A few minutes after reentering Suite 1615, for the first time under her own power, Honor felt like screaming again. "What the hell do you mean there are no flights for two days?"

"Aerothai is booked solid for the next two days," Marq Haydn said, gesturing to a laptop on the coffee table she hadn't noticed before. "I checked and booked you on it when you didn't wake up at nine."

Honor buried her face in her hands, telling herself not to burst into tears - he'd witnessed her breaking down more times than anybody outside her family. After a moment, she lifted her face up and looked at him. "Did you check for any other flights, not just Aerothai?"

He shrugged. "Yes. The only problem is that the routes available would add at least half a day to your travel time. Given your condition, I wouldn't recommend it."

"I am fine," she bit out.

He grinned slightly, his lips quirking up. "If you say so."

She wanted to hit him but she restricted herself to just clenching her fists. "When is the next flight available?"

He looked at her with his infuriating neutral expression and then he reached for his laptop. "Come here," he said, tapping the cushion beside him on the sofa, without bothering to look at her.

Honor again restrained herself from leaping across the divide from her seat, over the coffee table to deliver a slap to his cheek. Instead, she clenched her fist again and got up to go to him. She felt childish doing it but she deliberately circled around the settee to sit on the other side from where he'd indicated. He only raised an eyebrow in response, one side of his lip going up in amusement.

She saw the website; 'routeplanner.travel' and recognized the interface as virtually identical to the one she had seen on the dedicated Route Planner machine at the airport, except, on the internet, the options allowed one to select an airport of origin. The same company, she concluded, the color scheme and logo were identical. Marq had already made all the selections she would have made - it somehow didn't surprise her that he knew where she wanted to go - and she watched as he fingertapped on the 'Submit' button.

The results did not take five seconds to return, and the first on the list, according to time of departure, travel time, change overs, and a myriad of other factors was an 'Air Siam International' flight, at ten o'clock the following morning. The route meant two changeovers, the first in Hong Kong, and an extra nine hours enroute compared to taking her Aerothai route. But it meant that she would be home a few hours before the next available Aerothai flight took off three days forward.

"I'll take it," she said. "And you're paying for it." Just because he had been right about her missing her flight didn't mean he didn't deserve some punishment.

But he only grinned again, much wider. "Okay ... want me to buy it now?"

She did. "Yes."

It took about three minutes, and when she got up, Honor had written her new reservation number out on a writing pad with one of the hotel's table pens, and just to make sure, she'd memorized it as well.

"You can stay the night here. Or do you want me to pay for another room? On another floor maybe?" he said, still smiling mildly, leaning back on the sofa.

She was tempted to answer in the affirmative, to make him shell out even more than the thousand and more dollars that he had just paid for her ticket, and she was opening her mouth to say it when her eyes were suddenly drawn to the drumming of his fingers on the taut leather of the sofa. The fingers of his left hand. His ringless left hand. And she realized then that it wasn't him she was angry at.

"No. I'll sleep here," she said quietly, the accompanying twinge of guilt battling with a mind's eye image of David planting kisses all over Jillian Blake's erect nipples in their hotel room after they had left the restaurant, Jillian holding his head between her hands, the rings symbolizing her bond to another man glinting on her finger as she kissed her lover. "If that's okay with you."

"It is," he said, eyes narrowed and looking at her.

She wanted to thank him, but the sight of the Excelsior through the high glass windows of the room didn't let her. "I heard some voices when I woke up. Men," she said instead.

He nodded. "We were having a meeting. They left just before you came out of your room."

She remembered the name of the person he had called in the taxi. "Deji?"

He looked at her strangely, his eyes taking on a different cast that made her feel wierdly apprehensive, then he smiled. "Yes. Deji." He smiled again. "I'll be in the city for a while until the evening. I'm thinking you might want to take a shower."

She did. More than a shower - she wanted a long hot bath. She'd been wearing the same clothes since before she got on the plane to Bangkok and she was suddenly mortified when she realized that she hadn't brushed her teeth in even longer.

She didn't let it show, though. "Yes, that would be nice," she said, nodding. She paused. "Thank you."

He nodded graciously. "You're welcome."

________________________

Honor only got out of the bath because her stomach's rumbles were getting louder and louder by the minute - clearly not satisfied with just a packet of nuts, a small chocolate bar and two cans of soda - and her skin had pruned beyond recognition. She toweled herself dry and wrapped her hair in towel, slipping into a bathrobe before heading into the bedroom on her bare feet.

She sat on the bed and sighed, looking around her, thinking how different her stay in Thailand had turned out from her plans. Her travel toiletry kit was open on the bed, taken out from her red suitcase which was open on the bed beside it. She should have been coming out of her bath with David behind her, or carrying her in his arms, having spent the hour that had gone past being fondled and caressed in the tub, his questing fingers touching and exploring her under the lather and warm water.

He would have laid her on the bed and slowly opened her robe, placing kisses on each new bit of skin as he unveiled it, from her neck, to her chest, the sensitive expanse of skin between her breasts, her stomach, down to the slit of her pierced belly button ...

Honor came back to herself, breathing deep. Her belly button wasn't pierced and her skin was significantly darker than that of the woman in her little fantasy - it was Jillian Blake's skin that was that light tan color, and Jillian Blake's belly button that was pierced with the small stylish ring she had seen in her mind's eye - she remembered seeing it often, especially when Jillian wore one of her many tiny mid-riff outfits in their apartment building's gym.

She felt like crying at that moment but she stopped herself, fiercely blinking the tears back, determined not to feel anymore pathetic than she felt right then - fantasizing about her fiancee making love to another woman and getting turned on by it. And while they were probably actually doing what she was fantasizing about them doing, she was sitting alone in a stranger's hotel suite with a small focus of heat between her legs, her nipples tingling at the friction with the bathrobe she had on.

Her nipples made it difficult for her to lie to herself; swollen and erect they could poke through anything but the most padded bra. And if it was arousal that made them stand to attention on her breasts, like they were right then, they all-too-often became sensitive enough to be distracting ... like they were now. She bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders out of the robe to uncover her breasts and separate her nipples from the teasing cotton fibres, determinedly reaching for the toiletry kit to begin her routine.

An aunt had told her once that a woman's most important adornment was her skin and it just seemed so logical that she had taken it to heart. The travel pack contained a little of everything she had at home for every part of her body. A special firming gel for her breasts, another cream for her stomach, lotion for her legs and arms, another special gel for her neck and then for her face. It took less than five minutes and she was finishing when her stomach rumbled again. She grimaced at the sound as she stood up, nude, and went to the mirror, hair still wound up in the white towel perched on her head.

She looked at herself, for the first time seeing all that Jillian was that she wasn't. She wasn't tall, her lips were not so wide and did not pout quite as much, her cheekbones were not quite so high, her hips were far too pronounced, her breasts filled too big a cup to be fashionable and her bum was pear-round, heavy and protruding rather than tight and high at the end of long legs. Jillian had been a model before she left the industry to join the world of advertising, she remembered. Her stomach was flat enough, but no lines of toned abdominal muscle showed on it, like Jillian's did even after a child.

She was proud of her caramel brown skin at least. Everything else she wasn't sure of anymore. David had hungered after Jillian's body enough to have wanted her with him, and had probably paid for the ticket to get her to Bangkok, while his fiancee had to invite herself to discover them kissing on a dancefloor - what did that say? Five foot two and 34-25-42. She could not do anything about her heavy D-cups, but she thought she could lose a few inches around her waist and definitely around her ludicrously large butt.

Was that why David ...?

Her stomach rumbled again, and it brought her back to the present. She unwrapped her hair and dried it with the blowdryer helpfully hanging by the mirror, and then tied it into a ponytail. Totally nude now, she went to the suitcase and suffered a moment of pause.

Hardly any of her airport 'Temptations' bought lingerie were of the 'decent' variety; they'd mostly come from the 'Naughty' section, all filmy and verging dangerously on the transparent. Some of the panties and g-strings were crotchless, and a bra or two had strategic slits where her nipples should be, which was dangerous considering their tendency toward exhibitionism. She hadn't cared at the time - she had bought them for David, just like she had bought the crotchless panties, thinking of the naughty wickedness of having him inside her while she technically still had her panties on.

She pursed her lips, feeling the heat between her legs flare up as she searched through the scattered mess of filmy lace and silk and the fantasies that had come with them. The 'Holiday Sex Guide' she viciously threw out of the suitcase to slam against the wall and fall to the floor by the bathroom door. Finally, she found a bra and G-string set that had something of a decent cut to them, even if they were so sheer and thin they were practically transparent. She wore them nonetheless and slipped into one of the sun tops and the linen capris with the tie at the waist to secure it.

She looked at herself in the mirror again, and satisfied that she looked a lot less like a woman at the wrong end of a hangover, and with her teeth brushed twice, she walked out of the room on bare feet and was back in the small hallway to the living room again. It was quiet, she noticed, and when she got to the sofa, she saw why.

He'd left her a note on the hotel's stationery on the coffee table, beside his laptop; 'Out for a few hours - Business. Order room service, watch a movie, make yourself at home. I insist.' He'd underlined the word 'insist' and signed his name at the bottom, like it was an official dispensation.

Honor decided to do just that. But when she called room service, she made it clear that she would be using her credit card to pay for the meal, instead of charging it to the room.

It was getting to five o'clock in the evening, the sun having begun its journey toward the horizon in the west, when she'd spooned the last of the simple pasta she'd ordered delivered to the room into her mouth. The delivery boy had come up with a paypoint to slide her card through. She wouldn't see the brilliant sunset however, because she had pulled the living room's curtains closed so she would not have to see the Bangkok Excelsior and feel the weight in her chest flare up and grow heavier as she invariably relived her fiancee and his lover's kiss every time she looked outside the window.

Before her bath, she had called Sarah to tell her of her new itinerary and begged off having to say anymore than that - promising instead to tell her friend the full story when she got back, remembering Jillian Blake's pointing nipples as David held her in his arms. Sarah had not been happy, but she'd acquiesced, promising to call to check on her.

"You'd better answer every damn single time, Honor," she'd warned.

"I will," Honor had quietly answered in her room, three thousand miles away. She cried after she dropped the phone, and then she had slipped into the bath tub.

The Grand Imperial apparently stocked their suites with current international and Thai business and entertainment periodicals. For those whose interests went beyond the glossy paper magazines provided, there was a tablet computer wirelessly connected to what appeared to be a proprietary library of magazines and hundreds of thousands of books of every genre in electronic format. There was a minimal cost to access the books in the library, but Honor was in no mood to read - her mind would wander and go where she certainly wouldn't want it to.

So she went from channel to channel, skipping news program after news program, and channels that only communicated in Thai or some other language. Then she remembered his 'insistence' that she, among other things, watch a movie. She pressed the 'Pay Per View' button on the remote control and immediately a selection screen came up, asking 'Mr. Haydn' to choose a movie from among those listed, each with a price by its side. The movies, the customer was made to understand, would be available to the room until check-out and would be charged to the room's account.

It also helpfully listed the most watched films in the hotel by one side of the screen.

"The Odalisque," Honor read the name at the top out loud. She highlighted it with an arrow key and selected to see more detail. The synopsis came unto the screen, along with the red sign saying it was inappropriate for all below 18. 'Contains scenes of extreme nudity, violence and sexual acts.'

'Set in the lands between the ancient empires of Persia and India, The Odalisque is the tale of a young Indian girl sold into slavery. But instead of a life of pain and hardship, her beauty and spirit attract the eye of a Persian nobleman who buys her and takes her far away from her homeland and presents her as a gift to the powerful Persian Emperor Khosros I ...'

The critics' blurb from the International Post-Tribune said; 'A pleasant surprise for such a well-worn subject. Well made, well acted, believable and impossibly erotic.' The Sydney Sun's reviewer said; 'Cinderella meets Harem Girl meets the Karma Sutra ... The production and acting are very good. The storyline is cliched but seems less contrived the more it unfolds ... Only just make sure the children are fast asleep before you watch this at home.' 'Guilty erotic escapism ...' said the critic from the Ladies' Journal.

She paused, thinking - trashy romance novels, especially those with a significant amount of sexual encounters were one of her secret and very guilty pleasures; she had a small secret private library from a particularly risque publishing house geared towards women. The picture on the screen, of a young woman's oiled and tattooed bare back, a belly chain on her waist, her long black hair tied in one long thick braid strongly hinted at she was to expect. She took a deep breath as she debated with herself, and in the end decided she could do with some escapism. She immediately pressed the button on the remote to play the movie before she could change her mind.

The screen asked for confirmation of her age, which surprised her, and then asked her to enter the room number, which did not. She typed in '1615', determining that this was something she would also insist on paying for when Marq got back. She might have made him pay for her flight the next day but she was genuinely uncomfortable with letting him pay for anything more.

She folded her legs underneath her and settled in to watch as the film started.

Twenty three minutes later, Honor could see why the Australian film critic recommended making sure the children were fast asleep before watching the movie at home. The nudity alone was more than enough; the clothes the women of the Emperor's 'garden' wore - most especially including the slave girl protagonist, 'Ramya', who was stripped nude when she was first presented to the Emperor - were diaphanous and and more often than not sheer to transparency, made either of thin slips of silk or flowing satin that clung to the body, designed more to accentuate and artfully reveal than conceal. Others simply went about nude.

The next scene saw the Emperor's newest slave shaved under her armpits and in between her legs, her skin tattooed with dark and heavy henna, whorls and flowery designs patterned on her nude body as she stood in silent and abashed obedience, but, as per the narration by 'Ramya', her mind was and will always remain focused on escape. Most significantly, she was fitted with the symbol of her slavery like all the other harem concubines of the Emperor; her 'zanjir', a body chain, sinister, yet golden and beautiful against her smooth skin, forged shut around her neck and linked through her waist and around a thigh, never to be taken off.

The 'training' scenes in which the slave girl was 'trained' by the pivotal character of the Emperor's favorite - a proud, severe and beautiful older woman who had worn the chain for more years of her life than not - were eyebrow raising, and unabashedly detailed, as was the voice over narration. On her orders, the new slave girl was first placed in a series of cruel leather and wooden contraptions that were designed to stretch and hold a woman's body locked in positions, as the narration described, designed to make her body more flexible for her new and final role in life. The montage of scenes of 'Ramya' locked in various positions made it clear that she was painfully locked in place for hours at a time and that this part of her 'training' lasted for many weeks.

The film then matter-of-factly depicted how the slave girl was taught to use the sight, sound, feel, smell and taste of her body to entice, seduce and arouse, and then how to use every part of it, from her hair, to her lips, and her breasts down to her feet, to bring a man to release. After her tortuous ordeal with the contraptions, her teacher had taught her the 'positions of mounting', which may have inspired the reviewer's citing of the Karma Sutra. And then she had taught her how to take care of her body, her face and her hair with specific oils and perfumes, how to walk, with a sway to her hips to draw the eye, how to dance with her belly, her buttocks and her breasts, how to trace patterns of henna on her body, how to display herself for a man's viewing pleasure.

Disobedience, or failure to learn to her teacher's satisfaction meant being tied around a pole in the middle of the garden and being flogged with a flattened length of reeds on the back and bottom, designed, as 'Ramya' narrated, to inflict great pain but leave no mark to flaw the skin of the Emperor's property. After numerous episodes of such punishment, the slave girl very dutifully learned everything she was taught and one night, she was 'prepared'; bathed, tattooed, oiled and perfumed, and then, looking apprehensive, she was led by her teacher to the Emperor's bed chamber. Khosros was a fit and muscular man for all that he was well into middle age, and as he approached, the slave girl and her teacher, both in sheer wraps of cloth, took the position of "offering", displaying themselves for him in the traditional greeting of an odalisque to her master, sinking to the floor and putting both hands behind their backs, spreading their legs wide, breasts thrust out, feet flat on the floor.

Khosros obviously approved of his new slave, as the following adult-only montage saw him make use of her in various positions with a notable amount of vigor.

After the Emperor had taken her maidenhead, his favorite had moved to attend to him, cleaning him and kissing him with breathless hunger as he reached for her and touched her. The stern and reserved woman suddenly became playful and coquettish. After cleaning him, she had taken him into her mouth to make him hard.

And then she had performed her signature act, the 'sit-still', sitting and sheathing him inside her as he lay back on his pillows. Despite the name, she was not entirely still; she moved, but only minimally, enough to keep him hard inside her, uncovering her breasts for him to touch, play and feed on.

Soon both Khosros and his favorite were breathing harshly, until suddenly, she was moving, bouncing on her master until they were both yelling in satisfaction. Ramya watched it all, seeing the intense intimacy of the act, learning then that her mentor actually loved her master, and that she was not his favorite simply for her beauty; and that only she 'sat-still' for the Emperor.

Three years passed, Ramya narrated, during which she lived in the garden, being called to the Emperor's bed regularly, almost as much as her mentor, and her life was luxurious and pampered as a new favorite of the Emperor.

But yet, despite the worldly-wise and experienced admonishments of her teacher, she never gave up her hope of eventual escape from the Emperor's gilded prison, from the palace, and her freedom.

Then the film earned its not-for-kids rating many times over, when the love scenes between Ramya and her love interest began. Fate - or more accurately, the film's screen writers - would have it that the Emperor's nephew and the slave girl would first meet when both are trying to escape, her from her captivity and he from a team of assassins sent by his cousin, the Crown Prince. Less tame than the scenes between her and the Emperor, they were numerous, frantic and sweaty, in stolen moments, tight corners and secret spots because the lovers were risking death if they were to be caught. They were also breathtakingly erotic, skillfully filmed to keep the necessary hidden while being as close to explicit as the producers of the film dared, obviously so as not to have their film given a higher rating - adult and mature was their aim, not the triple X of explicit pornography.

Entertwined with the slave girl's story, which she had narrated, the later starting second storyline of the film was of political intrigue and treachery in the Emperor's court, as the cruel and overly ambitious Crown Prince Khorshid conspired to end his father's reign with the help of a foreign invading force so he would mount the throne sooner rather than later. Following the deaths of three of the Emperor's older sons, the Emperor's nephew, Armaan, a prince in his own right, with whom 'Ramya' would soon fall in love, enough to almost entirely abandon her seeking of escape, is given the task by the Emperor of finding the traitor in the palace, the monarch not knowing it would be his own son - not knowing also, that his trusted nephew was also betraying him by his regular copulations with a concubine the Emperor numbered among his most prized possessions, a crime punishable by death for the both of them. A scene where another slave girl and her palace guard lover were beheaded emphasized that element of the story, significantly adding to the tension every time 'Ramya' met her lover.

The scene on the television's widescreen was that of Ramya and her princely love, Armaan 'playing' on the banks of a moonlit oasis outside the palace, for the first time in a place where there was minimal risk of being caught; and she was in her element as a trained and skilled odalisque with a man she loved. She would allow him to take her, to begin stroking in and out her as she gave voice to her pleasure, but then at the first opportunity she would 'escape' and run, slowing down to a slow swaying walk just a few yards away and then stopping to dance teasingly to call him to her. He would swear and run after her and she would let him catch and take her again, laughter interrupted by hungry kissing as they feverishly joined and copulated again, writhing and moving with each other until she suddenly 'escaped' and ran once more.

Ramya had 'escaped' again from Armaan's clutches, and he had caught her again, and she clearly would not escape again as he picked her up to carry her to the cloak he had lain on the ground by the small fire of their camp. She took the "offering" position, smiling as he descended on her, visibly gasping and shuddering as he entered her body once again. Her golden body chain gleaming in the moonlight, her skin beautifully lit by the firelight, the slave girl was on top of her lover's prone body, their hips moving in slow sensuous unison, when ...

... Honor heard the locks to the door of the suite snap back, and then she heard a familiar voice speaking as the door swung open.

It took another half second for it to register that a man who was still a virtual stranger to her would be coming in to find her - in his hotel suite, no less - watching a film that was, ultimately, even if remarkably well acted and produced, really just an expensive exercise in softcore pornography. Her hand desperately darted out to the remote control on the coffee table, panicked fingers pressing down repeatedly on the 'TV' button.

The problem was that, instead of immediately switching over, the scene froze on the screen, the image of the glinting chain lying in between the back-arching slave girl's high and perfectly formed breasts captured in all its glory while the word 'Pausing' and an hour glass appeared on the top right hand corner.

Mortification swiftly raised the hairs at the back of her neck as she watched her accidental, even if mysteriously unreluctant, benefactor step into the suite from the hallway beyond. He was talking on a cellphone as he entered the short hallway of the suite's foyer, simultaneously pushing the door closed behind him as he walked in ... and the tell-tale picture of a young woman's bare breasts was still sharp and clear on the big plasma screen.

Honor was already well past the verge of wishing for the ground to open up and swallow her whole when the television at long last co-operated; it smoothly flickered and switched over to a Thai speaking news channel just as the first of his two feet settled on the living room's plush carpeting from where he could simply turn and see the screen. Honor let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding in and slowly collapsed back on the seat in weak bodied relief.

"... very impressive, Walter." He looked at her and smiled a greeting as he continued his conversation. "Very good. Okay, set up the meeting in London for four o'clock, Bangkok time - that'll make it nine there." He listened for a moment, before he finally spoke with a tone that brooked no argument. "On my authority Walter." He paused again. "Excellent. Have a good trip. And give my love to Amelie when you get home." He laughed at something 'Walter' said in response. "Good night."

"Hello," Marq Haydn said to her, putting the cellphone down on the coffee table.

"Hi," Honor responded, wishing she wasn't still flushed with her potential embarrassment, her escape not yet registered physiologically.

"You'd probably hate hearing me ask this again, but how are you feeling?"

Honor had to smile, shaking her head in tired resignation. "Yeah, you're right. I really am beginning to hate that question and all its variants. 'Are you okay? Are you alright? How are you feeling?'"

He let out a genuine chuckle of amusement "Answer me just this one more time, and I promise I'll not ask again."

Two things made Honor hesitate before she finally answered, "I'm fine." A heartbeat later, "Thank you." Her tone and the gap she left between her words made it clear that her gratitude was for more than just his expression of concern. The weight that had settled somewhere under her ribcage and over her heart was not quite as oppressive as it had been just a few hours before. It was there and ready to flare up again, but it felt distant, and tears felt just as far away. Hard to imagine though it seemed, she had begun to mend. She really was not fine yet, but she was ... better.

That was one reason for her hesitation.

The other reason was that something inside her perked up at Marq's display of even teeth when he laughed. That time the smile had reached his eyes, and she was suddenly very aware that she was in the presence of a man who could be very attractive, notwithstanding the rather ordinary nature of his looks, and she suspected that he knew it.

And she, at that moment, less than two minutes before her eyes fixed on the most intensely erotic love scene in the most intensely erotic film she had ever seen, was actually very turned on. Her dark brown nipples were very much on parade under her extremely thin bra, and were it not for the folds and creases of her thankfully loose top, they would have been very loudly advertising her condition to the man standing in front of her.

"You're very welcome," Marq said after his own moment of hesitation, the smile reached his eyes this time as well.

She swallowed and carefully licked her lips with just the tip of her tongue. He would take her from behind, the thought popped into her head. He was exactly that type - he would have her on her hands and knees in front of him, and he would hold her hips up and steady in his hands as he fucked her, strong and in control.

If she let him, that is - she simply could not imagine him forcing himself on her, or letting her come to any harm, and she realized that she'd known that since she confronted him at her she waking up. She felt safe with him, even if she couldn't deny feeling strangely vulnerable when he was looking at her - not threatened, just vulnerable in a way that was profoundly feminine.

Even without his broadness, and just from listening to him talk on the phone to 'Deji' in the taxi the day before and 'Walter' just then, she'd concluded that Marq Haydn was like a mountain; steady, cold, and impregnable. But the sudden warmth of his smile and the memory of the heat in his eyes as he looked at her earlier was making her imagine that the cold mountain could be masking a fiery volcanic center.

"You were here all day?" he asked in his quiet voice.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Have you eaten?"

"Yes. I ordered room service." Honor knew without a doubt that he would not be happy if he knew she'd ordered the food on her own dime.

He nodded his approval. "That's good."

"What about you?" she asked politely.

"I ate when I was out." He looked at her for a moment, then he said, "I'm going to go get out of this jacket and these shoes. I'll be back."

Still trying to make sense of the strange heat in his eyes, she mouthed a quiet, "Okay."

She watched him disappear into the hallway leading to the bedrooms with a sense of disquiet. Something in the back of her mind was sending up an alarm. The man was still a stranger and she was ... 'responding' to him. The thing that had perked up inside her at his smile had perked up even more at his look and a deeper warmth was beginning to invade her lower abdomen.

Barely twenty-four hours after finding out that her fiancee was having an obviously intense and long term affair with her neighbor - intense and significant enough to fly her across the world so he could touch, kiss and make love to her, and she was aroused and alone with another man in a hotel suite in the same city. If she were just to push aside a curtain, she would be looking at the hotel housing the room where her fiancee was riding another woman's perfect supermodel body, kissing her pouting lips and cupping her perky small breasts as he fucked her over and over again.

Tears began to trail down her cheeks as the weight in her chest returned, painful and heavy. She began to blink the tears back when she realized what was happening - she was crying again - and she started using her hands and fingers to dry away the rivulets that were already on her face with sharp and angry motions. She heard the opening and closing of a room door and she emphatically wiped her eyes and her face one final time before she turned to see him walk out of the hallway in a pair of loose khaki pants and a loose black T-shirt, glasses still on, his feet bare and looking very comfortable.

And, considering the sudden tingle of heat in her still overly warmed up abdominal region, very attractive.

She watched him descend the two steps into the living room and sit down in the sofa's matching leather armchair. His eyes focused on her face, and they looked at each other silently for a long moment after he sat down, and Honor began to feel apprehensive at what he was going to say.

"You were crying," Marq observed, making a quiet statement of fact.

Anger surged through her, sudden and hot, and she snapped at him. "That, is none of your business."

"I'm not asking you why you're crying, Miss Banet," he said. "I'm just noting that you were."

"I don't need you," Honor's voice turned cold and hard. "to 'note' it for me."

One side of his mouth turned up. "You've taken off your ring. You had it on in the taxi."

She blinked, surprised despite herself. "I repeat, this is none of your business ..."

"I agree, it is none of my business." Marq stretched his legs out in front of him, still looking at her. "But I'm finding the subject fascinating."

"My crying is 'fascinating'?"

"No." He smiled slightly. "You."

A sensible woman would think of leaving the room right then, Honor thought, but something held her back in her seat, saying nothing, knowing he had more to say.

"Your heart's been broken. Very badly," he said quietly. "By the man who gave you that ring or else you wouldn't have removed it. And it happened just yesterday. I'd say less than five minutes before you ran into my cab."

Honor said nothing.

"Which means he's here, or he's supposed to be here. In Bangkok. And he's either at, or supposed to be at the Excelsior."

Honor closed her eyes, willing the tears back inside. David was 'supposed' to have opened the door to his room at her knock, and the look of shock and delight on his face at seeing her was supposed to have made her feel like the most wanted, desirable and beautiful woman in the world. She would have run into his arms and he would have held her tight for a long breathless moment, letting her know how much he missed her by how close to him he held her body, and she would feel his racing heartbeat answering hers against her chest.

"I don't know what he did exactly ..." Marq continued. "... but after this afternoon with the hanger and all ..." He grinned. "You don't give me the impression of a woman whose heart would break because of something small."

Honor was silent, then she leaned back into her seat, looking at him. "So what type of woman do I give you the impression of being?"

"Strong. Independent. Intelligent. Passionate. Devoted. Sensible. Disciplined. In control of your life." He smiled. "This is probably your first holiday in a long while."

Honor let out a small, dirisive snort despite her disquiet at how close to the mark he was. "I don't feel quite so in control of my life right now."

He smiled. "Sometimes it happens."

"Why are you doing this?" Honor asked suddenly, meaning more than just the conversation they were having that she wished they were not. She knew she'd asked him that same question before, but something compelled her to ask it again.

"I lied yesterday." He shrugged, and suddenly his eyes took on a rather familiar heat. "You took my breath away when I saw you ... You're the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen ... " His voice took on a rough timbre. "... and I could not tolerate knowing you were hurting and alone."

Honor stared at him, eyes wide. There was not a single change in his body language, no sudden tensing of his muscles to hint at any movement toward her. But the volcanic heat was very much back in his eyes. Her body went tense in apprehension, her heart beating hard in her chest. But she wasn't feeling threatened, she felt a strange mix of emotions that she did not bother trying to untangle - a weird mix of anger, misery and ... excitement. Her fiancee was in bed with another woman, her heart felt like it was in a thousand pieces, and right then her body was tingling with arousal in another man's hotel suite - how, she thought, did that make sense?

"My fiancee spent at least a thousand dollars to bring another woman over here. All the way to Thailand." Honor didn't bother trying to stop the tears now because she wasn't crying, not really, "while I had to find a special discount ticket that I cannot change without it costing me an arm and a leg to get here, only to find out that she got here three - no, four days ago." She leaned forward, her voice a snarl "And they're probably fucking right now in their fucking hotel, while I am sitting here listening to you psychoanalyzing me and fucking telling 'me' that I am beautiful!"

Marq didn't say anything. His head tilted to the side, his eyes calmly assessing yet thoroughly predatory.

"If I'm so 'breath-taking', so 'beautiful'," she bit out, ignoring the strange tingling on her chest as she got to her feet, an all-too-clear video of Jillian gasping under her fiancee's thrusting hips playing in a loop in her mind. "why is my own fiancee spending thousands of dollars fucking my neighbor's wife, instead of me?"

Marq looked at her quietly for a long moment after her outburst. "I don't know," he confessed. "I would suspect that he is blind, an idiot, a fool or all three."

Honor stared at him, and then she followed his eyes and looked down at her poking nipples, easily pointing hard through the sheer material of her bra and the thin summer top she had on. The room wasn't cold. He knew, damn him, he knew ... Heat rose from her belly to her face and she collapsed back on the seat, covering her face with her hands. "Why are you doing this?" she breathed out.

He was silent as she cried, trying to come to terms with her humiliation; that the man she'd given her heart to so starkly preferred to be with another woman, and even worse, she was so pathetic, she was imagining him with the woman he was cheating on her with ... and she was still getting wet.

"Honor," Marq said after a few minutes. "Honor, stop crying and look at me."

Honor sniffed a few more times, but she finally lifted her face up to look at him, responding to the timbre of command in his voice.

Marq's gaze was intense. "I want to sleep with you."

She blinked. "What?"

"I said I want to sleep with you." He shrugged. "Three thousand dollars. For one night with you."

She backed away from him, moving herself to the other side of the couch. "Get away from me ...!"

He smiled slightly and shook his head. "I'm not moving from this chair," he added. "He spent at least a thousand dollars, you say, to spend four days, so far, with another woman. I'm willing to spend three thousand dollars for just this one night with you."

She leapt up from the seat, eyeing him warily as she moved to put the sofa and some distance between them. "Do I look like a whore?"

"No, you most definitely don't." He let out a short laugh, "Four thousand dollars." He leaned back in the arm chair.

"I want to leave this place right now," Honor said, backing further away, "I want to get another room. Another hotel. And I'll pay for it myself."

"You can if you want." He smiled at her. "And you really can sit down too. I really am not leaving this seat until you're comfortable with me getting up. Five thousand dollars."

"Is this what you had planned?" she demanded. "When you brought me here?"

He smiled mirthlessly. "No. I'm pretty calculating, but your fiancee sleeping with the neighbor's wife has nothing to do with me. I didn't even plan this ... six thousand dollars."

"Do you really think I'd sleep with you for money? That I'd be so grateful you made me miss my flight, I'll just sell myself to you?"

"Name a charity anywhere and I'll send the money to them. Seven thousand dollars."

That made her pause, her breathing harder and deeper. "Why are you doing this?" Honor felt like an idiot asking that question again, but the feeling was accompanied by something deeper ... more primal. He wanted her, she could feel it - the way he was looking at her was unmistakable. And she was responding; the warmth pervading her abdomen began to spread down to the already moist center between her legs, and the tingling of her nipples was becoming more pronounced, more distracting.

"I think your fiancee made a big mistake, Miss Honor Banet." He made it clear as his eyes traversed her body then that he was mentally undressing her, halting at her breasts and between her legs as if he could see that he was having the effect he wanted. "Eight thousand dollars."

Honor halted then, aware beyond all doubt that this was no game he was playing. "Why ...?"

He smiled. "I've already told you why."

She licked her lips. "You'd spend that much money just to sleep with me for one night?"

He tilted his head. "Yes," he answered simply. "I'd spend ten thousand dollars to spend a night with you. And I'll send it to any place, person or cause you want."

Honor stopped moving and stared at him, meeting his calm and steady gaze with her own, flustered and flushed with heat. Her heart began to beat faster as their eyes met and she licked suddenly dry lips. Her mind raced; she had left herself open enough for him to know that her self-esteem and confidence as a woman had been damaged by what she had seen the night before - and he was cruelly playing on that, taking advantage.

But it wasn't just a game; she could feel the heat in his eyes as only a woman could. Her pussy pulsed with heat, gently contracting between her legs, and as she stood there her imagination began to churn new images into her mind.

She supposed she should be happy to be back inside her own sexual fantasies; the woman was no longer Jillian Blake and it was the man in front of her who was 'behind' her prostrate form as she supported herself on her hands and knees, and he was thrusting deeply into her and making her breasts shake as they heavily dangled to the floor, her mouth open, crying out loudly as he rode her.

"No," she said.

One side of his mouth turned up in a smile. "As you wish."

"I'm leaving now," Honor said.

He only nodded in answer. True to his word, he stayed in his seat and watched her without making a move to get up as she made her way to the hallway. She entered 'her' bedroom and swiftly picked up her bag, opening it to make sure everything was where it was meant to be; they were - her passport, her Air Siam International e-ticket reference number, her phone. She considered leaving her little suitcase behind as she slipped on her shoes, the frivolous red color nothing more than a painful reminder of her discovery that the man she loved was not the man she thought he was. But in the end, she walked out of the corridor pulling it behind her, her bag on her shoulder - the Holiday Sex Guide she left where she had flung it against the wall.

Marq was still in the seat she had left him in when she came out, only turning his head to look at her as she reentered the living room and went to the door. She paused there and their eyes met. Something inside her clenched in response and she licked her lips again.

"Thank you," Honor finally said, meaning more than just his rescue of her from the airport.

He smiled and nodded again. "You're welcome."

She opened the door and stepped out of the suite into the hallway, closing it shut behind her. She was going to go downstairs to the reception desk and she was going to ask for a room for the night, and then she was going to have the concierge arrange a cab to pick her up and take her to the airport well before her ten o'clock flight.

She had just gone past the table with the phone where the hotel security chief had led her earlier that afternoon when her bag started to vibrate against her side. A moment later, a particular ringtone began to play on her phone, slowly increasing in volume as she reached inside the bag to bring it out. Her lips tightened, because she didn't need to see the caller's identification to know who it was. It was a GlobalSIM number, complete with its own special international code.,

She pressed the 'answer' button and put the phone to her ear. "Hello."

"Hey, babe." came David's familiar tenor.

She leaned against the wall of the hallway, even knowing who it was, she suddenly felt as if her knees could no longer support her. "Hi."

"I'm sorry I didn't call yesterday, Hon. Things got kind of hectic and we had to work around the clock again." He sighed. "Can't wait until this is all over and I can be with you again."

Honor bit her lip "I thought you were all taking a break for a few days ..."

"Yeah, well ..." David let out a short laugh. "But Roger - you remember Roger, right ...?"

Honor could only vaguely recall being introduced to someone answering that name at a Christmas party, but she said; "Yes."

"Well, he forgot to cross a 'T' somewhere in one of the incorporation documents and the Malay partners saw it and everything just went all to hell ..."

He sounded so believable; even when she knew he was lying to her, she found herself wanting to believe him as she listened to him spin a tale for her demonstrating just how unreasonable Malay and Thai bankers and lawyers were, how much of a nightmare harmonizing all of the merging banks' individual home nations' convoluted corporate and financial laws and regulations were. That he was in Singapore ...

She would have believed him before; before witnessing the kiss with the neighbor's wife, she would have believed anything and everything he told her. Like she had believed him when he had been telling her how much he was missing her, like he had told her a day before she had gotten on the plane and the day before that. All the while checked into the same room with another man's wife as his own. The only question was whether or not they had been together as he talked to his gullible fiancee back home, or if Jillian had allowed him some privacy to make his phone call before returning to their bed so they could fuck again.

As he spoke, she realized she was intently listening for other things, like another woman's quiet whisper for her lover to drop the phone so they could continue making love, like a sharp intake of breath from him as the other woman caressed him while he spoke to his unsuspecting fiancee on the phone.

"I miss you, honey," David said.

Not knowing why she wasn't screaming at him that she knew he was a liar and a cheat, that she knew he was in a hotel room in bed with Jillian Blake, that she had seen them both with her own eyes, she answered, "I miss you too." She was being honest, in a way - she was missing the man she'd thought he was, the man whose wife she had wanted to be.

"I'd bet not as much as I miss you. Are you hallucinating seeing me anywhere?"

Honor's breath caught - did he catch a glimpse of her at the restaurant? "No."

"I rest my case," David chuckled. "Because I'm hallucinating about you. I was so sure I saw you yesterday."

'He did ...' Honor thought she was going to collapse again from the growing weight that had settled over her heart.

"Actually thought I saw you at the hotel when I was having dinner," he continued obliviously, sounding amused at himself. "Can you believe that? Can't wait till this is over and I can come home to you. Wish you were here so much it hurts ..."

There was a sudden sound from him, and the sound in the earpiece abruptly cut off - as if someone had placed a palm tight over the mouthpiece at the other end. Then the sound came back and she heard a noise that sounded faintly like a hiss, followed by a strange and distant tinkling sound that she would not have noticed if her ears were not quite so focused on picking up any strange sounds coming from the other end - like a woman's teasing giggle.

"Hello? David?" Honor called out.

"I think the line's going bad," David said, sounding strangely choked.

She felt ill. "Oh," she said.

"I miss you, baby. I can't wait to get back to you." David's voice had a very barely noticeable quiver to it, again something she probably wouldn't have noticed before witnessing him kissing his lover in the restaurant, before discovering that he had checked into a hotel room with 'Mrs. Brenner.' "But I have to go now. Need to get back to looking through this paperwork."

Honor already knew the answer, but she gave in to the masochistic impulse to ask anyway. "Is someone there with you?"

"No. No one's with me," David said after a barely noticeable moment of hesitation. He was good, Honor had to give him that. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought I heard someone."

"Oh ... It's just the TV." The tinkling sound came again and this time the tiny hiss came after it, hushing the source of it to be quiet. "I love you, baby."

"I love you too," Honor responded automatically.

"Can't wait to see you again." David made a sound that sounded like he was swallowing, hard. "Bye, hon. I'll call you when this little shitstorm is over."

"Bye," Honor breathed out, tears making their way down her face. She heard the click as David dropped the phone, and she was looking at the phone in her hand as her screen went dark, the connection terminating. She bit her lip, willing herself not to shed another tear, her hand going up to wipe at her eyes.

She shook as she leaned against the wall, her emotions even more of a confused jumble of anger, misery and arousal, everything so mixed up together that she didn't know were one started and the other began. She could not stop thinking of David and Jillian making love over and over again in their room at the Excelsior.

Honor wiped her eyes one more time, and then, pursing her lips, grabbed hold of her suitcase again.

________________________

"A girl could get jealous, you know." Jillian was smiling though as she watched David drop the phone back on the bedside table. "All those 'I love yous' and 'I miss yous' to another woman when I'm in the room is kinda rude. I might just get mad."

"That hurt ...!" David said, rubbing where she had bitten him twice in a playful demonstration of 'jealousy' near his collarbone.

She ran her hand down from his cock and cupped his balls in her hand before she leaned forward and placed a conciliatory kiss on the reddened patch of skin. "There ... does that make it all better?" Touching him while he was on the phone with the woman he was going to marry had been naughty - and his quiet hisses to shut her up when she'd giggled at his sappiness only made it more so ... more exciting.

"It'll take more than that, you nasty little bitch." He lifted her face up and he covered her lips with his, filling his palm with one of her breasts. She moaned against his mouth and the kiss grew hotter and hungrier, her hand stroking his pulsing member, until, with a growl, he rolled them over so he was on top of her, his erection pressed against her abdomen.

"So ..." she breathed as he kissed her neck, "... was I right or not?"

He kissed her lips, hard. "You were right."

"About what?" she teased. "Be specific, Mr. Brenner."

"Honor is not in Bangkok." The woman he had caught a glimpse of in the restaurant had looked so much like his fiancee in that split second that it had refused to leave his mind. Jillian had noticed it with some impatience and finally she had asked him to call his fiancee's number back home despite her demand that the long weekend would involve no calls to their partners, oblivious and thousands of miles away.

"Good boy," she smiled just a little condescendingly as she lifted her head and kissed him, licking at his chin. "I think I deserve a reward by the way ..." She spread her legs meaningfully wider around him. "But first things first ... where were we?"

He chuckled and lifted himself slightly, setting himself at her entrance, and Mrs. Thomas Blake let out a soft moan as David Brenner entered her pussy and she crossed her legs around his hips as he found her lips with his again. She moaned, pumping her hips up to meet his thrusting. "Yeeesss ...!"