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  “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher,” the man said exuberantly, his long, needle-thin braids bouncing after Lucas pressed a large folded bill into his hand.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lucas said. He was turning to call Miranda out of hiding when the waiter doubled back.

  “Mr. Fletcher, I’m not supposed to do this, and I could lose my job, but would you mind giving me your autograph?” the waiter asked, a hot blush heating his bronze cheeks. “It’s for my wife. She’s your biggest fan.”

  Miranda peeped around the corner to see Lucas graciously accepting the pen and hotel notepad the waiter offered.

  “What’s your wife’s name?” Lucas asked.

  “Johnetta,” the waiter said. Lucas hastily scribbled the autograph and handed it to the waiter. “Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. This is so good! My wife will be so happy when she sees this.”

  “No problem,” Lucas said. “Goodnight.”

  The waiter headed for the door and Lucas turned to retrieve Miranda. “Mr. Fletcher?” the waiter called. Lucas froze in his tracks, smiling around his gritted teeth. Miranda pinched back a laugh.

  “Yes?” Lucas said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Well,” the waiter began nervously, “it’s just that my daughter really likes your music, too. Her walls are covered with posters and pictures of you and your band.”

  Then she likes more than just Lucas’s music, Miranda thought, surprised at her sudden flash of jealousy.

  “Could I get your autograph for my daughter?” the waiter asked. “She’s seventeen and she just loves you.”

  “Certainly,” Lucas said. “What’s her name?”

  “De’Nosha,” the waiter said. “It’s spelled like it sounds. And, Mr. Fletcher, while you’re at it, could I get one for Kesse, Alison—with one “l”—Martika, Cassie, Rachel, Jessica and Dimitri?”

  “Dimitri?” Lucas questioned.

  “Those are students in my daughter’s dance class,” the waiter explained. “They all love you. Dimitri, he’s…you know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” Lucas chuckled.

  “He’s a fan, too,” the waiter said innocently.

  Momentarily, Lucas handed the waiter the notepad, which was now filled with autographs for the varied and sundry women—and men—in the waiter’s life.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Fletcher,” he gushed, bowing as he backed toward the door. “You don’t know how good it’s been meeting you. We get a lot of stars here, but you are by far the coolest one I’ve ever had the pleasure to serve.”

  “Thank you,” Lucas said.

  The waiter kissed the pile of autographs. “This autograph just bought me a thousand soft kisses from my Johnetta!”

  “Wonderful,” Lucas muttered through an impatient smile.

  “Mr. Fletcher, one last thing—”

  “Sir,” Lucas said, “please forgive me for being so abrupt, but I’d like to have dinner before it gets cold. You see, I need to be well-nourished so that I have the energy to make love all night to the beautiful woman currently hiding in the nether regions of this penthouse.”

  Miranda’s eyes grew as wide as those of the stunned waiter, who began to laugh. “I can’t wait to tell my wife about this, Mr. Fletcher,” the waiter said. “Good night, sir, and thank you!”

  * * *

  After a dinner of lobster with roasted figs and a sumptuous chocolate tart, Lucas directed Miranda to the view while he went to the bar to pour two brandies. A glass in each hand, he turned to see Miranda awkwardly using her right hand to tug at the right underarm seam of her dress.

  “This thing has been pinching my armpit all night,” she complained. “Bernie picked it out because he said it highlights my best features.”

  “Indeed,” Lucas agreed.

  “Highlight, schmighlight,” Miranda fussed, accepting the dark beverage Lucas offered as he joined her at the sofa facing the one-way glass. “I can’t wait to take this thing off.”

  Lucas’s eyes seemed to darken to the color of a midnight sky as he swirled the liquid in his brandy snifter. “Why wait?”

  Two perfectly ordinary words became a thrilling invitation that Miranda readily accepted. She set down her glass and stood framed in the sprawling window. She kept her eyes on his face as she crossed her arms over her chest and slipped the straps from the caps of her shoulders. Lucas seemed to hold his breath as she held the dress in place for a brief instant before letting it slide to the floor.

  Lucas’s breath left his body in a low groan that sounded almost painful. His eyes tried to take in her features individually and all at once. He said nothing, but his expression and the deep heaving of his chest told Miranda that he wanted her perhaps more than she wanted him.

  His hungry gaze moved over her, making her burn from the inside out. Standing before him in nothing but her G-string, stockings and high heels, she felt brazen and truly sexy for the first time in her life. She liked it. When she freed her ponytail and tossed her head back to shake out her hair, Lucas vaulted to his feet to cover her exposed throat with kisses.

  Her hands went inside his jacket, removing it from his shoulders. She blindly worked at the buttons of his shirt, driven to feel his bare skin against hers. An animal surge of want took control of Lucas, and with one hand, he ripped his shirt open and shrugged out of it. With the other he cupped Miranda’s breast. He used his thumb to tease the dusky-rose tip of it into hardness before he took it in his mouth and drew long on it.

  Miranda raised her right knee, resting it against his hip. Lucas clasped her right thigh and drew her closer to him, grinding the damp triangle of silk between her legs against the hardness tenting the front of his pants.

  “I can’t wait to get you into that bedroom, Miranda,” he said into her breast.

  “Why wait?” She turned and took a step toward the bedroom. As much as he liked the sight of her backside, Lucas liked the feel of it even more. He took her arm in a firm but gentle grasp and pulled her to him, hugging her back to his chest. He lowered his head to nuzzle her neck, his hands roaming down her sides, over her garter belt and to the tops of her stockings. His fingertips, calloused from years of plucking bass strings, could barely distinguish the silk margins of her stockings from the silk of her skin. He pushed his fingers under the top edge of her stockings before bringing his hands together between her legs.

  Miranda curled an arm around his head, guiding his mouth to hers. Her right hand covered one of his, urging him to continue his exploration of the sensitive territory between her thighs. She pressed her backside into his hips, grinding her flesh against the hot knot burning through his pants. One of his hands moved over her abdomen and up to her breast to tease its tender tip. His luxuriant kisses moved from her mouth to her neck and shoulders. Miranda turned, clapping her body to his as she kissed him. Lucas spun them, sending a surge of adrenalin washing through Miranda. She half expected to hear a sizzle when the hot skin of her back touched the cold one-way glass. When she reached down to free her stockings from her garter belt, Lucas closed his hand over hers.

  “Leave them on,” he murmured into her mouth. “Please.”

  As if rewarding her acquiescence, he kneeled before her. His hands glided over the whispery soft lengths of her legs as he parted them, and nestled himself between them. He shifted the silk concealing her glistening curls and her breath quickened. His expert touch parted the slick curtain hiding the swollen seed of her passion. His thick, soft hair brushed her lower abdomen and her thighs as he took that supersensitive pellet between his lips and nursed it as he’d nursed her breasts. She melted into the glass at the first leisured rasp of his tongue, her breath leaving her in a guttural hum of utter pleasure. He held it between his lips and flicked his tongue over it. Her legs went weak and her body seemed to float, as if the glass had vanished and she was freefalling the twenty-five stories between the penthouse and the ground.

  Lucas’s strong hands and arms supported her, holding her to his busy and talented mouth. His t
ongue slipped inside her, and a desperate whimper of tortured bliss escaped Miranda. He hummed his approval, his voice creating a vibration that added another layer of unbearable pleasure. His lips, tongue, teeth and voice worked in concert to bring her to sparkling, soul-shattering life. Her hands tightened in his hair as her hips bucked, an aching emptiness within her yearning for deeper fulfillment.

  Lucas’s want of her turned savage as he heeded her body’s unspoken call. He wondered how it was possible to want a woman so much, to be enslaved by animal cravings for her tastes and scents. Each coupling had only made him want her more.

  He stood, opening his trousers as he went. He seemed to spring from them, his heat drawn magnetically to hers. He clasped the firm, supple rounds of her buttocks and lifted her. She assisted by wrapping her arms around his neck and fastening her legs around him. Awkwardly, he used one hand to tug aside her G-string just enough to lunge into her, his muscles taut from the strength it took to hold off the eruption building within him.

  Her strong, lean thighs gripped him, flexing minutely as she moved to meet each of his thrusts with unrestrained anticipation. She hugged his head to her breasts, glorying in the scrape of his teeth and the texture of his tongue against her straining nipples. He braced her against the glass so he could gain more leverage as he forged a primitive pact between them with each thrust into the dark furnace of her body. Her thighs pulsed around his hips; her flat abdomen kissed his over and over with each stroke.

  Miranda panted for breath as she felt him grow larger within her. She raised and lowered herself, displaying a selfish nature she never knew she possessed. Every cell of her body cried out for Lucas and the wonderful release only he could give. His hands moved into her hair, to brush it from her face. He murmured her name, gasping it at turns when the sweet torture of her movements threatened to rob him of his resolve to make this interlude last. With one arm he supported her weight while he used his other hand to frame her face and guide it toward his. He fought for her gaze, but she kept her eyes closed as she kissed his forehead and his temples. Lucas lapped at the mist of perspiration coating her collarbones. He dipped his head farther and kissed her breasts, exuberantly laving their pebbled peaks before taking the tempting buds full into his mouth.

  Miranda grew noisy as she climbed closer and closer to the pinnacle of her bliss. When he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her away from him, setting her on her feet, she almost cried out in frustrated surprise.

  “The cap for the cannon,” Lucas breathed heavily, tucking himself back into his trousers as he backed away from her. “I forgot.”

  She slumped against the glass, panting to catch her breath as Lucas fell heavily to the sofa. She went to him on legs quivery with unspent desire. Lucas’s shoulders heaved with his deep breathing. His hands trembled as he swiped them over his sweaty face.

  “Lucas?” She set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m fairly certain that you stopped in time.” She did a quick calculation in her head, then said, “If my math is correct, this isn’t one of my fertile days. I’m as regular as Big Ben in that department.”

  “It’s not that.” He rose and headed for the bedroom. Miranda grabbed his discarded shirt and slipped it on before following him. He was coming out of the master bathroom, a boxed hotel courtesy kit in hand, by the time Miranda caught him.

  She stood in the doorway and watched him dump the contents of the kit on the bed. From amidst the tiny toothpaste and toothbrush, mouthwash, shampoo, conditioner, hand lotion, face and body soap, shower cap, breath mints and lip balm, Lucas selected a strand of three condoms. His apprehension made him clumsy as he sat on the foot of the bed, his head bowed. He turned the condoms over and over between his fingers.

  “Lucas, you don’t think that I…” Her mind fed her a rapid replay of the various ways their bodies had combined in the past forty-eight hours. “…have something,” she finished.

  “Of course not. As I said, it’s not you.” He braced his elbows on his thighs and sank his face in his hands.

  “You mean you have something?” She nervously pulled the flaps of the shirt closer about her body.

  He looked up at her and he couldn’t blame her for the worry he saw in her eyes. “No, love. Well, yes, but not in the way you must be thinking.”

  Her ardor reduced from a roiling boil to a simmer, she sat on the bed and leaned over to unfasten the velvety straps circling her ankles. Her shoes gone, she peeled off her stockings. The sight only reminded Lucas of the cold ache between his legs. Her oversized shirt gaped open as she crawled over to him and straddled him, keeping the turgid flesh between them in plain sight. “What’s the matter?”

  His fingertips traced her spine as he met her confused gaze. “I’ve never forgotten to put on a condom before. Never.”

  Strangely humbled by his admission, she took the condoms from his hand and tore one of them open. She carefully dressed him, further stimulating him in the bargain. “All better?”

  “Not yet.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, his mouth drawing hers into a dance their bodies would soon emulate.

  Eager to pick up where they had left off, Miranda raised herself on her knees. Lucas captured her left nipple in his mouth and hungrily drank from it as his fingers pulled aside the wet satin gliding against his hardness. Miranda steered him inside her, a moan of unabashed delight oozing from her throat as she lowered herself upon him. Without breaking contact with her, Lucas lay on his back. Miranda reached back and gripped his thighs, her body undulating upon him and clenching around him.

  “Look at me,” he begged between gritted teeth. “Miranda, love, please…look at me.”

  Her hair fell in a shining curtain as she bowed her face, but she didn’t meet his eyes. Her gaze fell upon his lips and his chin, and the space between his eyes, but she wouldn’t lock her eyes with his. When he brought his thumbs to the slick valley crowning the place where they joined, and he used them to massage her into a wild, mewling creature of passion, she shut her eyes tightly and surrendered her body to his loving.

  Passion stole Lucas’s fight for her soul as his body shuddered beneath her. His spine curved and his climax burst from him, leaving his skin humming and his ears ringing. Miranda folded herself upon him, kissing his lips, his earlobes and his throat as waves of sweet sensation churned through her. He smoothed her hair and returned her delicate kisses, all the while wondering how she could share all but her eyes with him.

  Chapter 8

  Miranda woke up tangled in Lucas’s sheets. The bed was otherwise empty, but she heard voices—one familiar, one foreign—in the living room.

  “Her name is Tabitha,” the stranger’s voice said. “That’s T-A-B-I-T-H-A.”

  “Like the daughter on Bewitched,” she heard Lucas say.

  “Yeah, man, that’s right!” the stranger crowed. “You know that show? I love that show! Boy, it sure must take a long time for American shows to make it over to England.”

  Miranda smothered a laugh in her hand, and wrapped the sheet around her as she left the bed to go to the bathroom. When she came out, the stranger was thanking Lucas for an autograph. Although she was eager to get her hands on the coffee she smelled, she lingered in the bedroom, waiting for the coast to clear.

  One of the bedroom walls was made of one-way glass. Miranda stood before it and stretched, staring down at the congestion on Boston’s busy downtown streets. The city was so much prettier and peaceful from twenty-five stories up. Miranda wished that she could wake up to such a view every morning, instead of the garbage cans and the brick sides of neighboring buildings.

  She left the window and drifted to the gigantic console housing the television. She figured she’d watch SportsCenter while Lucas tried to politely extract himself from a conversation about the merits of Prince versus Stevie Wonder. Miranda forgot about SportsCenter when she opened the console and saw a photograph propped in the space between the television and the inside of the console.

&n
bsp; She had picked it up and looked at it before it occurred to her that it was none of her business. Her stomach dropped. The glossy 8x10 pictured her on the top of her fire escape. She was dressed much as she was now, in a bed sheet, with her hair a sleep-tousled tumble about her face and shoulders. In the photo, she smiled and waved down at Lucas. Now, as she gripped the photo in her hand and stormed out of the bedroom, vinegar began to brew in her veins.

  Lucas, having successfully gotten rid of the latest star-struck room service waiter, was pouring coffee into two cups when Miranda stomped up behind him. “Where did you get this?” she demanded, whapping his bare back with the photo she wielded. “Did your people call Meg and arrange for photographers to be outside my window when you left the other day?”

  Lucas calmly turned and took the photo from her. “The hotel provides complimentary daily papers,” he began. “Coe’s daughter saw the fire escape photos of us, and she brought them to my attention. I liked this one, so my manager called the photographer at the Herald-Star and asked him for a print of it.” He set his hands on her shoulders, close to her neck. “That’s all, Miranda. I wanted a picture of you, and you have to admit, those photos of you are beautiful.”

  Miranda’s wrath vanished, to be replaced by a brilliant flash of embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she started. “I’m so sorry I reacted that way, Lucas. I just…I don’t like being in the paper and I thought…it’s stupid. Forget it. Forgive me. Please?”

  Lucas handed her a cup of steaming coffee. Miranda held it in both hands and allowed Lucas to seat her at the table, where a lavish breakfast had been spread out for them.

  “You thought I tipped off the press, to gain publicity,” Lucas supposed as he sat in the chair opposite her.

  Miranda stared into her coffee, too ashamed to admit that his guess was exactly what she’d thought.