The site was down all night last night (11.11.18) so apologies for posting this chapter at such an odd time but I'm on my way to work and might not get the opportunity for the rest of the day.
Thanks for the reviews, follows and favourites (Fav's? Favouriting? Favours? - it's kind of a made up social media term so I never know how to refer to it LOL). It's so great to read your thoughts on what they're up to and I hope I can convey the reasons for their behaviour adequately in the chapter which follows this one. Chapter 7 will be the end of the story by the way.
Chapter 5 – The Hotel Eichler Mono
The Hotel Eichler Mono had been in existence some sixty-odd years. It had been built in 1925 and whilst retaining it's blocky, curvaceous design, was now reduced to half its original number of rooms after being partly sold for office space in the early 1950's. Business had been poor for a number of years prior to this, the very name of the hotel, although it's owners were of Austrian origins, sounding far too Germanic to the ears of the war-battered and patriotic Londoners of the 1940's. Thus, only the central section of the building remained in use as a hotel with the frontage consisting of six levels of square white balconies in front of tall and elegant windows. Although in a good state of repair, the render was overdue a lick of paint and the font used on the external signage was reminiscent of that seen two decades earlier on` pop music billboards.
But it was a respectable enough establishment and even more importantly, only two hundred yards away from Shilling Row Arcade.
"This hotel?" Dempsey asked, looking up at the building as they dodged the traffic (but not the rain) to get across the street.
"Not the classiest of venues I'll grant you but needs must when the devil rides."
"I just meant…"
What did he mean?
"Harry, are you sure about this? I don't want you to have any regrets."
"You'd better make sure I don't then."
There was a positively sinful lilt to the words that Dempsey was completely unfamiliar with and he followed her into the original feature mahogany revolving door with a growing enthusiasm.
They were greeted cordially by the receptionist who smiled through her spiel.
"Just the one night, thank you," Harry responded.
"So that's one double room for one night," the woman said slowly as she diligently began to write the details down in a huge, antiquated leather-bound ledger. "The name, please?"
"Henderson," Harry answered without skipping a beat, making Dempsey smile. She had immediately plucked the name of the travel agent they'd just interviewed as a married name but it was more the fact that she had chosen to portray them as married at all that amused him. This wasn't an undercover they were working and there was no real need for them to be 'legit', not these days and definitely not in this hotel. So was it her genetic predisposal to present a respectable image to the world or was she just an old fashioned girl at heart?
Dempsey leaned forward a little, hanging a casual arm about her hip. "That's Mr J and Mrs H," he offered helpfully.
The receptionist took down the address Harry gave and then wanted to know if they would be wanting breakfast in the morning. Makepeace declined for them, mentioning something about a particularly early start.
"We do ask for payment in advance for a single overnight stay."
She quoted the amount and cited the payment options but before she had even finished, Harry was handing her credit card across the desk.
Feeling oddly defunct, Dempsey stood quietly whilst the transaction was completed.
"I can arrange for your luggage to be brought up?"
It was more of a stock formality than anything else as the receptionist was aware that these guests hadn't brought any bags into the reception area with them.
"No need, thank you," Harry said neutrally, brazening out the lack of explanation.
There was a split second when Dempsey saw that knowing look in the receptionist's eyes – the furtive flit of a glance between he and Harry as she sized up both them and their intentions.
"I'll just get your key then," she said brightly and turned to the large wooden cabinet of cubby holes behind her where hung an array of keys on their chunky, bulbous brass fobs.
"Room Seventeen is on the second floor and the lifts are right behind you," she smiled, holding the key out so that it was up for grabs by either party.
Dempsey let Harry take it – she seemed to be running the show and besides, it was kind of a turn-on to know she was so eager to get down to the nitty-gritty.
Once in the lift, alone and sealed away from the outside world, Dempsey caught her up in his arms. "You still got time to back out, Princess."
"I think I know my own mind."
Her words were cool but the kiss she instigated as her arms came up to hang around his neck again was hot. It lasted until the lift doors opened on the second floor.
He couldn't get his head around Harry's level of desire for him. It was like the floodgates had opened and that chemistry they'd both been so painfully aware of for so long had finally flared up and consumed her.
There wasn't a soul to be seen in the corridor and all was quiet save for the sound of their own slightly laboured breathing as they exited the lift.
"Take a right, here," Dempsey indicated the sign on the wall and took Harry's hand to steer her in the right direction. They fell into step which was more of a half run as they covered the interminably long twenty yards to the room together.
Harry let them in and having quickly surveyed the lack-lustre surroundings, threw the key onto the dressing table-cum-desk and turned to focus her attention on her partner.
"Well?" she asked, expectantly. The provocative note was belied by the flash of if not apprehension then certainly first night nerves in her burning blue eyes.
"Couldn't be better, Sergeant."
They came together in a hot flurry of exalted lust which swept them up and flung them onto the bed whereupon clothes were rent from limbs and words of passion exuded from questing lips.
He hadn't really known what to expect from her. Acquiescence? A sterile surrender, perhaps? That this event had been a fait accompli wasn't in any doubt but he had pondered the circumstances in which it might come about and wondered too how proactive Harry would be. He'd allowed himself a few wild and wonderful daydreams of course where she would take the lead and surprise him with her whip hand as it were. He liked to imagine that the finesse and ingenuity she displayed in their working environment might extend to the bedroom too… and in his mind it was sometimes her bathroom or his lounge – once it had even been the grounds of Winfield Hall, in a small copse of oak trees a little way away from the lake but then Freddy had shown up and interrupted them… was that weird?
After several minutes of naked parry, Dempsey denied himself the temptation of the swift cut and thrust option which the urgency of the moment seemed to dictate. Instead, he held Harry back from the physical demands she was making on him, restraining her on the bed in crucifixion attitude and tenderly coaxing her into submission with mouth and tongue, leaving no sweet-spot undiscovered.
He knew he was no novice in this department, but the way Harry responded to him was truly something to behold. All that sexual energy was harnessed by his touch, both soothing and inflaming, her body completely at his command. He had time to study her, every glorious inch and it felt as though he was a heathen laying hands on sanctified flesh. She was his angel at last.
The dominance with which she had brought them to this hotel room had vanished and what remained was charged, fomented and quite irregularly for Makepeace – compliant.
The combativeness had evaporated slowly as Dempsey turned the heat up and he had felt her melt in his arms. And it was with a sense of wonder that he finally moved so powerfully yet reverently inside her, the intensity of their union like nothing he had known before. Harry's exalted cries sang in his ears and he let go, hearing his own dispatch as if from afar.
They were silent for a minute or so save for their ragged breath as they settled back to earth, Dempsey still lying between her legs, propped on his forearms, his face buried in her hair.
He chuckled faintly, trying to take in what had just happened.
"That was somethin' else!"
"Yes."
"Yes?" he queried through a gappy smile. "That all you got for me?" He recognised ecstasy when he saw and heard it and Harry had definitely been in the zone.
"Thank you?" she suggested with a strangely detached coolness.
"Come on, Makepeace, you can do better than that." He lifted his head up to read her expression. "From where I was lyin' it was Armageddon meets the fourth of July all wrapped up in silver paper with a sprinkle of fairy dust on top!"
"I'll bet you say that to all the girls."
She looked up at him with an indulgent smile, her face aglow with perspiration. "You'd better let me up," she said brightly, patting his back to indicate that she needed him to move.
"It wasn't a line." He felt almost offended. "It was from the heart… Hey, where you goin'?"
She'd slid out from under him and was now on her feet.
"Well, I don't know about you but I've got things to do this evening. Whilst this 'romantic interlude' was lovely, I'm afraid I've really got to go."
Dempsey sat abruptly. "What? You're kiddin' me, right? Come on, Harry, we need to talk about what just went down here. It was a big deal!"
She collected her bra from the foot of the bed and made a final sweep, satisfied now that she had gathered up all the items of clothing he had wrenched from her body less than an hour earlier.
"I know. You're right, it is a big deal. It was hanging in the air between us for a long time and I'm glad we've been able to get past it now."
That bewildered Dempsey even more. "Okaaaay," he said slowly as he tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. "Get past it…?"
"Well, obviously it's been an issue, hasn't it?" she said matter-of-factly. "Will we or won't we?" Her eyes widened as she jocosely posed the question. "So now we have and we can get on with being colleagues again."
Harry's blue eyes fixed upon him with steady resolve as she shielded her body from him with her armful of clothing.
Dempsey frowned. "I guess that's, erm…. sensible." He didn't like that word though, never had.
Smiling briefly, she turned and hurried to the bathroom, leaving him wondering what the hell was going on in her head.
And this evening, a month later, he was still wondering…