by Maisey Yates
“No,” she said, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. “Just sex makes you feel good. I don’t even know what this is.”
“You will see that I am delighted to be unique to you, my queen.” He sounded nothing close to delighted at all.
“Oh, you could never be anything but, my sheikh,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I have never experienced anything remotely similar to you.”
“For a start,” he said, his tone brittle, “I do not know how to smile.”
She took another step toward him. “Not well.”
He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and held her fast, dipping his head suddenly and kissing her, hard, deep. The kiss bruised, wounded. And she didn’t mind. Because it reflected what was going on inside her. And then, just as abruptly as he descended, he pulled away. “I need a shower,” he said, turning and walking from the room.
He left her standing there, feeling dizzy. Angry. What was happening to her? Why was this man...this...virgin...causing her so much trouble? She had been married to a man whose skills as a lover were world renowned. Why was she so much more affected, why was she destroyed, wrecked, by a man who had never even kissed a woman before her? Her heart twisted tight. That was why. That was why she was so affected. She was unique to him. She made him feel. She reached him.
Had she ever been special to anyone else in her entire life? Had she ever been special to her parents? Had she ever been special to her husband?
Had she ever been special to herself? Or had she simply been so afraid she’d set about to make herself whatever she needed to be in order to keep from feeling lonely? Keep from feeling exposed? Had she ever mattered enough to her own self to demand a thing?
Not beyond that one failure.
Because in that moment, when she’d shouted her parents down for missing the party she’d thrown for herself, she had to face the fear that she wasn’t worthy of all she craved.
Face it. Live it. Accept it.
But it didn’t stop her from needing. And she’d been so sure that her neediness was wrong, shameful, because no one would ever want to meet it.
But now she was tired of it. So tired of feeling as if she was living behind a wall, with the walls of everyone around her standing between both of them. She was tired. Tired and alone, and she hated it. She wanted to be touched. She wanted to touch someone in return. She didn’t want nice; she didn’t want pleasant. She wanted real.
She stripped her jacket off, letting it fall to the floor, followed by her gold top, and her pants. As she made her way into the bathroom she rid herself of her undergarments, opened the door, stopping when she saw the broad expanse of Tarek’s naked back. He was standing beneath the hot spray, water droplets rolling down his skin.
And she was transfixed. Not just by the beautiful musculature she saw there, not just by his bronzed skin and the perfection of his butt.
It was the scars.
She had examined the front of him, his chest, his abs. Had touched him there. But she realized now she had never really looked at his back. He had been whipped. More than that, tortured. And it was written across that beautiful flesh, as bold as any pen stroke.
Olivia had never hated before. She did right now. Right now, she hated the man who would have been her brother-in-law. Hated him with a scorching fire that would never be satisfied.
He had done this. She knew he had.
She would kill him herself were he not already dead, and not lose any sleep over it.
She said nothing, approaching the shower and opening the solid glass door, stepping inside behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his scarred body. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t know if she was apologizing for the words they had exchanged outside or for the atrocities he had endured. Possibly both. Possibly for everything, even things she didn’t know about yet. Things she hadn’t done yet.
He was unique, this man. So special. And she had been petty. Of course he didn’t respond to things in any way she could anticipate. He was an entirely new creature to her. There was no past experience to call on to help her here.
He stiffened beneath her touch. But he didn’t pull away, and nor did he turn.
“I am very likely the one who should be sorry,” he said.
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“If you are lost, I don’t know what hope the rest of us have.”
She smoothed her hands over his chest, the water making his skin slick. “What does that mean?”
“You always know what to do, Olivia.”
“Not right now. Right now, I’m just as lost as you are.”
He shifted then, turning and backing her against the wall, his erection hard against her hip, his dark gaze intense on hers. “I know what I want.”
“What?” she asked, her voice thin.
“You.”
“Have me.”
On a growl, he lowered his head, kissing her, harder than he had done out in the living area. This wasn’t a kiss filled with anger, but of desperation. Desperation that reflected her own. She smoothed her hands down over his back, the scar tissue beneath her hands obvious now. She had missed it the first night they’d made love. She’d had her hands on his shoulders as he’d thrust deep inside her, but she hadn’t realized what it meant. She did now. And she ached, not just with the need for him, but the need to heal him. The need to reach him. If she had to crack herself open wide, show him by example, she would. She would.
She reached down, grabbing hold of his thick arousal, shifting their positions and widening her stance, placing ahead of him the slick entrance to her body. “Please,” she whispered.
He flexed his hips, finding her center unerringly, moving deep within her.
Hot water rolled over them, his kisses raining down on her face to match each drop. Tarek was inside her. And she wasn’t alone. Wasn’t separate from him. She opened her eyes, meeting his dark, raw gaze. He saw her. She was not just a body, not simply a pleasant diversion, or a duty. He needed this; he needed her.
And she needed him. For the first time in her life, that idea didn’t terrify her to her core. She needed him, and it made her feel wonderful. Made her feel beautiful. Made her feel strong.
Because if she didn’t give up herself, Tarek would never be able to release the walls that surrounded his own heart. She knew it then, as sure she knew anything else.
She moved her hands down, grabbing hold of his behind, tugging him hard against her, gasping as her orgasm washed over her, the pleasure blinding, like nothing else she had ever experienced. She didn’t hold back the cries on her lips, didn’t hold back anything. She poured herself, all of herself, into it. And when he found his own release, she gloried in it. In the way he trembled, in the way he held her, his big hands braced against her hips, holding her steady as he rode the wave that threatened to consume them both.
Afterward there was no sound except for the water hitting the tile, their breath echoing in the small space.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said, her voice soft, firm. “Together.”
He let out a ragged breath, kissed her neck. “For a while,” he said, his tone cautious.
He turned the water off, and they got out of the shower. She took a crisp, folded white towel and began to drag it over his skin, erasing the water drops that covered his body. And he stood, allowing her to do it. As she did, she explored the scars that covered him. Memorized them. She felt honored to witness them. To feel them. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to look away, to pretend she hadn’t seen them.
But that was wrong. Someone had to see this. Someone had to care.
And she had to stop being so afraid to care.
Because she could no longer pretend that caring meant never asking questions, never asking any
thing of each other. That was benign neglect at best, masquerading as love simply because there was undemanding sex thrown into the mix.
A sharp pain worked its way through her, starting in her temples and spreading down, the ache blooming in her throat, then hitting hard in her chest. She had loved Marcus. She couldn’t deny that. Not when the loss of him had thrown her into months of darkness, serious anxiety that had been difficult to shake. A feeling of loss and hopelessness that had been very real.
But she doubted in this moment if she had ever been in love with him. Their relationship hadn’t allowed for feelings that cut half so deep. They had been partners, lovers, but it had been nothing like this. Tarek’s pain lived inside her. Her triumph felt bound to his.
Do you still think of yourself as with him?
She flashed back to that question he’d asked her weeks ago during the coronation party. The answer had been simple. And it had been no. Because she had not been a part of Marcus.
Tarek was a part of her. Whether she was that for him or not, he was for her.
If she lost him, she knew very well that it would be like having her heart wrenched from her chest. It would be much harder to go on living. And that was the cost of love.
She loved him.
She wished, very much, in that moment, that she did not.
He took another towel from the counter and made it his mission to dry her. And by the time he was finished, by the time he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom, placed her gently on the bed, she knew that whether she wished it away or not, it was true. There had been no protecting herself from this. Nor from the pain that it could potentially bring.
Her desire to breach his defenses had caused her to lower her own.
She lay down on the bed, completely naked, unashamed, watching as he lay down beside her.
“Tell me about your back,” she said, her voice hushed.
Because she wanted the hard things. Because she wanted everything. Even if it was hard; even if it hurt. Even if it made her vulnerable.
“I told you. He tortured me.”
“Why?” she asked, knowing she sounded broken, devastated. Perhaps that wasn’t fair, when he spoke of it so calmly, but someone had to weep for him. It would be easy for her to do so.
“He said...he said the death of my parents was caused by weakness in the nation. He said I would have to be made strong. He said he did it because he loved Tahar. Because he loved me. He said it was the only way to protect the both of us.”
“What did he...?”
He reached out and touched her breast, his thumb gentle as it slid over her nipple. “You are so soft, Olivia. So beautiful. I do not want to fill your head with the things that were done to me. There is only darkness and ugliness there. Nothing more.”
“Don’t hide from me. Please. I don’t want that. I’m tired of pretending that someone lying next to me means I’m not alone. Especially when I realize that it isn’t true.”
“I don’t understand. If you’re lying next to someone, clearly you aren’t alone.”
“No. Trust me. Someone can lie next to you and still be miles away.”
“Marcus?”
“This is our bed,” she said, “I mean, this isn’t our bed, it’s the hotel’s. But you know what I mean. I don’t wish for him to be between us.”
“I understand. But is that what you’re talking about? Answer my question just this once.”
“Yes. Him. But don’t blame him. I never asked for more. And he never offered. I think he was protecting himself, as I was.”
“There is certainly wisdom in protecting yourself.”
Yes, but she was starting to see that she had been keeping herself wounded. Protecting herself from a fatal injury in her mind, but never fully healing the ones she’d already sustained.
“It’s much better to protect other people, don’t you think? You’ve certainly spent enough of your life doing that.”
“With a sword. It’s easy to protect yourself while you do that.”
“I suppose it would be.” She moved her fingertips over his arm, glorying in the feel of his bare skin beneath hers. “My parents didn’t come to my fifteenth birthday. It’s such a small thing compared to this.” She brushed her palm over a raised scar on his arm, continuing, “But it hurt me. Scarred me. Scars you can’t see. Our housekeepers made my birthday cakes. At least I had them. You didn’t, I know.”
“Olivia,” he said, his voice rough. “My pain does not erase yours. Do not make what is so large for you smaller just because I, too, have suffered.”
She swallowed hard. “You are...a wise man.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
“So you have.” She hesitated. “For my fifteenth birthday I made my own cake. My own dinner. I told my family it would be special. I knew...I knew Emily couldn’t come. She’d been in the hospital for a week. Her platelets were low and...anyway, I just asked my parents to come home for dinner. For my party.” She blinked against a dry, painful stinging in her eyes. “They didn’t come.” The words were a whisper. “I waited and waited. They didn’t come.” She could feel his muscles tense beneath her touch. “I threw the cake away. I couldn’t bear to eat it.”
“Olivia...” His voice was rough.
“There’s more. They got home late. And I...I yelled at them. Why couldn’t they spare a couple of hours for me? All I wanted was for them to spend more time at home with me. And my father just looked at me. My mother cried. Then he said...he said it wasn’t like they wanted to be away. They didn’t want to be in the hospital with a dying child. And how dare I want to take any time from Emily when she might die and...I was living. I shouldn’t complain. Everything with them changed after that. It was never the same. Never.”
“And so you left,” he said. “Changed countries.”
“Met a man I didn’t want anything from. That helped. He didn’t hurt me because...because I knew then never to demand anything. Never to make waves.”
“Your parents were fools,” he said.
“No. They were just in an impossible situation. They are.”
“Perhaps you feel the need to be fair. I do not. They hurt you. That, in my mind, is all that matters. I judge them by that sin.”
She took in a sharp, jagged breath, her fingertips trailing over his scarred flesh. “And I will judge Malik by his sins against you.”
“He had me starved.” Tarek rolled onto his back, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “He withheld water from me. To make me stronger,” he said, his voice rough. “Because I would need to spend much time out in the desert, and there I would not always have food or drink. I had to be prepared. He had me beaten. Because I needed to learn strength. He whipped me. And he...” Tarek touched a patch on his arm that was smooth, shinier than the rest of his skin. “He liked fruit. I remember watching him peel the skin from a pear. He was perfectly capable of peeling off a layer of human skin with as much efficiency. I wear the evidence of that.”
“Tarek. No,” she said, her stomach twisting painfully.
“When I returned to the palace it all came back to me. That is why I woke from my sleep. That’s why I walked the halls with a sword. To kill his ghost if he lingered. I could feel everything he’d done to me again. As though he was wounding me afresh. I found his journals. He admitted to having my parents assassinated. He...detailed the work he did on me to make me a loyal soldier. He liked the whips, as you saw. Liked to isolate me, as well. Deprive me of all sensory input, then...flay my skin with something sharp. My brother. My own brother. My parents were dead, and then...and then he betrayed me, and I have truly...truly never felt so alone as I did in that first moment when he tied me down and traced shapes in my back with the blade of his knife. That was when I started thinking
of myself as a rock. Because a rock is unmoved. It might be reshaped, but it doesn’t bleed. It will not die. It is simply reformed. And it remains strong. A rock is never weakened.”
Olivia closed her eyes, stifling the sob that was climbing her throat. “How could he have done that to you? How?” They were empty words. Meaningless. And yet they were all she had.
“This is why I turn away from indulgences. From lusts of all kinds because...look at where it brought him.”
“You aren’t Malik.”
“No,” Tarek said, his voice blazing. “I know he did not intend it, but he gave me purpose. He ensured with all he did that I would guard myself against the weakness that infected his blood.”
“Why? Why did he do it?”
“To break me, though he didn’t say it. Strength, he said. It was always strength. Truly, I think he wanted me to rejoice in being banished to the desert. To make me hate the palace so much that I would never want to return. He wanted me too broken to rule. Too broken to realize his true character. Brainwashed. He did a magnificent job. Out there, I felt nothing. I had but one purpose—to fulfill the bargain I had made with my brother. The one that meant he would leave me be. There was clarity there. A beauty in the simplicity. I cherished it. In that way, I suppose he did his job. He made me strong. He made me the rock. He made that existence feel easy.”
“It was a mind game. He didn’t care for you. He didn’t make you strong. You were strong. Any other man would have been broken.”
He looked up at her, his eyes so black, so empty, they wounded her. “Was I not broken, Olivia?”
“No, Tarek. No. You are not broken.” Her throat tightened, tears rolling down her cheeks. She put her hand on his chest, felt his heartbeat rage beneath her fingertips.
“Do not cry for me, Olivia. Not for me.”
“Who else will?”
“No one needs to.”
“That isn’t true. It isn’t.”
“Whatever I was before Malik... Whatever happened before... I am different now. I’m another man. Whether or not I’m broken is immaterial. I am not what I should be. I can never be.”
