He led her on a longer and more scenic return route from the restaurant, walking off the food, their path leading to a barefoot walk on the beach. She had blushed as he took off her shoes, finding it romantic as he knelt in front of her to remove each one. He held them for her with his own as they stepped onto the sand.

A live band was playing in the distance, the faintly familiar music somehow mixing harmoniously with the sound of the surf.

She found herself unable to stop stealing glances at him as he talked to her about everything and nothing, holding her hand. Soon she was simply looking at him, no longer bothering to hide it.

She learned that, like most boys, he had wanted to be an astronaut, but he had gone as far as joining an astronomy club. Which is why he could identify and point out constellations to her in the night sky.

She saw none of the shapes he said were there, but she had loved how animated he had become, and she had delighted in interrupting his outpouring of information with especially torrid tongue heavy kisses.

"Ah ..," he said, stopping as he saw something on the sand.

Marq picked up the palm frond and stripped out a stem. She watched him, confused at first, as he strung the stem through his sandals and her heels before he knotting it all through one of his belt loops. His hands were now free.

It was such a nerdy thing to do that she had laughed.

He shrugged. "I'm an engineer at heart. I solve problems."

She gestured at the shoes hanging off his waist. "And what problem does this solve?"

He had taken her into his arms and kissed her then, his hands free to roam, his hardness from her kisses pressing against her, forcing her to admit that his solution was a stroke of genius.

He soon learned something new about her too.

Stalls and carts still lined the beach's edge despite the lateness of the hour, lights on but low, selling everything from kebab skewers to ice cream. Marq got them smoothies served in small cored pineapples, and Honor had promptly identified the variant of the fruit.

"Maipure."

"What?"

"This is a Maipure pineapple."

Marq looked at her. "You can tell a pineapple's ... 'species' by just looking at it?"

"Only about twenty ..." she admitted.

"What about apples?" he asked. "I heard there are at least two thousand ...?"

"Seven thousand, five hundred variants ..." Honor corrected. "And counting."

His eyebrows went up. "Oh ..."

"And I know about ... thirty?"

"By sight, by taste?"

"And texture." She smiled. "Yes."

He stopped to look at her, genuinely brought up short. "That's ridiculously impressive, Miss Banet."

Honor blushed. "Different types of the same fruit cook and bake differently."

"So ... pineapples, apples and ...?"

"Strawberries, citrus, mangoes ..." Honor continued, grinning, showing off, enjoying his admiration. "We all had to take a class literally just called 'Fruit' in Bordeaux." She pronounced 'fruit' in French.

Marq stopped again. And she turned to look at him, curious.

"Tell me how much you need to open your patisserie."

She stared at him, her breathing suddenly deeper. Then she said, "No."

"Why?" he demanded.

"I don't want your money, Marq."

"This has nothing to do with ..."

"It has everything to do with it!" Honor snapped, angry. "Whether you like it or not!" She stepped close to him. "The moment I take any money from you, for myself, that's the moment I become a whore, not 'your' whore, just a whore. And I'm not a whore, Marq. Don't make me one."

"That word has nothing to do with you, Honor," he said. "Stop using it."

"Then don't offer me money after fucking me."

"I'm not just 'offering' you money. And it's not for having sex with you. This is an opportunity ..."

"Opportunity?" she snarled.

"For me, Honor," he said, his calm fraying. For the first time in front of her. "This is an opportunity for me. To invest in something, someone, I have absolute faith in. You."

"That doesn't change anything ..."

"Yes, it does," Marq insisted. "We, my partners and I, started Ascent to help people. We still do. People like Jao. Like you. We did not start with big accounts and blue chips."

He took her hand. "Do you know what Somsak said to me about you? That you are going to be better than even Phillipe Dufour. And I can see it. I can see this amazing wonderful passion in you, and ..."

She shook her head. "I'm not trying to start some multi-billion dollar company ..."

"I don't care what size you want to be, Honor," he said. "You're going to succeed at whatever scale. You're going to have people lining up outside your doors because you are that good. I just want you to let me be a part of it. I am asking you to let me help."

She turned away, and she was grateful for his silence, allowing her to think.

She looked back to him at last and then she stepped forward, putting her hands on his shoulders. She kissed him. Softly. "No, Marq," she whispered. She silenced him with another kiss when he tried to say something.

She loved kissing him.

"Thank you for your faith in me," she said when she broke the kiss. "But I don't want to get any more confused than I am now. I need to do this on my own."

For a moment, he looked like he was going to keep pushing, to persist on it, to demand her submission. And she was even more afraid that she would surrender.

Because accepting his 'help' meant having him in her life, her real life, not the otherworldly sex filled fantasy she was in now with him. And it terrified her; how much she wanted it, how much she wanted him.

Sensible, disciplined Honor Banet rose to the fore; it was unsustainable. Any further entanglement with him would be far too dangerous.

Especially since their arrangement was ending in less than three days. In less than seventy two hours, she would not be his odalisque anymore.

"Please," she said, "don't push. Don't say anything. Just accept my decision."

He looked unhappy, but he took a deep breath and leaned forward, lifting her chin up. "Okay, Miss Banet," he said, before kissing her.

She smiled at him when his lips left hers, and he smiled back, and after another pregnant moment, she pulled on his hand, continuing their stroll down the beach, toward the music.

As they got closer to the live band, Honor realized why it sounded so familiar.

"I've heard this before," Marq said, getting it too, the predatory glint back in his eyes. Over the next rise, the band was covering Fernando Marqelo's most popular hits.

He stopped; close enough to clearly hear the music but well away from the crowd surrounding the band. "Would the lady honor me with a dance?" He sighed at her amused look. "No pun intended."

She giggled, letting herself be pulled, closing the distance between them, remembering her first - and last - tango 'lesson' with him, Marqelo providing the music. She also distinctly remembered being naked and where it had inevitably ended up.

"Yes, she would." She kissed him. "Always."

"If I remember correctly," he said, as she melded her body against him, "we never did finish my tango lesson."

She gave him a look of mock outrage. "And whose fault was that, Mr. Haydn?"

He smiled. "I can't recall."

"Liar," she sniffed. "You just had to fuck me, didn't you?"

He looked into her eyes, all predator. "Always."

She smiled at that, and kissed him again.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well, what?"

"Are we continuing my lesson?"

She sighed dramatically. "Yes." She held up a finger. "But only if you promise you're going to let me finish ..."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

She kissed him. "Yes."

He smiled. "Okay. I promise."

"Good." She kissed him again, putting her arms around his neck.

He kissed her back, and then he pulled down her top to her waist, exposing her breasts, her nipples swiftly hardening and pointing at him.

"You promised!" she gasped, making no attempt to cover herself. What was the point?

Besides, he liked seeing her breasts.

He gave her a quizzical look. "I promised to let you finish the lesson. I promised nothing about clothes."

Technically, he had not broken his word. She furled her lip. "I hate you."

The 'lesson' lasted about two songs before she ended it. "That's it! Oh my @#&%! I'm done!" She gasped, as Marq laved his tongue down her throat, one breast cupped in one hand, the other gripping her waist.

If Marq Haydn were ever to become a milonguero, she decided, it would be because another woman taught him, not her. Jealousy raged through her at the thought, but she had more pressing concerns.

Once again, the high slit and easy adjustability of the skirt proved highly convenient as she lay back on the sand, spreading herself open as she pulled him on top of her.

"Lesson over," she growled, when their lips parted. "Fuck me, Marq. Start fucking me now."

She was still wet, his cum still coating her insides from the restaurant, so his entry into her body was an easy affair, her pussy parting readily for him as he sank all the way inside her with a groan of absolute enjoyment.

At first, she had pumped her hips, made near frantic by his relentlessly exploring and plundering hands, his hardness pressing against her during their 'lesson'. But he pressed down, grinding on her, subduing her until she lay still, gazing up at him, surrendering with a quiet moan as he possessively took her lips.

He rode her slowly on the sand, kissing her, caressing her body, taking her nipples into his mouth, his soft grunts in her ear answering her quiet gasps in his.

Toward the end, her gasps stopped being quiet, as he deliberately slammed hard into her at the end of every slow stroke, their bodies slapping loudly together as she squealed and clutched at him, lifting her knees up, drawing him in deeper into her body.

She came with a choked cry as his lips covered her own, seconds before he stiffened, driving himself hard inside her one last time, holding her as he released again in her vagina, her walls fluttering around him as she gasped out his name.

Honor came to as he was sitting up, cradling her in his arms, somehow still inside her. She put her arms around his neck, their foreheads meeting, her naked breasts resting against his shirted chest, breathing together, wordless for a long time, listening to the waves crashing on the beach.

The intimacy of it sent a familiar surge of alarm, of danger, through her. But she simply didn't want to move. He stroked her naked back and she whimpered, helpless, what was left of her walls crumbling as she stopped fighting and sought his lips.

They had less than three days ...

There were tears in her eyes when their lips parted, and they were falling freely down her cheeks when they finally stood up from the sand, after several more searching kisses.

He held her as she buried her face in his neck until her sobs subsided, and then he led her off the beach, kneeling again to slip her sandals unto her feet.

She did not cover her breasts or reposition her skirt as she walked with him back to their villa, leaving herself open so he could see and touch her, stopping every so often to demand his lips again or just to be held in his arms, her emotions a confused and jumbled mess.

She felt exhausted and drained as he kissed her in front of Villa 6 before he led her inside, close to midnight. Silent, she had let him remove the top from where it was bunched around her waist, and then her skirt, letting it fall to her feet, before taking her into the bathroom.

She let him unhook the pussy plug but refused to let him take off the bodychain, silent, not explaining herself, not needing to.

He bathed her, lathering and showering off the sand from her hair and skin, kissing her all over her body while firmly stopping her from returning the favor; the experience somehow more intimate than sexual even as he finally held and masturbated her to another shaking silent climax before letting her go.

She was waiting for him on the bed, teeth brushed and hair mostly dried when he came out of the shower himself, leaning back on her hands, legs spread wide, displaying herself - his odalisque, ready for him. 

She frowned confusedly when she saw that he wasn't also naked, but she went to him nonetheless when he got on the bed and reached for her.

He held her, wrapping her in his arms, his hands cupping her breasts and belly as she squirmed against him, containing her, and, despite herself, she had relaxed into his embrace and quickly fallen asleep.

He had always been a calm and rational man even in the most trying of times. But Marq Haydn lay awake for a long time, feeling something akin to panic settling inside him as he breathed her in, wondering what he was going to do after she boarded her flight in Bangkok to go home in a little over two days.

________________________

She had been pragmatic when she had chosen what to wear for the flight back to Bangkok. Her wardrobe on the island contained more than one sarong large enough to be made into a dress. So she had elected for the smallest, knotting it into a familiar twisting halter that stopped above mid-thigh, noting the thinness and near sheerness of it, the way the fabric clung to her body, the way her nipples poked hard through it.

Happily, it had perfectly matched the ornamental hair clutch and heeled slip-ons she slid unto her feet, convincing her that she had made the right choice.

Marq's reaction, especially after his discovery that she had, pragmatically again, worn nothing except her chain underneath, further confirmed it.

He enjoyed displaying her, but he absolutely loved it when she displayed herself for him.

They had taken off from the water as the sun was rising, casting its light on the island, and despite the awe-inspiring beauty, the incomparable tapestry of oranges and blues, Honor had felt the weight settle again in her chest.

She looked at him in the pilot's seat, his eyes on the instrument panel, again stirred by his easy competence. He felt her gaze and smiled at her, that slight quirk of his lips that now filled her with longing.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, his voice coming clear through her headset the noise cancellation feature in full effect.

"Yes," she said, fixing her gaze on him. "It is."

To her delight, he looked abashed, his iron control slipping. She squirmed, wanting desperately to go across and kiss him right then. And do even more.

She didn't need sensible, disciplined Honor Banet to rise up to tell her that was a bad idea.

Instead, she lifted herself slightly and raised the hem of her makeshift 'dress' over her hips, her naked butt now meeting the leather seat. She smiled at him as she crossed her legs.

He stared at her until she pointed to the forward window. "Eyes forward, Mr. Haydn." She smiled as she heard him curse quietly in her headset.

She unbuckled herself and went to his seat immediately he was done landing and taxiing them to a halt at the first refueling stop. He lifted himself up indulgently as she yanked his pants down and knelt to take him into her mouth, bringing him to full hardness in less than a minute.

She lifted her 'dress' up to her belly and straddled him, hooking her legs up over his arm rests, making a keening noise as she sank down on his cock, laving her tongue over his lips when he wrapped his arms around her.

"Be 'still', Mr. Haydn," she said, lips against his, smiling impishly, squeezing with her kegel muscles, drawing a sharp intake of breath from him. "Don't move." She licked at his lips. "I just want you inside me."

He looked at her, wonderingly. "How can you be so incredibly amazing, Honor Banet ...?"

She rested her forehead against his, their breaths intermingling, accepting her sudden need to just sheathe and hold him inside her, to 'sit-still' on him, aware of the intense intimacy of it, wondering if their impending parting was what was making her so reckless.

"You, Mr. Haydn," she said. "It's all you."

The refueling truck beeped continuously as it made its way to their plane. As before, the fuel was already specified and paid for.

"Tell me about that Positivius guy ..." she said, looking into his eyes.

"Positivius?"

She smiled. "The guy who used the stars to figure out the size of the Earth?"

He looked amused. "You mean Posidonius?"

"Yes. Him." She kissed him, rewarding him for his knowledge. "How did he do it?"

"That's what you really want me to talk about?"

She playfully furled her lip, unsubtly grinding down on his cock, technically violating the 'sit-still' rules, and nodded. "Yes."

"Okay," he said, his lips quirking up. He reached under her dress to cup one heavy breast, playing with her chain, his finger stroking over the nipple, which was standing at full attention.

"He measured the angle of Canopus ..."

"Is Canipus a star?" Honor asked, innocently looking as if there wasn't a cock in her pussy that she was playing with right then.

"Canopus," Marq corrected, also gamely pretending she wasn't rhythmically squeezing him. "And yes, it's the second brightest star in the sky. It's a blue supergiant that is approximately seventy times bigger than the sun. It's in the Carina constellation."

She smiled, shaking her head. "I'll take your word for it, Mr. Haydn." She whispered under her breath, "Nerd."

He made an amused noise and continued. "So Posidonius measured the angle of Canopus at Rhodes in Greece and then at Alexandria in Egypt, which are around five hundred miles apart."

The refueling truck had rumbled up alongside the plane, the telescopic nozzle extending out to the filler port. There was a snap and click as they connected, and then came the liquid rush, the beeping changing to a sharper and faster tone as fuel was pumped into the tank.

He went silent as she shifted, slightly, but enough to break his train of thought. "So he did some geometry and calculated that the Earth is twenty four thousand miles around."

She arched her breasts up into his hands as he ran them up her stomach. "Was he right?"

"He was only off by three percent," Marq confirmed. "Which is very very good since that was more than two thousand years ago."

"That's ..." She closed her eyes at his touch, trying not to move anything below her waist, "... impressive ..."

"Yes," Marq agreed.

Her breathing had become harsher, deeper, and she went silent as she tried to hold still.

Her eyes snapped open.

"Stop. Stop moving," she said, not referring to the hands circumnavigating her nakedness under the sarong.

"I'm not moving," he growled.

"Yes, you are!" she insisted.

"No, I'm not," Marq responded, though his breathing had become rougher too.

"Oh my @#&%!" Honor moaned, moments later, hyperventilating.

There was another snap as the fueling nozzle disconnected, the refill completed. The truck trundled away, back to its normal beeping.

"Oh my @#&%!" Honor cried out again, and she sharply stood up off him, his member popping out of her, gleaming wetly, covered in wads of her lubrication.

It was easily one of the nastiest, most erotic sights she had ever seen. That and the fact that her inner thighs were coated with her fluids, and that her 'dress' was starting to stick wetly to the space between her legs.

The radio crackled. "Alpha-Sierra-Seven-Niner-Four-Delta. Wind two-seven-zero at five. Runway is cleared for take-off. No reported traffic. Over."

Marq was breathing hard as well. Then his iron control reasserted itself. He lifted his butt off his seat and pulled his pants over his erection.

It looked painful.

"Cleared for takeoff. Alpha-Sierra-Seven-Niner-Four-Delta. Over and out," he said, flicking on several switches.

The plane sparked to life before settling into its loud purr.

He looked at her as he brought his headset over his ears, his lips quirked up once again, but his eyes were all predator. She was standing, looking desperately at him, in a predicament of her own making. "You should strap in, Miss Banet."

"Fuck!" she swore. She shook as she went back to the co-pilot's chair, lifting her dress over her belly again as she sat, knowing she would be leaving a liquid smear on the seat, but not caring. At all.

She wore her headset as she looked over at him. "I hate you."

He let out a short, strained laugh before turning his attention back to the controls. The plane accelerated down the runway, lifting off and climbing out over the treeline at the far end of the small island airfield.

He keyed in to departure control, reported his bearings and got approval to change frequency and resume his own navigation.

Throughout, Honor glared at him.

He looked at her and shrugged. "It was your idea."

She furled her lip. "You couldn't have asked for another fifteen minutes?"

His levity vanished, and he growled. "That wouldn't have been nearly enough for me, Miss Banet."

That mollified her. A little. But after squirming for another half hour after they leveled off, she couldn't bear it anymore and she began to touch herself, letting him see her and hear her moans through his headset, punishing him despite her condition being her fault.

They fucked in one of a series of small cabins used by long-distance pilots in need of rest at the second stop, rented by the hour. Marq had simply asked for the price but Honor, kissing and nuzzling his neck as he spoke, had shamelessly made it very clear to the middle aged proprietress exactly what they intended to do there. And it wasn't to rest.

There was nothing tender about the way Marq handled her, not that she minded, or blamed him. She had masturbated twice and let him know quite loudly through their headsets, while aware he had a erection to end all erections, thanks to her decision to suck him and then just 'sit-still' on his cock.

She was only grateful that the room was clean with fresh sheets.

She also congratulated herself for her pragmatic decision to wear something that required no effort to remove. Anything else would have been torn to shreds and she would have had to land in Bangkok naked.

She suspected that Marq would have very much enjoyed that.

The first thing she had been forced to do in the cabin, after hurriedly undoing the sarong before he ripped it to pieces, was clean up the gamy liquid mess she had left on his penis and entire pubic region.

Luckily, Marq had paid for two hours so she could take her time and do a thorough job, fighting her gag reflex and taking him deep. Her hair clutch came in handy, keeping her hair out of the way as he grasped her head and growled his pleasure.

It was not in his nature to give up so much control so she had found herself being manipulated, spun around until her pussy was over his mouth, his erection still engulfed in hers. He pulled on her until she was sitting on his face, stiffening as his tongue penetrated her slit, and for what felt like an eternity, she was locked in a world of pure pleasure, giving and taking, their movements and sounds guiding each other.

She wailed out loud when he entered her at last, from behind, yanking on the sheets as he pulled on her chain and stroked into her body, hard and deep, satisfying the hunger she had stirred up in the air and on the ground.

He was too stimulated to last long and he had pulled out and come all over her back as she collapsed, shuddering uncontrollably, sweat gleaming on her skin despite the air conditioning on at full blast, feeling that strange overwhelming surge of pride and joy as he collapsed, gasping, on top of her.

They used the ensuite shower together, but by some unspoken mutual agreement, despite the reigniting of their hunger, the kissing, licking and stroking under the falling water, they decided not to add another hour to their layover.

The proprietress let them know there was a canteen where they could eat but Marq had stocked water, juice, coffee and gourmet sandwiches on their plane. He had even gotten reading material for her.

Taking off was another routine affair, their impromptu two and half hour stop negating the tailwind that had accompanied them from the island. Honor had refashioned the sarong into a bandeau style dress, tying the knot over her breasts, again lifting the dress above her hips to sit her bare bum on the co-pilot's seat, wiggling and making sure he saw.

"Take it off," Marq said, voice clear in her headset when they had leveled off.

Her lips parted. "What?" she said, even though she knew what he meant.

"What you're wearing. Take it off, Miss Banet. Now."

It turned out she would land in Bangkok naked after all.

She pulled on the knot and the 'dress' fell off.

'I like seeing your breasts,' he had said. So she showed them to him for the entire flight.

She wore the 'dress' back when they landed in Bangkok, Mongkhut waiting with a diffident smile for them both at the airfield they had flown out from just outside the city.

She had taken it off again in the back seat for the ride to the hotel, when she had climbed unto Marq's lap, distantly disturbed at herself, at her naked desperation for his touch, at her even thinking of suggesting another 'sit-still'.

She had worn it once more when they reached the Grand Imperial, for the journey through the lobby to the elevators.

She didn't know if Marq had simply kept the suite while they were on the island or somehow arranged to have it available for when they returned. Either way, he had led her straight up to '1615' when Mongkhut had delivered them to the Grand Imperial.

It was late afternoon on a weekday, so like the elevator, the corridor had been empty. She had noted the emptiness, and she had immediately undone the knot over her breasts, letting the sarong fall off her body.

"Marq," she said, calling him to see.

He had crushed her against the wall beside 1602, their lips meeting, and she had let out a hungry moan of delight as his hands roamed her body, as she grinded her pelvis against him. He licked her from her lips down to her breasts, sucking on each loop surrounded and pointing brown knot of flesh, biting, making her squeal before he hurried them to 1615. He pulled on her chain, the nooses squeezing her nipples, making her hiss as he half dragged and carried her down the corridor and into the suite.

That was the last time she had worn any item of clothing, the last time she had given much thought to anything else because he had occupied her completely, mind and body, after that.