I go to him and climb into his lap. His hands come around me, the palms hot. I nuzzle him like a cat, my hand stroking his thick hair, straightening it. It is ruffled. He has been running his hands through it. He takes my shoes off and lets them drop with a thud on the floor. I sigh with pleasure when his big hands start massaging my foot.
‘I didn’t know where you were. If you had simply run away. I know so little about you.’ His voice is a deep, honeyed rumble. It has a song in it. I could listen to it all my life. But I won’t. I was fooling myself before.
‘I didn’t run away. I’m here.’
The hardness between his legs pushes into my hip. I look up into his eyes. There is only one word for what is in them: hunger. I have never seen such extreme desire, such ravenous craving. The air trembles with it. A voice inside my head cries, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ I ignore it. My body loses its tiredness and responds to that yearning. My lips part, my nipples swell and pebble tightly, my sex opens like a night flower.
‘Would it be really horrible if we had sex right now?’ he murmurs.
‘Yes, that would be utterly, utterly horrible.’

He carries me to the bedroom and kicks the door open. The large chandelier is not lit. Instead only the narrow bronze lamps over the paintings on the walls are on, creating their own individual pools of yellow light, making the paint look thick and oily. I glance at the bed and my mouth opens with astonishment. I turn back to look at his face. ‘What the—?’
‘Indulge me,’ he says languidly.