‘But I misjudged you and insulted you,’ Jasim reminded her darkly, brilliant dark golden eyes welded to her. ‘I believed Yaminah’s melodramatic suspicions and I kept on crediting her take on your relationship with Murad, even after I should have accepted that you were telling me the truth!’
‘Yes, but you do tend to see wheels within wheels where none exist. You’re jealous and possessive by nature,’ Elinor pointed out ruefully. ‘You make everything complicated—’
‘No, I don’t.’ Jasim gave her a look of reproach.
‘Well, you have since I met you. You always seem to expect the worst from women—’
‘Yet I have received only the best from you,’ Jasim interrupted, closing lean hands over hers. ‘You are everything that I ever dreamt of finding in a woman. I know that now yet I almost lost you for ever. I feel sick at the thought that I might never have found you and Sami again.’
‘You’re hurting my hands,’ Elinor told him apologetically. It did seem a very prosaic comment to make in the midst of that emotional flood of appreciation.
He lifted her crushed fingers to his lips and kissed them, massaging them to restore her circulation after the ferocity of his grip. ‘It took me a long time to realise that I loved you. I didn’t think I could fall in love and then I was too slow to recognise it when I did.’
Bemused by that declaration, she stared at him, scarcely daring to believe that he could mean what he was saying. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say those words.’
‘Neither did I,’ Jasim confided, gathering her close to his lean, powerful frame. ‘But I love you very much and I feel amazingly lucky to have you, hayati—’
‘I love you too.’ Elinor allowed her fingertips to trace one hard, angular cheekbone in a tender caress. ‘I honestly believed that you were never going to feel the same way.’
‘You must have suspected when I took you out to see the wild flowers,’ he breathed in wonderment. ‘I’ve never done anything like that in my life before with a woman.’
‘I must have been slow on the uptake as well. I simply thought that you were trying to teach me about Quaram.’
‘I believe I fell for you the first time I saw you on a horse.’ His irreverent grin slashed his lean, strong face. ‘You looked like a wild warrior woman: sexy, strong—’
Highly amused, Elinor smiled up at him. ‘Whatever turns you on.’
‘Unfortunately, my jealousy of the bond I believed you had already formed with Murad coloured everything,’ Jasim admitted flatly. ‘It clouded my reasoning. I couldn’t wait to take you to bed because only then would you be really mine.’
Elinor linked her hands round his neck, loving the fact that he was just so basic and masculine in his reactions. ‘Everything with you happened way too fast for me and I don’t adapt well to things like that,’ she murmured. ‘We barely had five minutes together as a couple before I discovered that I was pregnant, and then playing a leading role in a shotgun marriage didn’t make me feel any better about myself or the decision I was making.’
‘I should have explained to you how I felt about marrying you behind my father’s back. But I should also have looked to the future and made it a more joyful day.’ Jasim frowned. ‘I can see how my attitude gave you the impression that I was a reluctant husband and contributed to your lack of faith in me later that day when you overheard Yaminah.’
‘It was just the last straw, but you weren’t the only one of us who got it wrong. I should have confronted you, rather than just walk out.’
Jasim held her fast to him and tugged up her chin so that their eyes met. ‘The worst of your sins was failing to get in touch even to tell me that you were well and safe. You were pregnant. I was afraid that you might have decided not to continue with the pregnancy.’
Her eyes widened in consternation. ‘Jasim, no, I wouldn’t have done that.’
‘But I didn’t know that,’ he reminded her ruefully.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t phone you. I was horribly bitter. For a long time I thought I h-hated you.’ Her voice faltering to a halt, Elinor wrinkled her nose. Her eyes were prickling with tears, the weight of stress she had borne earlier taking its toll on her, and she buried her face in his shoulder, needing the warmth and security of his closeness. ‘But I think I still loved you and only hated you for hurting me.’
‘I’ll never hurt you again,’ Jasim swore huskily. ‘We have found so much together. I could not bear to lose it.’
‘I was scared you would try to take Sami away from me when you found me again,’ she confessed.
‘I grew up without a mother and I would not have sentenced Sami to the same experience. But I was ready to put on the pressure, pull him away a little and make a lot of noise if it meant that you followed him and came back to Quaram with me.’ Dark gol
den eyes vibrant with amusement as he made that frank admission, Jasim looked so gorgeous he made her mouth run dry. ‘I wanted both of you back in my life full-time. For the eighteen months you were missing, you were all I thought about and other women didn’t exist for me, hayati.’
‘I wish I’d known,’ Elinor lamented.
‘Maybe I needed to lose you to fully appreciate you.’ Tiring of talk, Jasim captured her mouth in an intoxicating kiss and her world went into a sensual spin. Gathering her yielding body into his arms, he urged her down on the bed.
The lingering edge of fear from the afternoon made her as eager for him as he was for her. They shed their garments in a tangled heap and rolled across the mattress welded to each other like magnets. But the act they shared was slow and sweet and joyful with love and mutual appreciation. Afterwards she lay replete and content and very weary in his arms, revelling in the tenderness in his eyes and the way he kept on telling her how much he loved her, words she knew she would never tire of hearing.
‘Some day I’d like another child,’ Jasim murmured huskily, one hand splayed across her flat stomach. ‘I would be there right from the beginning and I would not leave your side until the baby was born, habibti.’