Vengeful Desires

13-

The posh hotel lobby hummed with a cultivated air of refined energy - muted conversations, the soft clink of glassware, and the ever-present movement of money exchanging unseen hands.

Amirah let her gaze drift across the space almost unseeing, unable to shake the nagging sense of displacement that had taken root ever since stepping through the entrance.

"Did you lose something?"

The rich vibration of that familiar voice jolted her from her reverie like an electric shock. Amirah glanced over to find Hyun-woo regarding her with one handsomely arched brow and the ghost of an amused smile playing about his sensual lips.

Rather than the flustered stammer she would have expected from herself, the sight of him sparked an odd sense of...ease.

Tranquility in the eye of life's dizzying storm. Permitting her full mouth to curve in an easy grin, Amirah turned to face him properly.

"Is this your way of flirting with me?" she rejoined lightly, boldly holding his warm gaze as a passing server deposited a flute of crisp white wine into her grasp.

Hyun-woo answered her gentle teasing with an appreciative chuckle, the velvety rumble seeming to caress her from across the handful of feet separating them. "I certainly could be more overt about it if you'd prefer."

Taking an indulgent sip of her drink, Amirah arched one deliberately nonchalant eyebrow over the rim of her glass. "I think subtlety suits you better. At least for now."

Partly to disguise the delirious flutter low in her belly at their deliciously charged back-and-forth, but mostly just because she could - because his heated focus felt like a physical caress along her skin - Amirah allowed her gaze an unhurried sweep over Hyun-woo's lean form.

A dark forest green turtleneck clung to the impressive form of his chest and shoulders, the soft knit fabric begging to be touched, wrinkled between questing fingers as they greedily mapped the intriguing topology of sinewy muscle and heated male flesh beneath.

Combined with the sharply tailored slacks that tugged taut across his powerful thighs with each subtle shift of his stance, the overall effect was...devastating.

Did he have any inkling of the variety of wickedly lascivious thoughts he inspired in her with just a simple look, a scorching graze of his smoldering gaze?

Amirah couldn't be certain, but something in the infinitesimal quirk of his full lips, the banked embers glowing in his half-lidded eyes, told her he had at least an inkling.

And, like a wolf sent to temptation by a ripe, vulnerable lamb, he seemed to absolutely relish fanning those smoldering flames between them ever higher.

"You came," he murmured at last, that rich rumble seeming to shiver through her very core.

Inclining her head in a minute nod of acknowledgment, Amirah permitted herself a sip of the crisp, faintly floral wine, letting the chilled liquid scour away some of the blooming adrenaline needling her senses into rapturous over-awareness of her companion's presence.

"I did," she confirmed evenly. "Though I'm still debating whether or not to turn right back around and return home." This last she accompanied with an airy gesture towards the arched doors behind them, as if the very notion of attending whatever glitzy affair they were meant for wasn't quite as absurd as Hyun-woo clearly perceived it to be.

For his part, the insufferable man merely laughed again - open and full-bodied, utterly devoid of any anticipatory tension.

As if she'd made some manner of delightfully amusing pronouncement, rather than indicating her very real ambivalence about suffering through what was surely yet another numbing parade of stuffed shirts and social choreography.