We stop moving and his right hand sweeps its way down my side to my hip, patting it lightly, while he keeps a hold of my shoulder with the left. One of his fingers brushes my neck, a whisper of a caress.
His lips touch my nape. Oh God. I feel like swooning.
There is something incredibly powerful here. Suddenly, I realise that I am being Tempted. This man represents a different path for me and Lloyd has obviously chosen him very carefully.
I cry out as he pushes me abruptly onto the bed, which is directly in front of me. My upper torso lands flat in a valley of duvet and I bury my face along with it. Any further olfactory clues are going to be drowned out by the scented pillowcases, whose alarmingly musky aroma dominates the air.
I feel the expensive cloth of his suit jacket brush my wrist as he turns me over onto my back. Now he is breathing more heavily. I reach up, wanting to feel his skin, his height, his size, but he puts my hands over my head and presses them down briefly, indicating that that’s where they should stay.
He sits on the side of the bed. I sense his hands, close to me, about to be laid on me. I tense up.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ I say.
Nothing happens for a moment. I think perhaps he is waiting for me to elaborate.
‘It’s not that I’m not used to scenarios like this. It’s not that I’m scared of having sex with an anonymous stranger. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that. But there’s something deeply … wrong … about this. And I can’t even explain why. But I don’t think I can do it.’
I hear him exhale, not quite a sigh, but almost. A cuff link, heavy and cold, makes momentary contact with my hip. My toes are curled tight.
Am I supposed to just leave? I sit up experimentally. He doesn’t prevent me.
But I’m not going without knowing who he is. I can’t. ‘I need to know who you are.’
The duvet rustles – he has stood up. He walks away in the direction of the door.
‘No, you can’t just leave! I think I know who you are, anyway.’
The footsteps still. I feel I could reach up into the air and touch the tension, looping across the ceiling like washing lines.
Just speak, damn you!
‘Chase.’
Terrible silence. I know I am right.
Then he speaks. ‘Sophie.’
I rip off the blindfold and stare. ‘Am I hallucinating?’ I ask the vision in dove grey who stands before me.
‘No.’
‘I thought you’d left the country.’
‘I did. This is a one-off, a favour to your beau.’ He says ‘your beau’ with such vindictive force that I can’t help feeling Lloyd must have blackmailed him into it. But why the hell …?
‘That’s the weirdest favour I ever heard of. What did he say? How did he ask you?’
Chase shrugs. ‘Spend one night in a penthouse suite fucking Sophie or certain truths will be told. He must have worked hard to find my location, which impressed me, I suppose. And there was a quite considerable element of sweetener.’
He raises an eyebrow at me, taking my breath away.
All that time I spent in pursuit of him and he never gave me an inkling that he found me attractive. Why now? Why here?
‘Do you really think so?’ I hate myself for simpering and blushing when I should be asking difficult questions, but my body has never been much of a one for obeying my brain.
‘You know so.’
There’s a long beat of silence during which neither of us can move or look away from the other.