(This chapter contains adults scene. You have been warned.)
The week felt longer. Like crawling day by day. Time was not fleeting anymore. Only someone who has been waiting could feel it.
From the anticipation when Kaelen sent his message—a picture of his flight seat, showing the location on the seatback screen. His updated location over time made me jumpy.
My phone beeped.
A video message, which I downloaded immediately. His hotel suite tour also showed the balcony facing the infamous stadium.
Out of quarantine. Check-in: done."
Nice." My reply was sent in one-tenth of a second. So eager, I cursed myself. But my fingers typed and sent.
Sayang, do you prefer weekends or weekdays?"
So be it, I thought.
I prefer black."
Huh? Black?"
Then his voice message came.
"You. In. Little. Black. Lingerie."
I could feel my cheeks warm.
I ordered a taxi to pick you up at five."
Pick me up here?"
You gave your location before. You forget?"
Ah. So it was like that. We once joked about how far we were and ended up sharing our locations. I saved his, but never thought he saved mine.
Nope. Just thought you don't save it."
You always think too much."
His instructions were clear in his next message right after my taxi passed the security check at the hotel entrance. I got down and passed the temperature check at the hotel lobby.
Go to your left. Inside the lobby, behind the glass doors."
There he was. Again. Waiting for me inside, just in front of the suite lifts.
His face was covered by a medical mask, but his eyes shone. I could almost see his smile through them. My steps quickened. I couldn't hold my grin. Perhaps my crinkling eyes gave me away, because his eyes went soft with that doting gaze.
The eyes I had missed so much this whole week.
He didn't touch me, but guided me into the sky suite lifts. 26th floor. The corridor was quiet, and we didn't talk. Our eyes glanced at each other from time to time. I couldn't produce a word until he pulled out the key card for his suite.
He opened the door and ushered me in first. I noticed he placed his shoes neatly before the foyer.
Following COVID protocols, I went into the outer restroom straight to wash my hands.
"Wanna shower first?" he asked when he saw me step out. I nodded.
It was my first time in this hotel. He showed me the bathroom.
"Will you be okay from here?" I nodded again.
Quickly showered and hair dried, I took my lingerie from my bag—the little black lingerie he once mentioned in our chat. I put on lip gloss and walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom.
He wasn't there.
I stepped in the living room, it was quiet, except for the soft hum of electronics. I found him at the working desk, his face bathed in the blue light of two laptop screens. Reading glasses sat low on his nose as he typed with an easy, practiced grace. My bare feet were silent on the floor, but he must have sensed my presence.
He looked up, his eyes widening in a silent gasp. A smile, slow and genuine, spread across his face as he pushed his glasses aside. He didn't move, just drank me in with a gaze that held nothing but pure admiration.
I felt my cheeks flush, my body answering his quiet reverence. My feet began to move of their own accord, carrying me toward him.
His smile, without the medical mask, broke wide. My heart beat faster. He pushed the chair back and stood up.
"Hi, gorgeous," he said, closing the distance. Both his hands cupped my face and he kissed me. A slow kiss, nibbling on my lower lip, like he wanted to make sure I was really there. Then his tongue traced my upper lip, and went in deeper, teasing. I leaned closer, tiptoeing, my hands clinging to his neck to taste him.
He chuckled when I started to lose my breath. Then kissed my forehead and held me in his arms.
He lifted me in a princess carry like I was weightless. Still holding me as he sat on the big couch, me on his lap.
"I really miss you," he murmured, nibbling my ear. His breath tickled, but his hold was firm, keeping me close.
It didn't last. His hand cradled my head to begin again. His kisses were deep, relentless, making me senseless. My head grew heavy as his hands caressed my body.
I felt him around me—his arms coiling, a great masculine figure, hard and strong. A sanctuary within the heavenly aerie he had created for himself.
It was as if I had been dropped into the center of a whirlpool. I was drowning fast, within the grip of forces I could no longer control.
I was out of control; my body reacted on its own. Kaelen savored every part of me like treasure. His touch scorched mine. I knew it—and still the exhilaration rose, blotting out everything but him.
"Kaelen… I miss you," my lips whispered.
Our eyes met. He yanked me from the couch and carried me into the bedroom.
I crushed myself against him as he laid me on the bed. His lips continued. My body arched, feeling the long dormant heaviness rise again. I trembled in his embrace, surrendering.
The taste of lust was on my mouth, the fire in my body given full reign, conscious thought driven away on the wings of passion.
I was so hungry—not only my loins but my heart yearned to be filled again. To throb at the sight of a precious lover, to anticipate his love like the coming of night, and then to feel it gushing through me like a mountain stream river.
I wept as he kissed my body in a slow motion—like a worshiper— down to my core. His lips murmured endearments when I, in turn, took him in my mouth, feeling him grow, the taste intoxicating.
I cried out when he entered me, my nails scoring his back as he slid all the way in, filling me to bursting. My heart thundered, my thighs lifted, enclosing him. Our breaths mingled; he kissed my ears, my nose, the corners of my eyes where tears dropped. He inhaled the musk at the hollow of my throat, licked the swelling tops of my breasts.
And, oh, it was good. Not only the pleasure we were creating together, but the letting go—like dancing in the rain or rushing naked into the sea. My heart sighed, contented, as I was carried breathlessly toward an ending: a thunder in my soul, the sun in my eyes, the rain of our sweat flying as we ground together. The sweet collision of flesh and emotion that only making love can produce.
Then he was gasping and heaving. I felt him shudder, arch into me, and something touched my core. Everything shattered—like walking into and through a mirror, arriving at a new reality, a plane of existence once only hinted at.
"Oh, my God… ohhh Kaelen!"
I moved—when I could stir again—to the beat of his heart as well as my own. The feeling was so sweet, so intense, that tears came again. He gently wiped my tears, murmuring endearment.
"This is only for you babe."
It was something to feel like a woman once more, soft and vulnerable. So different from how I had been through.
Everything else had withered within me. I saw this as good—a purging, an exorcism of the toxins that had embittered the visions of our past lives, the pull that had driven me to Kaelen. Up until this moment, I had been carrying that weight.
Now I saw the other side: how the forging of my spirit in the crucible of past lives had distanced me from everything—the good as well as the bad—that had dwelt inside me. And I was grateful to Kaelen for giving me back the part of myself I knew I could not live without.