Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(58)

She almost never got calls. Especially not before noon, and the little pink Westclox by her bed said it wasn’t quite ten, so the call couldn’t be for her. But as she laid her head back down, it rang again. She snatched the earpiece off the hook.

“Hello?”

“Were you sleeping?” Winter. His low voice hummed through the line.

“No, no . . . not sleeping.”

“You were.”

“Yes,” she admitted with a laugh. “Wait—is everything okay? You’re not calling from a shady doctor after some gangster pumped a few bullets into your legs, are you?”

“Nothing that dramatic.”

“Bo is okay?”

“Yes, fine. I’ll tell you everything that happened over breakfast, if you’ll join me.”

“For breakfast?”

“You have heard of this meal, yes? The one served before lunch?”

“I’m usually too busy sleeping to bother.”

“Well, you’ve done yourself a great disservice, because breakfast is the best meal of the day. My absolute favorite meal. There are few things I like more than breakfast. Very few.”

Aida twirled the telephone cord around her finger and smiled to herself. “You don’t say?”

“Pancakes. Bacon. Eggs.”

“All right. I might be able to crawl out of bed for bacon.”

“That’s my girl. You work tonight?”

“Eight o’clock show.”

“Did you have plans this afternoon?”

“Not a single one.”

“How about breakfast first, then we spend the afternoon having spectacular sex.”

She dropped the earpiece and fumbled around in the sheets to retrieve it.

“Aida?”

“I’m here,” she said as her racing pulse tripped.

“I’m going crazy for you. Please don’t say no.”

“Okay. Yes.”

He made a small, satisfied noise. “I’m at the Fairmont in Nob Hill. California and Mason. I had a long night, so I just got a room here rather than go home. I’ll call Jonte to come pick you up—”

And have the driver gossip to the rest of the Magnusson staff that he took Aida to Winter’s hotel room? “I can take a streetcar,” she said quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I take them every day.”

“Be careful and keep an eye open for—”

“Ghosts?”

He grunted. “That’s a smart mouth you have, young lady.”

“You liked kissing it well enough last night.”

“Mmm, I liked kissing all of you last night.”

Aida flopped back on her pillow and grinned wildly at the ceiling.

He gave her the suite number. “Just come straight up. No need to stop at the desk.”

An hour later, stomach somersaulting with nervous energy, Aida was stepping off a streetcar into a terrible storm that came out of nowhere. The skies were perfect and blue when she left her apartment—a genuine summer day, for a change—and now she was dashing through puddles as a black sky opened up and hurtled torrents of rain. By the time she’d skidded onto the marble floor of the Fairmont’s column-lined lobby, she was drenched from head to toe and completely miserable. Her reflection in the glass door was not kind. What in the world was she doing here, anyway? Racing across town to meet a man in a hotel . . . it was disgraceful.

She considered going back home, but the lure of promised spectacular sex overrode both her pride and shame. She shook rain off her thin coat and cloche hat, ran fingers through her dripping hair, and marched past staring eyes to the elevator. Everyone knows what I’m doing here. A few minutes later, she was standing in front of his room, teetering somewhere between a mild nervousness and a raging panic. She knocked on the door, prepared to flee if he didn’t answer in five seconds, four seconds, three—

The door swung open.

Winter’s big body filled the doorway. His hair was wet and neatly combed back, dark as rich soil, and he was wearing nothing but a white damask hotel towel wrapped around his hips.

Smelling of soap and shampoo, he propped his forearm on the doorframe. Everything below was all long, ropy arm muscles, bunching shoulders, and that massive chest of his, covered in damp hair. Her gaze dropped to admire impossibly thick thighs. The towel was just big enough to tuck around all . . . that.

This certainly didn’t look like breakfast.

She shivered, whether from cold or anticipation or fear, she didn’t know.

“Christ alive, Aida. You’re shivering.”

“I don’t own an umbrella.”

He pulled her inside the room with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Get in here before you catch pneumonia.”

This room was just as exquisite and decadent as the Palace’s, filled with heavy brocade draperies and beautiful furniture, and what might have been one of the finest views of the city if not for the storm. “You have a balcony?”

“Unless you want to get electrocuted, I’d advise that you wait until the storm’s over before venturing out there.” After helping her out of her coat and cloche, he pulled her through the sitting room and into a small bedroom. A second set of glass doors on the far wall opened up to the same balcony, only the doors were wide open there, letting in a cool, damp breeze that sent another shiver through her. She caught another glimpse of the storm-wracked cityscape before Winter made a sharp right and urged her into a brightly lit bathroom. “Get your shoes off,” he said, reaching for a stack of thin towels that matched the one around his waist.