Authors note: For once, I'm doing quite a build up for my first series. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. The BDSM and all the rest will come as the story unfolds.
*****
He opens the door.
The heat beat down upon our hero like nothing he ever felt before. It coaxed sweat to the surface of his skin where it could nearly turn it into steam. He dabbed at his forehead with a kerchief, pushed the airport door all the way open, and stepped into Northern Africa for the first time.
After a moment his eyes adjusted to the bright, hot sun and the light that warped everything it touched.
He hailed a cab, holding the palm of his hand up over the sunglasses, wondering when he could adjust to this new found light. If she had been anyone else, anyone at all but her, he couldn't even fathom coming here. Much less staying in the heat a moment longer than needed.
The hotel was splendid and the English of the check-in girl was perfect. It was clear from the moment he entered the room that this place specialized in pampered Europeans. He hardly had enough time to park his suitcase and get in the room before his phone rang.
"You are so very punctual, answering on the second ring." Her voice is like incense smoke. Even through the phone it bounces in his ear and runs over his skin. Somehow, it makes him even hotter than the sun.
"I want to see you tonight." His voice is dark, low with a tight throat.
"You are tired. Your journey must have taken it out of you." She laughs and it is airy, as though she does not fear him at all.
"I want to see you."
"You repeat yourself, My Mister." She tisks and he can feel the weight of her full lips through the phone. Sense them on his face, his chest, his cock. "We did not agree. Please, do not make me more uncomfortable about this meeting than I already am. This is—very difficult for me. I adore that you traveled, that you came. Now please, My Mister, freshen up. Take your evening meal, do you call it supper or dinner? Shower, the soap here is so beautifully perfumed, but do not not use too much. I want to smell you tomorrow."
He is about to break form and beg her, but the click comes before he does.
For a moment he resents her, then pulls himself into the shower, limps to bed in nothing but a towel and falls into a deep, dead sleep before the sun even falls.
He opens the door. Massive and wooden, replete with panels each larger than his head—and there she is.
Her hair is glossy, rich and long. There is no way she would be a surgeon in the States with that kind of hair. It is, amazingly, his first thought about her. Then her neck turns and their eyes meet for the first time. When she smiles, both warm and contained, he is no longer sure what to think, or that he can. His world becomes hotter, heavy and soft around the edges.
The waiter asks him the question again, in the kind of slower, louder English that someone only breaks out when dealing with a particularly stupid tourist and he's pulled out of the fire. "Sorry," our hero says, "I—she is waiting for me." He gestures with his hand, careful not to point and when the waiter sees her, his eyes return to our hero with confusion and doubt. After a second, he nods.
Our hero takes steps so heavy he wonders if he's carrying another person, but through it all, each footfall that leads him up to her—she does not look away. Her eyes are on him, her smile fixed, small and warm and when he arrives she stands. Her breasts bounce within the dress of fabric too thin to constrain her, and her hand is offered up to him. When he tries to shake it she pulls it back and laughs, eyes growing wider, mouth curving into more of a grin.
"You did not think I would make you fly all this way just to have you shake my hand, did you?"
Our hero is not sure what to respond, so she saves him again. She wraps her arms around him, low; at the waist, and constricts him as her face pressing into his chest. And as she takes the air out of him he can no longer breathe in the smoke, is no longer lost. He simply clings to her. And he thinks he can hear her barely whisper the words, "you're mine now." But the moment is not long enough and she breaks the embrace.
Her eyes are warmest, hottest kind of dark he's ever seen and it's only the movement of her hand offering a seat that breaks her gaze.
The waiter returns and asks her something in their native tongue. "Well we'd certainly like more water. And a moment if you'd be kind." The waiter casts our hero a second suspicious glance before pouring to large glasses of ice water as he, and The Girl, lock eyes.
"So, how was your trip! Did you sleep well?" She is framed by the most red sunset he's ever seen and he wonders if she asked for this seat or if it was just another dice roll. "You are so silent, I did not expect this. I think of you as verbal, your mouth always moving. Am I speaking too much? I tend to do that when nervous. When I can't-"
"You're not."
His words hang heavy in the air. She seems to relish them, her eyes closing as she takes a long pull from the glass of water. "Say something else."
"This is where I suppose I'd say the word 'you' and then you'd said it back to me. 'You?' And then I'd say something like, 'Yeah, because you are are something else.' But I don't want to do that. I want to—I have never tried to be more impressive and less of myself than at this moment."
She laughs and it is earnest and free before her guard comes back up. "My Mister. If the core of you wasn't impressive, do you really think you'd be here?" She gestures to the old fort converted into a restaurant with her hand. A place that invaders had conquered and made their own for hundreds of years, maybe longer, now adorned with rich carpets along the wall and trinkets for sale in the lobby.
"I like when you call me 'My Mister.'"
"Then you should say more about it. I love your voice. It is different in person, when I can hear it, feel its little vibrations wash over me."
"I wanted to see you last night."
"I know." She smiles instead of looking down or away. "But I knew it was best that we see each other today."
He takes the slowest pull of water that he's ever had in his life. It is cold and needed, the dust and the heath seeming to sap every bit of moisture from him.
"We are going to reach a point where I will need you to stop knowing what's best and deciding for us."
"I see. Already so aggressive. Terrifying." But her body shifts forward, more of her breasts are revealed and there is nothing scared in her tone. Our hero wonders who should be terrified. "Have you eaten today?"
"Not yet."
"And last night?"
"No, I went right to sleep after a shower."
She tisks and flags the waiter, ordering so quickly and with fluency he could never hope to understand,. "I think you'll like the selection. And perhaps eating will coax you out of your shell. Maybe the dark monster within you is only scary and grumpy because he does not get enough to eat. Well, tonight? Tonight he has the best meal he could have in a long time."
He ignores the obvious bait of sexual banter given that she can retreat from it so easily here. "You didn't ask me what I wanted."
She moans, she shifts in her seat and her thighs rub against one another as she crosses her legs. Then her forefinger and thumb grasp the fabric of her dress just above her navel and pull so that another centimeter of her bust is revealed. "That is because I know exactly what you want."
"I told you that you were going to need to stop deciding for me."
"Yes," she reaches for her glass of water, "and because you asked it I will not-"
He traps her hand between his and the rich, thick table cloth. Pushes it down into the table in such a way that nobody looking on would think anything of it, simply two lovers holding hands, but in a way that she could very much feel. "You have asked me, before I arrived, what is the difference between me and the monster? You seem to have made a mistake, thinking that the monster does not ask and the man does. You are wrong. We both do. The difference is merely how we handle not being—look me in the eyes—how we handle not being heard."
Our hero removes his hand from hers and takes the longest sip of water in his life before placing both palms back on the table. "I will not threaten you. I will not demand anything of you. But I do ask you to remember that I am no fool."
The waiter comes with their food; small portions, finger foods, steaming hot. When he is not responded to in any way he vanishes and our hero speaks with the low, slow growl from the back of his throat that he's rarely heard. "You didn't ask me all this way to be a poor host or a tease. I will have you. If not tonight, then soon. And you will make the travel, the heat and the sun worth it."
She nods, mouth open only a crack, and begins to instruct him on the correct way to eat the first dish.
"I cannot come in tonight." She says it without any kind of hesitation or heaviness. It is simply fact.
She looks away from him as he stares over her immense and ocean-deep beauty before looking around the bar of the hotel lobby. He surmised the building was only a few decades old but the wood in it, older than America, modern republics and saxophones. He wondered if this only worked on tourists, the age and splendor of the carpets and tables. Did the locals find it tacky or warm? Did they find this idea of local tradition being pushed accurate or silly. He wanted to ask but she was shy and he needed to let her be.
