An appreciation for aesthetics.
Possessive.
Funny.
Incredibly warm.
Protective.
Loving.
Honourable.
The best of men.
My man.
And I wouldn’t be writing that advert at all.
What if the reason he can’t bear to look at me is because of something he feelshe’sdone, rather than me? What if he’s running away because he feels he has failed?
‘Rashid!’ I begin to call for him before I’m even out of my seat, finding him almost immediately.
‘Madam.’
‘Where’s he gone, do you think?’ Rashid’s expression doesn’t falter, but for something sliding through his gaze—a fleeting sense of discomfort? ‘The hotel?’
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. I already know the answer as my stomach plummets.
‘Take me. Please?’
I haven’t changed my clothes. Not since this afternoon when I’d peeled the photograph from my skin, ripped it to tiny pieces, and showered to wash away Essam’s touch. I’m not the dressing for dinner type and I feel a little underdressed as I cross the expansive lobby of the hotel.Thehotel. The one I never thought I’d ever enter again.
My stomach stays on the ground floor, my nerves rising with the elevator as it climbs. Unsteady legs and good memories forced over fleeting images of the bad get me to his room, where I swipe the key-card against the door. Unsuccessfully, I find, several times. I begin to wave it a bit desperately, trying to find the correct hotel-key-card-semaphore-code for ‘let me the fuck in’.Maybe it needs to be recharged?Frustrated, I level my narrowed gaze on the patch of plastic housing the tiny red light—the one that I want to turn green—when the door suddenly opens, and I almost fall in.
Catching myself on the doorframe, I stare at Kai’s waistband for approximately, oh... three million minutes, before straightening. Frantically scanning my brain for suitable words, Kai beats me to it.
‘How—why are you here?’ He doesn’t sound pleased.
‘I’ve left my pipe and deerstalker at home,’ I say straightening. ‘Not that it took much detection.’ The huff in my words is audible.
He doesn’t answer; his gaze weighty and potent. And also a teensy bit pissed, if the slight glaze is anything to go by. Plus the tumbler half-full of whiskey dangling from the end of his wrist.Who needs Sherlock Holmes?
‘Feel like revisiting old times?’ he eventually says, his words almost leaving a physical sting across my cheeks.
‘My, you’re all about the feels tonight.’ I breeze past him when it becomes obvious he isn’t going to invite me in.
‘Kate, please. Not now,’ he says, despite closing the door and following me into the room.
‘Why?’ I ask, planting my arse on the sofa. On the table in front stands a half-full bottle of Jamesons. ‘Normally, you’d be up for eating chips out of my knickers anytime of the day.’ It’s one of Niamh’s.She has all the best lines.
‘Look,’ he says with a small sigh and an absolute reluctance to meet my eyes. ‘I’ll come back to the house tomorrow, but tonight—’
‘Tonight?’ I repeat with one raised brow, as he opens his mouth to speak again. ‘Tonight, I think you’re going to keep quiet and do what I say, for a change.’
My stomach is knotted, but I’m relieved I didn’t stumble over the words. Kai’s mouth snaps closed like a trap as I rise to stand in front of him. He watches me through those dark, inky lashes, and despite my heels—I may not have changed, but I know my man—my head barely reaches his chin. Leaning forward, I place my lips against the hollow in his throat.
‘Kate,’ he whispers, a sound all gravelly and bordering on a moan. A sound I’d bottle, if I could. ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’
‘Why?’ I whisper, placing my palm over his heart. ‘This tells me I need to be here.’ At the same time, I reach into his pants pocket, pulling on the black silky edge of something I’d noticed at the door. Because it’s not the steady beat of his heart that tells me I’m doing the right thing, or even the erratic pulse in his throat.
Welcome bondage, for thou art a way to liberty,the scarf reads as I pull it free.
I exhale a shaky breath, relieved I’ve followed my heart. He didn’t leave because he couldn’t bear to be near me, and tonight Kai will welcome bondage, because tonight I know he needs to be free—free from guilt.
