So he’d taken off. Left the house with a trail of media behind him, got in his car and managed to lose the vultures determined to circle over him. He’d ditched his car in the first parking lot he saw, and now he was on foot, in search of the first hotel he could find that had a big bed he could finally fall asleep on.
Now, satisfied that he was rid of every photographer in a ten-mile radius, Ben finally came to a stop in front of the Lester Hotel. He knew there was a Hilton half a dozen blocks away, but he had no intention of checking in there. The Lester, a ten-or-so-story building with a bland gray exterior, was the last place the press would think to look.
Stepping through the revolving door, Ben crossed the empty lobby toward the checkin area, where he found the skinniest guy he’d ever seen manning the counter.
“I need a room,” he muttered, pulling his wallet from the back pocket of his faded jeans.
“Single or double bed?”
“Double.”
“Kitchenette?”
“I couldn’t care less, kid.” He pulled a wad of bills from his wallet and dropped them on the splintered oak counter.
“Okay then.”
Ben scrawled a fake name and address on the clipboard handed to him then pushed it back at the clerk.
The guy barely gave him a second look before giving him a key and pointing to the elevator.
Two minutes later, Ben got off on the third floor and breathed in the scent of potpourri and lemon cleaner.
The hotel wasn’t the type of accommodation he was used to, but for once he didn’t care that the carpet beneath his black boots was frayed, or that the doors lining the narrow corridor were in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. All he cared about was sleep. No telephones. No agents and managers and publicists. No reporters or photographers.
Just sleep.
He let himself into room 312. Didn’t bother turning on the light, just let his gaze adjust to the darkness and zero in on the double bed in the center of the room. Within seconds, his boots were off, his leather jacket was tossed on the armchair, his jeans and boxers lay on the carpet, and his T-shirt somehow ended up caught in the ceiling fan.
Ben fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
Maggie found that her steps were unusually bouncy as she hurried down the street. Normally her feet killed after a shift at the Olive, especially on Friday nights, but the only part of her body that ached was the spot between her legs.
I’m going to have sex.
She didn’t care if anyone thought she was pathetic. So what if her only source of sexual gratification was her infrequent trysts with Tony? She didn’t have the time or energy for a relationship.
Relationships required effort—the only effort she had to make with Tony was unzipping his jeans.
Relationships drained you—with Tony, she was only drained after the first or second orgasm.
And Tony never made demands on her, never monopolized her time or made her feel that being a workaholic was something horrific. He worked as hard as she did, which officially made him the perfect man to get involved with.
Maggie dodged a rowdy group of teenagers loitering on the city sidewalk, and then waved at the hot dog vendor she passed every day on the way to work. Her apartment was only a few blocks from the bar, but she and Tony avoided going there. They always met in a hotel, where they could have fun all night long and then go their separate ways in the morning.
Another perk—not sharing an awkward breakfast together the morning after.
She reached the Lester Hotel a few minutes later, headed straight for the counter, and said she wanted to check into room 312. The clerk, a very scrawny, very bored looking young man, replied in a monotone that the room was already occupied.
“I know…he’s expecting me,” she said, her cheeks only warming slightly. She didn’t care what this desk clerk thought of her. “There should be a spare key for me.”
The guy turned around and stared at the dozens of keys hanging off the hooks on the wall, then plucked one with his long, bony fingers. As he handed her the key, she desperately wanted to offer to buy him a hot dog, or a cracker, anything to put some meat on those protruding bones.
Sex first, feed the checkin guy later.
Thanking the kid, she made her way to the elevator and rode the car up to the third floor. She and Tony had visited the Lester before, so she knew her way around and found the room quickly. Her breasts grew heavy as she stuck the key in the lock and turned it. God, she needed this. With her college exams coming up in a few weeks, not to mention the billiards tournament the bar was holding next month, she’d soon be up to her eyeballs in work.
If she wanted to play, tonight was it.
As she let herself into the room, she was instantly engulfed by shadows. She blinked and waited for her eyes to focus, while she tried to figure out the reason for the dead silence hanging over the room. No, wait, not dead silence. Her ears perked as the sound of light breathing floated from the direction of the bed.
“Oh, don’t do this to me, Anthony,” she chided softly, dropping her purse on the table beside her and turning to lock the door. “I see you three times a year, at least have the decency to stay awake.”