Bitter Spirits (17 page)

She cried out and bucked against his hand.

A mad sort of joy rose up inside him.

“Yes, you were right,” he murmured against her ear. “You
are
sensitive. What if I rub you like this?”

Her breath hitched, then a garbled string of words came out of her mouth in a rush as she grabbed his arm. She squirmed. Cursed. Her hips jerked this way and that as he rubbed and circled and flicked, experimenting . . . listening to her response in the pace of her breathing, the sounds she was making in the back of her throat, the intensity of her grip.

But he wanted more.

He withdrew his hand for a moment to give himself better access. Shifted his weight and hushed her complaining moan as he eased her silky tap pants down. They matched the color of her nipples, peachy and golden, trimmed in lace. He leaned up on one elbow and slipped them over her knees. They tangled around the heels of her shoes. She laughed, a little breathless, until he finally got the wretched things off.

But when he went to push her gown up her legs she sat up and slapped her hands over his. “No,” she said, panicked. “I don't want you looking at my hips.”

“What?” He could barely get the word out. She might as well have said “I hate bacon,” because who in their right mind hates bacon? No one, that's who. Why wouldn't she want to let him see her hips?

“My scars,” she clarified.

“What?” he said again.

“My lancet scars. I don't want you to see them. Please, Winter.”

Dear God. She'd scarred herself? He shouldn't be surprised. God only knew how many times she'd cut herself. Several times a night for the last couple of years? Of course she had scars. But—

“Do you not see the gash around my bad eye?” he asked.

“That's different. I'm not ready for anyone to see mine.”

Why this smarted, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to let it spoil things. He pulled his hands out from under hers and shifted them to her inner thighs. “I'll keep my eyes closed,” he lied as he urged her legs apart.

With her hands holding her gown over her curving hips, propped up on her elbows, she watched him as he kissed the inside of one knee, then the other. The edge of one garter, then the other. The slippery inside of one slender freckled thigh, then the other.

“What are you doing?” she said with a look of astonishment in her eyes.

“I just want to taste you a little.” His gaze roamed over more of her beautifully freckled skin, a nest of golden red brown curls, and the glistening pink flesh below. Luxuriously, gloriously wet, and all for him.

He pushed her dress up above her sex while she stubbornly clutched the loose fabric of her gown over her hips. “You . . . I . . . no one's ever . . .” she tried to say.

No one had? Not those two idiot lovers of hers? This thrilled him to no end. Spurred on, he stuck his nose into her curls and breathed in deeply, groaning with pleasure at her heady female scent. He gave her a long, lazy lick and she gasped. Then he set his lips to her and drew her delicate, swollen flesh into his mouth.

She flopped back against the bed and said, “God, yes,” to the ceiling.

He kissed. He suckled. He licked.

She moaned. She panted. She swore.

But nothing happened. He tried slow and fast, soft and hard, side-to-side flicks—he tried every trick he knew. She wasn't nervous anymore. Seemed to be enjoying it. Was certainly moaning loud enough and twisting beneath his mouth. Still extraordinarily wet. Most women he'd tried this on had no trouble coming. Most women he'd bedded came—period. Except Paulina, but he refused to conjure her face at this moment.

He thought of Aida's confession about her past lovers, implying she didn't enjoy the encounters. It wasn't a leap to assume she didn't climax with them. But she certainly wasn't frigid. Anything but. A wildcat on the outside and inside—he'd bet his life on it.

All women were different. He just needed to recalibrate his efforts.

Keeping his mouth where it was, he slid one finger inside her.
Christ
. So tight and slick and petal-soft. She inhaled sharply, then cried out, “Yes,
God
 . . . please.”

Much better.

He stroked her on the inside until she widened her legs welcomingly. When he added a second finger, she began shivering and shaking so hard, he nearly lost his mind. Forgetting herself, she released her dress and grabbed his head, fingers diving into his hair. She tried to pull him closer, rubbing herself against his mouth, as if this would alleviate the tension building in her trembling thighs.

She was wild. Beyond shame. Beyond anxiety.

All his.

When her hips swayed off the mattress, he laid his arm across her lower belly to give her something to rock against. Then he crooked his fingers and rubbed the small, spongy patch of skin he found inside her as she tightened fiercely around his fingers. Aha!

“Oh, Winter. Oh, God. Oh, Winter.”

That's right
, he thought, drunk on power.
One and the same.

Her arms fell to her sides, gripping the bedcovers. She was very close. He slowed his pace to tease her, draw it out.

For the briefest moment, big eyes looked down at him in bewilderment.

She turned one cheek to the mattress and broke apart, crying out in long, wavering sobs.

AIDA LAY IN A DAZE, UNABLE TO MOVE, EVEN AS WINTER TRAILED
three slow kisses between her breasts and shifted to her side. He nestled a leg between hers, and she felt his arousal, firm and hot against her thigh. Something was going to have to be done about that . . . in a second, when she could actually lift her head. When her limbs didn't feel like they weighed a thousand pounds and the center of her wasn't melting into the mattress.

How in God's name had he learned to do that? Intellectually, she knew people
did
do that, of course—the ancient Romans, probably. The French, definitely. The women who posed for pornographic photographs that graced the postcards in Winter's study certainly seemed fond of providing the service to men. No woman she'd ever known had mentioned anyone doing it.

Perhaps she was just lucky. Very,
very
lucky. She certainly felt that way, with Winter's face hovering over hers. A mussed lock of hair rakishly fell in a dark slash over one eye. “Still with me?” he asked.

She squeezed his leg between her knees.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she croaked. “I'm just . . .”

“Yes?”

“My
God
.”

He smiled down at her, clearly pleased with himself. “You,” he said between kisses, “are a joy”—she tasted sex on his lips—“to satisfy.”

“And I
am
satisfied. Was. Am. Utterly. I . . . loved it.”

“I could tell. You are vocal.”

“I couldn't help it.”

“I know.”

“Oh, God,” she murmured. “You think anyone heard?”

“I certainly hope so. Makes me look good.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”

“Aren't you glad?”

“Delighted,” she admitted.

He started to kiss her again but held still, listening to something. She heard it, too, out in the hallway. Loud knocks on nearby doors. People shouting. Next to the bed, the telephone rang, startling both of them.

“What the hell?” Winter mumbled, pushing himself up to reach the nightstand. He growled an agitated, “What?” into the mouthpiece. Every muscle in his face tightened as he listened for several moments. He hung up without responding. A stream of curses spilled from his mouth—half of them in what she could only assume was Swedish—while he gripped the massive bulge in his pants as if he were trying to will it away.

“What is it?” she asked.

Aida got her answer from a shouted word that shot through the hallway outside their door.

Raid.

Winter pulled her up and said, “Get dressed. Feds have already secured the restaurant and the ballroom.”

“Can't we just wait it out up here?”

“They're sending agents up to search the rooms.” He snatched his shirt off the floor. She watched him slip it on over his undershirt as she pushed her dress down and struggled to tie her gown's golden cords over a shoulder. “The hotel sends booze up to rooms when guests call the front desk and ask for a ‘birthday treat,' or some other such nonsense code.”

“But we didn't.”

He stopped dressing for a moment and gave her a hard stare. “No, but I'm the one who supplied it to the hotel.”

“Right.” She tied one shoulder of her dress into place and twisted to find the second set of cords.

“And I'd prefer that our photograph doesn't end up on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper, no matter if all they did was question me—which they will, if they catch me.”

“I wouldn't think anyone would bat an eyelash over a bootlegger caught in a hotel room with a speakeasy performer.”

He lifted her chin with one knuckle. “I couldn't give a damn about myself. It's your reputation I'm worried about.”

Perhaps he was a gentleman after all. She ran her hand down his stomach, pausing over loose shirttails. “I'm sorry. We weren't finished.”

“I'm not happy, either, believe me. Rain check?” She nodded, and he kissed her briefly before returning to dressing and strapping on his gun. He didn't bother tying his bow tie. “Don't leave my side,” he said calmly as he herded her out the door. “And don't panic.” She barely had time to snatch up her coat and handbag as they left the room.

Out in the hallway, guests talked excitedly as they breezed past, headed for the stairs behind another couple. Near the elevator, Aida nearly bumped into a half-dressed man who was hunched over a potted palm, turning up a gurgling bottle of gin into the potting soil. Toilets flushed behind doors on either side of them as other guests got rid of their own incriminating evidence. Winter and Aida might've been the only people on the whole floor who hadn't ordered a birthday treat from the front desk.

They clattered down several flights of stairs, others joining their exodus along the way. Winter guided her away from the small crowd and took her on a circuitous route around the Palm Court. When two men with shotguns appeared around a corner, he ducked into a pair of doors, pulling her along, before they could be seen. They found themselves inside a ballroom where a private party was in the middle of hysterics. Tuxedoed guests were emptying champagne glasses when cries broke out near the front of the dining area. Several men in suits charged into the room, brandishing guns.

“Federal agents,” the leader shouted. “Everyone stay where you are. This is a raid.”

Chaotic shouting broke out. Tables toward the back of the room emptied as diners joined several waiters who were fleeing out a back door. A Fed stepped into the doorway, blocking their retreat. He raised his gun in warning and the line reversed direction.

Winter yanked them against the wall and surveyed the mounting chaos, looking for an alternate escape route. “There,” he said, nodding toward a shadowed door hidden behind a standing screen, where pitchers of water sat on a console table. They slipped around the edge of the anxious crowd and made their way there.

It may have taken a minute, but it felt like an hour to sneak toward the unwatched door. She kept her eye on the Feds as they went. When they were a few feet away, one of the younger agents looked their way.

“Winter,” Aida whispered as the man raised a rifle.

“Go.” He shoved her behind the screen as the Fed shouted in their direction. Her hand shot out for the door handle. Unlocked! They burst through the door and found themselves in a small back hallway.

“Kitchen?” she said, hearing clamor behind a set of swinging doors.

“Obvious place to find liquor—might be blocked with Prohis on the other side,” he said, pulling her down the hallway. “We need to get to the front desk without being seen.”

That sounded like the
last
place they needed to be.

“Trust me.” They sprinted together, Winter leading her through back corridors of the hotel, inside a supply room, up stairs, down stairs, squeezing past rolling luggage carts until they finally made it to the front desk. Two Feds guarded the front entrance as another argued with the concierge and someone who appeared to be hotel management.

They hid behind an elaborate floral arrangement and waited. Aida's heart knocked inside her chest. Winter gripped her hand so hard it began to throb. She peeked around the flowers to see the hotel manager's face reddening as his voice rose—the raid was an outrage, he was saying. They were ruining his guests' evening and besmirching the hotel's sterling reputation. When the Fed turned his back to answer the manager, Winter jerked her toward the registration desk. “Up and over,” he whispered, lifting her by the hips onto the curved counter. She scooted across as he leapt the desk neatly and helped her down on the other side.

At the end of the counter, a door led to a small room with several large safes. Dead end. “Can we wait it out here?” she whispered. “We can't walk out the front door. Will they recognize you? Do the Feds know you?”

“Oh, they know me, all right. And we're not going through the front door. He stood on tiptoes and touched something on the wood paneling. Part of the wall opened to reveal a small door; he opened it.

Aida peered into darkness until he flipped a switch. A string of temporary warehouse lights illuminated a steep set of stairs, from which cool, dank air wafted. “What is this?” she whispered. “A basement?”

“This,” he said as he urged her down the stairs, “is a tunnel that runs beneath the road. They dug it when prohibition passed. Used to be a glass bridge between the Palace and the building across the street—before the earthquake leveled the hotel, which gave someone the idea for the tunnel. We drop off shipments at a gentleman's club called House of Shields, and the hotel stashes it there and only takes what it needs a little at a time through the tunnel. That's why the Feds aren't going to get the big bust they want tonight. They'll haul a few people away—high-profile guests, if they can nab 'em—but the hotel's fairly clean.”

The tunnel was narrow and poorly lit, the walls lined with brick and patchy concrete. Winter's head nearly bumped the arched ceiling . . . the head that had been between her legs a half hour ago. Had she really just let him do that to her?

His shadowed face peered down at her. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Still okay?” he asked in a teasing voice.

God, yes.
“As long as we don't go to jail.” She felt a low, erratic rumbling in the soles of her broken shoes and looked up.

“Cars and trolleys,” he said.

“We're under the street right now?”

“We are.”

Rather exciting. The passageway was barely wide enough for the two of them to walk abreast. Their feet kicked up dust from the concrete. “Does this happen a lot?” Aida asked.

“Raids? Not really. It did in the early days, or so my father said.”

“Do you worry about your customers giving you up if they're caught? Your employees?”

“I don't have a paperwork trail leading away from my customers, and my people know that they'll make more money keeping their mouth shut than ratting me out. Feds questioned my father once in '23. They couldn't make the charge stick.”

“Are they watching you?”

“Off and on. I employ a lot of people—dispatchers, truck drivers, ship crews, warehouse workers. So on one hand, I generate a lot of money, and that always gets the Feds' attention. But I don't make as much as a couple other bootleggers in town, and I don't pursue other illegal enterprises—gambling houses, narcotics, that sort of thing.”

“Do you worry?”

“All the time,” he said, steering them around a murky puddle. “But I've made some changes to the way my father set things up. I've ditched most of the high-risk customers, I pay taxes on the fishing business, and I bribe the police, which keeps things quiet.”

He sounded nonchalant, but she knew better. Though half the city might see bootleggers as Robin Hood figures, if his illegal import operation was ever uncovered, he could go to jail. For years and years. Lose his house. Be unable to take care of his family. Maybe his dead wife had legitimate reasons to worry. This kind of business certainly wasn't for the faint of heart.

Then again, neither was what she did for a living.

He changed the subject. “You know President Harding died here four years ago.”

“Sure. Everyone knows that. Apoplexy in a penthouse suite at the hotel.”

“Nope. He died across the street in an apartment above the House of Shields, drunker than the devil with a bed full of women. His aides dragged his body through the tunnel so that he'd be found in his hotel room and his family spared the disgrace.”

“No!”

“Oh yes. He—”

The sight blocking their path halted them in their tracks.

A short man stood in the middle of the tunnel, his face lit by the string of crude lights scalloping the wall. His suit was so wet, Aida could hear water dripping from his sleeves onto the concrete floor. His face was striated and bloated; his eyes were solid white—no pupils or irises.

It didn't take Aida's cold breath to prove to either of them that the bloated man was a ghost.