The Carlton Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

pulling her mouth against his.
    Finally his patience faltered.
    “How many buttons?” he asked.
    “Too many,” she answered. “Chic but not practical.”
    “Maybe I’m hurrying too much?”
    “I think we’re both in a hurry,” Kathleen said. “No time to think about it.”
    “I have thought about it,” Mark said. He had made his decision.
    “You have?”
    “Yes. But, still, will you help me with these damned buttons?”
    “With pleasure.”
    Mark’s bed was a double-bed mattress without box springs that lay on the floor. The sheets were a slightly rough, cotton blend and the pillows were lumpy.
    It didn’t matter.
    He held her lovely naked body against his slender strong one, kissing her, tracing paths all over her with his tongue, touching her, moving her, moving with her to the rhythm of the music he loved, whispering her name.
    “Kathleen.”
    “Mark.”
    They smiled at each other with open eyes and closed mouths until the desire they saw in each other’s eyes made them close their eyes and open their mouths. They moved together lost in the warmth of their bodies and the mood of the music and the strength of the passion.
    “Oh, Mark!” she whispered urgently when the wonderful sensations began to crescendo.
    “Kathleen.” He felt her quickening breaths, the pounding of her heart and the rhythm of her hips. The force of her desire was as demanding as his own, under the cool silkiness of her skin.
    After they made love the first time, his breathing slowed and he reluctantly moved off her so that she could breathe without his weight.
    Mark whispered, “ Kitzy .”
    “You’ll pay for that!”
    “Really? How?”
    “I’ll show you in a minute. After I recover.” She rolled toward him and touched his hair. “Or should I go now? It’s late.”
    “I don’t want you to go.” Ever.
    “I have to go, sometime. My parents worry if I’m not home by dawn,” she said, smiling into his thoughtful brown eyes. “OK, let’s see how I did.”
    “You know how you did. Sensational.”
    “No. With name-that-tune. Scheherazade . Then Sleeping Beauty . Then Swan Lake . Then whatever’s playing now. I recognize it, but I can’t name it.”
    “ Giselle . It’s my ballet suite. Sort of the old standbys but my favorites,” he paused, then he said, “I can’t believe you were paying attention.”
    “Listening, yes. Subliminally. Paying attention, no. How could I? You had my undivided attention.” You still do. I want to do it all over again. And again.
    “If you promise that’s true, I’ll go turn the stack.”
    “It’s true. The music is nice. Sensual.” He could probably make the national anthem sensual, she thought as she watched him walk, naked, into the other room. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Naked. The missing necessary adjective. It completed the perfect picture.
    When he returned, she said, “This is for Kitzy. Hold still and enjoy.”
    “What?”
    “Sensory overload.”
    “This will be punishment.”
    “You’ll see. You have to hold still, and you’ll want to move. You’ll want to touch me.”
    “And you won’t let me?”
    “No. Never. Not after Kitzy.”
    “OK.”
    Kathleen did what he had done to her, kissing his entire body, tracing little circles with her warm, moist tongue and her velvet, soft fingertips over his nipples, along his thighs, between his thighs. She kept her body away from his, but her silky hair caressed his face, his chest, his abdomen and his legs as she moved, slowly, lovingly. As she kissed him in places that Janet never had. In ways that Janet never had.
    When he wanted her, her whole body next to his, part of him, Kathleen came to him, eagerly, willingly. Because she wanted him, too. She didn’t want to play games. Not with him.
    At three o’clock she said, “This time I really am leaving.”
    She had tried, halfheartedly, at one. And at two. Each time she had gotten as far as the stereo, flipped the stack and, at his urging, returned to his bed.
    “I