Room Service (4 page)

‘So what if I’ve never had sex before? So what if I’ve never even written a stupid sex scene? What’s it to you? You’re just some random guy who sleeps with-’

‘Wait. You’ve never written a sex scene?’

Natasha watched Jace’s face contort into a mixture of disgust and surprise.

‘Why on earth do you care?’ She turned her head and pressed her cheek against the mattress so he couldn’t see her tears. She had just unearthed her deepest most terrible secret to a stranger. A stranger that she’d let…

‘Devil’s Harlot!’ ‘Fornicator!’
Father Glen shouted inside her head.

‘Please leave,’ she whispered. When he stared at her, stunned, she shouted, ‘Just get out!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said before rolling off the bed and drawing on his pants and shirt. ‘I should never have done this…’ He tightened his belt. ‘I shouldn’t have offered… I never do this…I’ve never done this before. I don’t go around...’

‘Just go, please.’

When the heavy door closed and she was alone again, Natasha rolled to her side and curled up into a ball. The ocean outside had stilled and it made her think of Liza.

Why do I feel so awful, Liza? You always said sex made you feel good. So why do I feel so bad?

Natasha shook her head, drew the sheets up and over her body and shivered. No. She had it wrong. The sex had felt
amazing. Jace
inside of her had felt amazing. It was the look of shock and disgust in his eyes that had been terrible.

Natasha sighed. At least she had told the truth, finally, to someone. That, at least, felt right.

She breathed in deep. Jace’s delicious rainforest and ocean scent was all around her. It clung to her skin and to the black satin sheets cocooned around her body. She stretched her legs and something sharp bit into her ankle. After digging around, she found Jace’s name badge.

For some reason the item soothed her and she curled her palm around it and fell asleep.

The next morning a phone call woke her.

It was Sheryl-Ann.

‘Your workshop is in an hour, would you like meet for a quick coffee in the foyer café before we begin the day?’

Natasha swallowed thickly and then, in a sudden rush, remembered what she had done with Jace. How she had stood naked before him. How he had looked at her. How she had seen
him
naked. How his body had felt beneath her hands and on her lips.

She stared at the bedside clock and grimaced. How many times must she let this woman down?

‘I’m terribly sorry, Sheryl-Ann. I must have overslept. I’ll meet you just before the workshop…’ she glanced down at the schedule on the end of her bed, ‘…at the First-Sale announcements.’

‘Wonderful. See you then. Everyone is terribly excited about your workshop, Natasha, me included!’

‘Oh, err, thanks. Bye.’

Natasha stood before the bathroom mirror, her stomach churning with nervous energy. For a moment she contemplated checking-out and flying home without explanation, but Natasha despised quitting. Her parents had quit on her and Liza.

You’ve had a man in your bed now, you can do this workshop. You’re not a fraud anymore
.

By the time she had shampooed and conditioned her hair, Natasha’s decision was made. She wasn’t a virgin anymore, even if they hadn’t completed the act. And now she had one example of sheets to the page and she was going to use that example, damn it.

By the time the elevator touched down to level 1, Natasha’s nerves had abated slightly and when she saw Sheryl-Ann’s beaming face she drew strength from the kind woman’s confidence in her.

‘We’re just in time to watch. The debuts get a big kick out of receiving their first-sale ribbons in front of the best-sellers. Thanks for coming, Natasha.’

Once seated, Natasha spotted several male staff members serving coffee to the hundreds of writers in the room. Her heart gave a jolt when a tall, tanned and fit guy passed her by, however when he turned around, he was not Jace.

Thank God
.

Feeling sick, she swept her eyes around the room, pausing on each and every staffer’s face.

Relief whistled through her teeth.

Of course he’s not here. Last night he worked a double shift. He’s probably in bed
.

She shook her head free of the distracting image of Jace in bed, his naked body tangled in twisted sheets.

Then a sudden thought struck her. It hit her so hard she nearly choked on her coffee.

What if I wasn’t the only woman Jace visited last night?

She glanced at Sheryl-Ann from out the corner of her eye but the woman was twisting and turning in her seat, bright eyed after a full night’s rest and waving at other bright eyed writers as they arrived and filled the conference ballroom.

Get a hold of yourself. What Jace does with other women is none of your business
.

But, as ridiculous as it seemed, the idea of Jace touching others still caused a twinge of pain in her chest.

Natasha drained her coffee and requested a refill. When she drained her second cup a strengthening calm took hold. She needed to forget about last night and focus on this morning. She was at a writer’s conference. She was here to speak to her peers, to share her experiences.

Once the room was filled, Sheryl-Ann took to the podium, promptly welcomed the guests and began calling first sale names. Natasha politely clapped them all and smiled at their success.

Genuine happiness warmed her heart to witness their golden moment. Natasha would never forget the time she received her own first-sale ribbon, and how her sister had waited in the hotel room for her with champagne on ice — real champagne, so they could celebrate together.

‘Lucky last,’ Sheryl-Ann sang into the microphone. ‘This writer has been writing for ten years, since first reading Mum’s stack of romance novels while all of his high-school peers were reading Twilight. Ladies, I warn you, here is the new author to look out for, Jace Branson. Jace has secured a three book deal with a mind-blowing six figure advance for his debut erotic romance novel!’

Natasha’s hands paused, mid-air, her smile etched in stone, as Jace stepped onto the stage to the soundtrack of thunderous applause and wolf-whistles. He looked even hotter today, if that was at all possible. Dressed in pinstriped pants and a fitted black shirt that outlined the hard lines of his muscles, he was worthy of every one of those wolf-whistles.

Natasha caught her breath and forced her hands into a clap, while her heart stuttered with shock and alarm.

Jace is a writer – a fellow erotic romance writer… and he knows my secret
.

While Sheryl-Ann took her time pinning the first-sale ribbon onto Jace’s broad chest, he grinned at the crowd and mouthed his thanks. The grin left his face, however, when he clapped eyes on Natasha. His deep blue eyes flickered with recognition, then hurt, before he turned his attentions back to Sheryl-Ann who had finally managed to pin the ribbon in place. He planted a quick peck on the woman’s cheek before he waved to the still whooping crowd and stepped off stage and returned to his seat.

Sweat trickled down Natasha’s back.

What if Jace attended her workshop? What if he revealed her truth to her fellow writers?

Oh god
.

She couldn’t go through with it.

‘And now I’d like to announce that the workshops will begin in five minutes. Those booked to attend Natasha Raven’s ‘Get Your Sexy-On: From Your Sheets to the Page,’ are to remain in the ballroom. To those booked in to the other three workshops, please leave the ballroom in an orderly fashion. Thank you.’

A booming applause erupted and Sheryl-Ann bent in a quick curtsey before exiting the stage and rushing over to speak with a visiting editor from the UK.

Natasha watched, hawk-eyed, while Jace received congratulatory kisses and hugs from the woman at his table. A minute later, he slipped a black backpack over his shoulder and left the ballroom, without giving Natasha a backward glance. Though Natasha expected to feel instant elation at Jace’s departure, disappointment filled her heart, like blocks of ice. She shivered.

Not even a goodbye
.

After several minutes of loud chatter and much chair-scraping, the large doors to the ballroom closed and Sheryl-Ann nodded to invite Natasha to the stage.

Natasha eyed the doors carefully, to make certain Jace hadn’t returned and for double certainty, she checked the sea of faces in the audience.

A deep sigh escaped her lips.

He was gone and
she was safe
.

After making a brief introduction, Natasha jumped straight into the workshop notes she had prepared a week ago, using examples of scenes from her novels, avoiding the subject of actual her experience for as long as she could. Seeing Jace had rattled her nerves.

While she recited sex scenes and spoke of orgasms, waiters and waitresses shared knowing glances and cheeky grins across tables as they filled glasses with icy water and refreshed the bowls of red, heart-shaped lollies at the centre of each table. Sex talk turned almost all adults into tittering twelve year olds. It was the same in every country she had visited.

Towards the end of the workshop, during question time, a woman put her hand up and asked, ‘So can you give a clear example of sheets to page? One of yours? The workshop
is
called ‘
From Your Sheets to the Page
.’ We’re all sisters here,’ she added with a wink.

Natasha cleared her throat and smiled. She gripped the podium, hard, so her hands couldn’t shake.

‘I’ve been working on something new, actually, and it will include a particularly steamy scene. I can’t divulge the details now, but I can tell you it will be… sensual and …’ She paused as an image of Jace, naked, entered her brain, causing her pulse to fly. Clearing her throat, she continued. ‘As I was saying, it will be...’

The sound of broken glass shattered through the silence of the room. Four hundred-odd heads turned to the clumsy waiter, his tray empty and upturned.

Natasha screamed inwardly.

Jace
.

Jace in his uniform
.

‘It will be a lie. Everything she says is a great big lie.’ Jace glared at Natasha, the hatred as vivid as the blue in his eyes. ‘She is a fake. She told me so last night. Natasha Raven does not write her own sex scenes!’ His voice boomed across the room and bounced off the walls to pummel against Natasha’s heart.

She watched, open mouthed, as Jace turned and slammed open the double doors of the ballroom, his biceps straining against his shirtsleeves, and stormed through them.

Natasha swallowed thickly, her face burning and her heart convulsing as the crowd gaped at her.

From the edge of the stage, Sheryl Ann began to clap.

‘Wonderful little piece of dramatization we slipped in there for the audiences.’ The women in the crowd tittered nervously and began slipping each other sideways glances.

Natasha, abandoning her notes and laptop, rushed from the stage, away from the open mouthed faces, the wide eyes. Once the ballroom doors swung shut behind her, she realised she didn’t have her room card. She had nowhere to hide.

There was no way she was going to go back into the ballroom and all the other workshops would be finishing soon so writers would come spilling into the foyer any minute now.

Plates of delicious looking cakes, along with tea and coffee facilities, were being set up. She spied an empty smoker’s balcony to her left and rushed through the sliding doors.

The breezed swept her hair away from her face and she gulped at the fresh air, her fingers wrapped tightly around the balcony railings. Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring the street below. Jace was right. She was a big fat liar.

‘Why?’ a voice called behind her.

Natasha spun around.

Jace stood with his back against the wall, partially hidden by the fringes of a large potted palm. He brought an icy bottle of water to his lips and took several long gulps before sighing deeply. His face was flushed with heat and the first two buttons of his uniform were undone. He looked sexy and ragged, but also angry and hurt. If looks could kill, his eyes had probably stabbed her a thousand times already.

‘Why write erotic romance if you don’t write your own sex scenes?’

‘There’s more to erotic romance than just the sex.’ She snorted. ‘You should know that, Mr. Six-figure-deal.’

His lips briefly curled into a weak grin before being wrestled down by an overpowering frown.

‘But… I just don’t get it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Natasha said, before sighing. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, or anyone else.’

Jace took another long swallow of water and came to stand beside her, his long arms stretched out in front of him while he gripped the railing. The breeze blew at his hair and she noticed how much brighter his eyes were outside in the daylight. Like the ocean, his eyes seemed to change with night and day.

‘Seriously, though. Why write erotic fiction when you can write general fiction or maybe sweet romances.’

‘Because I love reading and writing erotic fiction. It’s just that — maybe because of my… inexperience — I always seemed to get stumped at the sex scenes. So my sister…’

Natasha’s throat tightened as Liza appeared behind her eyes.

Tell him everything
, she whispered to Natasha,
make him understand
.

So Natasha sucked in a deep breath and blurted it all out: The Celestial Children of Light, her parents, Father Glen, Liza, how they used to be a writing team, how her sister had been robbed of her life by cancer, how Natasha had become desperate before the workshop and had planned to lure Jace into her bed in a bid to lose her virginity.

‘I’m so sorry, Jace. I didn’t mean to use you like I did… last night.’ When she met his eyes her heart ached at the hurt that dwelled there. ‘You must think the worst of me. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.’

He shook his head.

‘You don’t need my forgiveness,’ he said in a raspy voice. ‘You did nothing wrong.’ His fingers squeezed the railing so tight his knuckles bulged.