Penthouse Suite (11 page)

“Ahhhh!” He groaned as if he were in deep pain.

“What’s wrong?” Kate turned in alarm.

“I seem to have a problem, Kate.”

Kate glanced down at his hands, the hands that were trying to force a very small spandex swimsuit over a body that was refusing to cooperate.

“It won’t fit, Kate. You’ve ruined me forever. I may never be able to wear clothes again. I’ll have to stay indoors, wear raincoats, and take cold showers.”

Kate was trembling all over. For the first time in her life she couldn’t think. As he took her into his arms, she moaned. His lips brushed over her still-swollen breasts. His unexpected arousal pushed against her, making her mindless with need. She suddenly realized they were on the small bunk.
He was kissing her, touching her, entering her once again. She gave herself over to sensation, knowing that she might never experience the wonder of such a happening again.

They dressed silently afterward, each stunned by the intensity of their coming together. Max pulled her back into the water, and they played at washing each other until they were clean and the sense of awkwardness between them was gone.

“Come with me, woman. I’m going to cover you with lotion.” He led her back under the edge of a stand of tall majestic pines, where he had spread the blanket beside the plastic cooler.

“Sure,” she said, and laughed, no longer trying to separate herself from the island god she’d conjured up in her most erotic daydream. “Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.” She lay down on her stomach and folded her arms beneath her forehead. “Okay, have at it, Frankie,” she said. “Surf’s up.”

“Frankie Avalon? Kate, don’t you watch any current programs on television?”

Max poured sunscreen into his palm and began to rub it across her back.

“There was a time when I didn’t. But I don’t watch television now. There are too many things I haven’t done yet. That’s why I don’t understand a man who knows exactly where he’s going. I’d rather be surprised. Tell the truth now, wouldn’t you?”

“Surprised? I’d say that my life has taken on a definite quality of the unknown. Just look at me. I’m out here on a deserted island in the middle of the afternoon without a care in the world. You’re a very special lady, Kate.”

“Nothing special about me, Max. I’m pretty ordinary,
except for what I do for a living. And if I were a man, I’d be even duller.”

“I don’t want to talk about work, Kate. I want to know about you. Tell me about your family.”

Kate took a deep breath. “Okay, bossman. Here it is. I never knew my father. He came from a wealthy family. My mother got pregnant. He hit the road. I was born. She went back home, settled down and became the best waitress at Sam’s Diner in Pikeville, Kentucky. There wasn’t a lot to do in Pikeville then, and not much more now. It’s just normal, small-town America.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I planned to. I’d just graduated from high school and enrolled in junior college when we found out that my mother had cancer. I had to go to work. We needed the money. Then came her surgery, chemotherapy, the works.”

His hands had left her back and were working their way down her thighs. Her skin was beginning to be very warm, and she wasn’t at all sure that the heat was coming from the sun. She forced herself to continue. As long as she was thinking about her mother, she couldn’t think about Max’s hands.

“The television was her window to the outside world. But she didn’t like current programs very much. Old movies weren’t threatening to her. She loved the past. It was safe and happy. The bad guys were obvious, and the good guys always won. I think that’s about it. A lot different from your background, I’ll bet.”

“Maybe and maybe not, since I never knew my father either. And we didn’t have a television.” His hands skimmed down the backs of her legs. “Turn over.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m committing your body to memory, and I’m ready to catalog the rest of you,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Because you need this sunscreen on both sides if you’re planning to do any work tomorrow.”

“If I’m planning to do any work tomorrow? Of course I’m planning to work tomorrow, if I don’t get fired again.”

“I’m not going to fire you. Life without you would be much too dull. You need a job, and I need to change my life-style, remember?”

Kate was finding it hard to remember why anybody had ever thought Max was dull. A little stern maybe, but she was beginning to understand that quality in him. Compassionate? Romantic? Caring? Sexy? He was all those and more. Without even thinking, she turned over.

Max poured a dollop of lotion on Kate’s stomach and swallowed hard. He began to rub the clear liquid over her shoulders, making quick feathery motions across her collarbone and down the sides of her breasts to her abdomen. Up and down, faster, slower. The muscles in his neck were corded tight.

Kate forced herself to open her eyes. “Max?”

His eyes were glazed. He smiled provocatively.

Kate tried to remain coolheaded and detached. Her skin was on fire, and it wasn’t due to the sun.

Max could see her breathing become shallow. Beneath the skimpy swimsuit top, her nipples had peaked into tight cherries, begging him to take them in his mouth. He could feel his own body harden and thrust against her thigh.

“Kate?” His voice was hoarse with desire.

“I don’t understand. Why do you want me, Max?”

“I don’t know, Kate. Must there be answers?”

He leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth. As he touched her he felt the passion between them build quickly to the point of no return. It intensified, gathered force, and swept them away with its power.

“Max!” Half beneath him, Kate twisted to allow the other nipple the pleasure of his kiss.

This time he seemed to move in slow motion as his mouth left her breasts and captured her lips again. She burned with the need to touch the man beside her. She thrust her hands through his hair, slid them down his neck, across his chest, and lower, until she was holding his hardness in her hand. She heard him gasp, and she gloried in the power she held over him.

They were engulfed by a slow-moving tidal wave of sensation that burned the very sand beneath the blanket where they lay. Finally he lifted himself over her and they came together, racing toward the sun, experiencing wave after wave of exquisite pleasure until at last they were spent.

“The world may never know, Max, but between you and me, never let the word ‘dull’ be mentioned again.”

“Ah, Kate, my Kate.” He moved back to her side. Lifting himself on one elbow, he kissed her lips gently.

His kiss was almost spiritual. Kate let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

“Kate. Do you have any notion of what I feel? I think that I’m beginning to care for you, Kate Weston, very much. I think we may have to extend your contract. I don’t think I’m going to be able to let you go.”

She lay listening to his unsteady breathing. In all her wishes for adventure, she’d never pictured herself making love to such a man on a deserted island. She’d never known that a man and woman could come together in such an explosion of desire. A week ago she would never have believed that she’d share this kind of bond with this kind of man. Now? Was it all a fantasy? It had to be.

“Did you hear me, Kate?” Max’s hand was lying across her stomach, his fingers splayed like a steel fan, holding her still.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Max. Don’t care too much. You mustn’t feel that way about me. This isn’t part of any movie. I know that you’ve learned the right lines, but I don’t need to hear you say them. I understand.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Script? If you think that this is some kind of play acting, you’re wrong.” He removed his hand from Kate’s stomach and sat up.

“No, you’re just caught up in the fantasy, too. Hey!” She twisted away and stood. “Bossman, let’s get to the food. You promised me a picnic. I never get serious on an empty stomach.”

Max stared at her in amazement, a situation in which he continually found himself. The woman was completely bewildering. They’d just made love, magnificent love. He’d opened up to Kate as he’d never done to any other woman, and suddenly she was pulling away from him.

“Dammit, Kate. What does that mean?”

“It means that this isn’t real, Max. You and I, here on this island, making love on the beach. This isn’t real. I understand that. When we get back to the hotel—that’s real.”

Max let out an angry sigh and shook his head. “You mean this is all some kind of pretend trip for you? It’s a fantasy? Well, it means much more to me, and I won’t deny that. I’ll drop it for now, Kate, because I know you feel something for me, even if you won’t admit it. Why don’t we have lunch?”

Kate let the subject drop and watched as Max uncovered the food.

The sail back to the hotel was much too short. Max didn’t make any more provocative statements about how he felt, making it easy for her to pretend that they were just a regular guy and his girl returning from a nice Sunday outing. Outside her room, Kate lost all awareness of time as Max kissed her good-bye.

“Kate?” he whispered.

“Max, what are you doing?”

“I’m touching you, Kate. I like touching you.” He slid one hand beneath her shirt and cupped her breast. The other hand slipped down and cupped her bottom, lifting her hard against him.

“May I come in, Kate? Please? I don’t want to leave you.”

Earlier he’d been demanding. Now he was asking politely. This unexpected tenderness was part of the new Max, and she didn’t know how to respond. She sighed and lifted her hand to run it along the edge of his lip.

“You want to stay here, in the employees’ quarters? Wouldn’t you be a little out of place?”

“If you’re here, it will be the Taj Mahal.”

“I’m on call tonight, Max. And I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to stay.”

“I know,” he whispered, “but I understand that there’s an Atlanta Braves game on TV, and I thought we’d watch it.”

She tried to move away from the intimacy that was turning her body into Silly Putty. “I don’t think we’d get much watching done here.”

“All right, let’s go for a walk. I know a little spot down the beach that’s secluded and …”

It took every ounce of control Kate could muster to twist out of his grasp. She would have been content to spend the night, the next month, the next year in Max’s arm. But she couldn’t.

“No, Max. Too much has happened too fast. You have to go. I can’t think while you’re touching me. Maybe tomorrow.”

“No, not tomorrow, Kate.” He pulled her close and kissed her again and again before drawing back. “I have to leave for New York on the red-eye flight. Come with me.”

“To New York? Now, would that be an idea. Work two days and run away with the boss. I can’t, Max. Be practical. You go to New York, and when you get back, we’ll see.”

With a sigh of resignation, Max pulled his hand from under her shirt. He lifted his head and looked down at her in confusion. “Are you sure?”

No
, she wanted to say. The only thing she was sure of was that when she found her place in the sun, she didn’t expect to get burned by its heat.

“No, I’m not sure of anything, Max. But I think you need to go.” Kate knew that she was hurting him, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“All right, Kate.” He drew himself up and stepped back. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

After one last quick, sweet kiss, he was gone.

Kate went inside and closed the door.

Damn Ricardo Montalban. She wish she’d never watched
Fantasy Island.
She’d made up her mind to let Max make love to her, but she didn’t know how to handle this kind of relationship. Adventure she craved, but never in her wildest imagination had she equated conquering new horizons with romance. One thing she did know, she hadn’t imagined the way Max Sorrenson made her feel.

Max leaned back against the brocaded airplane seat and flexed his tired neck muscles. For the first time, he’d lost his intense power of concentration. In the middle of an earnest presentation at the board meeting, the memory of a pair of warm brown eyes had intruded, and he’d suddenly been back on the beach being kissed by a woman who called him bossman and ordered him around.

Max leaned his head back and closed his eyes, wondering what he was going to do about Kate. They’d made fierce, intense love, but when he’d given voice to his feelings, she’d drawn back. They had both been surprised by the pure physical reaction they’d experienced. They’d eaten lunch and talked. But he’d sensed her uncertainty.

Max hadn’t wanted to leave the Carnival Strip the next day. His scheduled trip to New York for the board meeting was one he’d have bypassed if he’d had time to prepare anyone else. Then before the board meeting had ended he’d received the urgent call from fellow hotel owner, Red Garden. Red had been made an offer for his newly completed hotel, the Showboat. The property hadn’t even been on the market, but the offer was just too good for him to turn down.

“Dammit, Red, can’t you give the Hotel Association a few days to make a counteroffer?” Max had argued. “You’ve barely got the place open. I need to get back to my office to see if I can find a fairy godmother with a magic wand somewhere. Right now, I can’t even think.”

Red didn’t know that what Max really wanted to get back to was Kate. Max couldn’t concentrate on any problem until he’d seen Kate again.

“Sorry, Max. My buyer is anxious for a quick sale. I didn’t intend to sell just now, but what can I do? I can’t pass on this. You’re the wonder boy. You’ve always come through before. Give me a higher bid, and it’s yours.”

Max had made the only offer he could, based on the funds available, and it hadn’t been enough. For the first time, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

The Hotel Association had turned into a kind of Chamber of Commerce. They’d committed some of their funds to mediate the fight between the local fishermen and the outsiders moving in. But the real problem was that the Association had not yet had time to replenish their funds since they’d bought the Oasis Hotel.

“Dammit, Red,” Max had to admit, “we’re close, but that’s the best I can do. What about it?”