I nod, and as his reflection frowns, I add a quick, ‘Yes.’
‘And still you didn’t say? You kept it all to yourself. Tell me, kitten, what would you have done if I hadn’t come home?’
‘I don’t know. I-I thought—’
‘That you’d fuck him? Keep it all quiet? Continue to lie?’
‘No! You know that’s not true.’
‘Then tell me.’
‘I didn’t know what to do!’ My body slumps forward, my head against my bound hands. ‘I was trying to come up with some way to deal with it on my own. I’d lied to you, and no matter how pathetic it makes me, I didn’t want you to have to sort this out for me. I’ve felt so wretched. So ashamed.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Those pictures—I told you I’d never—and I hadn’t. Not really. Not like with you.’ Through a riot of tangled thoughts, I try to make him see that this felt like a betrayal. I lied, yes. A stupid reflex, but the way I’ve tortured myself hasn’t truly been about that. ‘That afternoon with Shane, it wasn’t the same. There was no intimacy, no real desire. No thought. It was, and it wasn’t, really a lie.’ It all sounds so pathetic, even to me.
‘So tell me.’
I raise my gaze to our reflections; mine confused, his burning hot.
‘Tell me about this afternoon... these photographs.’ His hands find my hips as he flexes his body into mine just once. ‘I want to hear how it happened.’
Slowly, it all begins to make sense. I’ve been here myself; that stage of imagining the images from which you can torture yourself. Images of the one you desire with the one you despise.Kai and Sofia wrapped in each other’s arms; Sofia on her knees.
‘W-we’d been at the beach with friends.’
‘Topless sunbathing,’ he suggests, his tone gravelly.
‘Yes—it was hot. Really hot. The weather I mean, and we’d all been drinking. Doesn’t make for good decision making.’
‘I don’t know,’ Kai purrs from behind me, his fingers stroking my sides. ‘If not for Dutch courage, where would you and I be today? If not for wine,’ he continues in that delectable honeyed tone. ‘Would you have followed me to this room?’
I dip my head, my hair falling forward to hide the thoughts he’s planted there. This chair. A night of firsts. I note abstractly that he doesn’t seem conflicted. More turned on.
‘Where were you?’ he asks softly, his light fingered touch making my skin tingle and my nerve endings sing. ‘Ah, yes. Drinking... with friends.’
‘No,’ I answer quickly, thinking back to Essam’s insinuation.One photographer or more?‘That’s not how it happened. There were just the two of us. We—we went back to the roo-mmh...’ The word draws off, my body bowing as his fingers find me wet and ready as he strokes between my legs.
‘Did he touch you like this?’ Unable to answer, I shake my head as he slides his fingers inside me, my body pushing back onto his hand. ‘Like this?’ With a twist of his wrist, those long elegant fingers begin stroking my insides.
I bite my lip even though I can’t answer; his words a heat rushing through my bloodstream, trailing fire under my skin. I keep my eyes down, knowing I shouldn’t look at him, because when I do I won’t stand a chance.
‘Want to know something?’ he asks, his teeth grazing the skin of my neck. I cry out, my head rising as he bites. His golden-eyed reflection looks like he’d burn to the touch. ‘You looked like a girl who didn’t know what a good fucking was.’
‘Yes. Please,’ I pant out.
Kai’s laugh sounds like a groan, and my body sags to hide my distress as he pulls his fingers out. Leaning over me, he drags two wet, glistening fingers against my lips, trailing the scent of my arousal. Without conscious thought, my tongue darts out.
‘Not so uptight now,’ he reprimands, plunging his fingers back inside me again. ‘It’s one thing to know you’ve had other men—’
‘Man,’ I correct as a familiar sensation begins to build.
‘It’s another,’ he continues regardless, ‘to be faced with the evidence with your own eyes. Your lies.’
‘We weren’t—’ Fucking. Not like the photographs we took before he left for his business trip.
His free hand grasps a handful of hair, bringing my head up fast. ‘You were naked and spread out on a bed. Please don’t insult my intelligence.’ Soft lips and harsh words. Why does this tone cause my insides to quicken?
