He nodded
“Truth?”
“Not a nice one.”
“Liar.”
She might have spat it at him, but she was laughing. Something shuddered loose in his chest. She was dangerous. And he wanted her so badly he was beginning not to care about playing nice. “You think you’re strong enough for me?”
She smiled. Her hands were at her waist, fingers on the knot of the robe. She got it undone and it slithered to the ground at her feet. Jesus Christ she was beautiful. Soft, luscious curves and creamy skin, so unlike his angular Chinese princesses. That dry ragged sound in the room was coming from him. He couldn’t breathe.
“Sit.”
He couldn’t move. But she did. Two strides towards him. She palmed him in the chest, he stepped back, the underside of his knees met the edge of the sofa, and he sat down. He’d give her the fun. Let her think she’d won. Her hands were warm and soft. Her lips on his ribs, floating lower, tracing his hipbone made him twitch. Then the light in his head went out when she closed a hand around the base of him and brought her mouth down on him. He saw shooting stars. His skin melted. His muscles burned. He didn’t understand this reaction. He never felt like this. He fisted her hair, to pull her away, to hold her there, he couldn’t decide. He couldn’t think. He felt a kind of panic. He pressed his feet into the carpet to stand, to grip onto the world as it spun too fast. She made a deep-throated groan and his stomach bottomed out like on a roller-coaster.
He pulled her hair, pulled her up. “Enough.”
She looked confused and he regretted the sharpness of his command immediately. She held up a hand and he took it in his, threaded their fingers together.
“This is for me,” she said.
He looked deep in her eyes and knew he’d give her anything, even if it meant giving himself up and he was lost and found and lost again.
When he came back to the world, they were on the floor. This suite had a custom-made bed and they were flopped on the carpet. He was bathed in sweat and she was sprawled across him. Her hair was wet, one hand was curled around his neck, the other held his arm. He had no idea how long they’d been there. He felt drunk, but he’d hardly had anything to drink. He felt clean, though he knew the next stop was going to be the bath.
He’d let her take control in a way he never had as an adult. Not with Jiao, not with the women before her. The fear was blinding, almost shutting him down, but she burned it away with her sure touch, her soft whispering, her innate responsiveness.
She was no courtesan. It wasn’t a practiced performance with a predictable, bankable outcome. She knocked his teeth, she bit too hard. She crashed against him and he loved it. The rawness of it, the power of it. She gave him her body and her heart, and she made him feel new.
This was a big problem.
11. Froth
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated” — Confucius
“Where’d you get to Saturday night? I thought you were coming to the game.” Pete poured milk into the frother and set it on its electric plate. Pete was going to need that coffee. Might be better if it was black. “If May Ling asked about you once Will, it was a hundred times. Pisses me off you left me with that.”
“Ah hah.” Pete already slightly pissed wasn’t a good start, given where this had to go.
“No ‘ah hah’. For God’s sake, stop leading her on. Anyway we could’ve used your ticket.”
Will put his mug under the coffee maker’s spout, put another pod in its slot and pulled the handle. Inside the machine hot water started to flow, and the smell of coffee caught in his nose. It was the smell of Monday morning. Though not a Monday morning he was looking forward to with his normal relish.
“I’m not leading her on. May Ling is relentless. I’ve been totally up-front with her. She bloody well knows it’s not on with me. Anyway, I thought you were using the corporate box?”
“You gave it to the Chery auto folk. So we had to slum it, remember?”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Pete’s milk was frothed. He added it to his coffee cup. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“What did you do? Sleep the whole weekend? You look five years younger. Did you pick one?”
“God, no.” Gawd.
“It’s officially true. Jiao spoiled you.”