Simply Love(5)
He felt nothing…absolutely nothing. Except an urgent need to escape.
“Come do this for me,” she pleaded with a pretty pout. When he made no move to accept the invitation, she lifted her slender hips and spread her knees. “Or I can do this while you play elsewhere.” She caught the rigid peak of one nipple between her fingers, rolling the sensitive flesh and shuddering delicately. “Please, Luke. I need you, love. It’s lonely over here without you.”
Moving from the window, Luke began to button his shirt. As he thrust the tails into the waistband of his trousers and fastened the fly, he forced a smile. “Not today, sweetheart. For some reason, I’m just not feeling up to snuff.”
Gloria ceased the self-titillation, huffed with indignation, and jerked the bedcovers back over herself. “Anymore, you always say that. ‘Not now, Gloria. I just don’t feel up to it.’” She sat erect, holding the sheet to her breasts, her brown eyes snapping. “If you’re tired of me, Luke, just come right out and say so. I’m a big girl, and I’d rather that than have to endure this infernal beating around the bush.”
Luke sighed and raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. “I’m not tired of you, Gloria. Don’t be silly.” He stepped to the bed and bent to brush a kiss over her forehead. “You’re beautiful. How could any man in his right mind not want you?”
Looking mollified, she smiled slightly. Luke turned quickly away, grabbing up one boot and searching the floor for the other one. Jesus. What he’d just told her was true, absolutely true. She was beautiful, and only a madman would turn his back on the offer she’d just made him. In the past, Luke had been able to go for hours, exhausting his bedmate long before his own store of energy and sexual desire flagged. Lately, though, he seemed to be good for only one round. Then, almost immediately afterward, he felt this inexplicable weariness and an urgency to leave. To breathe clean air. To sink neck-deep into a bathtub of hot water.
He sat in a nearby chair to thrust his feet into his boots. As he bent to work the laces, he heard Gloria slip from the bed. Relief flooded through him when she stepped to the sideboard to pour herself some whiskey. He didn’t want to further offend her by pushing her away. He just wanted—
What? What, exactly, did he want?
Over the last year he’d developed a hankering—a nameless, indefinable craving he couldn’t appease. It had started out slowly, a subtle restlessness. Then it had gradually gotten worse, until recently nothing seemed to satisfy him.
Always before when Luke had begun to feel this way, he’d sought new and more exciting diversions. But at this point in his life, he’d already done it all. Women of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Deviant sex. Adventuresome investments. What else was there? Nowadays, he no longer even got much thrill from winning big at the gambling tables.
His life was lacking something, only he wasn’t sure what. Saloons, gambling every night, the tawdry trappings of the brothels. He was bored with everything—sick-to-death bored.
It was crazy, but sometimes Luke found himself thinking about getting married, about fathering children. The only problem was, there wasn’t a woman on earth he’d tie himself to for a lifetime. Not Luke Taggart. He enjoyed them until he grew bored with them, then moved on to new pursuits. He wanted to keep it that way.
Pushing to his feet, Luke hooked his jacket off the back of the chair. As he shoved his arms into the sleeves and shrugged the garment onto his shoulders, he met Gloria’s troubled gaze. God only knew why, but he felt obligated to explain himself, to assuage her bruised feelings. “Gloria, this has nothing to do with you,” he said softly. “I swear it.”
She stood there, completely comfortable in her nudity, one slender leg slightly bent, her nipples peeking out at him through curtains of flaxen hair. Raising the glass, she gave him a mock toast. “I’ve heard that one before. It always ends the same, with me getting the boot.” She took a mouthful of whiskey and tossed back her head to swallow. Then, with a wave of her hand, she said, “But that’s all right. It’s not as if you’re my only customer. And nobody else seems to have any complaints.”
Luke straightened the gray lapels of his jacket, then tugged at the cuffs of his silk shirt until a precise inch of white showed beyond the edge of each coat sleeve. “You’re taking this too seriously. Men have bad days, you know, just like women. Tell me you enjoy having sex every single time, that your heart is always in it.”
She gave an elegant little shrug. “It’s different for me. You’re the buyer, I’m the seller. Sometimes, when you come to see me, you’re the tenth in line. I’m not always as enthusiastic as I pretend to be, I admit. After ten times, who would be?”