Together, they bucked wildly and then all thought drained away as he arched in hard against her. The muscles in his abdomen flexed as he convulsed in an orgasm that Sara felt to her toes.
And, for the third time, her core pulsed with pleasure near to pain before turning to a shuddering of flesh that took her out of time and out of mind.
She only knew that she held the most magnificent man ever created in her hand as she rocked against him again and again until her apex slipped over the threshold of pain.
After a long moment, Sara released him, bracing herself against the desk. The only sound was that of their breathing as both took in deep gulps of air.
He drew back from her. She felt cool air come to replace the heat of his body against her back. Her legs trembled in aftershocks that fluttered like ghosts reaching up and behind her navel.
Sara did not move, suddenly aware that she had gone against his command to leave her hands upon the desk.
That breach may have been her last.
She stayed where she was as she heard him moving behind her. Then heard him walk quietly away.
What do I do now? Is it over? Did I ruin everything?
Then soft footsteps announced his return.
Slowly, he undid the knot holding the handkerchief in place.
“Don’t move,” he said and she thought she heard something more in his tone.
Then, she felt a soft, dampened cloth slip gently down her spine. He wiped at her skin slowly, ever so slowly, then worked his way down her body, to the backs of her legs, the insides of her thighs.
His hands went to her shoulders and he gently lifted her up, turning her to face him.
“Sara, I am fevered for you,” he said.
His eyes searched her face, looking for some reaction, but she held her tongue while she turned his words over in her mind.
I never told him my name....
“Who are you?” she said, at last. “You think you have me all figured out, don’t you, yet I still don’t know who you are.”
His lips turned up in the half smile that she was learning to recognize. The same half smile that was beginning to find its way into her heart.
“You know all there is to know about me. All that matters, anyway.”
She bit her lip, suddenly feeling self conscious standing in front of him with her shirt undone and her skirt still up over her hips.
Sara scanned the floor, but there was no sign of her panties. She turned away from him slightly as she pulled her skirt back down into place before reaching up to button her shirt.
He took the half step separating them, then clasped her trembling hands within his own, stilling them.
Sara looked into his eyes and the amusement was gone. Serious, deadly serious, he released her then carefully buttoned her shirt for her.
“It’s late...let me see you home,” he said when he had finished.
Sara imagined directing him to the lowly hotel where she rented her room by the week. Down mean streets that she did not dare walk after dark, not when the bus took her nearly to her door.
The embarrassment of it was too much for her to imagine.
“No. You can’t apologize like that. A ride home doesn’t cover it.”
She could not help sounding petulant. She did not want to, but the fact of what had just happened, despite her being furious over waiting for him all day had removed any other choice.
“No,” he said, “I insist.”
She had been looking for her purse when she spoke.
Sara wheeled back to him, her latent anger blazing anew.
“You insist?” she asked bitterly. “I’ve had just about enough of you and your commands.”
Seizing her purse, Sara marched into the elevator, its doors still gaping wide.
Without thinking, she punched the button for the ground floor, then looked up to see him standing there, half in shadow.
His head was cocked slightly to the side, as if bemused. And, as before, he was dressed in the white shirt that covered his dark tattoos.
Let him keep his secrets, then, she thought. She held her chin high, wondering what he saw as he looked at her, then the elevator doors slipped closed between them.
~~~
When the brushed steel doors opened again, Sara found herself in the strangely deserted parking garage from earlier that day. She barely noticed the few luxury cars parked there as she walked up a ramp in search of an exit.
A few steps later, she came upon an attendant’s booth with the vehicle barrier down. The man within was speaking into a telephone and Sara did not break her stride as she bent down and quickly sidestepped under the barrier.
She kept walking and did not see the man hang up the phone as she went by. Or that he had stepped outside the booth, a hand resting upon the handgun at his hip while he watched the young woman walk out into the night.
Her bus stop was not far away and Sara quickly made her way to the plastic roofed bench at the street corner.