by Nalini Singh
"I remember. In the gardens after your marriage." Aware that Jasmine must've been informed of the Dazirah family's attempts to make a match between her and the sheik, Hira had known that this lovely woman wouldn't appreciate her presence. So she'd tried to stay in the background, despite her parents having urged her to find someone else with royal connections, since many important visitors had been at the gathering.
Jasmine led them into a beautiful formal dining room. "Yes. My husband expects you to earn his respect. It's the same demand he makes of everyone."
Hira nodded, accepting the fairness of that.
"But," Jasmine continued, giving her a shrewd look. "I've made my decision. You're no pretty trophy. That husband of yours wouldn't look at you the way he does if you were."
"And how is that?"
"With the deepest pride. If he is as akin to the men of Zulheil as he appears, then that's a great thing indeed." Jasmine turned to take a seat beside her husband on the other side of the comfortably small table.
A little shaken by the power of that quiet statement, Hira took the chair Marc held out for her. There were no servants in the dining area tonight, because this was most definitely a meeting, despite the abundance of delicious dishes on the table. He touched her fleetingly on the shoulder before taking his seat.
It made her aware of how he always touched her, and had done so since shortly after she'd learned about the orphanage. A caress, a stolen kiss, a squeeze of the fingers, she'd become so used to being touched by Marc that she'd never questioned what it meant...until she'd seen the sheik touch his wife, and realized that for a strong man to show such open affection implied a great deal of feeling.
Smiling, she turned to him as he sat down and gently put her hand on his thigh, out of sight of the others. He looked startled but then favored her with that slow smile that always proved lethal to her composure. His hand drifted down to hers and their fingers intertwined.
"Let's begin with a toast." Tariq held up his glass and they followed. "To a long and happy partnership."
They all clinked glasses. The dinner took more than four hours, with all of them ending up in a small sitting room talking over several documents. Hira spent considerable time discussing an interesting idea regarding the tigereye prism with Jasmine. Marc didn't even check up on her once, and his trust that she'd look after their interests cemented her love for him as nothing else could've done.
Eleven
"God, I'm exhausted." Dressed only in his dress pants, Marc fell back onto their bed. Rubbing his eyes with his hand, he smiled, looking very much like a satisfied hunting cat. "But it was worth it."
She nodded. Having already changed into a short nightdress with thin straps, she crawled onto the bed and knelt facing her husband, combing her hair. "This could build into a long-term business relationship."
Marc's eyes followed her strokes. "I intend it to. I like working with Tariq. He's got integrity as well as the negotiating skills of a shark."
"That's why he likes you also." She put the brush down on the nightstand and moved to undo his belt, using the excuse to stroke his firm abdomen. Under her hands, he was pure male strength, the seduction of his hunter's body enough to make her ache for his possession.
His smile as he watched her with blatant proprietariness made her stomach tighten in expectation. Marc had a particular look in his eye tonight, a look that said he intended to take his time with her.
She was proved right.
*
They'd both agreed to spend the next day with her family. Hira wished to see her mother and brothers but didn't particularly care about her father.
"It's only one day. You can stand the man for that long," Marc said when she made a sulky face.
Sighing, she nodded and got out of the car, waiting until Marc was beside her before heading up the steps to the place that had once been her gilded prison.
Her mother was overjoyed to see her. Even her brothers were happy, welcoming her with crushing hugs and small but thoughtful gifts that touched her. Perhaps they'd turn out all right after all. Her father grunted and shook Marc's hand, smile wide. Hira left him to Marc and went to spend time with her mother, the documents for the account she and Marc had opened in Amira's name safe in her purse.
Marc watched Hira go off with Amira Dazirah with mixed feelings. On the one hand he was glad she was happy to be in Zulheil, but surrounded by reminders, he couldn't help but remember the way he'd rushed her into marriage. Her father had provided the impetus, but the choice had been his. He couldn't deny that he hadn't tried very hard to change Kerim's mind. He'd wanted Hira, and he'd gone after her with every bit of his considerable will.
It hurt more than he could've imagined to know that because of that single rash act, his wife would never view him with the kind of tenderness and love she'd told him she'd dreamed of. How could she possibly understand that when he'd seen her on that balcony, it hadn't been her beauty that had transfixed him?
No, it had been something far more ephemeral, something that had tugged at his soul, a knowing that she was his, a possessiveness that hadn't let him sleep until he'd made her his in reality. How could he explain that to her without ripping open his heart? He wasn't ready for that, not when she sometimes still looked at him with shadows in her brilliant eyes.
His wife had adjusted to him, but he needed far more than simple coexistence from her. He needed her heart and soul, her hope, her everything. He needed her to need him, because all of him, even the lost and lonely bayou boy he'd been, had become enthralled with her. It was an enchantment that demanded his soul. He couldn't fight it, couldn't go back to his lonely, untrusting existence...couldn't stop needing her so much that his hunger was a physical ache.
*
Late the next day Hira tried to talk to her husband about what had turned his gray eyes dark when she hadn't been looking. In the space of a few hours, he'd gone from teasing and laughing with her to almost complete silence.
"Nothing," he said, his tone curt.
When she pushed, he kept responding with monosyllabic replies that made her want to hit him over the head with a blunt object. Frustrated by his recalcitrance, she finally left him and went off to indulge herself with a bath, muttering under her breath about males in general and one male in particular.
He found her fifteen minutes later, while she was sitting on the edge of the huge square-shaped bath filled with cool flower-scented water. Because of her perch, the lapping water only covered her up to the thighs. Looking up, she saw familiar desire flare in his eyes as he gazed at her naked form. Ignoring the heat that uncurled luxuriously in her stomach, she stared back, feeling just a bit put-upon by his moodiness.
"What?" she finally said, when he remained silent.
"Nothing. I have to go out."
"Fine." She glared at him.
"Don't you care where I'm going?" His tone was jagged, torn, those eyes of liquid silver gone cloudy.
And she wanted to hit him, not soothe him. She'd had it! Absolutely and utterly! Letting out a stifled scream, she picked up the sponge she was using to smooth water over her body, and threw it at his chest.
He caught the sponge against his body. When he lifted it off, a wet patch marred his vivid blue shirt. Before he could speak, she said, "Why should I worry about a husband who turns cold on me when I've done nothing wrong? You and your black mood can both go to hell for all I care!"
That was when he stalked to her, all male arrogance and smoky eyes filled with some emotion she couldn't read. She sat in place, though it was difficult to be composed while her body was laid out for his perusal.
He was close enough to touch. "You just told me to go to hell." Holding her gaze, he dropped the sponge into the water, sending ripples chasing across her thighs.
"Why do you sound so surprised? After the way you've been acting today, I'm entitled to my temper."
To her complete and utter shock, he kicked off his shoes and sat down beside her, straddling
the bath. One jean-covered leg went in the water, the other remained outside. He didn't even blink. "You don't have that look in your eyes anymore," he murmured. His hand began to play with a strand of her hair that had come undone from the knot on top of her head.
She slapped his hand away. "What look? And don't try to get back in my good graces. I want to enjoy my bath without my bad-tempered husband." Turning away, she scooped up water in her hands and let it run over her legs.
If he wanted to watch, that was fine. She refused to be hurried just because her body reacted like wildfire to his. She could control herself, she thought grimly. She would not give in to the urge to rip open his shirt and lick her way up to his lips. She would not! Why was he still sitting there? A woman only had so much self-control, even when she was using anger to fuel it.
"Aren't you wondering why I've been acting like I have?" Marc finally asked, scooping up water in one hand and dripping it over her thighs.
She sniffed to fight off a shiver at the intimate act, pressing her thighs together to still the ache in between her legs. It only intensified. "I don't know what it is that I did, but clearly, I've done something wrong. You're merely trying to reinstate your rights over me by showing me this coldness." She made a face at him. "I will not be treated so!"
At that instant her American did something she'd never expected. Putting both hands on her shoulders, he pulled her toward him and planted a hard kiss on her startled lips. "To hell with my rights!" Wild hunger raged in his eyes, but this hunger was deeper than the body, so deep that she thought she could see his soul in the suddenly piercing quality of those always-well-guarded eyes.
"The reason I've been acting like a wounded bear is because I worship the ground you walk on. Being here reminds me too much of how we started this marriage, how I killed all hope of love between us with the way I claimed you without courtship. I love you, princess, and I can't stand it that you'll never love me back." He kissed her again, strong and swift. It felt like a brand on her heart.
"Heck, love doesn't begin to describe what I feel for you--This emotion's like a fire inside of me that refuses to go out. It's passion that stuns me when you smile and tenderness I didn't even know I could feel. It's not roses and moonlight, it's lightning and forever."
Hira was stunned speechless by Marc's defiant declaration. Her proud, inflexible husband had to know that by acknowledging his love, he was giving her a weapon over him, and surely he'd never give such a weapon to a woman like he'd once believed her to be, a mercenary beauty like that bitch Lydia. He wasn't finished, either.
"I love your smile and, yes, I love your face. How could I not, when I adore the woman you are? I love the way you talk to the boys and let each of them feel as if he could win your hand if he were old enough. I love the way you're so generous with your body and your affection."
His voice was raw; painfully, powerfully intimate. "I love the way you try to love the bayou because I love it. I love you, and I've had it with trying to hide what I feel."
Powerful and passionate, it was her first true glimpse of the intensity of her husband's feelings. His love would be wild, an inferno that would demand everything from her.
Trembling, she raised her hand to his cheek and leaned close. "Marc, husband, I c-can't..." Her voice was an emotion-choked whisper.
"Hush. I know." There was something bleak in his gaze. He'd given her his heart with no expectation that she'd reciprocate. How much strength did that take for a man who'd never been loved? How much courage? How much love?
Her heart felt so big in her chest, Hira didn't know how it remained inside her body. "Did you know my father has never once told my mother that he needs her? Not once. Yet he relies on her for so many things."
"I need you more than you'll ever know." It was a rough acceptance, another glimpse into his proud heart.
This hunter of hers had far more depths than she would've believed when they'd married. Dropping her hand, she moved closer and began to unbutton his shirt. "What about when I'm old? When I have wrinkles? Or lines from bearing children?"
"I want to grow old with you. I want to put laugh lines on your face, and I want the birth of our children to change your body. Imagine a lifetime of change, cher. A lifetime of learning each other anew." His eyes were liquid silver but shadows still hovered in the background, remnants of the neglected child, the final pieces of the vulnerability he hid so well. "What's the fun in remaining the same?"
His shirt was open under her hands. She pushed it off his shoulders and to the floor. Her hands went to his belt. A big male hand stopped her.
"No, sweetheart. You don't have to...give me anything. My love's free. And it's for always."
It was his tenderness that shattered any remaining doubts she might have harbored. He sounded so very careful, so very worried that she might feel obliged to him, so very concerned about her, when he was the one who'd taken the risk of stripping his soul bare.
Swallowing, she raised her head and looked into those ghost-gray eyes. "Marc, husband, I once told you I could tell lies very well."
"I'd rather have honest affection than a dishonest avowal of love," he said, mistaking her meaning. There was an intensity in his gaze that challenged her. This man would never settle for gilt when gold was his goal.
She bit her lip. "No, I mean to say that I once told you a lie. I didn't plan to, it just came out that way." She'd been panicked and afraid, and it had been the only thing she could think of to keep him at a distance.
His face hardened. "Oh?"
"I said I wouldn't have picked you if I'd had a real choice. I said that the only reason I married you was because there was no way for me to refuse my father's commands."
"Yeah." Marc had tried to get over that, but it continued to torment the bayou boy inside of him. The one who'd never been chosen for love. The one who was so madly in love with his wife that her lack of feeling for him hurt him with every breath. But he would never let her know that because as he'd said, honest laughter and affection were better than dishonest love.
"Did you know that my father had a marriage offer for me almost every week?" Hira confided softly.
He stared at her, his mind immediately beginning to holler questions.
"Marir was just one of many. I could've picked one of the others, because there were several with businesses that would've complemented my father's. And of course they had impeccable family links." She was talking really fast, as if trying to get something past him.
His mind and heart refused to let her off that easily. "Would Kerim have let you?"
"Oh, yes, for if I was an unwilling wife to you or any other man, it would've jeopardized his business. Far better to have me be a willing wife whom he could mold, even if that meant I was married to someone less influential.
"At the time that my father ordered me to marry you, I told myself I didn't put up a fight because I was hurting from Romaz's rejection, but that rejection had come many months previously. I'd had over eight offers for my hand since then. One was from a prince in another desert country, another from a British millionaire who is considered a very eligible bachelor."
Something hungry deep inside Marc, went very, very quiet. "Eight?"
She nodded and gave him a guilty look. "None of which I had trouble rebutting, though my father drove me crazy with his orders for me to agree. He kept threatening to throw me out on the street. Marir was his attempt at scaring me when I refused all the suitors after barely a single meeting. He would never have wasted me on a lecherous old friend. Don't be angry with me."
She was fiddling with the button on his jeans, even as she explained. Her lashes hid her eyes but he could tell she was giving him surreptitious peeks to see how he was taking the news.
He narrowed his eyes. "You made me feel like I was the best of a bad lot." His tone was light, his heart buoyant as he finally understood what his proud princess was confessing.
She'd preferred the scarred bayou beast over every other
man who'd asked for her hand.
Looking up, she made a face at him, a smile flirting with her eyes when she saw that he wasn't angry. "You were. Except for you, every other male was bad. Then I saw you, and suddenly I had no resistance. I could no longer fight my father--all my will was gone, lost the moment you smiled at me. You were just the best. Compared with anyone. So, you see, I wished you for my husband. Only you."
Her unknowing echo of his thoughts only made her confession more poignant. He felt his throat lock as the power of what she was saying roared through him.
When he didn't answer straight away, she said, "Do you understand, Marc? You're the love I waited for all my life, though when you came, it took me a while to recognize you. You see, I didn't expect you to be so blatantly male." The teasing light in her eyes made him kiss her.
After he set her free, she continued to speak. "I feel so much for you, I don't know if I can find the words to tell you. In Zulheil, there is a saying--Ul al eha makhin. Makhin al eha ul. Lael gha al aishann." Her voice was full of so much passion, he could almost see her love in the air.
"What does it mean?"
"You belong to me. I belong to you. Together we are complete." Her voice shook.
It was perfect, saying what he'd wanted to but hadn't been able to. "Princess, I promise you that that will never change. Never."
"Until I loved you, I didn't know the whole of the woman I could be." Her eyes were huge and wet. "That woman's love will only grow stronger with time."
Leaning forward, he sealed their pact with a kiss. When she sighed and melted into him, he couldn't help but stroke that golden skin of hers, now almost dry. "You didn't finish your bath," he whispered against her lips.
"Ummmm." Giving him a sultry smile that was full of a joy he'd never before seen, she slipped out of his arms and into the water, beckoning him with her finger.
Grinning, he stood from his straddling position and went to work on his jeans. There was more than enough room in the huge marble bath for one crazy-in-love ex-thief. He could almost feel the tantalizing coolness of the water; it would be a sensual pleasure on its own after the unrelenting heat of the desert. But the most pleasurable aspect of the pool was currently looking at him with a distinctly feminine proprietariness in her tawny gaze.
