Not that she remembered much of the food. Or the conversation, for that matter, but she remembered how his hands had cradled his glass of Scotch as he’d watched her then he’d led her back to his car, his hand hot on the small of her back. He’d asked if she would like to go to his place for coffee. She’d said yes even though she hated coffee; a fact they had laughed at the following morning.
Imogen remembered feeling immeasurably shy and nervous seeing as how it was her first time going home with a man. Her only other lover had been a self-centred dancer who had come on to her after a sweaty but exhilarating rehearsal in her late teens and the rehearsal had been so much better.
Not that she’d told Nadir any of that. She hadn’t known how. To tell him in the car ride to his apartment that she was pretty new to all this would have seemed presumptuous in the extreme and then when they had taken the lift—the very tiny and interminably slow lift—to his floor he hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t said a word to her in fact and nor had she to him, but her body had hummed with a life of its own and a hollow ache had risen up between her thighs with every floor that flashed past.
Finally they’d arrived. Nadir had pushed the door open, Imogen had made to move past him and accidently brushed her bare arm against his. That was all it had taken. One touch of his skin against hers and she had been lost. Gone up in a fireball of heat and need and powerful yearnings that had driven out all sense and caution. She remembered that the door had slammed shut and then thankfully she was up against it as her body had grown too heavy for her legs to hold her up.
Nadir had groaned against her neck, told her how much he wanted her. He’d cupped her face and pushed her hair behind her shoulders. Then he’d taken her mouth with his, ran his hands all over her body, pulled up her too-short dress and ripped her silky panties away. Awestruck, Imogen had been unable to do anything but grab onto his broad shoulders and kiss him back as he’d filled her. His body hot and hard and so powerful as he’d thrust into her. She’d had a moment’s discomfort, which he’d sensed because he’d slowed and the change in pace had pushed her over the edge embarrassingly quickly. She’d cried out. He’d cried out and then they had been meshed together, both panting in the silent, dark hallway. He’d given a self-deprecating laugh, told her it had never been like that for him before and carried her into the bedroom. Ran the tub. Made love to her what felt like a hundred times more throughout the night.
‘What are you thinking about, habibi?’ His deep voice broke into her reverie and she started, her hands pleating the sides of her dress.
She took a deep careful breath in and eased it out. She wasn’t stupid, she knew what he’d been suggesting before and she knew she wasn’t emotionally ready to take that step. Not after a night of having his focus on her as if she was the most important person in the world to him. ‘Nothing.’
He stepped in front of her. His eyes were dark and intense on hers. She wanted to look away because she knew her own must mirror the hunger she saw there but she couldn’t. She was trapped by a desire that was becoming harder and harder to ignore the more time they spent together.
His eyes slid down her body, warming her from the inside out until they stopped on her hands.
‘Where’s your ring?’
All night he’d been at her about the ring, telling her not to fidget with it because then everyone would know that it was new.
‘Everyone would be right,’ she had whispered irritably at the start of the night. ‘And it feels wrong on my finger.’
Of course he’d been annoyed by that. ‘Before you know it you’ll forget it’s even there.’