by Nalini Singh
The memory of seeing her eyes sparkling with withheld tears made him ache deep within. "Crying all alone isn't healthy." He didn't like the thought of her hiding away her hurts, or what such actions revealed about her past.
"Do you ever cry?"
He thought of the rock in his heart at the loss of a child he'd thought of as his own. "No."
"That is not healthy, either."
He was stumped. "I'm your husband. Aren't Zulheil wives supposed to follow their husband's commands?"
"Only the old ways state that. I've begun to explore the new ways that my father forbade. They say a wife can disobey her husband if she has good reason."
"Well, hell." He found himself smiling. "Are you going to turn into an American woman?"
"Perhaps partly. Would that displease you?"
He chuckled. "I have a feeling that even if it did, it wouldn't matter to you."
A pause. "You could make my existence difficult."
There were so many facets to his wife that she kept surprising him. "Cher, I make your life hell, anyway, so what would change?" He'd meant to make her laugh but she remained silent on his chest. Hugging her, he said, "Hey, come on. I'm not that bad, am I?"
"You're not cruel," she said a long while later. "As a husband, you're more than I could've wished for. But I wouldn't have chosen you for myself if I'd truly been given a choice."
It was a kick to his gut. "I see. Why?"
"Because you can't give me what I most desire."
"And what's that?"
"Love of a kind that's rare in this world. Love that will not stop or dampen when I am old and have wrinkles, when I'm no longer the beautiful woman men covet. Love that will cherish me though I may become ill or hurt. That is what I most desire."
The quiet declaration of lost hope hit him with the strength of a Mack truck doing eighty miles an hour. She'd put into words what he'd wanted but had never been able to articulate. "You've experienced such love?"
"It's the most wonderful thing in the world."
"Romaz?" he forced himself to ask.
"No." Her answer gave him some peace at least. "That was my first brush with love. 'Puppy love' as they call it here. No, I've never experienced that kind of love and perhaps I never will, but I've seen it in the love our sheik has for his wife."
Marc couldn't disagree. There was something between Tariq and Jasmine that outshone the stars. "Why can't you imagine me giving you that?"
She snorted. "Husband, you have something against beautiful women. I'm not stupid. I know you married me to show the world that you could own something this beautiful." There was no trace of boast in her voice, just blunt honesty.
"I will not argue that you cherish me, that you treat me as a human being with thoughts and feelings and the right to live my dreams. But I can't forget that you selected me as a trophy, as if I were something to own.
"You acceded to my father's desire to have us wed, though you only knew my face. I've tried but I can't get over the fact that my worth to you is determined by my beauty alone."
"That's a big call to make." Anger vibrated within him. Perhaps he'd started this marriage the wrong way, but never had he thought of Hira as an object. Not even when they'd married. And in the weeks since they'd said their vows, powerful emotions had taken root in him, emotions that defied her summation.
"Can you say that it is untrue?"
"Yes, I damn well can. I don't see you as a thing. You're the woman who coaxed Brian to eat and you're the woman who held me when Becky lay in the hospital bed. You read encyclopedias in your spare time, watch music videos when you think I'm not looking and are addicted enough to strawberry sorbet that I have to make sure there's a new carton in the freezer every three days."
Hira's eyes widened at his recitation. She hadn't been aware he knew of her craving for that particular ice cream, had just assumed the housekeeper bought it from a standing order. As for the music videos...
"I don't see you as a thing. I see you as a woman unlike any I've ever known." Marc's tone dared her to disagree with him.
"But would you have married me if you'd known my love of books and economics?" she persisted. He'd wanted a beautiful wife, not a smart one.
He chuckled. "Cher, I'm damn glad you turned out to be an intelligent woman. At the beginning of our marriage, I thought I might've let my hormones tie me to a woman who'd bore me within a week. Whatever else you might do, you'll never bore me."
"I see. I may have misjudged you, husband. For that I say sorry." A spurt of fire warmed her heart. It whispered that she could trust him with her budding emotions, that he'd cherish the love that had crept up on her while she'd been busy arguing with him.
"Don't." His voice turned rough. "You were right about some of it. I did want to show the world I could hold someone like you."
Ice froze the fire. "I see."
"No. You don't." He sighed and dropped his chin onto her hair. "I guess you deserve to know, after everything you've had to put up from me. I grew up poor. Coming from Zulheil, you can't imagine the kind of poverty into which I was born. I scrounged around for food, knowledge, anything. Even before Muddy, sometimes I stole so I could eat."
Hira hurt for the boy he'd been. His pride was so much a part of who he was that the stain on his honor would've hurt him terribly. "It pains me that your mother didn't hurt for you. I find it a thing I cannot understand."
"Yeah. Well, she was as mean as he was--most of the scars on my lower back are courtesy of her. When I was too young to get away, she used to beat me until she took the skin off my back."
"No mother would do such a thing!" Hira rose up on her knees, her gaze on his face. "No, husband. Please...no?"
Marc was stunned at the anguish in her eyes. "It no longer matters--it's in the past," he found himself saying.
Her hands rose to cradle his face. "But, outside and inside you have scars from it."
"I guess." He shrugged. "Don't worry about it."
She frowned but to his pleased surprise, leaned forward and gave him a soft kiss. "I'll worry if I wish. Tell me why you don't like beautiful women."
"Why did I think you'd be accommodating?" He kissed her to forestall comment. "My story isn't very original. I was a poor boy but a smart, athletic one. I also worked several jobs. One of them was as gardener and car washer to the Barnsworthy family. They were, and still are, one of the richest and oldest families in the area. I fell for Lydia Barnsworthy and asked her on a date. Confidence has never been my problem." It was a joking comment, an attempt to hide the emotions evoked by the memories.
"A date?"
"A high school dance," he elaborated. "Lydia said yes, but when the day came, she stood me up and went with someone else. And she made sure everyone knew what she'd done."
"What did she look like, your Lydia?"
"Slender ice blonde." To the teenage boy, she'd been everything that was gracious, but now he saw the cruelty beneath the beauty. These days it was Lydia who chased him, much to his amusement and total disinterest.
"I've seen a picture of her in one of your American fashion magazines," Hira startled him by stating. "She's quite beautiful...if one likes cold women."
He hid his grin at the catty comment. "That certainly doesn't apply to you. You're the hottest woman I know." It had taken him too long to realize that beneath the armor of self-protective ice, she had so much spirit it burned hot enough to keep him warm for life.
"So you wished to show the Barnsworthy family and others that you could aspire to a woman of beauty." Her husky tones pulled him back to his story.
"Put like that, it sounds adolescent," he grumbled. "But it's part of the truth. The second part is, I saw you and wanted you. Without reason or thought. I just knew that you were mine. So I took you."
His wife stared at him, as though she didn't know quite what to make of that. Then she narrowed her eyes. "But you haven't shown me off to these people. Am I not good enough?"
"I've found
that I don't want to show you off. You're for my eyes only." His tone was hard.
Her eyes widened. "Husband, you sound very...possessive."
"Yes." He was, he realized, very possessive where his wife was concerned. So possessive that he didn't want to share her with anyone, certainly not with the bitchy crowd that frequented those glamorous parties.
*
Unfortunately, as if he'd conjured it out of thin air merely by thinking of it, it became impossible to avoid going to one of those very same parties. With their travel plans to Zulheil being rescheduled, they were going to be in town on the date when an illustrious member of the business community was being given an honorary dinner.
"We have to attend," Marc told Hira the night before the dinner, pulling off his shirt. He'd arrived home only an hour ago after an intense day at the office. To his delight, his wife had waited up to have dinner with him. Such a little thing, but it meant so much, coming from the fiercely independent woman Hira was blooming into. "I respect Artie and it'll hurt him if we don't go when he knows we're still in the city."
"That's fine, husband." Hira closed her textbook and put it on the bedside table. "I don't mind attending these functions. It's one of my duties as your wife."
He gave her an exasperated look, trying not to be seduced by the sight of her in that lacy black slip she'd shimmied into. "Do you do everything because they're duties?" He wondered if she'd worn the sexy garment to tempt him, and his heartbeat accelerated. A woman who purposefully dressed to pleasure her husband had to have some feeling for him. Some need.
She thought about it. "No. I lie with you because I wish to. We are together too many times for it to be duty." Then she gave him a slow, sultry smile. "I wouldn't dress this way for you if it was only duty." A teasing light in her tawny eyes, she shrugged a slender strap off one honey-skinned shoulder. "Oops."
He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "Hell, I guess I think of these things as duty appearances, too. At least you'll make it bearable." Keeping his eyes on her, he peeled off the rest of his clothing.
She held out her arms. "Come to bed, husband mine."
He walked over, determined to say what he had to before the light of welcome in her eyes reduced him to incoherent passion. "I want to warn you--the crowd at these parties will stab you in the back if they have the slightest indication that you're vulnerable."
"Me? Vulnerable?" She gave an exaggerated sniff. "I am ice, husband."
"I'd forgotten." He stopped by the bed, waiting for her to shift so he could climb in beside her, and begin doing things to her that would leave her drenched in sweat. Pleasing his wife turned him on like nobody's business. "You're so hot."
Instead of accommodating him, she moved until she was facing his erection. "Hot, hmm?"
His whole body shuddered as she dipped her head and took him to his own private vision of heaven. "Yup, damn hot." Those were the last words he said for a long, long time, because his desert beauty was in the mood to pleasure her husband.
Slowly.
Ten
The party was as he'd expected. Except for a few men and women he respected, the glittering ballroom was full of debutantes who did lunch and slept with other women's husbands, and those same husbands. None of them dared to approach Marc because he wasn't known to be kind to their species, but he noted the way they looked at his wife.
"Stay close," he warned her.
She gave him an amused look. "I can negotiate these waters. I'm used to being talked about."
He nodded. "Don't let them hurt you or I'll have to get mean."
"Yes, sir." Laughter lit her eyes.
Despite her words she did stay close to him for most of the night. Toward the end of the evening she whispered, "I'm going to powder my nose."
He nodded and watched her walk off. Lord, but she was stunning. The other men had been noticing all night. But, scared off by her ice-queen expression, none of them had had the temerity to approach her. He had to hide a grin. His wife was anything but ice but she could do ice extremely well.
At that, an earlier thought intruded. Underneath her glittering beauty, Hira had been just a little stiff ever since they'd arrived, though on the drive over, she'd been her usual warm self. It was hardly noticeable, but he knew her well enough, had seen her without her shields too many times to be fooled. The second they were alone, he'd find out what was bothering his wife. And then he'd dedicate himself to soothing her. Smiling, he turned his attention back to the party.
He got caught up in a conversation with the guest of honor for the next ten minutes, and when he looked around for Hira, he couldn't see her. Intuition had him heading out to the hallway, off which the ladies' powder room was located. His eyes narrowed when he saw Lydia walk out of the white-painted door, a smirk on her face.
Her blue eyes lit up when she saw him. "Darling!" She went to kiss him on the cheek. Behind her back, he saw the door reopen and a familiar figure walk through.
Without any hesitancy, he pushed Lydia aside. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He hated being manipulated. Even worse, he hated being used as an instrument to hurt his wife.
Lydia wobbled in her high heels. "But, Marc, our relationship..."
He'd been trying to be gentlemanly, but when he saw Hira's eyes darken in pain, he stopped pulling his punches. "Last time I saw you, you were showing me your breasts and asking if I'd like a taste. I believe I refused and told you to get your tail back to that old man you married. Isn't. That. Right." He made it a command.
Lydia's face went white. "You bastard."
"I may be, but I'm an honest one. Why the hell would you interest me when I've married a woman who outshines you by megawatts?" Walking over, he hauled Hira to him. She came without hesitation. "By the way, if I ever again catch you taunting Hira, I'll ensure that the tape of you propositioning me finds its way into your husband's hands."
"You're lying." Lydia sounded shaky.
"Do you really think I'd trust you an inch?" He turned and looked down at his wife's still face. She'd been hurt by Lydia. Without further words he headed for the exit.
*
Marc flicked on the light in their bedroom and turned to Hira. She hadn't said a word on the drive home and he hadn't pushed, though his simmering temper had demanded to know everything. Hauling her inside, he locked the door, shutting her in with him.
"Now, you'll tell me every lie that bitch spouted." He crowded her until she was pressed against the wall. Her purse dropped to the floor as he wrapped one hand gently around her nape.
"How do you know they were lies?" Her pulse pounded against his hand, but her tone was defiant, her eyes beginning to burn with inner fire.
"Because Lydia wouldn't know honesty if it bit her." He crowded her some more until her soft breasts pressed against the jacket of his tux.
"Stop giving me orders," she hissed. "And back off."
"No." His woman had been hurt and he wanted an explanation as to why she'd let that happen.
She blinked at the uncompromising denial. "You are not behaving as American men are supposed to."
"How am I behaving?"
"Like one of the desert chieftains. They're known to be primitive."
"Is that so, cher? Then you'd better start talking. Us primitive types aren't known for our patience." His eyes drifted to the lushness of her lips. Before his civilized side could talk him out of it, he leaned down and kissed her the way he'd been wanting to all night. Pure heat and pure possession.
Her soft lips parted for him, inviting him into her mouth. He took the invitation and claimed her sweetness. His free hand went to her breast but he didn't like the feel of her sparkly dress against his skin. Without releasing her lips, he pushed the strap down and slipped his hand under the dress to close around one heavy globe.
Hira jerked, but her arms came around his neck in permission that he hadn't asked for. Rubbing his thumb across her nipple, he broke the kiss only long enough to allow her a breath
and then he ravished her again, massaging her breast with a hand that knew exactly what she liked.
"What did she say?" he asked, raising his head.
Her lips were wet, her eyes sleepy looking but her mind sharp. "You're trying to seduce me to get your way."
"Yes." He plucked at her nipple before cupping her breast again. "I'm a bastard of a negotiator."
"No, you're merely determined." Her lips curved in an indulgent smile. "Lydia said much, but it all came down to the fact that you were sorry to have married me and were madly in love with her, that you had begged her to come to your bed despite the fact that she was married."
Raw rage whipped through him. Leaving her breast, he pushed both hands through her lush fall of hair. "And you believed her?" He was furious with her for thinking so little of him.
Her eyes narrowed. "I told her that you'd never lower yourself to trash such as she was."
He wasn't fully mollified. "Then why the hell did she look so happy?"
"I believe she thought to drive a wedge between us by planting seeds of doubt in my mind."
"Did she succeed?"
"You are a man with much pride. You'd never beg the favors of a woman who had rejected you."
"You know me." He pressed impossibly closer. Only her height in heels allowed her to meet his gaze. "But you believed some of it. You looked like hell."
"No. I was hurt at being reminded that though you say many things which make me think you value me as more than just a pretty face, I'm still a trophy wife to you, like Lydia is to her husband. Most of the couples there tonight were successful men with beautiful young women they treat as ornaments. I fitted right in."
His control snapped. "Trophy wife?" he asked very softly. He'd been torn up at the sight of her in pain and she considered herself a trophy wife? He was sick of trying to get through to her. Maybe it was time to use nonverbal communication of the kind they were best at. Putting his hands on her waist, he lifted her. "Legs around my waist."
She obeyed. "What are you doing, husband?"
Good. She sounded wary. But beneath the wariness was trust that soothed the raw edges of his temper. "Teaching you that whatever else you might be, you're no trophy. Trophies get put up on a shelf and admired. I want you in my hands, to touch and please and own in a far different way." He reached under her dress and made short work of her fragile panties.
