He walked into the bedroom and Felicia went into her bag and took out a book. But the words all ran into each other and after a few minutes of pretending she put the book down.
There were moments in life from which you knew there would be no coming back.
If she entered his suite it would be one of those moments, she knew, for his kiss had offered her more than a glimpse of what it would be like to be with him.
He assumed she had slept with previous clients because she had let him assume that.
And she was lying to herself now, Felicia knew, by telling herself she could handle this.
Yet she had to.
He came with a warning, and he had stated the same.
This would end—and no doubt at a time of his choosing.
She sat for a moment and accepted that fact.
Desire won.
And yet she did have rules.
She wanted to be behind that door, wanted her time with him, and so she stood and headed to the bedroom.
She didn’t knock. Instead she walked in. And there on the bed lay Kedah as she had never seen him before.
He had a sheet covering his lower half, but she knew that he was naked beneath the sheet. For now she just stood and stared at him and took in his beauty.
His chest was toned and there was a smattering of dark hair across it. His nipples were a deep shade of red and he was utterly exquisite. She followed the dark trail down, and through the sheet she could see the thick length of him against his thigh. The thought of him inside her was intensely thrilling.
‘Undress,’ he told her, and his voice had a rasp of impatience for she had kept him waiting again.
‘Not yet,’ she said, and then she stated her case. ‘Kedah, as long as we last, there’s only me...’
He just stared.
‘If you see someone else, don’t expect me back in your bed.’
‘I shan’t.’
His response was surprising. She had expected debate, or for him to state that he would do as he pleased.
‘I have no interest in others...’ He didn’t. He hadn’t in a while. ‘I do have to marry, though.’
‘I know you do.’
‘So how about a long fling before that...?’
It was what she wanted—more than she had expected—and yet a warning sounded in her head, because it was already more than sex for her, and a prolonged affair with Kedah could only hurt more in the end.
‘A fidelity trial?’ he said.
She wanted his kiss. She wanted him to stand and kiss her to oblivion as he undressed her with skilled ease. Yet he did not.
‘Take off your shoes,’ he told her, and she stood there for a few seconds before doing so. ‘Now undo your buttons...’
‘I do know how to undress myself,’ she snapped. Her voice was tense, and her head felt as if she had stepped off a merry-go-round.
He was nothing like any lover she had known, and that secretly thrilled her.
‘Undo the buttons,’ he said, but with less patience this time.
Her hands were shaking as she undid the row of buttons at the side of her dress, and the tension in the air made her almost dizzy.
She recalled that tone now. It was the same one he had used on the day they had first met, when he had told her to sit back down and that he hadn’t finished with her yet. The effect was the same, and yet multiplied a thousandfold.
‘Take it off over your head.’
‘It doesn’t come off that way.’
And instead she peeled it down the arms and her dress slid to the floor. She stood there, cross with herself for doing as she was told, yet angrily awaiting further instruction.
‘Nice bra,’ Kedah said. ‘Now, take it off.’
‘You.’
He flashed her a look as he moved to stand and she took in a long breath. It was the kind of breath she might take in private, before making a difficult phone call. The kind of breath she might take before opening the door to a stranger.
Yet it was the right kind of breath to take before a lean, toned body rose from the bed and the sheet fell away, to reveal him aroused and hard and walking towards hers.
‘Turn around,’ he said.
She resisted, but only in the hope that he would touch her, for her skin was screaming for contact, yet contact he refused to give.
‘Turn around,’ he said again, and this time she did as she was told. ‘Now, undo your bra...’
‘You can do it.’
‘Don’t annoy me any more than you already have.’
‘Why?’
His mouth came close to the back of her head and his low voice in her ear made her want to arch her neck, to turn to kiss him, but she stood staring ahead.
‘For insinuating, back at the hotel, that I would have left you unsatisfied.’
She turned her head then, and found him smiling. And he smiled as only Kedah could. He smiled as he had when he’d walked into that restaurant and seen her sitting there waiting for him. He smiled as he did when he greeted her each morning.