The Importance of Being Alice Read online

  “Hold it right there, buster,” I said, grabbing his wrists. “You’re going beyond the terms of our agreement. Stop that! Hands to the side.”

  “Are you always this bossy? I don’t recall you being this assertive yesterday. Except for in the club, and I assumed you were simply trying to guide me into the proper frame of mind for piratical acts.”

  “It’s my turn to run things, so yes, I’m being bossy.” I peeled off my undies and slid over until I sat on his thighs, making sure he kept his hands to himself. His penis was waving away at me, but I ignored that for the moment, enjoying just looking at Elliott’s chest, and arms, and those wicked gray eyes that now seemed to be smoky with passion. It sent a little shiver of pure pleasure down my back. “You look positively edible, Elliott. All those tasty bulges, and nibbleworthy spots, and not so much body hair that I think ‘Get that man a razor!’ No, you’re a feast for both the eyes and the mouth.”

  “And hands. Don’t forget hands. Your hands are good,” he said, his eyes hopeful.

  I gave the part in question a long, hard look. “Hmm. I was going to save this for dessert, but you look a bit . . . anticipatory. Are you going to last if I start nibbling at your ankles and work my way up?”

  “No. You might make it to my knee, but only if I think about starving children and venereal warts.”

  “We can’t have that,” I said, rising up on my knees, and taking him firmly in hand to position him appropriately.

  “No foreplay?” he asked, looking astounded.

  I nestled the head of his penis right where I wanted it, and paused. “You said you wouldn’t be able to last, and mindful of the time, I thought we’d get right down to business.”

  “But . . . women need foreplay. They need time to get ready. They need kissing and touches, and much rubbing of the breasts, none of which I object to, far from it. But you haven’t allowed me to do but the bare minimum of that. You can’t be ready for me.”

  “Sweetness, I’ve been ready since last night, and no, that’s not a criticism.”

  “But—,” he started to protest.

  I stopped him by the simple act of sitting on him. Oh, I did it slowly, because he was no lightweight in the penis department, but I was telling the truth in that I was more than ready to go to the main course.

  The groan of sheer, unadulterated pleasure that he gave was matched by one of my own.

  “Oh, my, you’re so much . . . more . . . this way. And I do like that this position lets me tweak your nipples if I want. Do you like nipple tweaking?”

  He moaned something unintelligible, his eyes closed tight, his hands convulsively clutching the sheets covering the bed.

  “That’s OK, we can leave it for later. Wow, you really are there, aren’t you? Woof! Let me try a Kegel. Can you feel this?”

  He began panting.

  “Oh, good, so those are paying off. They’re not my favorite thing to do, but I’ll keep up on them if you like them. Hey, are we going to do pirates or not? I can go either way, to be honest.”

  Elliott opened his eyes to shoot a glare at me. “How is it you can do this and talk at the same time?”

  “Women are creatures of delight and mystery. Worship us.”

  “No pirates, and yes I like the squeezing thing. You may do it again.”

  I did it. He bucked beneath me. “I have changed my mind. If you do that again, I risk disappointing you.”

  “Got a hair-trigger dick, huh?” I asked, bending down to nibble on his nipple.

  His fingers spasmed. “Not normally, but you seem to bring that out in me. I shall commence thinking of scabies and syphilis and gonorrhea.”

  “You have the best lovemaking banter,” I said, giving him another squeeze.

  His eyelids, which had drifted closed again, snapped open. He released one handful of sheet in order to slide his hand up my thigh, gently rubbing his thumb over sensitive flesh. I swear that my eyes just about crossed when a familiar spiral of pleasure tipped me over the edge. It didn’t take him long to follow, his shout of pleasure still ringing in my ears as I collapsed onto him.

  “Can I just say,” I said in between pants, “that I love the fact that you’re not quiet? Not to compare you to He Who Doesn’t Deserve to Be Named, but I like to know that the man I’m with is enjoying himself, and that’s quite clear with you.”

  Elliott’s big chest rose and fell with rapidity beneath me. Once he had enough oxygen in his lungs, he swatted my butt with a languid hand, and managed to gasp, “Vixen. You go too far. Also, I have never met a woman who talks during lovemaking as much as you.”

  I pried myself off his damp chest to look in his eyes, suddenly worried. “But you like it, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, pulling me back down until we lay in a tangled mass of arms and legs and sticky flesh, and two hearts that might not be beating as one, but were sure starting to match their rhythms. “I like it.”

  Chapter 9

  Expense Account

  Item one: twenty-two pounds fifty

  Remarks: That was one of my favorite shirts!

  The phone chirruped. Elliott snatched it up quickly with a glance over to the bed. Alice rolled over mumbling something, but didn’t appear to wake up. “Yes?” he said softly, sliding open the door to the minuscule balcony, and stepping out into the soft night air.

  “Sorry to disturb you so late. And by disturb, I mean I hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of any form of congress, sexual or otherwise.”

  “What do you want, Gun?” he asked with an annoyed glance at his watch. It was almost midnight, and he’d been working for the last two hours, ever since Alice had gone to sleep.

  “Is that yea or nay on the congress interrupting?”

  “Nay, not that it’s any of your business. If it will ease your mind, I was writing. Nothing more.”

  “Pity. Did you say your next port of call was Miltenberg? My trip to Portugal was canceled, and I can’t get into the Bulgarian factory for a couple of days—evidently some government team is crawling all over the site right now—and as I have a few days to kill, I thought I’d spend them with my favorite brother and his mysterious American bit of fluff.”

  “She’s not a bit of fluff,” Elliott said, annoyed with himself the second the words emerged from his mouth. Dammit, now Gunner would get all sorts of ideas about Alice, ideas that he himself hadn’t yet fully considered, let alone approved for general announcement.

  “No? Glad to hear that.” Gunner’s voice was neutral, but Elliott knew better. He had a strange reticence to introducing Alice to his brother that he analyzed, with some surprise, as jealousy.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m working late so I can take the time to accompany Alice tomorrow. She wishes to go to some of the tourist sites, and I told her that assuming I got tomorrow’s work done tonight, I would go with her.”

  “I’ll let you get back to it, then. I’ll be at the Miltenberg dock around ten. That is, if you want me to meet your bird.”

  “She’s not a bird any more than she is a bit of fluff. She’s a woman, an intelligent, attractive, amusing woman, and if you want to meet her, you’ll have to promise not to be a bigger fool than you already are.”

  “Now, when have I ever misbehaved in front of one of your women?” Gunner asked on a laugh.

  “When haven’t you? is more the question. Ten it is. See that you’re not late,” Elliott warned before ending the call.

  He returned to his chair, intending on finishing the chapter at hand, but his eyes kept drifting over to the sheet drawn over the delicious curves that made up Alice. She was so warm, so full of life, and a joy that seemed almost childlike, and yet he sensed in her a deep sadness. He’d never felt overly protective around anyone that wasn’t family, but there was something about Alice that made him want to shield her from the trials of the world.

/>   And then there was the siren lure of her person. Even a few yards away, he felt the pull of her, like she was a lodestone, drawing him ever closer until he could stroke that soft, satiny skin, and breathe in the wonderful warm Alice scent, not to mention the taste of her. . . .

  He was on his feet and headed toward the bed before he realized what he was doing.

  It took more effort than he would have liked, but he managed to sit back at the computer, and shut Alice out of his mind while he wrote for three more hours.

  Seven and a half hours later he entered the dining room seeking several cups of extra-strong coffee, and wondered if it was such a good idea to spend the day out seeing sights when he’d rather be back in the cabin with Alice.

  “Are you going on the group tour to Rothenburg?” he heard Laura ask Alice as the latter rose from the breakfast table. Their backs were to him as he approached, but he heard them clearly.

  “No, Elliott said he didn’t care what we saw today, so I figured it would be more fun to visit that sword factory here in town. They have sword-fighting classes there, and they’ll teach you the basics in an hour. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fence.”

  “It’s very James Bondian,” Laura said in a low voice, followed by a little laugh.

  “I know, right? It’s a good skill to have in case you’re ever stuck in a castle and forced to fight for your life,” Alice responded with her own light laugh.

  “Evidently Elliott told Deidre that you were going to Rothenburg, so she has us going there.”

  “That was my fault, I’m afraid. I figured she’d pump him for details of our plans, so I told him to tell her we were going to Rothenburg. I apologize if you wanted to spend the day poking around the town instead.”

  “Oh, I don’t really mind. I enjoy going on the Manny van Bris tours. Tiffany is actually quite good, although she doesn’t let one linger long.” Laura leaned into Alice. “You’ll have to let me know if there’s any further activity going on, though, since I won’t be there to help watch for it.”

  Elliott wondered what the hell she was talking about. What sort of activity? Something Alice was doing? A cold chill gripped him. Was she meeting with Patrick? Had she lied to him about that? It wasn’t out of the question that she could be using him to make Patrick jealous . . . something his old friend evidently was, judging by the texts he’d received.

  He moved closer, but Alice must have sensed him, because she stopped in the middle of her sentence.

  “You know I’ll definitely tell you if he—oh, there you are, Elliott. Get enough coffee in you to wake up?”

  Both women turned bright, dazzling smiles on him. He was instantly suspicious. They were up to something. The question was whether it was something that was any of his business.

  “There isn’t enough coffee in the world for that, but I have consumed enough to remain awake for the day. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yeah, let’s get out of here before Deidre the Leech suckers onto you. Have fun, Laura!”

  “Enjoy your fencing lesson,” she said with a wave.

  “You didn’t tell me you wanted to learn how to fence,” Elliott said a few minutes later, when they had escaped the ship without seeing anyone else. Most of the other passengers were going on the tour provided by Tiffany and company, but he noticed Anthony and Dahl lounging at an outdoor café, chatting with a couple who were obviously tourists, and making copious notes. He lifted his hand in acknowledgment when Anthony gave them a nod. “If you had told me that before, I would have been happy to show you a few basic moves.”

  Alice gawked at him. “Don’t tell me you know how to fence, too!”

  “Too?”

  Her lips compressed for a moment as if she was holding something back. “Er . . . you speak a lot of languages. That’s kind of different, just like knowing how to use a sword is different.”

  “I learned from my father, as a matter of fact. He was something of an amateur expert at many forms of swordplay, and I took a bit of it at university, as well.” He gave her a long look from the corner of his eye. “It’s not all that extraordinary.”

  “Well, I think it’s cool.” Her expression was placid, showing excitement and pleasure, but no shadow of secrets, no sense of hiding something. Certainly nothing as heinous as playing him along in order to attract another man.

  He had to be wrong. He misheard the conversation, or he put the wrong interpretation to what he did hear. Alice wasn’t devious, and she wasn’t using him for her own purposes. She was exactly what he had told his brother—an intelligent, attractive, amusing woman, and nothing more.

  As if on cue, Gunner loomed up before them. Alice paused to take a picture of an ironbound door just as Gunner, his eyes on her, said, “Right on time, I see. Hello.”

  “Of course we’re on time. Punctuality is a courtesy that is far too often overlooked. Alice, I’d like you to meet my brother Gunner, who finds himself in Germany for a few days.”

  Alice’s eyes were huge as she looked at his brother. “But that’s . . . you’re . . . he’s the one . . . brother?”

  “Yes.” He gave her grave consideration. She looked flustered as hell, and he didn’t understand why that was. It couldn’t be because Gunner was of an obviously mixed ethnicity—Alice didn’t hold with prejudices of that sort, that much he knew. What was it then that so startled her? “He’s the first child that my parents adopted. We are, as a matter of fact, both thirty-seven.”

  “We’ve been brothers since we were wee babies,” Gunner said with a dazzling smile. He took Alice’s hand and bowed over it, something he did with great effect.

  At least it annoyed Elliott greatly. He took Alice’s hand back, and kept it safely in his.

  “Gunner . . . I . . .” Alice seemed to get a grip on her emotions, because she rallied quickly. “How nice to meet you. That’s an unusual name. Is it German?”

  “No, it’s spelled with an er on the end. The orphanage said I was named for one of the founders, who had been a gunner on a warship. I’m delighted to meet you. Elliott has told me nothing at all about you, so I look forward to finding out everything there is to know.”

  “You’ll have to forgive his atrocious manners and blunt personality,” Elliott said with a glare. “He was raised by monkeys before the orphanage found him.”

  He thought Alice’s eyes might pop out of her head. “He was?”

  Gunner laughed, and fell into step on the other side of her as they walked up the hill toward the upper part of the town. “Elliott likes to embellish the truth. That’s why he’s such a good writer. There were no monkeys involved in my early life, I assure you, although Elliott did have a pet hedgehog named Rory that he grudgingly shared with me. But enough about us. Tell me about yourself.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Alice didn’t seem to know what to say.

  Elliott took pity on her. “Gunner, she’s on holiday. She doesn’t want to undergo the third degree.”

  “I’m just trying to be friendly,” his brother said with a faux expression of innocence.

  “I’m really not that interesting,” Alice said, giving Elliott’s hand a little squeeze.

  He smiled down at her. “I think you are.”

  “I’m sure I’d think you are, as well, if I knew more about you,” Gunner piped up. “It’s hard to say otherwise, because I was taught not to judge someone by their appearance, not that your appearance says anything but that you look like a fascinating woman, but the fact remains that if I knew more, I’d be able to second Elliott’s character call with firm approval.”

  “I like how you talk, too,” Alice told Gunner. “It’s more stream-of-consciousness than Elliott, but you both have that quirkiness that isn’t apparent on the surface.”

  “She’s perceptive,” Gunner told him. “That’s always nice in a woman.”

  “What I’d like to know is
how you ended up here at the same time we are,” Alice said, her thumb rubbing against Elliott’s hand. He liked the feeling of her fingers twined so naturally in his. She felt right next to him, and he could see by the admiring glances that Gunner was sending her way that his brother liked her, too. Alice flinched a little before adding, “That sounds accusatory, and I don’t intend for it to be, but you being here is rather curious, you have to admit.”

  “Not at all curious,” Gunner said cheerfully, giving her a wink. “Elliott mentioned you would be in this area, and since I was waiting for some government officials to vacate a place I have to do some work, it made sense to spend my heel-kicking time here rather than by myself in a strange Bulgarian town where my presence wasn’t particularly welcomed.”

  “My brother, the industrial spy,” Elliott joked.

  Alice’s hand jerked in his. “You’re a . . . spy?” she finally managed to ask. “Does it . . . uh . . . run in the family?”

  Elliott was about to explain that he was joking, when a shadow fell across them as a man stepped out from a doorway. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  “Patrick!” Alice said in a voice that was (reassuringly) filled with surprise. “What the hell?”

  Elliott eyed his old friend. Patrick looked as dashingly handsome as ever, but his eyes were filled with ire, an ire that Elliott could almost feel. Elliott held firmly to Alice’s hand when she would have jerked his fingers from hers. “That’s a very good question. Mind answering it, Patrick?”

  “I came t’see if it was true that you were doing everything you could t’undermine me with my woman.”

  “Whoa, now,” Alice said, jerking her hand from his in order to put both hers on her hips. “One, I am not your woman. And two, I’m not your woman.”

  Gunner frowned. “I believe those are actually—”

  “And three,” Alice said loudly, loud enough that people passing by them sent curious glances their way. “I can’t believe I ever was your woman, because that had to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. So you can just stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”