Suite Seduction

He’d never taken a woman home, of course, knowing the full Kendall clan was enough to frighten off anyone. More than that, he’d never met a woman he’d wanted to bring to North Carolina. But some members of his family had met one or two girlfriends when they’d come to visit him.

“Find a nice southern girl,” his mother had said after one disastrous dinner during which his date had picked at a salad, complaining the dressing was too rich to be fat free, then gone on to tell Robert’s father he was crazy to eat red meat these days. “One who is gentle of heart, but has blisters on her hands,” his mother had counseled, “who isn’t afraid to laugh instead of titter. A lady who can occasionally be unladylike.”

One whose eyes are the most amazing shade of green, who’s completely inept at hiding whatever she’s feeling at a particular moment. Ruthie would be a lousy poker player, he realized. Then again, Robert had never really cared for poker.

With her zany personality, he imagined she wouldn’t be much of an office person, either. He didn’t know what Ruthie did for a living, but he would bet his last dollar it had nothing to do with finances, executives, or business.

He was about to ask her when she slid from her stool and tried to push her feet into her emerald-green pumps. “This was the color my dress was supposed to be,” she explained ruefully.

“It would have looked beautiful on you.”

She winced as she slipped the other shoe on. “Shouldn’t have taken them off. Now they’re killing me.” She leaned against the table and bent forward to adjust the shoe, giving Robert a clear view of the deep cleavage revealed by her dress. The fact that he knew he shouldn’t look didn’t stop him from staring, nearly choking on a mouthful of air he suddenly felt incapable of drawing into his lungs.

“Time to shuffle off,” she said.

“You’re staying here in the hotel?” he asked, figuring she was but wanting to get more information from her.

She nodded. “I don’t have to, since my apartment’s only a few miles away. But I should take advantage of the free room, especially after so much champagne.”

Ruthie reached for the green handbag lying on the table. As she pulled the strap of the bag, she wobbled on her high heels, pulling too hard and spilling the bag, and its contents, all over the floor. “Oh, rats,” she muttered as she bent over to retrieve her belongings.

Robert froze. She hunched right in front of him, between her vacant stool and his knees, and the images that ran through his brain would have given quite a shock to colleagues who considered him a responsible, conservative man.

She rested one small hand on his thigh to steady herself, refreshing in her complete unselfconsciousness, yet utterly devastating to his composure. He watched, focusing on those fingers pressing into the gray fabric of his slacks. It took her forever, it seemed, to retrieve her comb, lipstick, room key and a bundle of netting filled with birdseed.

Robert’s mouth felt like it contained a cup of sawdust. He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe without thinking about it. He had the most intense longing to watch her hand move higher, stroking his leg, pulling him down to kneel on the floor with her. Or better yet, to bring her to her feet, then lower her onto the top of the sturdy, butcher-block table. The memory of the pale skin of her thighs above the lace of her white stockings returned with gut-clenching intensity.

Get real, Robert! You’ve known the woman an hour!

She was vulnerable, depressed, and had consumed more champagne than she should have. No way would he take advantage, even if the sparkle in her eye while they’d talked had told him, without words, she was attracted to him, too.

No. Tonight would be about chocolate cake and laughter and champagne. His hands on her body, her lips on his mouth, her scent filling his head and her sighs of pleasure would all come another night. No question about it.

“Yours, I believe?” she said as she pulled herself up, still using his knee for leverage. He didn’t know what she meant until she dropped the condom on the table with a smirk. “Even though you say you don’t need it, I don’t suppose we ought to leave it here on the floor for the staff to find!”

He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He glanced down. “See the other room key down there anywhere?”

He didn’t spot it right away, but Ruthie apparently did. She pointed to the foot of the table. “Right there. I would offer to get it, but I’m wobbly enough on these stupid shoes and don’t think I could manage bending over again! Although, I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed if I fall on my fanny right in front of you, do I? I mean, you’ve already pretty much seen me at my worst.”

“This is your worst? Piece of cake!”

They both looked over at the remains of the decimated chocolate cake resting on the table and laughed in unison.

Sliding off his stool, Robert stooped down to retrieve the key, not even thinking about how close she stood. He found himself practically kneeling at her feet, his face level with her right hip. His mouth was close to her body, close enough that he could see her dress ruffle with his every exhalation. He swallowed hard.

As if he wasn’t distracted enough by the sight of her hip and the tempting curve of her sweet backside just inches from his face, she chose that moment to turn toward him. “Having trouble?” she asked, leaning over to look down at him.

He stifled a groan. Oh, yeah, he was having some serious trouble. Trouble breathing. Trouble swallowing. Trouble thinking about anything except that she now stood directly in front of him and if he leaned forward he could press a hot kiss onto her stomach. Elsewhere. Everywhere.

She’d taste sweet—chocolate and champagne and the joy that was the essence of her.

“Do you need help?”

He definitely needed her help. But not now, not this soon, not with her in mourning for a newly ended relationship with another man. At least, he hoped it was ended.

Tomorrow, however, was another story. He’d camp out in the lobby of the hotel, if he had to, to find out who she was and where she lived. Suddenly, the upcoming months filled with business trips to Philadelphia seemed much more appealing.

“Did you find your key or not? I could have sworn I saw it there by the table leg,” she said, her tone concerned.

The key. Monica’s room key. He felt it with the tips of his fingers and quickly palmed it. Still kneeling, he slowly shifted his gaze upward, until his eyes met hers and locked. He knew his expression revealed too much of what was going on in his head and the rest of his body. There was no hiding it. There would definitely be no hiding it when he stood up, considering the uncomfortable tightness in his trousers.

She understood. Her cheeks suddenly suffused with color. Her mouth fell open as she pulled in a deep breath. He heard the rustling of her dress as she moved her legs close together and Robert had to close his eyes to shake the image of her clenching those pale thighs.

He rose to his feet slowly, as if someone was pushing down on his shoulders from above. They stood, toe to toe, and he marveled at how petite she was, the top of her head only reaching his nose, even though she wore high heels.

“Meet me for breakfast,” he urged, trying to find something to say, something else to do with his mouth so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to lean forward and lick the chocolate off her lips.

She hesitated, biting the corner of her mouth. “I have a meeting here in the hotel in the morning.”

“Lunch then. Better yet, why don’t you meet me back here tomorrow night at midnight? I’ve heard this place serves a pretty wicked cheesecake.”

“They do,” she said with a tiny smile. “But I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

He watched regret cross her features as she took a step back, pulling her pocketbook up to her chest as if using it as a shield. “Look, I said a lot of things tonight, things I should never have said to a stranger. I’m not normally like this. Tonight was brought on by champagne and a good heaping helping of self-pity. But tomorrow, when I remember all of this, if I remember all of this, I’m going to feel like an idiot.”

“So we can both feel like idiots together.”

She shook her head. “If you see me tomorrow, if we bump into each other in the elevator, please pretend tonight never happened, let me think I imagined or dreamed it all, because it would be too humiliating to know it was true.”

He could see by the determined set of her chin that she meant it. Of course, there was no way Robert was going to let that happen. But there was no point arguing about it tonight. She’d find out soon enough that when he found something he truly wanted, he could be relentless in pursuit of it.

And now he very much wanted her.

RUTHIE LEFT HER dream man at the entrance to the restaurant. He went one way, toward the elevator, and she headed toward the lobby. Part of her was relieved he’d agreed to forget tonight had ever happened. Another part was sad she’d ever asked him to. She had a feeling it was just as well she didn’t know his name. He’d never mentioned it, and she’d never thought to ask. If she had, she might have been tempted to peek at the registration records for his room number. “No, Sinclair. You’re swearing off men starting right now,” she muttered as she rounded the corner next to the front desk.

“Swearing off men?”

Ruthie glared at her cousin, Chuck, who’d obviously heard her comment. Chuck, Celeste and Denise’s only brother, worked as the night front desk manager. He’d left the wedding shortly before Ruthie had, so she didn’t ask him what happened after she’d slipped out. “Yes. You’re all a bunch of heartbreakers!”

“Guess ya didn’t have such a great time at Celeste’s wedding, huh?” Chuck replied. A goofy grin creased his face and he suddenly looked like the surfer dude he wanted to be. Chuck didn’t exactly match the hotel’s clean-cut image, with his shoulder-length, bleach-blond hair, tanned complexion, and perpetual lazy grin. “So’dja catch the flower thing or what? I had to leave early and didn’t see that part.”

“No, I didn’t catch the bouquet. Thank goodness.”

He shrugged. “I thought you old single chicks dug that, you know, getting your hopes up and all.”

Ruthie leaned across the three-foot-wide expanse of polished oak that made up the front check-in desk and grabbed a fistful of her cousin’s shirt. “Old? You think I’m old?”

He grimaced and held his hands up protectively. “Nah, not old. I mean, it’s not like you’re pushin’ thirty or anything!”

“You’re on a roll now, Chuckie,” she snarled. “Why don’t you dig yourself in deeper?”

He suddenly looked shocked. “Oh, man, Ruthie, you’re thirty? When did that happen?”

Ruthie sighed in exasperation. “Chuck, sweetie, remember when you were six and you ruined my twelfth birthday slumber party because you kept coming to the door of my room and trying to throw spitballs at my friends? And I told you I was going to make you eat six of them, one for each year I’d had to suffer with you on the planet?”

The head bobbed, slowly. A grin creased his face. “Yeah, and I hit Denise in her head and she ran crying to your mom.”

Ruthie had forgotten that. “Okay, so it wasn’t all bad.”

He snorted a laugh. “She sure was ticked. So why’d ya mention that?”

She explained slowly. “I was turning twelve. You were already six. Uh, how old are you now, Chuck?”

He hesitated for a moment longer than anyone should have when asked that question. “Twenty-three next month.”

She waited, watching the wheels churn behind the bright blue eyes. Saw him calculate. “Oh, yeah, right,” he finally said with the lazy nod. “See, I toldja I didn’t miss it.”

“There’s a reason you’re so gorgeous,” Ruthie muttered beneath her breath. Her mother’s favorite saying suddenly popped into her head. Heaven distributes its gifts.

Chuck got the tall, blond, lean and gorgeous genes. He was like Ruthie’s late father and her uncle in that respect—and like Celeste and Denise. But Chuck had been just a bit shortchanged in the “quick” department. “I guess there are worse things than big hips and kinky red hair,” she continued with a yawn.

“Huh?”

“Never mind, sweetie,” she said as she wearily turned toward the elevator. “I was just coming in to say good-night. I’m going up to my room. Don’t call me in the morning, as I’m quite sure I’ll be sleeping off a champagne headache.”

He smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet. You must’ve had a hellish good time. I’ve never seen you rockin’ when you’re walkin’.”

She didn’t ask what he meant, too tired to try to follow his reasoning tonight. “The ceremony was beautiful,” she conceded. “But I’d rather forget everything else that happened this evening.”

“That bad?”

A flash of memory brought a sudden warmth to her cheeks. The man. The dark-haired stranger in the kitchen. Well, she might want to forget how foolish she must have appeared to him, but she certainly would never forget the expression on his face—the one that said he thought she was desirable.

But she’d never see him again. Which was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. She never got his name! She’d never asked, probably subconsciously keeping their interlude anonymous, enjoying its mystery and magic.

“Let’s just say, after I watched Celeste tie the knot, the evening went downhill faster than you did the time you broke your arm trying to sled on a greased trash can lid.”

He looked puzzled, trying to place the memory. Ruthie blew him a tired kiss and turned to leave the lobby.

“Hey, Ruthie, take a few aspirin tonight before you go to sleep. Should make you feel better in the a.m.”

She gave a rueful chuckle. “Chuck, there is absolutely nothing that can happen to me tonight that will make me feel better in the a.m.”

3

TO HER DISMAY, Ruthie realized when she reached her room that her bad-awful day was not over yet. Staring dumbly at the doorknob, which remained stiff and unmoving in her hand, she jammed the key in once more. “Stupid old locks!”

It didn’t help. The room key would not open the door. “Great, oh, just great,” she muttered, tired and wanting nothing more than to kick off her too-tight shoes and fall into the king-size bed on the other side of the stubborn door.

Wearily making her way down the hall toward the elevator, Ruthie paused to pick up a white courtesy phone residing on a small telephone table. Hoping she wouldn’t have to explain to Chuck the intricacies of locks and keys, she nearly cheered when someone else answered in the lobby.

“Tina? Why does Chuck have you working the desk?”

“Smoke break,” the other woman said. Ruthie heard a distinct popping sound and knew Tina was cracking bubble gum, probably thick, pink, and shiny. “I’m off at two, so he took a last ten.”

Ruthie quickly explained her problem, and asked Tina to send the late-night bellman up to her room with a passkey.

“Well, I dunno,” Tina said doubtfully. The gum snapped again. “We’re not supposed to without the manager’s okay.”

Ruthie clenched her teeth as a sinus and champagne headache pounded in her brain. She sniffed and counted to five. “Tina, you know my voice. You know me. Look in the logs and you’ll see I am registered in room four-twelve. And if you ever want to come into my kitchen during your breaks and try to beg me for sweets again you’d better send the bellman up with the key.”

At the mention of food, Tina perked right up. “You betcha. It’ll cost some key lime pie.” She paused. “But, hey, tomorrow’s Monday, your night off!”

“Thankfully, yes,” Ruthie replied, glad she wouldn’t have to spend tomorrow afternoon and evening in the hotel kitchen, pretending everything was peachy keen. “Even we chefs get an occasional day off. Come by later in the week.”

A bellman was at Ruthie’s door five minutes after she hung up the phone. He was new and didn’t know her, thank goodness. He didn’t ask why she was locked out of her room, wearing her ugly dress, with bobby pins sticking out of her hair and a pair of emerald-green pumps dangling from the tips of her fingers.

After he unlocked the door, she murmured her thanks, entered the room, and tossed her shoes into a corner. “Sleep,” she said with a sigh, eyeing the king-size bed which made the one in her small apartment look like a twin.

Tugging at the zipper on the back of her hated dress, Ruthie carelessly pulled it off and dropped it to the floor. She gave it a kick, then actually walked across it toward her suitcase. As she walked, she caught sight of herself in the floor-length mirror on the door of the bathroom.

“Not bad, Sinclair. Coulda made some man pretty happy tonight,” she said with a sigh as she studied herself.

Celeste had wonderful taste in lingerie. Her bridesmaid gift to Ruthie—an ivory-colored silk camisole and tap pants set, with matching thigh-high stockings and a lacy little bra that pushed up more than it held in—did wonderful things for Ruthie’s curvy figure. “Not that anyone will ever see it.”

Too tired to dig through her suitcase for her plain old Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt, Ruthie fell onto the bed. Reaching for the bedside table, she flicked off the light and sighed as the room descended into blackness. Her sigh trailed off as she realized something was wrong.

The room was spinning.

She hadn’t gone to bed in a spinning room since college. To be precise, since the night in junior year when one of her roommates had told Ruthie she was sick of seeing her drink sissy white wine spritzers and challenged her to match her, shot for shot, with some cheap Mexican tequila.

Ruthie didn’t like to lose. So she’d drunk the other girl right under the table. Literally. That night had resulted in a spinning room. Then, when told she’d been the one who’d swallowed the worm, the night had also resulted in Ruthie’s one and only experience sleeping on a bathroom floor.

Tonight she was not toilet-hugging intoxicated. She was just pleasantly woozy. Remembering a trick she’d once heard about, Ruthie stuck one leg out from under the covers, liking the way the silky stocking slid against the starched fabric of the linens, almost a light caress.

“Pathetic. Now I’m even liking the sheets touching me!”

Wiggling toward the edge of the bed so she could place her foot on the floor, she willed the room to remain still. Badly needing sleep, she ignored the childhood whisper cautioning against letting a solitary leg dangle where monsters underneath the bed could grab it.

The trick helped with the spinniness. But nothing was making the sinus headache go away. It throbbed every time she shifted on the unfamiliar pillow.

“Aspirin,” she muttered. Gingerly sliding out of the bed, she staggered to the bathroom. Unwilling to let vicious shards of light pierce her brain, she felt around in the dark, trying to find the aspirin she always carried in her makeup bag. First her fingers found a brand-new box of condoms. She sighed as she remembered stopping at a convenience store near the hotel on her way to the reception. Fully decked out in her atrocious wedding regalia, shopping for prophylactics, she must have made quite a picture for the teenage clerk, who’d winked as she’d paid him.

Finding the bottle of aspirin, Ruthie flipped a couple of pills into her hand. Popping two in her mouth, she turned on the faucet. Her head screamed as she bent to drink straight from the tap. “Maybe one more,” she whispered as she straightened. Not able to bend over again, she ignored the fact that it would taste chalky and bitter, popped another pill in her mouth and swallowed it dry.

She was halfway back to the bed, still woozy, headachy and nearly blind in the darkness of the room, when she realized the pill hadn’t tasted chalky and bitter. Horrified, she turned, ignoring the stab of pain in her skull, and dashed back into the bathroom. She flipped on the light, shuddered at its intensity, and grabbed the still-open bottle on the counter.

“Cold medication,” she said. She blinked rapidly to try to clear her eyes enough to read the label. “May cause drowsiness. Alcohol may enhance this effect.” Capping the bottle, she tucked it back in her bag, next to the bottle of aspirin, then looked at her reflection in the mirror. “You could give Frankenstein’s bride a run for her money,” she told herself, noting the wild hair, and the dark smudges of makeup under her eyes. “And now you’ve gone and drugged yourself but good.”

Stupid. Stupid, Sinclair.

But not lethal. She was going to be having a much deeper, and longer, night’s sleep than she expected, it seemed. Flipping off the light, she went back into the bedroom, pausing to set the clock on the bedside table. She hadn’t bothered earlier, knowing she hadn’t slept past nine in years and the board meeting wasn’t until eleven. Now, however, it seemed wise to take the precaution!

Reclining on the bed, she was out before she even thought to stick her foot back on the floor.

ROBERT FOUND HIMSELF back in the bar after he left Ruthie at the entrance to the hotel restaurant. He didn’t need another drink, heaven knew, but he needed something else: time. Time to figure out how to handle the Monica situation.

“Honesty. Tonight. Get it out in the open so she can get whatever fit she’s gonna throw off her chest before tomorrow morning’s board meeting,” he told himself as he took one last sip of his champagne. Somehow, after leaving Ruthie in the kitchen, he didn’t have the heart to return to vodka tonics.

The waiter gave him a confused look as he heard him mumbling to himself, but smiled in appreciation when he saw the big tip Robert left on the table. “Honesty’s the best policy,” the waiter said with a grin. “Honesty…and generosity!”

Leaving the bar, Robert pulled Monica’s key from his pocket and headed to the elevator. He glanced at the room number on the tab. “Four-twelve.” He entered the elevator and punched the fourth-floor button. “Okay, Monica, show time.”

When he got upstairs, he walked slowly down the silent corridor, wondering why his feet suddenly felt leaden. “Just get it over with,” he told himself. “In and out.” The thought struck a raw chord in his mind and he grimaced. “No, not in and out! Just there and gone.”

When he reached four-twelve, he knocked quietly. No answer. He knocked again, louder, hoping the occupants in the nearby rooms were not light sleepers. “Come on, Monica, I know you’re awake,” he growled at the closed door.

She was taking this too far, forcing him to use the key. A big part of him was tempted to forget about it, deal with her histrionics in the morning when he had a clear head. But he wanted it done. For some odd reason, though he wasn’t even involved with Monica Winchester, he felt the need to get this situation resolved before he set out to find—and seduce—the red-haired angel he’d met two hours before in the kitchen.

Against his better judgment, he slipped the key into the lock and pushed into the darkened room. Darkened wasn’t quite the right adjective. The place was nearly pitch-black and he had to stand in the doorway to let his eyes adjust. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the elevator doors slide open, so he quickly entered and shut the door behind him. “Monica?” he whispered, his voice painfully loud in the silence.

A mumbling sound emanated from the left side of the room, and Robert was finally able to make out what appeared to be a bed. A very large bed. “Who…?” the woman said.

“It’s Robert,” he said, stepping closer. Asleep? She’d fallen asleep? Though relieved that she was obviously not expecting him to show up, his masculine pride took a hit.

“Bobby?” she said, her voice muffled, heavy with sleep and grogginess. “You came. You used the key.”

Bobby? No one had ever called him that—a miracle, given his southern upbringing. He didn’t like it. “Yes, but not for the reason you think,” he said as he crossed to the bed. He set the key on the bedside table. “I’ll leave this here, and we’ll forget about this whole thing.”