Chapter 2
The man got on the train at Philadelphia, and Gayle quickened with interest. In that conglomerate mass already on the train, and which she had dismissed contemptuously from her attention the moment she had glanced around the club car, this man stood out. Tall, broad of shoulder, lean of flank in the traditional movie star manner, his brown suit was smoothly tailored of expensive material and emphasized his deep golden tan. She told herself, as a hurrying waiter provided him with a highball, that he was no doubt the type of important, wealthy executive who got his sun tan from a lamp, and there was little doubt that he had a very good opinion of his looks and his masculine charm But she had to admit that he would have been much less than human if he hadn't For he was one of the most attractive men she had ever seen and the very sight of him lounging so completely at ease across from her made her pulses jig a little.
When he had sampled his drink, nodded approval at the waiter and relaxed, his eyes encouraged Gayle across the aisle. She flushed a little to be caught staring at him like a wide-eyed school girl and her eyes chilled and she tilted her chin just a little.
For a moment the man sat where he was, his eyes taking her in with a lively and deepening appreciation, before suddenly he stood up and crossed to her, saying eagerly, "Why, Mrs. McGillicuddy! Fancy meeting you here like this! I'm delighted-delighted! How are all the little McGillicuddys? Over the measles, I do hope-or else you wouldn't be traveling alone-or would you?"
The last in a soft murmur that reached no further than her ears as he took the seat beside her and beamed at her as though they had been devoted friends of many years standing.
For a moment Gayle hesitated, but several people around them had glanced curiously at her, when the stranger had greeted her with such evidence of delight, and now she laughed a little and let her eyes twinkle.
"The children are fine, thank you Mr. Murgatroyd-" she said sweetly. "And how are Mrs. Murgatroyd and the twins these days?"
"She packed them up and went home to her mother," mourned the man. "Sad-very sad. But I always believed in giving her what she wanted-whether it was twins or a round-trip ticket home."
"Always the perfect husband!" said Gayle sweetly.
"I try to be," he said modestly, his eyes twinkling. Very dark brown eyes, so dark as to seem in that handsome, sun-tanned face almost black, and his hair was" thick, black and straight. Damn it, he was attractive and her heart was beating like a silly fool. "I'm sure good old Mac must be an equally devoted helpmeet-good old Mac! No doubt he is staying at home with the kids-all five of them-while you take a vacation!"
Gayle bristled a little and lowered her voice.
"Now, honestly," she pouted a little, "do I look like the mother of five children?"
The man brought his head closer so that his lips were so near her hair that the breath of his speaking ruffled the small curls above her ear.
"You look like the mother of all the delights the most demanding man could ever hope to find rolled up in one luscious, alluring female!" he told her very softly.
His eyes emphasized the words, and said things that as yet he dared not say. Gayle drew a deep, sharp breath and tried hard to look haughty and forbidding but it was such a poor effort that the man grinned a little, and once more he spoke so softly that no one even inches away could have heard.
"Don't fight it, lovely-it's too wonderful to fight! You've just about knocked me off my pins-and somehow I love it!"
Gayle made a flying clutch at some small measure of her cool composure, and managed a faint, amused smile.
"Oh, really now-isn't that rushing pretty fast even in this atomic age?" she derided mockingly.
"In this atomic age, my lovely, a fellow rushes fast and grabs what he can-for fear his chance at it won't come again!" he reminded her. "And when a fellow like me, sees a girl like you, and knows that you may be leaving the train at Washington, or Richmond-and that he has very little time to make time with her-he can't afford to let grass grow under his feet."
"No one could ever accuse you of that," she said drily.
"I hope not," he admitted. "I've always been the sort of fellow who knew what he wanted and who went after it with everything he had."
"Sounds a little dangerous...."
"How about some champagne?" he suggested briskly.
"And why not, indeed?"
"In my stateroom," said the man firmly.
"Oh, now, wait a minute...."
He grinned at her disarmingly.
"Want to shock the pants off the old biddies who are watching us with eyes sticking so far out they could be raked off with a stick?" he asked softly. "After all, they might believe the McGilhcuddy-Murgatroyd routine, though I doubt it; but if champagne rears its wicked head, they will probably yell for the cops to throw the wicked two of us off the train."
Gayle laughed. It wasn't very funny, she tried to tell herself; but the warming surge in her blood was not to be denied. At first she tried to argue with herself. But it had been a long time since a man had appealed to her as this man did; she knew what he wanted of her, of course; she'd have been a simple-minded fool not to have known and admitted it. But the hell of it was that she wanted it, too. Wanted it, probably, even more than he did. She had sold herself so coldly and callously that the thrill of giving herself, wildly, impulsively, crazily like this had an allure she could not resist, no matter how her usually cool brain howled in protest.
Watching her, the man's dark eyes were amused, desirous and as though he read the jumble of thoughts in her mind, he grinned suddenly.
"Sold?" he asked very softly.
Gayle looked up at him, laughing and made a little gesture.
"Why not?" she agreed coolly.
The man rose instantly and held out his hand to her and as they walked the length of the club car back to the sleepers, she felt eyes upon her; cold, censorious eyes of the dowdy, frumpy-looking women; eyes of lively interest on her, and envy upon the man beside her, from the several men they passed.
When they came to the closed door at the end of the car, the glass panel in it gave her a reflection of the man behind her. His eyes were upon her hips, and she tried hard not to wiggle them too much-just enough to whet his appetite-as they passed through the cars where long green curtains buttoned to the floor gave an entirely spacious air of privacy to those who were asleep behind them.
When they came to the car that held the man's stateroom, he went ahead of her, swung it open and stood back for her to enter ahead of him. She went in, looking quickly about her. Not a compartment, or a roomette but an entire stateroom. That meant that the tale told by his expensive tailoring was not a he, and she was pleased.
"Just a little place I call home-not gaudy, but neat and cozy," he said as he swung the door shut and she heard the lock click.
She turned swiftly, and her eyes were laughing, as she said sweetly, "I was promised champagne...."
"Who wants champagne at a time like this? Waiters barging in-" his voice was a little thick and even before he had finished, she was in his arms, and her whole body from head to foot was throbbing with an upsurging answer to his exultant, peremptory demand.
After the first hard shock of his arms about her, crushing her almost brutally close, his mouth bruising hers with its hard, demanding kiss, he raised his head and his eyes were blazing with passion, his jaw hard and set.
"What a woman!" he said huskily. "Damn it, kissing you is like touching a live electric wire-you're-you're-incredible."
His hands fumbled with her, and in a matter of seconds she stepped free of him and stood before him, exquisite, rose-ivory, superbly moulded as any statue turned out by an artist in love.
"You see? As simple as all that," she told him lightly, her body trembling with delicious anticipation before its inevitable surrender to his male demand.
Her voice was smothered in laughter as his arms caught her, and her supple, softly moulded body yielded avidly to the demanding muscular strength of his. Her mind swam with delight. She had forgotten, in the years of selling her body to the highest bidder on short term leases, what a glorious, what a perfect thing passion given and fulfilled to the uttermost peak could be. Two people in perfect harmony; one to demand, one to take; one to yield, one to conquer-the perfect, the exquisite rhythm of it was beyond description, beyond anything except almost awed realization.
When it ended at last in a perfect crisis, she lay limp and satiated with bliss, looking up at him as he relaxed beside her, propped up on one elbow, his eyes feasting on her beauty, a gentle finger tracing the curve of her shoulder.
"You're-marvelous," he said huskily at last and his voice was touched with wonder. "You're-incredible."
She smiled at him, a warm lovely, wanton smile.
"I try to please," she told him gently and his arms closed so hard about her that she gasped a little with the tiny pain and arched her back a little so she could raise her head to meet the hard, bruising drive of his kiss.
"I wish-" he began impulsively, frowning a little and then caught back whatever he was going to say.
"Whatever you wish," she told him, her voice low and throbbing with healthy, earthy, unashamed passion, "if I can give it to you-it's yours."
An almost guarded look touched his eyes for a moment and he bent his head and kissed her lips and released her and stood up, reaching for a robe that hung against the door, wrapping it about himself, knotting the belt securely about his lean, hard waist.
"I wish you didn't have to go back to your own compartment and that the train would go on from now until the end of time and we could stay here like this, until we loved each other to death-and what a glorious way to die!" he told her, and now he was smiling a little, taut smile that did not disguise the ardor in his body that trembled as she touched him.
For a moment, her body throbbing with the remembered ecstasy of his passion, she clung to him, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder, feeling with a shaken thrill the hard muscles of his body. Her caress was so bold, so intimate she felt him start and quiver, as his hands caught hers and pushed her a little away from him, laughing at her against the passion that blazed in his eyes.
"Naughty, naughty," he was trying hard to be flippant, but she knew that she could have him again if she persisted. But the fear that this time, so soon after his first taking of her surrender, she would not be able to thrill htm so ardently, she desisted.
"Oh, well-I suppose I may as well go home!" she yielded, laughing a little. "After all, tomorrow is another day."
"And there'll be tomorrow night-again," he teased her, and lit a cigarette and seemed to enjoy watching her as she bent a little to the mirror between the windows, to smooth her hair.
She caught her breath at the implied promise, and turned swiftly.
"Tomorrow night?" she asked eagerly.
Once more that slightly guarded look was in his eyes.
"Who knows? It must happen again, that you know as well as I do," he told her almost crisply. "After all, things like this happen to a fellow once in a lifetime, unless he has the good sense to follow up his luck! We'll discuss it at breakfast, shall we?"
He held her close and hard against him for a moment, and then he opened the door, looked out into the corridor and said in the tone of a gay conspirator, "Coast is clear! Scoot, now!"
As she passed him, he gave her a light smack and as she glanced back at him, laughing, he closed the door on her, and she went quickly along the swaying car to her own quarters. And as she locked her door and once more undressed, she stood for a long moment, drawn to her full height, her hands cupping her throbbing breasts as though in gratitude for the delight and ecstasy they had given him! She had forgotten-or had she ever known?-what madness, what exquisite delight passion could give. She had forced herself to yield her body to men whom she had loathed, but whose money provided the luxuries she had to have. And now, she was like a young girl introduced for the first time to the delights of sex; introduced by someone she found appealing and attractive and who stirred her blood to the exquisite response without which sex can be ugly and unpleasant, and, to a woman like Gayle, a disgusting bore. As a way of earning a living, the best she could say for it was that it was well-paid. But with a man like....
She gasped and her eyes widened as she realized that she did not even know his name! For a moment she was appalled; and then she laughed aloud. She had spent a couple of the most gloriously satisfying hours of her life with the man-and she didn't even know his name! At the moment that seemed hilariously funny, and she sat on the side of her berth and laughed in smothered mirth.
She would see him at breakfast and they would laugh at the perfect joke. Neither of them knew the other's name-yet they had shared an experience that she felt sure neither of them would ever forget!