was clear. He smiled into her warm blue eyes and whispered his undying love for her.

When the food came, the very first thing Molly said was, “Rice pudding? How did you know?” Her eyes were wide in wonder.

“My gypsy blood,” he teased, but in truth he'd remembered she'd mentioned it once years ago and it had come to him like some flashback as he was standing in the hall talking to the waiter. She'd always eaten it at her grandmother's, she'd told him then.

“I love you,” she said, her heart filled with inexpressible affection.

Carey arranged the food on the bed, and they tasted everything, kissing between bites, feeding each other a spoonful or forkful if a flavor particularly appealed to them.

Carey stopped eating first and lounged on one elbow, watching her. The whiteness of her robe heightened the fairness of her hair, its simplicity enhanced the clarity of her beauty-her small, straight nose, the pink opulence of her well-formed mouth, the Scandinavian classic purity of her cheekbones and her eyes, heavily lashed and blue as a summer sky. If he wasn't so selfish, he'd put her in one of his movies; but he was, and he had no intention of sharing her with the world.

She reached over for a strawberry, and her robe fell open slightly, the fullness of her breasts briefly revealed; the creamy texture of her skin a subtle contrast to the immaculate whiteness of her robe. White but not white, warm and soft and touched with rosy iridescence. He felt his erection rise. When she put the strawberry in her mouth whole, he experienced a rush of heat racing through his veins.

“Are they good?” he asked, content and happy, knowing he would touch her lush creamy skin, feel its smooth warmth, and feel himself inside her.

Molly turned to him and nodded, her mouth still filled with strawberry. Her smile was an upcurving of red lips damp with strawberry juice.

He couldn't resist. Stretching up, he tasted the sweetness of her mouth. “They are good,” he agreed a moment later. He returned to his lazy sprawl, the pulsing of his arousal keeping time with his heartbeat.

“Aren't you hungry anymore?” Molly asked, tiny flutters of desire distracting her own appetite.

“Depends.” His entire body, lean and tanned and minimally covered by a robe made for a much smaller man, was invitation.

“On?” She knew the game, and relished the soft promise of the sound on her lips.

“What you have to eat.”

His dark eyes were half-closed, and she wondered if that seductive glance was intrinsic or learned in bedrooms all over the world.

She moved her hand in the minutest gesture, indicating the trays of food spread on the bed. Her own seductive smile was indeed inherent and natural. Without the virtuoso practice of his.

“We always did get along,” he murmured. He could feel the heat rising through his body.

“At least in bed,” she replied in a husky contralto.

He glanced at the food, then at her. “Was the sorbet good?”

“It was cold,” she softly said.

“Did you like the chocolate mousse?” The rich resonance of his voice stirred all her nerve endings to life.

“It was too dark.”

They weren't talking about food; they were talking about unhurried intoxication… heedless of the world around them. Their world had narrowed dramatically to two people, very close, on a small portion of a large bed.

“I've never eaten rice pudding.” He hadn't moved, not a muscle, not an eyelash, and then one dark brow lifted in query.

“You'll like it,” she said.

He moved then with a swift, fluid grace, and cleared off the bed of trays and dishes. Almost cleared off the bed… except for the pudding.

His bronzed skin seemed darker against the white terry-cloth robe, his hair more golden in the half-light of evening. His eyes were the midnight black of velvet dreams. They were her tiger eyes, their tempestuous beauty mixed with a moody restlessness mirroring his mercurial nature. And they were smiling for her.

When he untied his robe, shrugged it off, and dropped it to the floor, her pulse responded with its own internal storm. His wide muscular shoulders exaggerated his height, and he was solid strength and lithe elegance in such perfect balance, the symmetry of nature deserved blushing honors. He was much too beautiful.

And when he moved toward her and lowered himself to the bed, a rush of flickering shocks trembled through her body. She felt defenseless in a splendid, flaunting way, waiting for him to touch her.

He picked up the silver bowl of pudding and handed it to her. “Hold this,” he said, placing the small ornate dish in her hands and closing her fingers around it with a gentle pressure of his large hands. “And then I don't have to reach for it.”

Her body reacted instantly to the scented tenor of his voice and the intimate suggestion of his words, and her hands trembled slightly holding the bowl.

“Don't drop it,” he murmured, steadying her arms with his palms. “I need that.”

The rice pudding was prepared more elaborately than her grandmother's, folded into rich whipped cream and then frothed into a smooth, fluffy cloud. A faint fragrance of cinnamon drifted up from the bowl.

“Am I going to like it?” Carey asked, observing the direction of her gaze.

Her thick lashes lifted, and the intensity of her blue eyes held his for a moment before she said, “I'm sure you will.”

“You have some first,” he said softly, scooping his index finger into the fluff and bringing it to her mouth.

He waited the merest fraction of a second until she opened her lips as though yielding to his silent directive, and then he slid his finger into her mouth. She felt the small invasion with a responding heated flame deep in her stomach, and he shut his eyes for a brief moment of pleasure when her lips closed over his finger. “You're warm and wet,” he murmured, sliding his finger out again and dipping it once more into the pudding. And he rubbed the sweet whiteness over her lips this time, then bent to lick it off. He sucked on her bottom lip first, and then her top while she sat very still and let the throbbing between her legs inundate her mind.

“You taste good,” he whispered, his tongue drifting over the curve of her upper lip. “Do you taste good everywhere?”

“I hope so,” she breathed, her eyes audacious with lust. “I truly do…”

“Would you like your robe off?” It was a gentle query with a faint dulcet undercurrent of command.

“Yes,” she answered. “And hurry,” she added with an imperiousness of her own.

He laughed. “And if I don't?” he inquired.

“I'll kill you.”

His eyelids drooped in insolent reply. “Your loss,” he said softly.

“I'm still holding this bowl of pudding,” she threatened.

“Which I'm sure you'll enjoy later, if you see things my way.”

“How much will I enjoy it?” she inquired.

“A lot,” he promised, unabashed at his proficiency.

“You're pushing it, Count Fersten.”

“I know. You're extremely hard to push… it makes the game so much more fun.”

“I'll get you for this.”

He smiled. “Maybe.” He touched her cheek with the lightest fingertips. “You look hot.”

And she was. She was so damned hot it brought back memories of high school when you'd pet and play and never consummate the ardor because everyone was too young to know what to do. But your body would throb for hours afterward, on fire for an elusive release. But it was no longer elusive, and she wanted to feel the fevered, hot-blooded liberation, and she wanted right this very moment to feel him.

As his fingers touched the ties of her robe, she moaned, a low, whimpering sound of wanting. She felt the searing path of his hands over her breasts a moment later, as he eased the garment off, taking the bowl from her briefly so she could free her arms.

He painted the crests of her breasts then, quickly and delicately, with the creamy froth as though he had a job to accomplish. She was both unnerved and tantalized by his detachment, as though she were a human sculpture he was decorating with skill and finesse. His touch was sensitive as he smoothed the creamy confection over her nipples, and he smiled as they hardened and distended beneath the cool dessert like crowning ornaments swelling for him.

But when he bent his head a short time later to taste his handiwork, he was no longer concerned with haste. He leisurely sucked and licked and nibbled until Molly would have collapsed had he not held her upright. He had to take the bowl from her hands and lay her back against the pillows a few moments later, because her eyes had closed and she was too absorbed in the waves of pleasure flooding through her body to be aware of the outside world.

How long could she sustain such intensity, she wondered, before she died or fainted or disappeared into another dimension? If she weren't so selfish, she'd hate him for being so expert. His mouth was like heaven, consigning her into blissful Elysium until suddenly the pressure of his lips intensified, sending a river of sensation flooding down through her body. Her pulsing hunger approached uncontrollable limits. He bit her then, tiny, lush, perfectly restrained bites, and she screamed as a rushing conflagration ignited every feverish nerve.

He waited for her heated cry to dissipate in the mauve twilight of the room before he gently spread her legs and settled between them, stretching out his long body without urgency, as though he had a horizonless span of mauve twilights at his disposal.

“I want you,” Molly whispered, her eyes shut tight against her headlong plunge into ecstasy.

“I can tell,” Carey softly replied, stroking the satiny flesh inside her thighs.

“Hurry.”

“No.”

“Please…” Her breathing was accelerated, her cheeks flushed.

“I don't like to hurry.” And he smoothed his pudding-dipped fingers over her hot, throbbing dampness. As the striking coolness covered her heated flesh, as his fingers stroked and gently stretched to fill her sweetness with his dessert, nothing mattered but feeling. The entire focus of the world was beneath his hands, and she rose into his manipulating fingers, greedy and burning. When he replaced his fingers a moment later with his tongue, she trembled violently, as though she were a celibate nun who'd never been touched.

He reached up to soothe her tremors, his warm palms gliding over her arms first, then tenderly over the fullness of her swollen breasts. They drifted downward long moments later, across the smoothness of her stomach, to reach finally the torrid center of her longing. And he used his long fingers gently, massaging, guiding the direction of his mouth and tongue until he'd appeased his appetite for creamy pudding and deprived Molly completely of reason. She was floating in a nirvana of the senses, her entire body attuned to the progress of Carey's lips and tongue, her only conception, a flooding, intense pleasure beyond conceivable words. She had forgotten in her eagerness how he could maintain the intensity just short of the extreme limit that would take you over the edge. She'd forgotten, but he never did.

And moments later, when he moved from his languorous ease, adjusted himself above her, and entered her with a gliding force that drove in to touch the very center of her being, she dissolved around him in blissful release.

He smiled. In so many ways she was practical or contemplative, but never in bed. Making love, she exposed herself spontaneously to feeling as though it was pointless to settle for less. He'd always adored her hedonistic, unreserved intemperance.

And she his. “Thank you,” she whispered, brushing her hands through his scented hair and sighing a small blissful rush of air. “I owe you.”

“I'll be collecting in the next few minutes,” he replied with a smile, his rigid arousal buried deep inside her. “Rest for a second or so.”

“That long?” Her half-lidded gaze was amused.

She stretched luxuriously then, a sensual, sybaritic movement he felt tighten around his erection. When he groaned in pleasure, she murmured, “Ready?”

Once, late that night, she sensed his shock, although his expression was hidden in the shadowed room.

“Where did you learn that?” he growled, territorial prerogatives obvious in the bite of his voice.

“I read,” Molly sweetly replied. “Everyone can't visit the plush red-light districts.”

“And if I don't believe you?”

“Can I help it if I'm a liberated woman?” she teased, savoring both his shock and possessiveness. It would never do to let a man like Carey Fersten take her for granted. She rather preferred keeping him on his toes.

“Not anymore,” he snapped.

“We'll see now, won't we?” she replied, moving beneath him in a unique and tantalizing way.

Absorbing the shimmering, exquisite sensations for long, distracted moments, Carey swallowed hard before he muttered, “Damn you.”

“And I love you, too,” Molly purred.

He demonstrated then, moody and fevered, who exactly could do what to whom, but the delirium encompassed them both and through the night they pledged themselves to each other in a flaming passion that had survived separation and loss, intact and whole and glorious.