The Foreigner's Caress. Kim Shaw

life and had no doubts that it would continue to just get sweeter.

      Chapter 6

      “This place reminds me of the nightclubs back home in England,” Steve shouted over the loud, pulsing house music that boomed from every corner of the dimly lit room.

      They were on the upper floor of Webster Hall, a trendy dance club located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was housed inside an old warehouse on one of the lower-numbered streets in a diverse neighborhood. The cavernous club contained room after room of eclectic décor and varying musical stylings.

      “This is only my second time coming here, and I still can’t get enough. You’ve got every type of person in here from rocker to hip-hop heads and everything in between. It’s wild,” Madison shouted back over the din of the music and voices.

      They’d spent the past few days around the city. Steve professed that he wanted to see every inch of New York City and, despite the fact that Madison was a recent transplant herself, he appointed her his personal tour guide. They’d gone to the Empire State Building in midtown Manhattan, Flushing Meadow Park in Queens and various other points of interest in and around the five boroughs. Tonight, Madison had felt like dancing.

      The couple made their way to the bar, where Steve ordered two Coronas. They sipped their beers in silence, gazing at the variety of New Yorkers who circled the room. The same-sex couples mixed and mingled with the straight ones, while the preppie college kids shared drinks with the Bohemian old-heads.

      When a gorgeous blonde approached them and began chatting Madison up, Steve stared in wide-eyed wonder as the woman made a blatant pass at his companion as if he weren’t standing there. Steve had never considered himself the jealous or insecure type, but he had to acknowledge that the woman was striking and, hey, this was the new millennium. It occurred to him that he didn’t know enough about Madison to know specifically what she was in to and decided he wasn’t about to take any chances. He placed a defensive arm around Madison’s waist and pulled her to the dance floor. Madison’s admirer followed them with burning eyes for a while before moving on in search of a new conquest.

      “Well, Mr. Elliott, let’s see what kind of moves you’ve got. Now you know this isn’t ballroom dancing. I hope you can keep up,” Madison teased.

      “I’ve got moves, baby, believe that,” he stated with the self-assuredness that she had grown used to hearing from him.

      The beat pulsed loudly in their ears, sucking them into it as their bodies moved against one another. They danced through song after song, laughing and teasing as they grew familiar with the movement of each other’s bodies. Steve looked down at Madison, captivated by the sexiness of her frame as much as by the femininity she exuded without even trying. The skirt she wore exposed legs that held a promise that could not be denied. He ran his hands up and down her diminutive waist, settling on her hips, which were swaying against him at a melodic tempo.

      Their bodies met, finding a comfortable space to claim as their own. The lights zipped across the dance floor, flashing on her golden skin, now covered with a thin layer of perspiration, and Steve realized that he had never met a woman whom he found more alluring. His arousal as they danced grew from deep inside and by the time it became a physical wanting, it was larger than the room itself. Their eyes locked and held as they both became aware of the desire that was building between them. Steve ran his hand across the soft locks that framed her face, delighting in the texture and feel of them against his skin. Steve’s desire to kiss her, to taste her mouth and tongue, was stronger than any other urge he’d ever felt. Cupping her face in his hands and moving in slow motion, he bent his head toward hers and found a sweet mouth waiting in anticipation for him. His tongue tentatively pried its way in between her lips, making contact with her tongue in an almost timid fashion. She opened her mouth wider, allowing him deeper access, and he responded by giving her all of his tongue. Their kiss engaged every bit of their oral cavities, as they drew one another in to completely discover their essences.

      Forgetting time and space, the gyrating bodies around them became a distant memory, they moved to a place in their minds that was far removed from anything recognizable. Their ragged breathing was louder in their ears than the music, and everyone else in the room seemed to disappear at once, leaving them alone within their passion. The probing exploration of their tongues spurred them to greater desire until finally Steve pulled away, unable to take one more second of tortured provocation. He wanted to get her alone, and it was that single thought that drove him silently through the throngs of people and out onto the street.

      Leaving the club arm in arm, they maintained the electrifying connection that had exploded between them. Madison settled against Steve’s side as they drove back uptown to her place. With her eyes closed, she replayed the images of the two of them together, still warm from the heat their bodies had generated on the dance floor. When Steve found an empty parking spot right outside Madison’s building, it was she who wordlessly took him by the hand and led him up the stairs to her third-story apartment.

      They stood just inside the entryway of her apartment, staring at one another in the thick darkness. They both recognized the importance of their next steps and as they weighed the implications in their minds, they were overwhelmingly aware of the current that connected them. Somehow, Madison found the presence of mind to pause, a task that was equally difficult and unwanted.

      “Are we moving too fast?” Madison asked at last, looking into Steve’s eyes.

      “Yes, we are,” he answered truthfully, as he moved closer to her, still compelled to be near her.

      Steve, like many young men of his age, had had his share of casual affairs. Yet he knew, without fully understanding why, that Madison could not be classified in that way. There would be no way that he could share her bed and just walk away, because she had already infected his heart in a way that no woman had ever managed to do. For her part, Madison was not a virgin and did not possess any virginlike ideals that made her desirous of resisting her sexuality or her body’s longings. However, she was also aware that Steve had gotten under her skin, and sharing her body with him would not come without strings and entanglements. Neither could pretend that the feelings they were caught up in were not incredibly intense and moving.

      “We probably should think this through,” she whispered, her lips brushing across his as she spoke.

      “Probably,” he agreed, his hand kneading the small of her back softly. “Madison, I want you…badly,” Steve laughed.

      “Me, too.”

      “This is so difficult!” Steve exclaimed. “Look, I don’t get what’s going on here, but I just feel like it’s too important to mess it up by rushing things.”

      “And sometimes sex does just that,” Madison agreed.

      As much as they wanted to take their desire to a higher level, the intimacy between them was compelling enough without an act of sexual intercourse. They paused to allow logic to take up a space in the midst of their excitement and found the consolation to be just as sweet as the first place prize when they spent the night fully clothed, snuggled against one another on Madison’s brushed-cotton, oversized sofa. They talked until they feel asleep, and when they awoke in each other’s arms, the satisfaction that washed over them made them both realize that they could not have felt more complete than they did by just being in one another’s presence.

      That languid bubble of tranquility was unexpectedly burst the following morning, however, when the New York Post’s gossip column featured a picture of them leaving the club the night before, arm in arm, with a caption beneath it that read, “Has Madison Daniels finally snagged herself a well-appointed Prince Charming?”

      The columnist went on to report that this was the second known sighting of Madison and Stevenson Elliott, son of English billionaire Gregory Elliott.

      “Do you believe this crap?” Madison spewed angrily.

      “Perhaps you want to tell me over breakfast why the press is so fascinated with you?” Steve asked gently after he’d read the article that Madison had dropped on his