‘Wow...’ she framed in the aftermath, weighted to the mattress like a stone statue out of its element, gazing up at him with stunned eyes. ‘Didn’t know I could feel like that.’
‘Didn’t know Icouldmake a woman feel like that,’ Rafiq traded with a flashing grin of satisfaction. ‘I’m experimenting with you.’
‘I’m like a session in the lab? Homework?’
‘Infinitely more exciting than that,’ Rafiq breathed, sliding between her spread thighs and lowering his head to snatch a breathtakingly demanding kiss that sent her fingers diving into his silky black hair to hold him close.
He surged into her, her body stretching to send sublime messages of pleasure through her quivering length. ‘Do that again,’ she said raggedly, struggling to breathe.
And hedid.
And it was even more amazing because he slowed his pace to tease her, sending sensation slowly, oh, so slowly, sending her every nerve-ending into screaming overdrive to the height of excitement and craving. He flipped her over like a rag doll, ground into her from behind at the same time as he strummed that tender bud, and that fast she hit another orgasm, shrieking his name, out of her head, out of control, almost frightened by the drowning onslaught of sheer physical pleasure.
‘So, no more separate bedrooms,’ Rafiq murmured raggedly as she lay in his arms afterwards. ‘Waste of time. Waste of opportunity. Waste of everything that we can be.’
‘But we still have an end date,’ she reminded him helplessly.
‘Everything has an end date,’ Rafiq qualified, deciding then and there that he would do everything within his power to stave off that end date for as long as was humanly possible.
‘True.’ And it was only sex,casualsex, she reminded herself, nothing that she needed to get all worked up about. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know anything about having a casual relationship because presumably hedidand a few months down the road, she would barely remember him or the ecstasy, she told herself fiercely.
She was young and she was strong, no man’s patsy, no man’s fool. She would move on, write off Rafiq to the accident of fate he had been. She couldn’t call him a mistake because it wasn’t his fault that she had conceived, but they didn’t belong together. He was going to be a king, for goodness’ sake, utterly removed from her in every way, just as their twins would be in their relation to him, she registered belatedly, titled royals with a commoner mother with no claim to fame.
Long powerful fingers splayed across her stomach, which was no longer quite flat. ‘I still think they’re a miracle,’ he murmured levelly. ‘And I’m already so curious about them.’
‘I suppose you’re hoping for a boy to be your heir,’ Izzy remarked, involuntarily touched by that miracle reference coming her way again.
‘The firstborn will be my heir. Gender is irrelevant. A warrior queen here in the eighteenth century put that kind of sexism behind us. A future queen in waiting will be as acceptable as a king.’
‘Awarriorqueen?’ Izzy exclaimed, startled by that news.
‘And reputedly a tougher negotiator than all the tribal heads put together!’ Rafiq extended with amusement. ‘It is many years since there was a constitutional bar to a woman taking the throne in Zenara. Zenara may strike you as a conservative country but, in some fields, we’ve always been quite free thinking.’
That assurance was a huge surprise to Izzy and not an entirely welcome one because in the back of her mind she had already been guilty of thinking that if she gave birth to two girls Rafiq might choose to be less involved with them and seek less regular access. Her cheeks coloured with shame at that ungenerous thought because itwasselfish of her to want to keep the parental sharing to the minimum. Their children would benefit most from havingtwointerested parents.
‘Are you planning to visit the children here on weekends and school holidays?’ Rafiq enquired curiously, wondering and in great surprise at himself if it could even be vaguely possible to run a marriage on such a part-time basis.
And Izzy froze as if a fire alarm had gone off and sat up with a sudden jerk, a befuddled expression stamping her triangular face as she shook her head. ‘Visit them...here?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘Why would I bevisitingmy children when they’ll belivingwith me?’
A silence laden with electric undertones fell and Rafiq gazed back at her with much of the same frowning disbelief.
‘I mean, I know we never actually talked about the arrangements in anydetailbut I naturally just a-assumed,’ Izzy stammered, watching the dark tension clench his lean, devastatingly handsome features taut with a sense of foreboding.
Rafiq was very still. ‘And I assumed that you would be leaving the children here in Zenara with me to be raised as royals,’ he breathed in a raw undertone. ‘I thought you understood the situation. It is not solely of my choosing that they should live here but how else can they learn the language and how to integrate with our life if they only make occasional visits?’
Izzy had already heard more than enough. She snaked out of the bed like an electrified eel, stooping in haste to gather up her discarded clothing. Her hands snatched at her panties in desperation and she struggled to climb into them. Her hands were shaking. She could not credit,refusedto credit that he could have thought for one moment that she would be prepared to walk out on her children with only occasional visits back to see them on offer.
‘What sort of a monster do you think I am that I could agree to walk away from my kids?’ she demanded wrathfully.
Lean, strong face hardening, Rafiq also left the bed. ‘I did not attach such an offensive label to you. This is an emotive subject and you need to calm down.’
‘I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do!’ Izzy slammed back at him furiously, outraged to register that she was on the brink of tears.
‘Izzy.’
‘You made horrible assumptions about me and got me to marry you on false pretences!’ she condemned in gritty interruption. ‘When I leave Zenara in a few months’ time I will betakingmy children with me!’
‘Not without my consent,’ Rafiq slung back at her without hesitation as he hauled up his jeans and zipped them.