you just teasing me?"
She shook her head, and reaching for her tablet, she pulled up a recent auction from Sotheby's. A chair identical to the one that was reposing in dust and drapes in front of them had sold for almost sixty thousand dollars at auction.
Rasul raised his eyebrows. "That's impressive. I suppose my great-aunt had better taste than the rest of us knew. My grandfather was always trying to get rid of that chair …"
"And now you can simply sell it, and endow a research organization or something," she said with a giggle.
There was simply so much history around them, so much to see and do, but throughout the day, Rasul would reach for her. His touch might be a light brush of a fingertip across her cheekbone, or it might be a significantly longer kiss that made her sigh. The only thing those kisses had in common was the fact that they ended long before she was ready for them to do so. Whenever he pulled back, she would feel a moment of disbelief, and then she only wanted him more.
When the day was over, and the shadows were deep in the house, they spent the evening watching the television in the den, as she showed him ridiculous clips from the cartoons that she had watched as a young girl. He had missed all of them, and laughed uproariously at the antics of the shows she had loved.
Every now and then, she was struck by the strangeness of it. They were so very different, but this was something they could share. In that moment, it seemed as if they were not so very different at all.
Of course, most of her thoughtful realizations were completely totaled by the fact that he kept his arm over her shoulder, his fingers tickling along her bare skin there. Somehow during the course of the day, she had become completely sensitive to him. His light touches, his gentle caresses, and the occasional heated kiss had twisted her into something that could only focus on the man sitting next to her now, watching her favorite cartoons from when she was a girl.
When the hour grew late, Berry thought, all right, surely now … But instead, he got up, stretched, and walked her almost sedately to her room.
"Thank you for a great day," she said, because after all, it had been. Her body might have been twisted into knots, and her head might have been swimming with desire, but the day had been wonderful, one of the best she had spent in a long, long time.
"I am glad you enjoyed it," he said, and if he was aware of her disappointment, he made no mention of it at all. Instead, he leaned in to give her a sweet, almost chaste kiss on the cheek. Then he drew back, and what she heard him whisper in her ear made her freeze.
"Did you think I would really leave you like this, beautiful woman?"
"I …"
"I want you," he whispered. "I want every part of you, and some part of me urges me to simply take you on the ground here and now."
The image of them rolling like wild animals on the ground, biting and clawing at each other, licking and desperate, made her blush, but she wanted it, oh she wanted every bit of it.
"I am going to give you some time," he said, "and I want you to think of your response very carefully. Go into your room. Close the door. Think for half an hour. If you do not want what comes next, lock the door and I will go away. It is that simple."
She tried to speak, but her throat was simply too dry. She had to swallow twice before she could make herself understood. "What … what if I do not lock the door?"
"Then you will have lost your last chance to say no to what comes after," he said.
This time, when he kissed her, there was a slow burn to it, and she could feel the deep well of heat underneath everything he did. It called to a deeper fire inside her, one that had been burning all day, stoked by his gentle touches and sweet words.
"Choose wisely," he said, and then he was gone.
***
In the luxurious confines of her room, Berry wondered what she should do. She knew what she wanted to do, but a part of her wondered if
Clare Dargin
Prue Batten
N. E. Conneely
John Healy
Pamela Aidan
Ramona K. Cecil
Jessica Louise
Makenna Jameison
Watt Key
Susan Meissner