Midnight Temptation

Mia Venter had been a good wife for eleven years. She packed Johan's lunches. She ironed his work shirts on Sunday nights. She laughed at his jokes at every braai, even the ones she'd heard a hundred times, and she never once complained that he fell asleep on the couch before nine. So when his flight to Cape Town left at eight o'clock on Monday night, she told herself she was only going for a drive. By eleven, she was standing in Room 714 of the Marlowe Hotel, wearing nothing but black lace. It barely held her. The bra was a size too small on purpose, her full breasts spilling over the edges, the lace thin enough to show exactly how hard her n*****s had gone the moment the door clicked shut behind her. The panties were hardly more than a promise, a tiny scrap of black stretched over the curve of her hips. Her wedding ring sat on the bedside table, next to Daniel's car keys. She'd taken it off in the lift. Her fingers had shaken so badly she nearly dropped it. They weren't shaking now. Daniel Botha stood by the window with his back to her, the lights of Sandton spread out below him like scattered diamonds. He hadn't turned around since she'd walked in. Six feet two of broad shoulders and quiet patience, his white shirt rolled to the elbows, a glass of whisky in one hand. Johan's best friend. Johan's business partner. The man who'd stood next to her husband at the altar. The man she'd been thinking about every single night for the last six months. "You came," he said, still facing the glass. "You sent me the room number." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "What did you think I'd do with it?" "I thought you'd delete it." He finally turned. His eyes dragged over her slowly, from her bare feet all the way up, and lingered in places that made heat crawl up her throat. "I thought you'd be a good girl and stay home." Mia lifted one hand. A pair of silver handcuffs dangled from her finger. She'd bought them that afternoon, in a shop in Rosebank she'd driven past a hundred times and never dared to enter. The woman at the counter had smiled at her like she knew exactly what kind of trouble Mia was about to get into. "I'm done being good," Mia said, and smirked. "Guess who's in charge tonight." Daniel set down his glass. He crossed the room in four long strides. Before she could even take a breath, he'd caught her wrist, plucked the cuffs right out of her fingers, and walked her backwards until her legs hit the edge of the bed. "Me," he said. One push, gentle but absolute, and she was flat on her back on the cool white sheets. Click. Cold metal closed around her left wrist. He looped the chain through the iron headboard. Click. Her right. Mia's breath caught in her chest. She tugged once, testing. The headboard rattled. She wasn't going anywhere. "Daniel..." "Shh." He pulled a black silk tie from his pocket, the same one he'd worn to Johan's fortieth birthday, and slipped it over her eyes. The world went dark. "You've had your fun, Mia. Six months of it." The mattress dipped as he knelt over her. She could feel the heat of him, close enough to touch, but he didn't. Not anywhere. "Every braai," he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. "Every Sunday lunch. Every time you leaned across the table to pass the salad in one of those little sundresses, and he didn't even look up from his phone." Her heart was hammering. "I looked," Daniel said. "I always looked. And you knew it." "I didn't..." "Don't lie to me." His lips brushed her jaw, so light she might have imagined it. "You wore the red one to the Christmas party because I said I liked it. You stood next to me in the kitchen for twenty minutes when there were six other rooms in that house." She arched up off the bed, desperate to feel him. He pulled away. "Not yet." His mouth found hers. Barely. A whisper of a kiss, his lips just grazing hers, and then gone. She chased it, straining upward, and the cuffs jerked her back with a sharp metallic clink. He laughed softly. The sound went straight through her. On the bedside table, her phone buzzed. Mia froze. It buzzed again. And again. The vibration rattled against the wood, right next to her wedding ring. "That's him," she whispered. She couldn't see Daniel's face. She didn't need to. She heard him lean over, heard him pick up the phone and look at the screen. "Johan," he confirmed. A pause. "Should I answer it? Tell him you're busy?" "Don't you dare." "Then let it ring." He put the phone down. It kept buzzing. Something cold touched her skin. Mia gasped. Whipped cream, swirled slowly over the swell of her breasts, right along the edge of the lace. Then his fingers hooked into the cups of her bra and pulled them down, and the cream spread over her bare n*****s, freezing and sweet. His tongue followed. Slow. Warm. Deliberate. He licked every drop from her skin like he had all night, like he'd been starving for this, circling one n****e and then the other until she was squirming against the sheets and biting her lip to stop herself from crying out. "Daniel. Please." "Please what?" She didn't answer. She couldn't. Then ice. A single cube, dragged from the hollow of her throat, down between her breasts, over her trembling stomach. Lower. Lower still. It slid along the edge of her panties, and she jolted so hard the headboard banged against the wall. Somewhere beside her, the phone buzzed a third time. Then it went quiet. In the silence, all she could hear was her own ragged breathing and the slow, steady sound of Daniel unbuckling his belt. He lowered himself onto her. Skin against skin, finally, his weight pressing her into the mattress. She felt exactly how hard he was, thick and hot against her through that thin scrap of lace, and a moan escaped her before she could stop it. He didn't move. He held himself perfectly, maddeningly still. "Feel that?" he growled against her neck. "That's what you've been doing to me across that dinner table. For six months, Mia. Six months of going home and thinking about you." "Then take me." "No." His teeth grazed her earlobe. "You're not getting it until you beg." She swallowed. Eleven years of being polite. Eleven years of being good. "Please," she whispered. "Louder." "Please, Daniel." Her voice cracked. "I need you. I'm begging you." He kissed his way down her body, slow and hungry, taking his time. Her collarbone. Her breasts. The soft skin of her stomach. He peeled the lace away and his mouth found her, and her whole body bowed off the bed. He brought her right to the edge. Then stopped. She sobbed in frustration, yanking at the cuffs. He waited until her breathing slowed, then started again. And again. And again, until she was trembling all over, slick with sweat, moaning his name over and over. The name she'd sworn she would never, ever say like this. "Please," she cried. "I can't take it anymore." He pulled off the blindfold. The light made her blink. And then she saw him, really saw him, braced above her with his eyes dark and fixed on her face like she was the only thing in the entire world. The way her husband hadn't looked at her in years. "Good girl," he said softly. He took her. Deep and hard and slow at first, then not slow at all, her wrists still locked to the headboard, the iron bed creaking beneath them. Her moans filled the room. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, meeting every thrust, until the edge she'd been dancing on for an hour finally gave way beneath her. They came undone together, crying out, his forehead pressed to hers. For a long time, neither of them moved. Afterwards, he found the key and unlocked the cuffs. He took each of her wrists in his hands and kissed them, softly, right where the metal had bitten into her skin. "Did I hurt you?" Mia shook her head. She didn't trust her voice. She lay against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow, and waited for the guilt to hit her. It didn't come. Her phone lit up on the bedside table. One new message. Landed safe. Miss you. Home Friday x She stared at the screen for a long moment. At the little x he always put at the end, the same way he'd signed every message for eleven years. Then she turned the phone face down, rolled on top of Daniel, and grinned, breathless. "Friday," she said. "That gives us three more nights." Daniel's hands slid up her thighs. "Then we'd better not waste them." The candles on the dresser burned lower. Neither of them noticed. --- It was almost three in the morning when Mia finally slipped out of Room 714. The corridor was empty. The lift was empty. She kept her head down through the lobby, her coat buttoned to the throat, her wedding ring back on her finger where it belonged. Nobody saw her. She was sure of it. She was halfway home, alone on the empty streets, when her phone buzzed again. Not Johan. A number she didn't recognise. She opened it at a red light. A photo. Grainy, taken from across the hotel corridor. A woman in a black coat, her hand on the door of Room 714. Her face turned just enough to the light. Her face. Underneath it, a single line of text: Does Johan know where his wife sleeps when he's away? The light turned green. Mia didn't move. To be continued...