Liquid Fear by Scott Nicholson Page B

his hands slipped from her shoulders and around to her breasts. Her nipples hardened even before his fingers reached them. A classic case of conditioning.
    “That feels good, honey,” she said, and now his breath played along the nape of her neck and his lips sought the vulnerable flesh where her scalp met her spine.
    He slid his hand inside her bra, stroking the underside of one breast while his thumb teased her nipple. His other hand skillfully released the buttons of her blouse, his fingertips trailing along her belly as he did so.
    She reached behind him and fished inside his pants, heat radiating as his erection filled her hand. “You’re fast.”
    She raised her hips from the bed so he could hike up her skirt. He stroked the outside of her cotton panties. She was already moist, a little embarrassed at her own sluttishness.
    “Forsyth would demand an exorcism if he knew you were wearing garter hose,” Mark said, easing aside an elastic leg band and stroking the soft hairs beneath the fabric.
    She licked her fingers and felt along Mark’s length until she reached the soft, sensitive skin beneath the head. “Don’t screw up my fantasy.”
    “I’m only screwing one thing,” he said, slipping a gentle finger inside her and smearing her juices up to her clitoris. He rubbed in steady, teasing circles until it swelled, and then he caressed the underside in counterpoint to her manipulation of his penis.
    She writhed, pressing back against him, debating whether to turn but reluctant to break the electric flow from his fingers to her vagina. Maybe if she lifted up slightly, he could slide into her from behind and—
    The page buzzer was like the shriek of a bomb siren.
    Mark stopped the movement of his hands. “Damn,” he whispered.
    “Damn? Everything’s still in the right place, isn’t it?”
    “I shouldn’t have started this,” Mark said, slipping his hand from her panties and reaching toward his jacket on the bed. “I’ve got cocktails with some FDA suits in half an hour, and with traffic like it is—”
    Alexis groaned, still holding him in her hand. “‘Work before play’ is for responsible grown-ups, not us.”
    “We wouldn’t have time for the full monty, anyway. You’ve got the council meeting this afternoon.”
    “And I’m going to have to sit through it with moist panties.”
    “Well, leave them at home.” Mark adopted a light tone, trying to minimize her disappointment. “Maybe give Forsyth a peep show like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct . Torture him with all the delights of heaven and hell.”
    Alexis squeezed his fading erection as a farewell and reminder. “Or maybe give him the first one of these he’s had since the Eisenhower administration.”
    “You packed the vibrator, didn’t you?”
    “No. With airport security like it is, I didn’t want TSA to charge me with smuggling torpedoes. Besides, that’s a placebo effect. I need a dose of the real thing.”
    He rolled off the bed, tucked himself back into his fly as best he could, and adjusted his necktie. She pointed at the jutting tent of his pants. “You going to catch a cab like that?”
    “I’ll picture the president’s wife. That ought to stifle it.” He gave her a spousal peck on the cheek. “Tomorrow night, I promise. We’ll go for a double.”
    “Big promise.”
    As Mark brushed his teeth, Alexis rummaged in her luggage and found a granola bar, choking it down with one of the hotel’s eight-dollar bottles of spring water. Good thing the federal government offered a generous per diem, or she couldn’t afford to serve on the bioethics council.
    Mark’s salary was in the low six figures, but she still insisted on keeping their expenses separate when possible. Even though she understood the male’s traditional role as provider, she was enough of a feminist to keep gender issues neutral in her own marriage.
    Man smart, woman smarter. Acting like the weaker sex.
    And my sex is feeling pretty damned wobbly right