The Foreigner's Caress. Kim Shaw

despise the wombs they came out of. Those people are animals and for some reason, they seem to find my little boring life of major interest, go figure.”

      “Somehow I doubt there is anything boring about your life,” Steve said.

      “Yeah, well, be that as it may, it just kills me that when a man dates and is linked to noteworthy women, he’s this year’s eligible bachelor. When it’s the other way around, the woman’s called every kind of gold-digging whore in the book.”

      “I agree. There’s definitely a double standard, and I don’t care what side of the globe you’re on. But, in all fairness, the media only report on what people want to know, so don’t blame them because we live in a society that is nosy and filthy-minded. And speaking of filthy…”

      Steve tugged at the top of the tank top Madison wore. She smacked his hand.

      “Seriously, Steve. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea that you and I be seen in public again. I mean, if this crap gets back to England, your parents might be a little, well, put off.”

      “Put off about what? That I’ve met a beautiful woman and am having the time of my life getting to know her?” Steve asked as he traced Madison’s collarbone with two fingers.

      “How about the fact that you’re spending time with a woman who the press likes to spy on and paint to be some sort of strumpet who’s out to trick him out of his family’s fortune?”

      “In that case, come here, my little strumpet,” Steve said, pulling Madison across his body. “Let me teach you a lesson about stealing, you naughty girl.”

      Steve closed his mouth over hers, cutting off any further protests she could make.

      Chapter 7

      “This is a nice hotel, but you’ve got a really crappy view,” Madison said as she peered out of the fourteenth-floor window of Steve’s hotel room.

      He’d invited her to have dinner in with him that evening in acquiescence to her desire to keep their business out of the papers. A quiet evening indoors and out of the public eye was extremely appealing to both of them.

      Steve moved to her side and looked through the glass himself. His room faced a parking garage and an office building. Looking to the left, he was afforded a partial view of the Times Square area, the lights from Broadway already brilliantly lighting up the street.

      “Good thing it wasn’t the view of New York City that I stayed in town for,” he mused, having turned his attention away from the window and refocused it on the breathtaking woman standing beside him.

      Madison smiled up at him, still amazed to find herself tingling under his gaze. It had been two weeks since they’d met and she was getting to believe that no matter how much time passed, she would still be as flattered by his considerate and charming nature as she was now.

      “Are you ready for dinner?” he asked.

      “Uh-uh,” Madison answered as she moved closer to him.

      She had an irresistible urge to kiss him and dinner would just have to wait until she satisfied that compulsion. She tilted her head, her lips angled a couple of inches away from his. When their mouths met, she felt her body tremble quietly. Her mouth opened to his probing tongue, and warmth spread through her entire body. Tentatively, yet expertly, he explored her mouth, breathing her in until she filled all of his senses. The thickness of his lips as she nibbled and tasted them caused her breath to catch in her throat while the heat of his tongue as it danced with hers sent an electric current straight down to the center of her taut abdomen.

      Madison had kissed many men in her lifetime, but could honestly say that she had never been kissed so thoroughly and completely as Steve kissed her. She’d experienced passion and lust, she’d thrown herself with reckless abandoned into physical encounters and, while finding physical satisfaction, she realized now that the intimacy of a simple kiss with Steve far outweighed any of that. She lost herself inside his mouth, sank into his arms and discovered it was a restorative and peaceful place to be.

      When their lips finally parted, Steve continued to hold her in his arms, her body resting against his as they stood in front of a window with a partial view of Manhattan. The serenity that settled over them made them both realize that what had begun as a chance meeting and an instant attraction had quickly morphed into something more profound than either had ever experienced before.

      “I want to make love to you, Madison,” Steve said, breaking the silence that had enveloped them.

      “I hear a but in your voice,” she responded.

      Madison’s heart raced because she’d already expected this moment, anticipated it, even. She felt the same way, a desire to share on a physical level what was developing on an emotional level. However, for the first time, she’d met someone and sexual curiosity was not the most pressing thing for her.

      “But I’m not sure if we should. I mean, I want to. Don’t get me wrong, I really, really want to,” Steve laughed.

      “Really?” Madison joked.

      “Really, really,” Steve reiterated. “I just…I’ve got to be honest with you.”

      “About what? Please don’t tell me you’ve got a wife and three kids back in England, ’ cause that’s the last thing I need to hear in my life at this point,” she said half-jokingly.

      “Of course not. I’m single and unattached…no girlfriend, wife. Nothing like that. Actually, I haven’t even been on a date in the past couple of months. It’s just that, well, Madison, I’ve never felt like this before. I mean, these past two weeks have been incredible. Being here with you, it just totally caught me off guard, and I feel like I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

      “I know what you mean.”

      “Do you?”

      “Of course. Steve, you’re definitely not out here on your own. I wasn’t expecting this and after the last crazy couple of years I had, I certainly wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone. But this is so different. With you I feel like I can just be myself and be however crazy, goofy or silly I feel like being. I don’t have to be what my parents expect, I don’t have to live up to what the media think about me and I don’t have to give a damn about what my friends or anyone else asks of me. This has been so nice, but…” Madison’s voice trailed off.

      “But you think it has to end,” Steve finished for her.

      “Doesn’t it? I mean, you have a life in England. I’m here trying to get my life together. You have obligations to keep. I mean, we just met. We’re practically strangers.”

      Madison moved away from Steve, needing to distance herself from feelings that had come on too strong too soon. She stopped in front of the television, where some ridiculous commercial about a goat and a soft drink was playing.

      “You don’t feel like a stranger to me,” Steve said as he watched her from his vantage point by the window.

      The sincerity in his voice forced Madison to turn to face him. His face was an open book, free for her to read in his warm-brown eyes and sensual lips an emotion that was greater than lust and infatuation.

      “You feel like home to me,” he added softly.

      Steve walked across the room to Madison, taking both of her hands in his. She allowed him to guide her to the top of the double bed, her body at his command as he lay down and pulled her with him. He leaned his back against the pillows, his arms around her, and she laid her head on his chest, listening to the sound of his breathing. Wrapped in a cocoon isolated from the outside world, they felt free to be real with each other.

      “I don’t know how to explain what I am feeling right now and I don’t even really understand it, but it’s like I was looking for something or needing something and all of a sudden I don’t feel that need anymore,” Steve said softly.

      “It’s