an ounce of remorse for what had
happened even though she knew it would shock her fans and her family to know
what she’d just done. It would just have to be her own secret, something she
would hug to herself for a long time, perhaps forever….
After
drying herself, she let her hair down again and wrapped the sari around herself
once more, in a haphazard fashion. Uncertainty gripped her just before she
opened the bathroom door. What would Sebastian expect now? Should she just
leave and try to get out of the hotel without anyone seeing her?
Opening
the door hesitantly she saw that Sebastian was still asleep on the bed and she
crept over to the window to look out over Mumbai. Suddenly an acute sense of
loneliness gripped her for just a moment, as well as a feeling of loss, that
tonight was going to be the last time she would see him.
Sebastian
woke with a start and for a second was thoroughly disorientated. He slept so
rarely that it was disconcerting to realise he had slept, and more soundly than he had in ages. And then he saw
her, standing at the window, with her back to him and that black hair in a
luxuriant tangle over her shoulders, the red-and-gold wedding sari wrapped
around her naked body.
And
then he felt even more disorientated; he never fell asleep while with a woman. He would lay awake while she slept, or he would
get up and work and he would be impatient for her to wake and leave … or else
he would have already left. For a secret moment he regarded Aneesa’s body and
an acute rush of desire stunned him with its intensity. Never before had he felt such hunger for a woman he’d just bedded.
She’d been a virgin .
The
memory of taking her, of thrusting into her tight body, nearly had him groaning
out loud, his own body already responding forcibly. And he felt a curious
tightness in his chest, along with a very unwelcome sense of possessiveness. As
that emotion registered he immediately diverted his thoughts back to the
physical. He’d never climaxed so hard—he’d practically blacked out for a moment
that second time….
Sensing
his wakefulness, Aneesa turned around and something clenched hard in Sebastian’s
chest to see her beauty anew. And to see the hesitation on
her face. She walked towards him slowly, hands clutching her sari to her
chest.
When
she stood near the bed she looked at him and said huskily, ‘Thank you … for
tonight.’
Sebastian
smiled and felt his equilibrium return as desire surged effortlessly. ‘My
pleasure …’
He
held out an imperious hand, beckoning her to come to him. She stalled. ‘Don’t
you want me to go?’
Sebastian
in any other instance with any other woman would have answered in the
affirmative but now he said a throaty, ‘No. It’s still the middle of the night.
How far do you think you’re going to get wearing a dishevelled wedding sari and
looking like you’ve been thoroughly bedded and not by the right man?’
He
saw the blush stain her cheeks and his body responded even more violently. His
conscience and guilt struck him when he thought of how tight she’d been, how
out of control she’d made him feel. ‘Are you sore?’
She
shook her head, flushing to hear it confirmed that he had noticed she was a
virgin. ‘No … I bled a little but I’m fine. I … want to stay too, Sebastian … I
want to do that again. Is that awful?’
Her
disarming honesty caught at him somewhere inside. He shook his head and reached
out to grab her hand, pulling her to him. ‘No, it’s not awful at all. I want
you too…. We have all night and if you’re not too tender—’
She
shook her head. ‘We only
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