The rain had not stopped, though the dim, grey light of day seeped through the thin gaps around the curtained windows. It had pounded heavily throughout the night, creating a feeling of being within a dark cocoon; a dangerous mood that only served to fuel the interactions between the hostess and her guest.
Her eyes pulled open with lazy reluctance, and were met with the soothing softness of blurry shadows about the bedroom. The hearth had long gone cold, not even a solitary ember still smoldering now, and the air was cooling. The man beside her had drawn the soft coverlet over their bare legs sometime during the morning, though she must have been slumbering too deeply to recall it.
His thick, muscular arm was once again curled around her shapely waist, holding her hostage while he slept on with his face nestled against her neck, and his warm breath puffing over her skin.
She took a slow, careful breath of the air in the room. The thick, seductive scents of her perfume were all but dissipated now. The candles had burned themselves out over the long hours of their reckless, blissful dance. How many times had she told him to depart? Each time, he would move away, reach for his clothes, turn his back to her. And each time, he would pause, turning his blistering, azure stare in her direction again. A stride across the gap between them, his hands upon her bare waist, his lips descending on the pale flesh of her neck, a murmured wish to remain and stay in her presence.
The effect of the draught had long since worn off. This was no longer a man paying to be freed from his senses with herbs and brews. What was it that he sought from her company at this point? They both acknowledged aloud that it was madness for him to still be in her bed. That he should have gone hours before. She had encountered men before, who clutched at her, clung to her dressing-gown, begged not to be dismissed. And with each one, she would coolly brush them out the door; not without compassion, but with a firmness that was necessary for her to keep her sanity. Why, then, was this man still laying beside her, with his body half-flung over hers, as if he possessed her as his lover?
The answers were too distressing to consider. She knew that her own weakness was the sole reason for it. It would have been easy to blame him, with his darkly beautiful face, his charming smile, his cajoling voice and gentle hands and intoxicatingly insistent lips. Yet it was she who was breaking apart beneath his presence. All of her carefully constructed rules, self-promises that she clung to in order to survive her own existence, tossed aside now, because of this one, damnable man.
She had to get him out of her house.
