Leila’s mouth opened, and she finally got out, ‘Coward? I am not a coward.’
Alix stepped away from the door and towards her. She eyed the door, wondering if she could make a run for it, and then his words sank in.
She couldn’t run. So she rounded on him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He walked around her now, looking at her assessingly, and she had to keep turning, getting dizzy.
‘You’re a coward, Leila Verughese. An emotional coward. And I know because I was one too.’
Something like panic was fluttering in Leila’s belly now. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m not a coward and you’re a liar.’
He arched a brow and made a low whistling sound. ‘That’s harsh. I told you I love you and you call me a liar?’
Leila changed tack. ‘Why are you doing this? I’ve told you I’m happy to stay. You don’t have to sweeten it up for me.’
Alix almost sneered now. ‘You’re “happy to stay”—like some kind of martyr? The days of pirates kidnapping European slaves and forcing them into marriage are over. When we marry it’ll be because you want it as much as I do. Because you love me too—except you’re too much of a coward to admit it. Why else would you want us to maintain a distance while we’re married?’
Leila felt her blood draining south. Her last defence was crumbling in front of her eyes. ‘I don’t love you,’ she lied.
‘Liar.’
Alix stalked closer, tension crackling between them.
‘If I’d been more honest with myself sooner I would have recognised it the day we left here—when you said sex is just sex. That was the key. Sex has always been just sex for me. Until you. That’s why I haven’t touched you since we were in here—because as soon as I touch you I’m not in control, and I was afraid you’d see it. And I think it’s the same for you. Dieu, Leila,’ he spat in disgust. ‘You’d really want me to take a mistress?’
Leila could feel her insides tearing apart. ‘But you don’t love me—you can’t. You said it.’
She sounded accusing now. The fairy tale was like a shimmering mirage, and she knew that the moment she committed herself to trusting, believing, it would disappear and she’d be left with less than she had even now.
Alix was ruthless. ‘I can—and I do. You brought me to my knees and showed me that anything less than total surrender to love and all its risks is a life not worth living. It terrifies me, because I know how awful it is to lose someone you love, but I’ve realised that it’s impossible to live in constant fear of that. I want more too—and I want it with you. No one else.’
Leila shook her head, tears making her vision blurry. It hit her then. Alix was right—she was a coward. Terrified to trust. Terrified that the dream didn’t exist. Her mother’s ghost whispered to her even now that it couldn’t. She hadn’t had it, so why should Leila?
Alix stepped right up to her. ‘Say it, Leila.’
She shook her head. ‘Please, don’t make me...’
She had a terrifying vision of telling him she loved him only to see him go cold and shut down, satisfi
ed that his convenient wife had surrendered to him completely.
Alix wrapped a hand around her neck. ‘Then we do it this way... You’re mine, body, heart and soul, and I will leave you nowhere to hide.’
Alix’s head dipped and his mouth settled on hers like a scorching brand. Leila resisted. This was what she was afraid of, and suddenly speaking the words didn’t seem so scary—what was far worse was the honesty he would wring from her now, because she literally would have nowhere to hide.
But it was too late for resistance. And Leila was weak. And again he was right. She was a coward.
She sobbed her anguish into his mouth as his tongue stroked hers and the flames licked higher and higher.
This time there was no way they could make it to the harem bedroom. Leila felt herself being lowered onto the raised platform of smooth marble. Their movements were not graceful or measured. There was a feral urgency to their coming together.
Clothes were ripped off. Alix’s hands were rough, his mouth hard, teeth nipping and tongue thrusting deep into the slick folds of her sex. Leila’s back arched. Her hands clenched in Alix’s hair. His hands clasped her so tightly she knew she’d be bruised, but she revelled in it.
He was her man and she loved him.
And now he loomed over her, huge and awe-inspiring, face flushed and eyes glittering intensely. She saw the need on his face, making his features stark. She saw the uncertainty even now, in spite of his bravado, and her heart ached.
He sank into her body with slow and devastating deliberation, watching her. Demanding that she expose herself utterly.