‘Not under any circumstances,’ Azrael confirmed, black-lashed dark golden eyes welded to her pale, anxious face. ‘I am shocked that you could listen to Firuz and credit his lies for so much as a moment.’
A tad of the tension in her slight shoulders lifted and she snatched in a sudden ragged breath to refill her straining lungs. ‘OK,’ she conceded very quietly.
‘Why would you think such a thing of me? A second wife? Are you not wife enough for me?’ Azrael demanded.
Molly reddened and shifted her feet. ‘We don’t have a real marriage—’
‘It feels real enough to me. It has from the outset.’
Molly jerked a shoulder in an uneasy movement. ‘But we made an agreement that the marriage would only last for a few months.’
‘And then I said that I wanted to keep you and I meant every word of it. I am not the sort of man who says such words lightly. It was not a joke,’ Azrael breathed with simmering impatience, as if he could not understand her lack of faith in him. ‘Did you think I was joking? Shooting you a smart line? Teasing in some way?’
Feeling cornered, Molly bridled. ‘I knew you weren’t joking when you said it but you never said anything more—’
‘What more was there to say?’ Azrael raked back at her in driven frustration. ‘I spoke plainly. I made it clear that I did not wish our marriage to be temporary. I told you that I wanted you for ever—’
‘No, you did not!’ Molly flung back at him with vigour. ‘You didn’t say that. You said you wanted to keep me and that was that.’
‘That’s unfair. How was I to open my heart when you were giving me no encouragement to believe that you felt the same way?’ Azrael demanded rawly. ‘And then when you declared that you did not want to have my child it was obvious that you did not feel what I felt.’
‘And what do you feel?’ she dared to press, leaving aside his conviction that she didn’t want his child.
‘You should know what I feel for you,’ Azrael countered angrily. ‘I have been obvious in my feelings. I may not have used the words but I have tried to prove my love in every way I could...’
Molly felt a shade dizzy and she backed to the side of the bed, using her hands to stabilise herself against the side of the mattress. ‘Prove your love,’ she echoed weakly. ‘You’re saying that you love me?’
‘I think I fell in love with you in the cave but I didn’t recognise it as love until after the wedding. When I thought you’d lied to me about your grandfather I was devastated. That’s why I lost my temper,’ he explained tautly. ‘I have never felt such a connection with a woman. I have never been privileged to share such passion before. Of course, I wanted to keep you. Of course, I want you to be my wife for ever. I know I will never feel for any woman what I feel for you.’
‘You know, when you finally start talking, you are definitely worth listening to,’ Molly framed shakily, tears stinging the backs of her eyes because she was overwhelmed by what he was telling her. ‘But you don’t always listen carefully to what I say. I did not say I did not want your child. I only said it was something that should be planned, something that should only happen ideally in a secure relationship, and I didn’t know we had that.’
‘We are in a secure relationship if you want to stay married to me.’
Molly flung herself at him. ‘Of course I want to. I love you too.’
Hands linking round her waist to hold her close, Azrael smiled, brilliantly, blindingly, dark golden eyes stunning. ‘Well, you didn’t say the words either so how can you hold my silence against me?’
‘And why didn’t I guess that you loved me when you set up our wedding night in the cave?’ Molly mumbled guiltily, both arms tightly wrapped round him, little tremors of relief passing through her slender frame. ‘I was stupid. I was trying to keep my feelings under control, only that never worked around you.’
‘We are both very passionate people,’ Azrael pointed out with appreciation, gazing down into her upturned face with a warmth and adoration she marvelled that she had not recognised until that moment. ‘And with you I feel that I can be myself. I don’t have to put on a show. I don’t have to pretend. I can relax and you don’t expect me to be perfect—’
‘Right now you’re at your highest ever approval rating.’ Molly sidled back a step to haul her stretchy dress up and over her head and let it fall, revelling in the gleam of his admiring gaze over her matching silky underpinnings.
Engaged in shedding his clothing at speed, Azrael grinned at her, scooping her up in his powerful arms to settle her down on the bed. ‘I can work with that,’ he teased, a vision of lithe bronzed muscular perfection as he came down to her emanating predatory sexual power.
‘I’d like a few more months before we think of starting a family,’ Molly told him honestly. ‘I love the idea but I don’t think I’m quite ready to take the plunge yet.’
Azrael laughed. ‘I too would like to have you all to myself for a little longer...but your rejection stung that day. For me then, having a child was the obvious next step—’
‘Only not before you told me you loved me and wanted me to be your wife for ever,’ Molly qualified.
‘You should’ve realised that if I was willing for you to have my child I had no intention of ever letting you go,’ he traded softly. ‘We both want the security that neither of us enjoyed as children for our own family.’
‘Yes.’ Touched that he understood that, Molly stretched up and brushed her lips across his wide sensual mouth, knowing that he would understand that invitation even better. Happiness was bubbling through her in a wash of giddy energy. Azrael was hers, absolutely body and soul hers, and she couldn’t stop smiling at that revitalising knowledge, that wonderful promise for her future.
‘And every year on our anniversary we’ll make a trip back to the cave,’ Azrael d
eclared with romantic fervour. ‘That is where we began.’