But failing that, he just needed to be alone. He needed time to process. Time to rebuild. He couldn’t do that with her here.
“Please do not take this personally,” he said. “Please don’t be hurt.”
She shook her head slowly, removing her touch from him. “It doesn’t work that way, Tarek.”
“Why not?” Not even he was that obtuse when it came to interacting with people. Still, it seemed unfair.
“You can’t call a bullet back after it’s been fired. I would think that’s something a warrior would understand.”
“But I didn’t mean to fire at you.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “You know that doesn’t matter, either.”
“It is for your safety.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m sure it is. Good night, Tarek.”
She slipped from his bed, taking her wedding gown from the floor and slipping it back on, holding the front closed, not bothering to collect anything else. Not her bangles, not her veil, not her belt.
She had entered the chamber a bride, and she was leaving a wife. An unhappy wife.
But he had to set limits, even now. It was best she learned. When it came to sharing his body, he had determined to give. Because he could do nothing else, in truth. But there were other things that must remain off-limits.
He had whittled the focus of his soul down to a sleek, streamlined arrow, with all of the excess shaved away. He could not go back. He would not.
Yes, his body he could afford to share. But never his soul. He could never, ever expose her to everything he’d been through. Never share the creation of his scars.
She was far too lovely for him to ever present her with something so ugly.
Difficult, when the ugliness was written all over his body.
And one more reason to stay out of her bed tonight.
* * *
Olivia was playing petulant games, and she knew they would come to nothing with Tarek. Removing herself from her first husband’s bed for a certain length of time when she’d found him irritating had typically resulted in the desired apology. Because Marcus didn’t want to be without sex, he would say whatever he needed to in order to restore harmony in that area. Tarek, of course, wouldn’t understand. She was attempting to manipulate a man who was impossible to manipulate. Not because he was so strong, but because he simply didn’t understand subterfuge.
She felt wretched.
But he had torn her open on their wedding night, laid her bare in more ways than just the physical. The way he had looked at her... As though she was special, as though she was the only one. Her heart seized tight. It was because she was the only one. The only woman to ever touch him. The only woman to ever kiss him, to have him inside her body.
It forced more unfavorable comparisons between him and her first husband.
Marcus had been skilled. He had been with countless women before she’d come into his life. For him seduction had been about knowing exactly where to touch, exactly how.
He’d left her feeling as if she was floating on a cloud, left her feeling sated and satisfied.
Tarek had left her bruised. Aching. Desperate for more.
There was something so impolite about the way he had ravished her. Like the man himself. In contrast, Marcus had unfailing manners, always. But Olivia couldn’t escape the thought that it was a testament to how little it mattered which female was in his bed at any given time.
She had spoken to Tarek about how they would both have to learn. Of course she would have to take the time to watch his responses, to feel what made him shake. What made him moan. What made him hard. But then she’d realized that hadn’t been the case with Marcus. He had never learned her in that way. He knew women. That was different.
Not that she had cause for complaint; not that she never asked for more.
It was pointless to stand here and compare two men who were completely different. Particularly when one was dead, couldn’t give more even if she begged him to. And she hadn’t. When he’d been alive she’d asked him for nothing beyond what he gave.
Unlike Tarek, Marcus had never pledged fidelity.
She’d never asked him to.
You didn’t ask Tarek to, either.
And yet he had.
None of this made her wonder what was wrong with Marcus. Rather, she was beginning to wonder what was wrong with herself. Why she had never pushed for more. Because she and Marcus had professed love for each other, and still he had given her less than half. And she had accepted it. Not only had she accepted it, she’d been comfortable with it. Had he made eye contact with her as he thrust deep into her body the way that Tarek had, she probably would have curled in on herself and retreated.