“Now just a minute!” Llona was indignant.
“Don’t yell at our mother! Have some respect!” Archer told Llona.
“Why should I? She doesn’t have any respect for me. Insinuating that I’m responsible for your accident! Of all the —“
“Well, aren’t you?” Archer’s face was turning red.
“We mustn’t excite ourselves.” The fat nurse soothed him and then turned to glare at the two women.
“Oh! This is too much!” Llona grabbed up her pocket-book and stormed out of the hospital room.
“We don’t know why you two can’t make an effort to get along,” Archer was pleading with his mother as Llona exited .
“For your sake, I always make the effort, but you can see how she always picks up on every word I say it’s turned into a fight.”
“We’re not well and we really shouldn’t become involved in family arguments . . .” The fat nurse’s voice trailed off as Llona turned the corridor and hurried for the elevator.
Llona was still boiling as she hailed a cabin front of the hospital. Nor did she cool off during the ride. On the contrary, as she brooded on the combination of Archer’s mother and Archer’s attitude, she became more and more furious. What really made her mad when she thought about it in this context was the guilt she’d been wallowing in because of the incidents with Bowdler and Beulah.
The guilt stemmed from her status as wife and the obligation of fidelity and the knowledge that only circumstances had saved her from being unfaithful to Archer. Well, so what! she steamed. Hadn’t Archer walked out on her? Hadn’t he accused her of betraying him when she’d been as loyal and true as could be? Well then, why not have the game as well as the name? Llona fumed.
Nor was this business with his mother entirely irrelevant. They were gauging up on her. And even though she hadn’t really done anything yet, Archer’s suspicions became more insulting every day. Hell! she wasn’t a stick of wood, Llona told herself. She was a woman with normal appetites that her husband—through his own fault— wouldn’t be able to satisfy for some weeks to come. Very well, then! She was through being a damn fool. The next time opportunity presented itself, it would find her unhampered by guilt and more than willing!
Opportunity was waiting at the offices of Nymph when Llona arrived. It was wearing a red velvet smoking jacket and pouring champagne. It was Raunch Rammer, smooth and commanding, all set up for an executive treat in his executive suite.
“Later you’ll have to handle some calls for me,” he told Llona. “But there’s nothing to do at the moment, so we might as well have a leisurely dinner. Make yourself comfortable, my dear.” He waved her to the leather couch in front of which an impressive spread of food and drink had been arranged on a low table.
“How nice!” Llona’s response was genuine.
“I hope you’re hungry.”
“I am.” She accepted a cracker topped with caviar from him and sipped at the glass of champagne he handed her. “Mmm, this is good.”
Raunch Rammer smiled down at her and didn’t reply. Gazing back at him, for the first time since she’d come to work at Nymph, Llona considered him as a man, rather than as her boss. She found him not unattractive.
Rammer was one of those men whose age is inderterminate, but who somehow fall in the category of “older men.” He was of medium height with the artificially outdoorsy complexion of a busy executive who can always spare twenty minutes a day for the sunlamp. His build was slight, narrow-shouldered, but he always held himself very erect which made him seen imposing as well as trim and dapper.
It was above those too-thin shoulders that women usually found him most attractive. His face was square-cut and conventionally handsome with clean, well-defined lines. It combined both youthfulness and experience. The eyes were deep-set, dark brown, capable of conveying understanding and of sparkle. They went with the sensitive mouth framed by a trim, dark moustache. But it was Rammer’s hair that had most intrigued many of his feminine conquests. It was thick and curly and jet-black and always carefully disarranged so that a lock tumbled boyishly over his forehead.
Now Llona found herself admiring its sheen. “Mr. Rammer,” she said, made a trifle bold by the champagne, “it’s downright criminal to waste curly hair like that on a man when we women have to struggle so to get a wave.”
“Call me Ratmch.” He read encouragement into the comment and sat down beside her on the couch. “After all, there’s nobody here but the two of us.”
“I noticed that,” Llona murmured.
“You don’t mind?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You shouldn’t.” Raunch took her glass and picked up the champagne bottle. “More?” He poured without waiting for her answer.
“Shouldn’t we be getting to work?” Llona accepted the champagne and took a sip of it.
“There’s no hurry. And besides, you’re not dressed for work.” The way Raunch looked at her, there was no mistaking his meaning.
“You mean you want me to --” Llona flushed.
“Why not? You work that way every day, don’t you? Why be modest now?”
For a moment Llona considered refusing. She was reasonably sure he wouldn’t do anything about it if she did. Rammer wasn’t the type to fire her, or even to be petulant about it. He was too sophisticated for that.
But why should she refuse? He was an attractive man. Of course getting her to take off her clothes was only a ploy to precede further action. But so what? That was exactly what she’d decided she wanted—-further action--wasn’t it?
Llona got to her feet and walked across the office, very much aware of Rammer’s eyes following her. “Is it all right if I hang my things in here?” She opened a closet door.
Rammer nodded, still staring.
She took off her shoes and placed them side-by-side on the floor inside the closet. Then she slid off her stockings, her thigh flesh flashing as she held out first one leg and then the other straight in front of her. Raunch drank deeply of his glass of champagne, his gaze admiring the contour of the long legs as they were brazenly displayed.
Llona slipped out of her blouse and hung it neatly on a hanger in the closet. Her skirt followed it and now she stood before Rammer in nothing but a black bra and her Nymph panties. Deliberately, she took her time about discarding the undergarments. She stretched with studied unconcern. Rammer’s eyes followed the tendril of gold-brown hair trailing over the fleshy half-moons rising from the black brassiere. He wet his lips with appreciation at the deep cleft bisecting the full bosom. The naked hips arching out from the small waist to a fullness lost in the panties caught his attention next. He watched the hips move enticingly as Llona stretched first to one side and then to the other. Rammer was used to seeing Llona naked; strangely enough, the buildup to nudity was even more enticing.
Or was it? As she slowly, languidly took off the bra, he found himself growing impatient. Bare now, the breasts were superb and there was an irresistible invitation in the way they swayed as Llona hung up the bra and turned to face him. She made no secret of the fact that she was teasing him as she slowly wriggled out of the panties, coyly turning away at the last minute so that he saw only her glorious derriere as she disposed of them. Then she turned back to face him, shifting her weight from foot to foot so that the soft hair covering her mons veneris rippled revealingly.
“I guess I’m ready to go to work now,” she said in a husky voice.
It was too much for Rammer. He forgot he was a cool, urbane man of the world. He strode across the floor and embraced her without any further pretense of their being there for business reasons. Her mouth opened to his and they continued clutching at each other wildly as they made their way back to the couch. He buried his head between, her breasts as they sank down on it together.