Odalisque (21 page)

Constance watched him in awful stillness, a statue in the darkened room. Then she dropped her eyes and her hands came to rest, like a period, in her lap.

He reached out and took one of her hands. “I’m sorry. Go to bed, Constance,” he said in the darkness. “I don’t need anything. I just had a bad dream.”

Kai lay back on the pillow, and after another moment of watching him in silent question, Constance did the same. He still held her hand, reluctant to release it. Over time, he felt it relax, then fall open as her breaths lengthened. He listened to the in-and-out of her breathing until dawn lit the slivers at the edges of the heavy hotel curtains.

Next thing he knew, he was awakening to the sound of rain beating against the window. He shifted and felt Constance beside him. Half-asleep, he thought he’d forgotten to leave her room. Then the haze of confusion cleared and he remembered they were in a hotel. Then he remembered his breakdown the night before. Jesus, he’d
cried
in front of her. He must have been more stressed out about this trip than he thought.

He rolled over to look at the clock. It was nearly eleven. He still needed to unpack and go over his speech for that night. Not to mention get Constance to look at his other speeches. In a few minutes time on the plane she’d turned his so-so speech into a standing ovation type thing. Talented girl.

But Constance was out, fast asleep. She slept until noon most days, no matter how much noise he made. She’d even slept through an earthquake once, which had amused her but startled him. He’d fretted about fires and her inability to hear the house alarm, but she’d just shrugged and pulled him into bed with her.

“I can take care of myself,” she’d said. Maybe she was right. Last night, anyway, when he’d been beside himself and freaked out, she’d reacted with equivocal calm. Probably one more thing she’d learned at Odalisque School. How to deal with freaked-out lovers. Constance’s solution, as always, had been sex.

Her lashes moved and then she was staring up at him with sleepy green eyes. He kissed her right cheek and licked her face from chin to temple. She laughed softly and pushed at him. She tasted like flowers. His cock was stone hard, just as it was every morning. Was she angry with him over his outburst yesterday? Still freaked out? He shouldn’t have mocked her for offering to serve him. Her service was precious to him.

Kai wanted to show her how much he loved her. And he did love her desperately. That was suddenly clear to him in the dim hotel room with the rain beating on the windows and her warm, lithe body pressed against him. Her legs opened without prompting, welcoming him to come inside.

He pulled away instead. He wanted to see her better. He went to pull back the curtains and paused to look out at the city through the blur of raindrops. They were high up, high enough to look down on buildings and roads, people hurrying along with their tiny dots of umbrellas. He turned back to her.

She signed, “It’s raining?”

He nodded. “It sounds nice. Relaxing.”

She gave him an impish smile. “I know something else relaxing.” Her hands paused as her eyes dropped to his upstanding cock. “I think you could use some relaxing.”

He chuckled and crossed the room, basking in her admiring gaze. He shouldn’t love her. He usually tried not to love her, but this morning he’d allow himself to fail in that endeavor. He crawled into the bed and ran his hands up her calves and over her thighs. He parted her, staring at her most private place. She let him look his fill, unlike other women who usually squirmed away or clamped their legs shut. He loved the smell of Constance, the taste of her, the sleekness of her pussy with its swollen glistening folds.

He looked up at her. She was watching him, placid, expectant.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Kai said that to her every time he went down on her, and she smiled every time. He slid his thumbs into the valleys of her labia and lapped up the sheen of nectar he found there. Until Constance, he’d never been much into going down on women. He did it for their pleasure, because he believed in giving as good as he got, but he’d never really enjoyed it until he’d tasted Constance. She had a flavor other women didn’t have. A responsiveness that was natural and not contrived.

He took his time, and she never rushed him. He explored all the parts of her he’d come to know with lips, teeth, and tongue. He nudged her clit with the tip of his nose and then laved it with a flat stroke. Her hips undulated and bucked under him. When she really got close to orgasm, she became very vocal. He didn’t think she even realized it. She was normally very self-conscious about her vocalizations. But when he teased her and drew things out, and tickled that spot on the tip of her clit, she made the most wonderful noises. Noises like any hearing girl might make.

She was making them now, sighs and whines and moans low in her throat. She wrapped her fingers in his hair. She was a hair puller. Kai reached up and caught her hands in his own, pinning them beside her. She shuddered, strung tight like a bow, as he nipped and sucked and kissed her pussy. He let go of one of her hands to press a finger inside her, then two. She ground her mound against his hand and went right back to pulling his hair at the same time. With a pitched groan, she tensed, and then he felt her sheath contract around his fingers with almost enough power to force them out. The orgasm seemed to go on and on, and he gently licked her clit until she nudged his head away.

“No,” she signed weakly. “I’m too sensitive now.”

She said that every time too. Kai smiled and eased up the length of her sated body, cupping her pussy in his hand, giving her time to recuperate. He was near to bursting. He kissed her, and she licked her scent from his lips with an avidity that almost banished his control. A moment of rest, and she was practically climbing him. He rolled under her and pulled her astride him, driving in to the hilt. He shivered, overwhelmed by the sensation of her tight pussy enveloping him so suddenly and completely. He grabbed a handful of her ass cheeks and squeezed.

She arched her back and ran her hands over his chest. From the noises she was making, she’d never really lost the arousal of her first orgasm. She swiveled her hips, riding him with abandon. He pushed one of her hands behind her and she fondled his balls the way he’d taught her, building pleasure and pressure at the base of his cock. He started groping her breasts, pinching the nipples. They’d gone from his leisurely oral enjoyment of her charms to a frenzy of fucking.

And then he heard her say his name.
Kai.
She whispered it, her eyes closed, her head thrown back in passion, but he heard it even over the pelting of the rain. She said it perfectly, a breathy, throaty rendition.

Again, please.
He wanted her to say it again, but she was lost to him, in her own erotic world. She twitched her hips and her hands clenched on his shoulders, then she collapsed, her pussy milking his cock with waves of orgasm. He was helpless to hold off any longer. He came along with her, his hips coming off the bed, his cock driving as deep as he could go. The pulses of his climax were divine, gratifying relief. His orgasm was like the rain--drenching. He let it settle over him, holding onto it until the last possible moment.

Then his whole body relaxed, as did hers. She slid to the side and buried her face against his chest. After the delight of his orgasm, he got this too, her sex-drunk affection. She toyed with the trail of dark hair on his lower abdomen, her fingertips nearly bringing him to arousal again. He finally pushed her hand away.

“Stop,” he signed in front of her eyes. “I’m too sensitive now.”

She looked up at him and laughed, and he thought
I love you
. He almost signed it. His hands made fists to prevent the words. He couldn’t love her. It wasn’t how this was supposed to work. Love had caused all the problems he’d wanted to escape, and he was pretty sure she felt more or less the same way. That was why she’d become an odalisque, and why he’d gone in search of one.

Still...

He pulled her up until her head rested on his shoulder, and ran a finger down her cheek. “You okay?”

She sat up beside him and stretched her arms over her head. “Sure, I’m fine. I’m glad you’re feeling better this morning.”

“I’m sorry about the way I acted last night. I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on you.”

She thought a moment before she signed again. “I understand. You were just feeling really emotional. I guess that’s why Bastien always warned us not to get emotionally involved.”

He didn’t know what was worse--her dismissive words or the fleeting censure on her face. Kai hadn’t told anyone about his lost children, not even his sister. This morning, he’d felt so close to Constance. Now she was back to pushing him away. His whole body went tight and he felt unreasonable anger. “I’m sorry I burdened you with my emotional problems. I won’t do it again.”

He turned away before she could answer. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, scowling at himself in the mirror.
I guess that’s why Bastien always warned us not to get emotionally involved.
Fuck Bastien. That fucker. Even if it was true--even if he’d been thinking the same thing a few minutes before--he hated hearing it from her.

Kai listened to the rumble of thunder. The storm was getting worse, not better. The storm outside, and the storm in his soul. He walked back into the room. Constance was writing in her notebook, her face expressionless, blithe. She barely spared him a glance. She was so cool, so untouchable. He felt like an outsider beating on the window of a wonderland, peering through the glass at the marvels inside. Unable to get in.

They had been in New York a week. Constance was getting used to spending each evening dolled up in glittering gowns. Diamond necklaces and earrings were delivered to the hotel each afternoon, and returned by courier the following day. Rentals, Kai said. She was afraid to ask what they were worth.

Constance wasn’t sure how she felt about all this charity business. Tonight they were at a fundraising concert at Lincoln Center. There was a reception and dinner first, followed by a performance. Kai told her the tickets cost between ten thousand and twenty-five thousand dollars each.

Kai wasn’t making a speech tonight, but he was still “working,” pulling off a combination of posturing, socializing, and schmoozing which he did very well. Constance’s job was easier. She just had to look pretty on his arm, and smile at all the very rich people filing by. She both admired and disliked these people. She couldn’t help but be impressed by their jewels and ornate gowns, and the air of
richesse
they communicated. It was so natural and effortless, it had to be inborn.

At the same time, there was something disingenuous about these events. The champagne, the caviar, the thousands of flowers decorating the ballrooms and tables. How much of the money they were donating went to pay for these things? Constance thought you could send a hundred inner-city children to private school for the cost of one party. Feed a hundred homeless teens for six months or even a year. When she questioned Kai about it, he only shrugged and said that was how things worked.

He’d been somewhat short with her since the night he cried. He still fucked her regularly, and even tied her up now and again, gazing at her with a thoughtful look in his eyes. But he kept an emotional distance. Of course, that was for the best. That was what she’d been trying so hard to accomplish herself.

She had never in her life seen a man cry, except on TV and movies. She thought hard, trying to remember, but she hadn’t, not in real life. It had frightened her to her very core, to see Kai lose it, even though she understood more than anyone how real nightmares could feel. And when he’d asked her for children, a little part of her heart had died.

Maybe he hadn’t even been serious. Still, like his ex-wife, she would never give him children. She didn’t want children, not her own. She wanted to help other people’s kids, the runaways and throwaways of the world, not fritter her life away changing diapers and arranging society playdates. One more reason to hold Kai at arm’s length. It was for his own good.

She watched Kai now--confident, smiling, rubbing shoulders with the glitterati--and she couldn’t place that falling apart man from the week before. Kai had a way of standing with his chest out, his chin up, his body moving easily and gracefully. He had that manner of
richesse
like all the others, but she knew he hadn’t been born rich. So perhaps it could be learned. Constance became highly aware of how she moved, how she held her head. She tried to trick the golden society around her into believing she fit in.

The rental diamonds probably helped.

Kai introduced her to everyone as Miss Constance Flynn. It sounded very retro and romantic. He didn’t specify if she was his friend, girlfriend, or work acquaintance. She supposed he was content to let everyone draw their own conclusions from the way he treated her, from his manner of remote affection. He returned to her now from a conversation a few feet away. He tilted his head, slid a hand down her bare arm.

“You have goosebumps. Are you cold?”

She nodded. Yes, she was cold. She missed her nakedness, her warm odella and saray back at Kai’s home. Kai slept restlessly, and she wasn’t used to having a bedmate. The diamond necklaces scratched her neck and the earrings were heavy at her ears. Her head ached because the stylist Kai had hired to do her hair used a thousand sharp pins for every up-do. But she couldn’t wear her hair down. No one here did. All the feminine hair in sight was twisted, pinned, and bejeweled into submission. All the eyes were fastidiously made up, all the lips pink or red, many grotesquely altered by plastic surgery.

Kai pulled her next to him, squeezing her a little. He was trying to warm her up, but his tux was silk and slippery and not warm at all. Then, with an abrupt movement, he turned her and tapped her chin. A shorthand he’d developed for
Listen to me
.

“Mason is headed this way with his wife. You have to pretend you never met him before.”