He was in the Restaurant every night, watching her, careful not to draw attention to himself. But Dee knew what was happening.
On her first day she'd requested a secluded corner table, a place where she could enjoy her meals away from prying eyes, and it had become her own. But this man, this… Roc, had invaded her privacy with his bold eyes and stirred up feelings she felt unready for. Who was he? Each evening he dined with a different companion. All women. Some young, some quite old — elegantly groomed or bordering on punk, dark-skinned, light, Asian. No pattern. That bothered her. That, and the fact that no-matter who he was with, whom he lavished his attention on, he always managed the odd moment to scorch Dee with his broodingly exotic eyes, and always in the moment she found her own eyes drawn to him.
Eventually she'd been curious enough to ask a waiter and hadn't been surprised to discover he was a Gigolo, a male prostitute. What had surprised her was that he'd been allowed to work out of such a stylish hotel. But as the waiter had so pragmatically pointed out, the addition of his 'service' had been in response to a perceived customer demand. There were many lonely women passing through their establishment. And after all, 'customer service' was the industry byword.
Whatever the justification, the distraction had come at a good time. She'd become bored with her solitary meals, and so in lieu of company, which she didn't want, she'd invented a game. Each night, she'd try and guess the age, roughly of the woman he would be escorting. If she was close she'd reward herself with permission to return his bold gaze. If not, she'd ignore him.
It proved entertaining, even titillating, until the night he didn't arrive. She waited, drawing out her after-dinner coffee and then ordering another, amazed by her acute disappointment. Obviously she'd become attached to the game. But not enough to ask the helpful waiter where Roc might be.
Finally, at eleven o'clock she left the restaurant, filled with an aloneness that was nothing like the comfortable solitude she'd been enjoying. This was an emotional emptiness she knew would keep her awake for hours.
In the foyer, she stared disconsolately out at the tropical gardens. Fairy-lit and misted with a light, humid rain it was a captured portion of paradise and for the first time since she'd arrived she wondered if Cairns had been a bad choice. Even in the artificial environment of the Resort there was enough raw beauty around her to make her ache with loss. Flowers literally blossomed before her eyes and the air pulsed with the fragrance of life. Birth, death, the cycle was too fast. It crowded in on her. Somewhere colder and more remote might have been better.
Behind her the elevator doors opened and she shelved her thoughts. The elevator operator in his smart hotel uniform was waiting patiently.
She nodded to him, and stepped inside — they all knew her floor — then was caught by her reflection in the mirrored back wall. The contrast between her plain white cocktail dress and the ornate uniform behind her was stark and she was touching her throat, wondering if she should have bought a necklace to wear with the dress when she saw Roc step in behind her.
The doors shut.
In the mirror, his reflected image returned her stare, but his eyes were appraising and showed none of her surprise. He leant against the side wall as the elevator began its ascent and she had the peculiar sensation that her stomach had been left behind.
"I see you watching me. In the Restaurant," he said, his accent as exotic as his burnished eyes. The liquid-black hair that was usually tied back, swam loosely around his exquisitely suited shoulders. Wide shoulders. Up close, he looked about twenty-five.
She could feel nervous tension creating a fist in her stomach, but for some reason she smiled at his reflection. "I suppose I was curious to know why you were watching me."
He smiled back, then leant past the elevator operator to push a button. The lift ground to a halt.
Dee flicked a glance at the uniformed back but it remained stiffly at attention. Roc removed his hand. The elevator was stalled mid-floor yet the operator had the look about him that no matter what occurred in his lift, he would remain staring at the doors. She glanced back at Roc's reflection. Did he 'service' his customers in the lift?
She turned slowly to face him but there was no fear in her. Nothing could happen that she didn't want.
"My name is Roc," he said slowly, and Dee tried to pinpoint the accent. He reminded her of a Siamese cat — a large, handsome Siamese cat, all fluid movement, even when he was still. "And you are…?" He tilted his head and the glossy hair slid off his shoulder. She could imagine how soft it would be.
"Wendee," she said, knowing he could find that out by asking anyone.
"Wendee," he repeated, not quite getting the inflection right. Dee found her smile widened at the attempt. So did his. Even the smiling was strange, she thought. Almost like a forgotten art, it had been so long. It made her feel… light.
"Tonight, Wendee," he said, still not getting it right, "I am alone."
"That must be a relief," she said dryly, liking the quick self-effacing smile her words provoked. Liking it a lot.
"But I don't want to be alone," he protested.
"Then, don't let me keep you." She flicked a pointed glance at the elevator control panel.
He frowned at that and the range of his facial expressions fascinated her. There was an otherness about him she'd have liked to explore, had her situation been different. But as matters stood, she wasn't about to complicate her life with the likes of Roc. Intriguing though he might be.
At least that was her thought.
"I don't like to be alone," he said, taking a step towards her. Dee felt the smile slide off her lips, but still she felt no fear. Only exhilaration. "But you, Wendee," he said, touching her arm with fingers that expected no resistance, "You like to be alone. You can teach me this."
Her eyelids fluttered as he moved in on her, pressing her against the wall, and she let him, breathing his breath, tasting its fragrance, staring at his lips.
"I think this is what you want," he said.
"Yes it is," she replied.
At that moment, the faint ping of the elevator door heralded it's opening. Somewhere during her absorption, either Roc or the perceptive elevator operator had continued the journey and deposited them on her floor.
Roc took her hand and led her out, neither of them glancing at their silent companion.
"Which room?" he asked, and Dee reached into her purse to retrieve the pass-key. He took it from her, then his hands were touching her very lightly, on her arms and fleetingly on the shoulders, but his eyes were what floated her down the hallway and inside her door. It shut behind them and Dee dropped her purse to the floor.
"One thousand dollars for the whole night," he said, and Dee didn't even flinch. There was no break in the continuum of their foreplay. She merely nodded, then he was slipping the straps of her dress down and kissing her shoulders, her throat, pressing her against the wall as his hands skimmed her body and she felt an kind of numbness, a suffusing glow that said, Yes, this is what I want.
Her arms hung limply at her sides as he pleasured her, doing all the right things, touching her exactly where she wanted, exactly when she needed. Her breasts rose and fell against his clever fingers as his mouth closed over hers.
Then he pressed his hips against her, and she snapped.
That hard erection against her belly — the knowledge that Roc could control it, that he wouldn't ejaculate prematurely, that he'd never kill himself over a woman, exploded inside her mind. Her hands came up and she pushed against his shoulders at the same time as she mashed her lips against his and began devouring his mouth. She wanted him and hated him in equal proportions, and his quick response only infuriated her further.
Grabbing her hands, he held them above her head as he returned her violent kiss, and the more she struggled, the rougher he became, his hands groping her breasts, pushing up between her legs to squeeze her pubis, then hooking into the side of her panties to tear them off.
Dee was going wild, her mind filling with static. She fought harder, her arms aching above her head, her teeth bared. Then he tore down the front of her dress and she fell on him, clutching his shoulders as he pressed her against the wall and entered her. He was kissing her, pounding into her and she thrust her hands into his silky hair, holding his head still as she kissed him back. Kissing and kissing, and the sensations were building and she was so angry…
And then it burst over her and she screamed, " No, " over and over as each wave hit her, subsiding into whimpers as the aftershocks racked her shuddering body.
Roc held her gently against his chest until she went limp, then he discarded the shreds of her dress and carried her to her bed.
Dee lay in it, exhausted, panting, staring up at him as he brushed the sweaty hair back from her forehead.
"Wild woman. Now I see why you are alone. You think you will frighten men off with your strong lovemaking," he said, smiling to show her he wasn't. Then he tilted his head and searched her eyes. "Or perhaps a man has hurt you, and you are the frightened one. Is that why you have no lover? Did he rape you?"
Dee shook her head wordlessly. He was way off, and she had neither the energy nor the inclination to correct him.
"Then you just like it rough, and you come to me knowing I will do as you ask. I can understand that."
Dee could have pointed out that he'd actually come to her, but she didn't. Let him amuse himself with his amateur psychoanalysis. Her thoughts were already turning away from him towards the past.
Her emotional violence was spent for the moment, but in its place lay a deep, festering anger — at Billy. If he hadn't come to her with his adolescent crush, she'd never have become 'the stupid girl with her brains between her legs' again.
But she had, making herself vulnerable to Billy in a way she'd sworn never to again. Then, instead of the exciting affair she'd anticipated, Billy had rejected her in the most devastating way possible. She could rationalise all she liked, and cloud the issue with guilt over his death, but Billy's actions had shown her clearly that he'd rather die than make love to her.
"You sleep now," Roc said, "I'll be here when you wake."
She closed her eyes, shutting out the vision of what she'd been reduced to. Paying for sex.
Perhaps out of some inner survival reflex she did fall into a deep slumber. But she awoke a couple of hours later to find Roc sprawled on the lounge watching in-house movies, an opened bottle of champagne at his side.
His jacket had been discarded and he looked deliciously abandoned with his shirt open and a half-smile playing about his lips. He laughed softly at something on the television, his stomach moving the hand that rested over it and again she was reminded of a cat, the way his soft, inky hair fell back from his face, the elongated golden eyes and limbs that looked graceful even when sprawled.
It came to her then that he was nothing more than a sleek, well-fed tom who'd marked out his territory and lived by prowling through it, targeting any female he perceived to be on heat. And she could see he had an instinct for it, an innate ability to sniff out sexual frustration, even when the female herself was unaware of it. As she had been.
For a moment, the self doubts that had crowded in on her in the seconds before she'd found sleep, returned. Roc was only there because she was paying him. He cared nothing about her personally, and why should he? He probably had a nubile young girlfriend somewhere that he enjoyed making love to. Dee was just a job.
She stood in the shadowed doorway watching him, thinking she should slip back into her room and find a wrap to cover her nakedness. Then a belligerent thought possessed her. Why should she? She had a good body for her age. And why should she care whether Roc had a personal interest in her? She was the paying customer, and he was merely providing a service. A service she could feel the need for building in her loins. She had been long without a man before Roc, and she'd paid for the whole night. Why not use it.
She stepped out of the shadows and walked over to the lounge.
He saw her and smiled, tilting his head to gaze at her nakedness, but she was staring at his body, wanting to taste it, to explore it, to manipulate it. There was no room for nervousness in her.
"You are very beautiful after sleep," he said, "soft and mussed. And your lips bruised." He even sounded convincing.
She nodded, coming to stand over him.
"You make me hard," he said, and they both looked down at the front of his pants where the stiffening penis was clearly outlined. Still stretched out, he reached for the champagne and poured her a glass. "I don't see you drink in the Restaurant, but maybe tonight…?" He held the glass out to her.
"I don't fuck in the Restaurant either," she said calmly and downed the glass, holding it out for a refill.
"You are thirsty," Roc commented, eying her speculatively as she gulped down that drink as well, "and hungry?"
They stared at each other for a moment in silent communication. Then she put down the glass and crawled over him on the lounge — poised above him in the masculine position. "Now I'm going to rape you," she said.
Roc looked up at her through slitted eyes. "I am ready."
"Then we'll talk weekly rates."