“Then I will undress, and I will take a cold shower, and I will climb into that bed and stare at the ceiling until I fall asleep.” His finger pads softly over my shoulder and I make a very soft moaning noise, closing my eyes as I surrender to what surely must be inevitable?
“What you did today is all I require of you.”
His words jolt something inside me, so I blink up at him, shaken momentarily from the sensual fog I’d been drifting through.
“Attending public events as my wife, supporting me even when you cannot forgive me for hurting your father – this is our deal.”
“Not sex?”
His smile is mocking. “No, little one. I do not need to blackmail any woman into my bed. If you do not want to sleep with me, that’s your prerogative.”
Acid floods my stomach because I’m no fool. I can follow a logical line of thought and I can only imagine what he’ll do if I refuse him forever. He is not a man to remain celibate, and he would have any number of women at his fingertips, begging to be made love to by him. Just the idea of that turns my stomach. I feel a primal, possessive instinct and understand, for the first time, how the idea of women scratching one another’s eyes out came about.
I bite into my lip, forcing myself to look directly at him. “You said you wanted a baby.”
“And you said you would not consider that yet.” He pauses. “Are you suggesting you’ve changed your mind?”
I shake my head quickly, though the idea is like quicksand. If I hover over it for too long, I fear I’ll lose myself completely.
“Then relax.” He takes the water glass from my hands, strolling with languid ease to the table and placing it down. He turns to look at me and for a moment a rueful smile catches his expression and stops every cell in my body from firing. My heart freezes, my knees lock into place. Desire throbs heavily.
“A cold shower it is.”
But first, just as he promised, he reaches to his side and pulls on something, loosening his robe, watching me as he lowers it completely so that he can step out of it. My throat is dryer than the desert beyond our windows. I can simply stare as he removes every item of clothing he wears, leaving only an immaculate, chiselled specimen of manhood before me.
His tattoos draw my eyes first, then his abdominal muscles, then his arousal, so huge and strong, so powerful, so memories of yesterday – was it only yesterday? – crowd my mind, weakening my knees all over again. He throbs as I watch and my tongue darts out, licking my lower lip, need hammering me from the inside out. My stomach swirls and I ache to pull him against me, but uncertainty holds me still. My mind is nagging me to hold back, to remember that desire has nothing to do with our marriage, even when I yearn for him in a way I’ve never experienced.
He begins to walk, a slow, feral gait carrying him across the room. I know I should look away but I can’t. Shamelessly I watch him, drinking in the beauty of his lithe, athletic frame, remembering the way it felt when the weight of his body was pressing me to the ground of the cave. Cravings abound; I do my best to ignore them.
Listening to the gentle falling of the shower water does nothing to ease my fever. Desire stretches through me, haunting me, taunting me, breaking me.
I married him for one reason – I thought that would make this clear cut. The last thing I expected was that we’d be spending this kind of time together, that I’d be fantasising about my convenient husband taking me against the wall of the shower, as water rains down over my face…
“Argghhhh!” I stomp my foot, striding to the window and staring out, my heart rate as elevated as if I’d just run a marathon. This is ridiculous. It’s not as though we haven’t already crossed this line. Would there really be any harm in sleeping with him again?
He ruined your father’s life.
My brain hurts from going over this. Back and forth, again and again, what I should do and what I want. I’m stronger than this – I can conquer physical desire, can’t I?
When he emerges from the bathroom a few moments later, a big black towel is slung low on his hips. Despite the fact I just watched his naked stroll to the bathroom, there’s something so erotic about the sight of him like this. It perfectly captures his masculinity. I stare at him, water droplets beading across his sculpted chest, my eyes round in my face as I find I cannot look away. His expression is mocking, his eyes taunting me to face up to what I want – to admit it to both of us and put us out of our misery.
“What does this mean?” I ask quietly, my legs carrying to me of their own volition, my finger hesitating for the briefest pulse of time before pressing to his chest, where a tattoo is scrawled over his ribcage.
“Can you read it?”
I frown, trying to make sense o
f the Qabidi words, but only one or two of them make any sense. “I don’t think so.”
His eyes flash with mine. He catches my hand, pressing my finger to the inked script. He speaks the words in his native tongue and something warms in my belly, need snaking through me at hearing sounds that stir memories and familiarity, and a deep sense of belonging.
“It translates to ‘reason without passion’.”
I blink, the words familiar. “I’ve heard that before.”
“It’s similar to an Aristotle quote – the law is reason without passion. My father used to say this to me about being Sheikh of Qabid.”
I consider that. “Why?”