Something dark.
Something that troubled him.
Something that reminded him of that night he’d taken his stallion and run, fast, to the caves near the Oasis of Manama. A doubt, an uncertainty, and an ache.
He looked at her and remembered her as she’d been then. Remembered how he’d felt when he’d first seen her.
And he remembered every reason he’d had for keeping her at a distance all these years.
He circumnavigated the bed, moving to his side, picking up the book she’d been reading absentmindedly, and smiling to himself when he saw what it was.
The Republic had been one of his favourites. As a child, their mother had read it to them, both Malik and Addan adoring the wisdom, feeling its relevance and insight. Her own cover was well-worn, as though she read it often.
He turned to the front page, and saw the hint of scribble through it.
At his brother’s familiar hand, he stilled.
Addan.
Addan had given this book to her.
It was yet another thing she shared with his brother – because she was his. She always would be. She was an inherited bride, a borrowed wife.
She wanted them to be ‘friends’, but that had never been enough for him.
With a sinking heart, he moved towards the bathroom, stripping naked and starting the shower running.
He stood under the water for a long time, his mind working double-time, trying to make sense of the fact that he was married to the woman who had been hand-picked to marry his brother.
Trying to make sense of any of it – and failing.
She reached for him on autopilot, somewhere in the very middle hours of the night, when dawn was still a long way off and the night’s magic was at its thickest. She reached for him from the depths of her sleep, her hands finding his chest, running over his muscles, her fingers seeking every ridge and curve, her palms flat against his muscular abdomen. Lower, to the curve of his rear.
“Sophia,” he murmured, low and throaty, his eyes firing open, pinning her with the strength of their inquisition.
She didn’t say anything, at first. She pushed up, straddling him, her long hair falling over her shoulders in curtains. “You didn’t wake me,” she said quietly, dropping her mouth, kissing him, tasting him.
He groaned. “No.”
She reached for the hem of her nightgown and lifted it, casting it across the room, and he sat up, bringing his mouth to her breasts, flicking her nipples with his tongue until she was incandescent with desire.
“Please,” she groaned, lifting up so his hands could slip inside the elastic of her underpants and push them down. She stepped out of them, bringing her body back over his, craving him, needing him, every ounce of her aching for him. She took him deep inside, and he thrust his hips, so she arched her back, her body falling apart, desire like a firework in her gut.
She dug her nails into his shoulder and he pulled up, kissing her again, kissing her breasts, her mouth, her throat, sucking on her flesh and gripping her hips so hard and with all the desperation he felt – that was deep inside her too.
Their explosion was quick and simultaneous. Holding one another tight, they tipped over the edge, with the evening’s magic thick around them, the heat of the day nothing compared to the fire they generated.
Her breathing was raspy, her skin covered in perspiration, her heart racing. She looked down at him, and her heart skipped a beat. Because there was something in his expression she hadn’t expected. Something she couldn
’t make sense of, that filled her with a sense of apprehension.
It was compounded when he shifted his weight, gently tumbling her onto the bed beside him. He pulled the cotton sheet up, laying it gently over her shoulders.
“Go to sleep, Sheikha.”
Dawn yoked slowly over the desert, passing gold and violet hues over the palace. She looked out at it, her eyes watching the changes in colour, the gradual bringing of light, and she thought of his tattoo. She thought of the idea behind it, of light coming after dark. That even the worst storms lead to a clearing, eventually.
But when you were in the middle of a storm, how could you find the light?