The No Sex Clause (5 page)

“You, my man, should keep your mind on your own problems,” he said to himself as he followed Anna up the stairs. He was glad for the moment’s delay – the view was spectacular. Jed
had never liked really skinny women, preferring feminine curves in all the right places. And Lord knew, Anna had those and more. Enough curves to make heaven rejoice – and to drive a poor mortal man like himself plain crazy. He groaned under his breath. Just how was he to manage a night alone in a cosy hotel room with her? The honeymoon suite, for cripes sake! One thing was sure; he’d get no sleep at all.

Which turned out to be pretty inaccurate. The ice in the room was enough to give a red-blooded man hypothermia as Anna went about taking a shower and getting into thin silk pyjamas for the night.

* * *

Catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, Anna gasped a little. The pyjamas had been a little gift of luxury to herself, bought without even a hint of seduction in mind.

Since Louis had walked out on her she’d decided that everything she did would be for her own comfort and preference. After all, hadn’t she spent three years catering to the comfort and whims of a selfish, dishonest, mud-sucking, bottom dwelling, lower life form that called itself a man?
Never again.

Cosy jammies, the freedom to read half the night in bed if she wished, eating whatever and whenever she liked, watching the murder mysteries she loved on television instead of trying to join in intelligent commentary about intellectually stimulating documentaries with Louis and his highbrow friends… highbrow?

Dammit, they were simply a pretentious bunch of poseurs, and their idea of highbrow was absolute drivel!

But the mirror told her that these lovely silk jammies weren’t really just comfort material – they were revealing, the V-neck plunging between her breasts and the gorgeous soft fabric
clinging to her figure in a way that left nothing to the imagination. They were, in fact, seduction gear.

And then a slow smile crossed her face.
Eat your heart out, Bob Goulding – even without the No Sex Clause it will be a case of look, but don’t touch!

She’d intended to slip gracefully into the room, nonchalantly flaunting herself while pretending to be unaware of the impact she was making. And all the while, she’d be secretly enjoying Bob’s drooling…

But when she got into the room, Bob was on his cell phone and from the look on his face, sex was the last thing on his mind.

“Look, Trevor, that nine o’clock spot is really important. Our competitors have got a dynamite show on there, and we’re trailing miserably. I want you to get something a little more sensational…yeah, yeah, I know…maybe get Maureen to tart herself up a bit, a bit of cleavage to titillate the guys...yeah, yeah…Right, well, I’ll talk to her…but we’ve got to get this show up and with a bit of a sexy edge, or we’ll lose it.”

Curling up on the bed, Anna pretended for all she was worth that she was more interested in her book than she was in Bob’s conversation, but she listened voraciously.
So, a show was in trouble, eh?
The competitors were doing better, and Bob needed to put a sexy edge on things to get the audience going?

What was the man into? Cabaret? Surely not a gay bar where he did striptease to supplement his escort earnings? No, no – if it was a gay bar, Maureen wouldn’t need to get a little daring with her cleavage, would she?
Oh, my goodness – was he producing porn films?

Oh, how she wished she dared ask him! But she’d decided that the less contact between them the better. That was probably the only way she’d make it through the night with her celibacy intact.

“It’s Jed, and you’re reading that book upside down.”

“Er, what?” She jumped at the sound of his voice. “Jed. My name is Jed, not Bob. If we’re going to spend the night together, I figure we should at least get properly acquainted. And your book is upside down.”

Dammit, he was right.
Anna was helpless to staunch the flow of red over her cheeks. But if his name was Jed…why?

“Oh, I get it – the agency gives false names to protect your anonymity!” Anna said, glad she’d been able to solve that puzzle quickly. “Well, my real name is Anna, Anna Findlay, and I’m a…”

“Yeah, I know who you are. You write sexy books that hit the best seller list for an imagination-starved population.”

Anna was speechless. Not something that happened often. “How dare you,” she croaked when she got her voice back. “I’m a sociologist studying the behaviour of Generation X, the generation that has grown up with the threat of AIDS hanging over their…”

“That’s as may be, but judging from the reactions of your friends tonight, the book’s a red hot read. Not that I’ve read it, I must say. Not really my cup of tea, as you Brits say.”

“Oh, Mister, have you ever got me wrong.” Anna glared at him as he raised one dark eyebrow. “No, I mean it, really. I’m not a Brit, to start off with. I grew up right here in Knotting Grove, and my parents were as American as apple pie…I went to Knotting Grove High for junior
and senior high, and then went off to study in universities….with good scholarships. I got a chance to do my masters in anthropology at Cambridge, England, and then my doctorate….”

“Well, you must have adopted the country – you sound as English as muffins and tea.”

“It’s just something that happens – a person can do worse things than talk like everyone she works with.” Anna was furious to find herself on the defensive.

* * *

Jed, on the other hand, was enjoying himself greatly. He wondered if Anna had any idea how gorgeously sexy she looked when she got mad. Sitting up like that pulled those flimsy pj’s tight against her, and….
whoa, wasn’t that nipple sticking out through the thin silk?

Oh, wow! Jed suddenly wondered if he shouldn’t go right out and bed down in the hotel lobby. He’d be safer taking his chances with the local riff-raff than in here with Anna Findlay.

There was no way he was going to give in and give her what she wanted…

He turned on his heel and headed for the shower.

But Anna had caught him looking and grinned maliciously. “Do you really think a cold shower will help?” She laughed aloud at the curse he muttered back at her as he slammed the bathroom door behind him.

The room was quiet when Jed turned off the bedroom light. In the glow from the streetlights outside he could see Anna lying on her side, breathing steadily, her face tranquil and peaceful as she dozed.

Oh, how he itched to brush the pale silky bangs back from her eyes, and run his fingers down the silken length of her pyjama clad body. To waken her to sleepy passion with a kiss that would lead to...

Forget it, son. The best you can hope for is that there’s a spare blanket in the closet and you can bed down on the hard, cold floor.
Except there wasn’t a blanket – and even if there had been, there wasn’t enough hard cold floor for him to bed down on. This room must be one of the smallest in the hotel. The hotel management were lucky they weren’t sued for false representation, calling this a suite.

There was nothing else for it but to quietly and carefully pull back the blankets and then curl up in the bed, as far away from Anna’s glacial presence as he possibly could...

CHAPTER FIVE

Anna stretched languidly and snuggled into the warmth beside her. She reached out and rubbed the hard male chest, feeling a ripple of sensual warmth as her fingers encountered a pelt of wiry hair. She moved closer, wanting to press her breasts against that pelt and to feel strong arms go around her...

Uh, uh – Louis didn’t have a hairy chest…

And Louis was long gone from her life. So who was this in her bed, who was this man she was cuddling so invitingly? She could feel him against her, his breath on her neck and his heat warming her belly. And it wasn’t just his heat she could feel – he was definitely male and definitely responding to her.

Anna jumped back as memory of where she was and who she was with slammed into her. Obviously Jed aka Bob was a bit slower to catch on, because as she rolled away on her back, he followed, one muscular leg jammed between hers and the shameless evidence of his interest poking into her side as a large hand cupped her breast and her traitorous nipples instantly rose to attention through the silk of her pyjama top.

“Aw, c’mon, baby, don’t pull away. It’s early yet, we’ve time.” Then his mouth claimed hers with one of those spine-melting kisses and Anna felt herself responding far, far too much. His other hand captured one of hers and guided it down, down, to cup him and he groaned through the kiss.

Shocked, Anna held him, feeling the silken erection growing even larger as he thrust gently against her palm. And then his hand slipped under her pyjamas and went, without any undo fuss, straight between her legs to first play with her dark curls and then to rub slowly at that so-sensitive part of her.

Rubbing slowly backwards and forwards as he released her mouth and, lifting himself slightly, he grabbed the edge of her pyjama jacket and raised it to expose her now throbbing breasts. Anna gasped weakly as he lowered his dark head and licked her nipples, the divine torture making her writhe beneath him.

Then he pulled her nipple into his mouth, suckling her. Anna’s entire being screamed in joy. She gasped, beginning to protest even though she was aware of just how close she was to the edge of orgasm, like standing on the very edge of a cliff with her arms out and preparing to throw herself into a flightless dive through warm clouds…

Then his fingers slipped inside her and she went right over the edge, gasping as she clung to him, calling his name as if they’d known each other forever.

He captured her mouth again with his, swallowing her tiny glad cries as he carried on touching and rubbing her, the fingers of his other hand playing with her hardened nipple, until he was sure the orgasm was over. Then he pulled down her pyjama bottoms and mounted her, his erection hard and probing against her heated wetness.

“C’mon, baby, take me in, let me pleasure you again, pleasure us both…”

And then the phone rang, an old-fashioned ring so loud it sounded like a fog horn right next to their ears. Jed jumped back in shock, and Anna looked at him wide-eyed and panting as she tried to bring her heartbeat back under control. She reached out and answered the telephone.

“Is that Anna Findlay? Honey, Mr Walker asked for an early wake up call, said he needs to get back to the city for a breakfast meeting. You’d better be making tracks if you want any breakfast at all.” Patsy Allen’s blonde bimbo voice floated through the phone. Anna winced – Patsy was making darned sure Anna knew that she knew that Jed or Bob or whatever his name was had spent the night with her...

Well, dammit, hadn’t that been what all this was about?
Anna smiled slowly
.
Oh, yes, she’d paid back the cool girls in her year, that was for sure! She doubted they’d still think of Anna Findlay as The Mouse, not now.

“I’m hoping that smile is because you’re thinking how great the sex we’re gonna have is going to be,” Jed breathed in her ear, and Anna jumped.

“Not in your wildest dreams, cowboy,” she snapped, “I was thinking how great it’s going to be to get back to England and my real life. That was your early wake up call. You have a breakfast meeting with another client? My, they do work you hard.”

Jed groaned. “You can’t leave me like this!” he groaned, pulling back the covers and revealing to Anna exactly the extent of his plight – and what she’d be missing by hopping out of the bed right now. Anna’s eyes grew wide.

“You’re really happy to see me, aren’t you? Tough – we gotta go. And look at it this way, to use that corny phrase – you were saved by the bell from breaking your No Sex Clause contract.”

“Lady, I don’t have a No Sex Clause contract. I have all the sex I want, and right now, I want sex with you.”

“Forget it,” Anna said, heading for the bathroom with her overnight bag. She’d feel a whole lot safer when she was up, dressed and made-up. But she couldn’t suppress a grin as she heard Jed moan: “Oh, you owe me one, Anna Findlay – don’t pretend you didn’t have fun!”

Oh, she’d had fun, all right
…Anna stopped scrubbing her teeth and looked at herself in the mirror, blue eyes bright with satiation. You’d only have to look at her to know she was a woman who’d just had good sex. Sort of, anyway. She grinned.

Tough luck, Jed Walker!

Three days passed. Alex, the publicity specialist at her publisher’s New York office, went on putting her through her paces, ensuring she did her gruelling workouts and beauty routines, and interviews with any media maven who would sit up and take notice.

Anna signed books until her fingers cramped, and smiled until her facial muscles froze in that position. And sleep eluded her at night as she was haunted by the memory of Jed aka Bob; his heated touch and roaming mouth, and his hard erection so close to her very core… and in her dreams she explored what it would be to take that rod into herself, to feel him thrusting and panting and flooding her with pleasure as he took his own..

And she’d wake up flushed and breathless and wishing for him.

“Girl, you are crazy to be pining after a man who almost made love to you,” she told herself sternly in the mirror. “He was a hired gun, and you’ll never see him again. Of course, if anything more had happened, you’d have Mrs. Rogers screaming foul on that No Sex Clause, Jed/Bob would lose his job and she’d probably extract a huge default payment from you. So be glad it never happened...or never quite happened…”