Lipstick Jungle

and open. He began licking her, and she put her hand on top of his head, willing herself to feel something. But this wasn’t really working either—in fact, it just felt kind of annoying.

What was wrong with her?

“Kirby,” she said softly. He looked up. “Let’s just have sex, okay?” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “Anything you want, babe. You know that. You know I’ll do anything . . .”

She put her finger over his lips to silence him. If he started talking too much again, she really wasn’t going to be able to continue. She leaned her head back, running her hands over his muscled shoulders, and felt a small, surprising bump. A pimple? Kirby Atwood had a pimple . . . on his shoulder?

Stop it, she commanded herself. She wasn’t going to do that thing that women did, focusing on a man’s little flaws until he lost all his sexual appeal. She was damn lucky, she reminded herself sternly. She was forty-three years old; she was fortunate that any man wanted to sleep with her at all, especially a man like Kirby. She was going to enjoy this. She had to enjoy it. She had to escape . . . And concentrating on his hard penis, and the way it felt inside her, and the pure physical joy of being with a hot young man, she pushed up her hips, placing her hands on his buttocks and pulling him deeper into her.

For a few moments, she almost managed to forget everything, allowing herself to scream with pleasure. Afterward, she clung on to him, running her hands over his back and his buttocks, relishing the feeling of his smooth skin and pressing him into her even after he began to experience detumescence.

“Wow,” he said, looking down at her. “That was pretty intense.”

She nodded, not wanting to let him go. Thank God her Kirby fix still worked, she thought. But as she was getting dressed, the reality of the situation hit her, and she felt a little sad. There was no getting around the fact that it wasn’t quite as good as it used to be, and that someday, probably soon, it wouldn’t work at all.

Chapter 13

THE PHONE IN THE SUITE EMITTED TWO SHORT RINGS, indicating an inside visitor. Wendy grabbed the phone and put her hand over her other ear. Magda was watching TV with the volume turned up to drown out the sound of the vacuum cleaner, which a maid was running in a desultory fashion over the carpet while eyeing the mess with disapproval. “Hello?” Wendy shouted into the phone.

“Tessa Hope is here. Should I send her up?” the woman at the front desk inquired.

“Yes, please,” Wendy said. She glanced at her watch. It was two-thirty—Shane was fifteen minutes late. A fact of which she would definitely apprise Ms. Hope as yet more evidence of Shane’s lack of parenting skills. She went out into the tiny foyer and through a door that led to the children’s rooms, which consisted of two small rooms and a bathroom, mirroring the bedroom and living room on the other side. In the first room were twin beds; on the floor between them Tyler and little Chloe were coloring. Tyler grabbed Chloe’s crayon. “That’s not how you do it, stupid,” he said.

“Tyler. That isn’t nice,” Wendy said patiently, taking the crayon from Tyler’s hand and giving it back to little Chloe.

“She’s going outside the lines,” Tyler objected.

“She’s only two,” Wendy said. “She’s allowed to go outside the lines.”

“I’m going to go outside the lines too,” he insisted.

“You can, if you want to,” Wendy said, looking down on him. The poor baby. She could understand his irritation, being cooped up in this small space. But it was only temporarily. She bent down. “We’re going to have a big new apartment soon,” she said, touching his shoulders so he looked at her face. “Will you like that?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “We already have an apartment.”

“Are we going to see Gwyneth, Mommy?” Chloe asked.

“You’ll see her on Monday morning, when you come back here. You’re going with Daddy now, and then you’ll come back here on Sunday night.”

“Why do we have to come back here?” Tyler asked, glaring down at his crayons. “Why can’t we stay at our house?”

“Don’t you want to stay with Mommy?”

“Why can’t you come to our house?” Tyler asked.

Wendy smiled. “Because Mommy and Daddy don’t live together anymore,” she said, for about the hundredth time. “Mommy is going to find another apartment and then we’ll all live there.”

“Will Daddy come too?” Chloe asked.

“No, Daddy is going to stay in his apartment.”

“You mean our apartment, Mommy,” Tyler said. “That’s where we live. You live in this hotel.”

“You live here too,” Wendy said patiently.

“I want to go home,” Chloe said, beginning to cry.