Crossing The Grey

E i g h t

"Mmmm well you definitely have refined your art." She smiles lazily at me. She looks beautiful. Her cheeks flushed, her hair mussed and a twinkling look of sexual satisfaction on her face. I like that I did that. I like that I relaxed and soothed her. It occurs to me then that I feel the same. I feel very relaxed and very comfortable in this moment.

"I told you," I smile back.

Slowly she reaches out, watching me intensely as she does. She slides her hand into my hair and begins to massage her fingers through it. Right there I'm glad I never got a haircut this week. I'm not concerned she's going to touch me somewhere I can't handle. She hadn't so far. So far she had obeyed my rules, touching me only on the parts I told her she could. Not by the window when I'd fucked her, or when I'd carried her across to the bed and taken her again. She'd dug her nails into my ass then, leaving marks I was certain - I'd have to check in the morning. As I'd made her come again, she'd held my forearms and then my face, kissing me as I came inside her. Not once had she broken the rules. She really would make a sublime submissive.

No Grey. Still no.

Charlie would want more. Charlie is more. She'd never accept what I was able to offer. All I could ever offer.

"Aren't you tired?" She says, still casually twirling my hair around her fingers.

"No," I lie. Her hand massaging its way through my hair is, in fact, making my eyes feel very heavy. "I have some work I need to finish." Not a lie.

"It's almost midnight."

"I survive on very little sleep," I say, moving across the bed to kiss her on the mouth. "You get some rest. You'll need it." I smirk.

"Is that a promise or a threat Mr Grey?" She says.

I raise my eyebrows playfully. "Sleep," I command before sliding out of bed. I walk naked around the bed and pull on my slacks and t-shirt to find her still looking at me.

"Thank you," she says very quietly.

I frown. "For what?"

"For being exactly what I wanted and needed tonight."

My chest tightens. "I'm still not what you need Charlie." I can't be. I'm not.

"Let me be the judge of that ok?" Her voice is soft but firm. I say nothing, and she stares at me a moment before turning her body and closing her eyes.

Back in the lounge, I pour over her husband's financials again, the financials of his floundering company, as well as the GEH projected returns for the next quarter to see if we could afford to do what I had decided was the most sensible business decision. It wasn't my original idea, but that one had been based solely on the desire for utter destruction of this man. I was thinking clearer now. I wonder if he'd find it amusing that an evening spent inside his wife had relaxed and calmed me.

When my stomach growls, it's only then that I realise I haven't eaten all night, and that my room service steak never arrived. A thought occurs to me and I walk over to the door of the suite and open it to see a tray with two stainless steel covers sitting on the glass table just outside the door. It will be inedible now. But when I lift one of the lids to see a perfect looking steak, runner beans and two jacket potatoes my stomach rumbles once more and I actually consider eating it cold. Instead, I go back inside and order a room service burger and fries, which arrives 20 minutes later. After polishing the entire plate in less than ten minutes, I close the laptop and lie down on the huge sofa with the lights off and the TV down low.

I flick through the channels trying to find something that I can fall asleep to, however, loud brash football commentators seemingly have a 95% monopoly on late night cable TV. Finally, I find a documentary about the civil war, in which the narrator has a deep soothing voice, and I settle in comfortably to watch the panning images of battlefields and stiff looking people in weathered portraits. I wonder if I could sleep next to her. It was Charlie. She knew me. As much as any woman ever had. Except maybe Elena.