CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
T HE AFTERMATH WAS sweat soaked and punctuated with heavy breathing. Desmond and Val lay together, entangled in the bed sheets. His head was resting on her lower belly, and her fingers were threading through his hair absent-mindedly. Too absent-mindedly. As much as he wanted to stay there and revel in the softness of her, he knew it would be a mistake.
She looked the most beautiful she’d been all night. Her hair had escaped its slick ponytail and now haloed her face and her lips were swollen.
Desmond considered for a moment, then reached across her body to where the room phone sat on the ornate nightstand. When he did, his arm brushed across her breasts, skimming nipples that were still full and pouting; he felt heat surge down— Again? Surely not. He ignored it and dialed.
Val sat bolt upright. “What are you doing?”
“I’m hungry,” he said patiently. “You’ve kept us rather busy for the past couple of hours.”
“ I’ve kept us—!” She was speechless. He waggled his brows at her and half turned as the concierge answered, holding back his laughter with some effort. This was precisely what he wanted—something to tip power back into his hands after she’d undone every bit of the control he’d thought he had. His body was still humming from the aftermath.
More than that, she’d made him care .
“Can I ask you to hold for a moment, sir?”
“Of course.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t order room service to my—”
“Why not? Don’t you eat?” He cleared his throat as the concierge came back on. “Hello, thanks. I feel like slumming it tonight. I’ll have the Wagyu burger, medium rare, and the black truffle frites . And for the lady…?” He nodded in her direction.
“The lady isn’t having anything! You can’t… I can’t… I…”
“You wanted me to leave? Is that it?”
There was a quick flash of guilt in her eyes. “It isn’t unreasonable, Desmond. Technically I’m still at work.”
“If the sheikh is knocking at your door at—” he peered at his watch “—three a.m., I’d be a little curious about the nature of the work you do! No, sir, we still haven’t made a decision,” he said to the concierge. “Perhaps we could look at the menu and call you ba—”
Val made a noise of frustration that sounded so like a growl it stopped him dead, and he dropped the phone, surprising himself by bursting into laughter as he did so. Val, who’d tried lunging for it again, was half on top of him now, her small, soft fingers anchoring his wrists to the bed with sudden strength. And now he was officially getting hard again. This woman was full of surprises!
“I. Am. Not. Feeding. You,” she gritted out. He saw her eyes drift down to where he was stiffening then dart back to his face as if she were correcting herself.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked softly.
She released his wrists without answering, sucking in her breath as she did so, and, heaven help him, there were her breasts again, heavy and round, perfectly in his line of vision, jiggling softly with every breath she took. Even before his eyes, her plump copper-brown nipples were growing painfully full and tight.
He reached up and palmed her breasts. Her breathing quickened.
“You know I will if you say the word,” he said mildly, and he punctuated his statement with a twist of one of the hardening buds; he’d observed enough during their union to know she liked that, a lot . She gasped softly.
“Don’t move,” he said, then raised his head high enough to draw that nipple’s twin into his mouth. As he sucked, his fingers inched down her tummy to where she was slick and swollen; she jerked upward when he touched her and he shook his head, releasing her breasts.
“No. Don’t go back. Forward, sweetheart. Let me taste you.”
“Desmond—”
“ Do it.”
She inched forward, crying out softly when he parted her, her thighs spread open inches above him, all glistening skin and the sharp, delicious scent of arousal. He reached up and dug his fingers into the glorious softness of her hips, then pulled her down till he was able to taste her. She trembled and shook and cried out, all reticence completely gone. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. And when she finally fell forward, spent and gasping, he rolled over and drew her into his arms, his face fierce.
“Desmond,” she gasped out. He thought there was dampness on her cheeks.
“It’s all right,” he said, kissing the shell of her ear and biting down gently.
He didn’t know when she shattered in his arms; he was too far gone, himself. Her heart was drumming so fast it echoed the flow of blood in his ears and her breathing was as ragged as his.
It was the hottest thing he’d ever experienced, knowing that he’d done this to her. No—that they’d created this moment. Together. They both knew this had no future, but for just this moment—this heat-filled, sticky, sweat-drenched moment punctuated by gasps of air and tangled limbs—they were together.
Impulsively he reached out and cradled her face in his hands.
“I want to stay,” he said simply, surprised at the honesty in his words. He wished that navigating life wasn’t such a strain for him and that the aftermath of his father’s death—and his role in it—hadn’t consumed him so much. “May I?”
Even as the words hovered in the air, he couldn’t believe he’d said them. He’d once been the type of man to say such things, but that version of Desmond Tesfay had been buried in the smoking wreckage of Flight 0718, ten years ago. He should be planning a smooth exit; ego aside, he should be thrilled that she wanted him out of the room. It was rare that a woman made it so easy for him. But there was something beyond her stern facade, something that made him want to stay.
“This was nice,” he finished, lamely.
“It was,” she agreed. “It’s been a long time. Thank you, Desmond.” She sat up, drawing her knees together almost primly; the ladylike employee of the sheikh was back. “I’m going to…” She gestured to the washroom.
“Go ahead,” he said.
Then she was up and moving swiftly toward the bathroom, leaving only rumpled sheets and a faint hint of perfume and sex behind. Desmond was left at the foot of the bed, feeling curiously bereft. He missed her already, and that was strange. Unsettling.
“Room service?” he called out to the closed door, forcing lightness into his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was appear needy .
An aggravated huff came out in response, drifting over the sound of running water. “ Fine. But after food, you go.”
* * *
A buzz from her mobile woke Val in the morning.
Automatically, her fingers groped for the slim rectangle and she held it blearily to her face, still overcome by the fog of sleep. Her lids were stuck together and she rubbed her eyes to release them, then froze as the events of the night before—well, only a few hours before, if she were being honest—filtered through her mind.
There was Champagne. Steak. Slow, slow kissing. Not so slow kissing. Laughter. Conversation. And then…and then…
Passion. Unhinged, unrestrained passion, here on this very bed. And afterward, when they’d both been too worn out to move, they’d finally had those damned Wagyu burgers, at nearly five in the morning. They’d eaten them in languid respite, at first lazily and then rapidly, as their hunger overtook them, shoving piping-hot truffle fries soaked in ketchup down as if they were uni students trying to soak up their beers at a pub after a late night.
They hadn’t slept. And he hadn’t left. He’d asked to stay with her, and she knew the memory of the look in his eyes at that moment wouldn’t leave her for a long time.
Then they’d talked .
In the pale light of dawn, Desmond seemed to have shed the layers of flippancy he’d wrapped himself in all evening. And Val realized how much she missed both the intimacy of sex and of conversation.
They’d chatted about inane things at first, tried to watch a replay of Coronation Street that neither could follow, and drowned their gluttony in ice-cold Cokes from the minibar.
Then he’d asked about her father, and she’d been loose enough with serotonin and food and a pleasant tiredness to answer. His body was lean and chiseled, standing out against rumpled snow-white sheets. The playfulness had gone; his eyes were curious and kind.
“What do you want to know?”
He lifted his slim shoulders, an odd little smile playing round his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It’s something we have in common and I feel oddly close to you right now.”
The words hung between them for a long moment. Val cleared her throat and pursed her lips. “Do you always say exactly what you mean?”
“You don’t have to answer, you know,” he pointed out.
She knew. She reached up to smooth her hair and knew she was going to have one hell of a time detangling it in the morning. When last had she forgotten to put on a silk scarf before climbing into bed?
“You mentioned a stepfather.”
“Yeah. Russell,” she said, and even as she uttered his name, his face came to memory. Prematurely wrinkling skin the color of coffee with cream. A little too eager to please with a tendency to lecture, but altogether a decent man, most of the time. “He was…kind. At least, in the early years he was. I was happy when he came because my mother wasn’t crying anymore.”
Desmond nodded, his face unreadable.
“She’d been so unhappy, up until then. And it was okay—it was really okay. He didn’t treat me like his daughter, but he treated me fairly. And then he and my mum had my siblings—Joy, Michaela and Sam. He wanted kids right from the beginning.”
“Are you close?”
“Not really.” A familiar lump was rising in her throat. “It was good for a while, but as I got older, I felt really out of step with the rest of them. I was the one reminder of my mum’s life before. I feel like it was sad for both of them in that way…” Her voice trailed off.
Desmond’s fingers rested loosely on her hip, and it was pleasantly distracting. “But?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really look like them.” Her little brother and sisters, with their cinnamon-colored curls and wide gray eyes were sweet in their own way, but spoiled. And her parents had doted on them. “I was…quieter. Russell is very hearty, and a little loud. I always felt like I was spoiling their fun, their look , and my mum was anxious to make sure I wasn’t being left out, and that just made me feel awkward.”
“And then?”
“I heard them talking one night. I was probably about sixteen at the time, maybe Hind’s age. I’d been looking at colleges and Russell was talking to my mum about cost. He was saying that I was an okay student but not a brilliant one, and he was worried about financial aid, and maybe it would be better for me to go to a technical school for a bit or get a job first—find my sea legs, he said. And he said, ‘Remember, we have a family to take care of, and we can’t compromise that.’ Excluding me, basically.”
“He didn’t think of you as his.”
“Exactly. It wasn’t the advice that he was giving that hurt so much—it was good advice. It was just hearing him talking about me as if I were a problem to get rid of so they could carry on with their real family. I was determined to get out of New Orleans and prove I was worth more than what he thought I deserved. I ended up here.” She lifted her shoulders, ignoring the knot forming deep in her tummy. She hadn’t told Desmond even half of the story, but that was all she wanted to share right now.
“It’s easy not to visit much when the distance is so great. And they don’t seem to miss me, honestly, so…”
She wished the words back the second they came out of her mouth; she sounded so self-pitying. Desmond didn’t seem to mind, though. She scuttled closer to him and rested her cheek on his shoulder. He kissed her softly, gently, caringly.
She hadn’t wanted to sleep because sleeping meant waking up and it being the next day when she would have to return to her real life. But fatigue had taken over and they’d both finally slept.
And now it was 9:00 a.m. and she’d missed breakfast with Hind and Desmond was still there .
The watery light of the early morning so particular to London illuminated his golden-brown skin; he was sprawled face down beside her, gently snoring into his pillow, and she felt grateful she could not see his face. She bit her lip hard and turned her attention back to her phone.
There was a text from Hind canceling breakfast on account of being exhausted. Thank goodness. Of course Hind was exhausted after yesterday’s shenanigans.
The second and third messages were the same ones she received every month, from the Bahr Al-Dahab National Bank. And if there had been even a little fairy dust left from the night before, she was dropped squarely back to earth by the texts. The first:
Your salary has been credited to your account.
And then, almost immediately after:
Your loan installment of 18,483 riyals has been successfully paid.
Just about half her salary, the amount legally allowed for the bank to take. With trembling fingers, Val logged into her banking app and sent another five thousand into her loan account, leaving just enough to get through the rest of the month.
This dissolved the afterglow rather rapidly. Val bent over and shook Desmond’s shoulder, then again but harder. For the first time since yesterday, looking at him gave her no fluttery feelings because she was consumed by the cold, hard chains of reality. “Desmond!”
He muttered something and yanked a pillow over his head.
“You have to go,” she said briskly, and when he didn’t respond she clapped her hands. “Desmond!”
He groaned and pitched the pillow at her playfully. “What, no breakfast in bed?”
“Desmond!”
He yawned, and rolled over, wrapping the coverlet tightly round him.
Val let out an outraged squawk, then yanked the coverlet with all her strength. She slid out of bed, wrapping the coverlet round her as she went. Desmond dived for her and secured the end. The two engaged in a rather undignified struggle before Val emerged panting and victorious. His eyebrows climbed.
“Oh, no, you don’t. Time to go,” she ordered, although she couldn’t hold back the smile creeping across her face, despite the way her morning had begun. “You’re impossible.”
“And you,” he said simply, “are absolutely enchanting, Valentina Montgomery.”
That seemed to undo something in her. For a moment worry was shoved aside and she kissed him, her body fitting as perfectly against his as it had last night. He didn’t push for anything else, just kissed her back. Val felt relief—of course she did.
This was goodbye.
She pulled back and looked pointedly at the door. It was time to get back to reality.
He got the message.
“I’ll go,” he said. “This was fun.”