‘Madam is paining my foot-finger!’ she adds, adamant and aggrieved. And stamping her supposedly damaged foot.
‘She told me you caught her foot-fin—her toes, in the door. Upon your escape.’ Kai’s clarification of her grievance is made with a masterly effort at not laughing his head off.
‘Did I?’ Did I fuck. The door was definitely shut. Her toes would’ve been sliced off, the way I’d slammed it closed, and I see no bloody footprints on the floor. Or toe stumps.
‘Never mind,’ Kai slickly interjects as Martha begins to huff and puff. Resting his arms on her shoulders, he turns her. ‘You should go and rest. You know, if you hadn’t been cleaning the floors, you wouldn’t have been in the house. And therefore, none of this would’ve happened.’
She hisses something low and Kai chokes on a laugh.
‘Martha would like to know if you’d like some tea before she goes.’ Which is strange because I knowchaiis pretty much universal for tea. Pretty sure I didn’t recognise the word from the ones spat from the side of her mouth.
‘Did she?’ I ask dryly. ‘Tell her no thanks.’
‘Nonsense! Martha is famous on the compound for her chai, aren’t you?’
She responds with one of those head-wobble things, where her head appears to move independently of her neck. It’s one of those social clues that leaves me, well, clueless. What does it mean? Yes? No? Maybe? I just farted silently? Though in this instance, I bet I could guess.Oh, Mister Kai, you are too kind. Certainly I will make the chai for you, my favourite one. Hers I will certainly gob in.
‘Yeah, no. Think I’ll give it a miss, thanks anyway.’
Martha shuffles away, leaving us in the hall.
‘I hear you’ve been entertaining the gardeners.’ His voice is low, his tone almost chiding as he turns to face me.
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘For a run.’
His answer is accompanied by a dangerous looking smile as he moves toward me, though stalk might be a better description. He’s the big cat and I’m the breakfast gazelle.
A shaft of light from the mezzanine above gives him a halo, touching his dark locks with amber and gold. But it isn’t an angelic look by any stretch. It just highlights the animal.
Wasn’t he the one who said a little pussy never hurt anyone?
‘I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?’ he purrs, eyes alight. ‘You’re like a magnet for trouble.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t leave me then?’ The words sound like a challenge, even as I begin to back away. ‘It’s hardly my fault your maid’s a psycho.’
‘I was referring to the gardeners,habibti.The show you gave and how the whole estate now knows.’
My butt hits the table as his hands reach for my hips.
‘Knows what?’
‘That my wife has gorgeous legs.’ One hand dips under the shirt. ‘And fabulous—’
I squeak as his fingers find my nipple, trailing off into a hum as he begins to pinch. ‘Ohhh,’ I breathe, leaning into him. ‘The fan dance I did with the palm fronds?’
His chest rumbles against my own as he pulls me towards him, kissing me. Pulling away, the lingering scent of his cologne mixed with musk and sweat—yes sweat!—makes me want to crawl into his chest.
‘Minx,’ he rasps, his mouth hovering above mine, just out of reach.
‘Tease,’ I counter, leaning into him and trying to make our mouths meet.
‘You don’t know the half of it.’ His lips ghosts my cheek, briefly grasping the soft flesh of my ear between his teeth, that small twinge making my stomach heat and my knees weak. His fingers begin pulling at the buttons of my, or rather his, shirt. ‘You’ve only touched the surface.’
‘Are you hiding things from me?’ I ask breathlessly.
‘I prefer revealing my dark secrets in increments.’
