Chapter: THE ART OF SEDUCTION

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Why was he taking her to a hotel and not to his apartment, for instance?
She wasn’t even sure where he lived. She had not paid much attention
to the building to which he had asked her in for a nightcap the other 
evening. She looked at him and he was smiling like someone holding a
surprise in store. Perhaps his name wasn’t even Maximilian Dietrich...

The elevator stopped. Overpowered by dread, she became blank with 
panic. She followed him out of the elevator, down the hallway like 
a robot and stopped beside him in front of a door. He gave her a roguish, 
leery smile she could not describe, before inserting the key-card 
in the door. She stood there, as if paralysed. It occurred to her 
to run away back to the elevator or the stairway, but somehow her 
body did not take any action. Her mind failed to pass on the command 
for her feet to move. She felt like she was in one of those horrible 
dreams, when one needs to run away desperately from whatever, and 
yet is incapable to do so; the legs seem unable to budge no matter 
how hard one wishes them to. That’s what nightmares are made 
of. But she was not in her bed, though she mightily wished she were. 
This was live reality. The present! Now!

Maximilian pulled out the card, checked the number on the door against 
the card in his hand, than inserted it in the slot again, and the 
door was open before her.

“After you my lady.” Said he, courteously bowing, his 
arm extended toward inside the room.

He acted so normal...too normal. Perhaps perversion came naturally 
to him. She searched his eyes momentarily for telltale sings of any 
sort, but finding none, looked in beyond the open door, still only 
half-conscious of herself. The room seemed enormous, empty of people 
as far as she could tell, and Eve could see the wide-open sky with 
a few scattered fluffy clouds floating in the twilight beyond the 
glass wall at the far end. It was a magnificent site. As she stepped 
in, she realised that she had been half holding her breath.

“What a view, the sky is pink!” She exclaimed walking 
up to the wall-to-wall window, forgetting for a moment the mortal 
panic she had been in. She twisted backward, away from the sky view, 
toward the suite and Maximilian Dietrich...if that was his name, it 
occurred to her suddenly. Frankly, she could not be sure of anything 
with this man, so full of surprises.

“I ordered it specially for you.” He murmured sotto-voce 
as he came up to her, embracing her from behind. Unprepared for it, 
a cold shiver ran down her spine straight away.

He let go subsequently, unaware of the nature of her nearly imperceptible 
tremor, saying: “Give me your coat, I can assure you my dear, 
my experience tells me that you’ll feel hot like hell in a minute.”

Whatever did he mean by that? His voice was untailored and sounded 
perfectly relaxed, wooing, self-confident...too self-confident perhaps. 
She turned around to face him.

The twilight behind her cast a magnificent warm, golden glow over 
the furnishings and particularly on the German. His blond hair, as 
if lit from within, took on unreal hues, his face, bushy brows shimmered 
whimsically and his eyes sparkled with controlled anticipation. His 
full lips parted in a voluptuous smile. Lucifer! That was it! Gorgeously 
handsome, he was temptation incarnate.

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