by Sophia Lynn
“I'm um. Not going to look the way you remember,” she found herself saying, and Abir shot her an amused look.
“Are you so vain you want to point out how much more beautiful you have grown while we were apart?”
“Ha-ha, no, Abir, seriously. I've had three kids, and I don't know what you were expecting but—”
He leaned down to kiss her, so very sweetly and with so much heat that she barely remembered what she had been talking about when he pulled back.
“I saw you in front of me at the publishing event,” he said softly. “I have seen you every day since, and I know what I see. You are a beautiful woman that I want very much, and nothing in the world is going to change that.”
“Abir...”
She gasped when he pressed his body firmly against hers. Nestled as close together as they were, there was no denying his arousal, how much he wanted her, how very much he needed her.
“Shush,” he said, his fingers flicking open the buttons of her blouse. “I want you. The only question is if you want me.”
“You're joking, right?” she managed, because if anything, Abir had only grown more attractive since they had parted four years ago. He was still powerfully built, handsome as a movie star, and it was too easy to imagine him on the long list of celebrity eligible bachelors that made the rounds every year. The fact that he was in her bed now almost defied belief, but he only smiled at her.
“Never, when it's about something as important as this,” he said tenderly.
She might have said more, but then he was kissing her, running his mouth over every inch of flesh he revealed. Their first time together since their separation had been a hasty thing, a rush of passion and need that had flared as bright as a supernova. This time felt different, and after she made a few attempts to reach for him only to be rebuffed, Lia simply fell back on the bed, open to his hands and his mouth, letting him do what he liked.
It seemed to take him forever before she was naked, and then she was lying spread on his bed, looking up at him as her body tingled with the memory of his hands. She was almost afraid of what she might see when he looked at her, but the only thing on his face was desire as he took in her skin, her breasts, her belly, her thighs, all the parts of her that she knew by instinct that he wanted to touch and to kiss.
“Tell me I can,” he whispered softly. “Tell me you want me as much as I want you.”
“Of course I do,” she said, her voice little more than a sigh. “Of course I do. I always have.”
For a moment, she felt as if she were giving away too much, but then Abir's face lit with a joy that made her heart thunder in her chest. She whimpered as he came down to her again, but she tugged hard at his clothes.
“I want to feel your skin on mine,” she said urgently, and he wasted no time in tearing his clothes off, far less careful than he had been with her. She laughed at hearing a seam rip, but then he was devouring her, his mouth hot on her skin with just the barest suggestion of teeth. It was good, it was so good, and then he was sliding down to lie between her legs, spreading them wider as he laid wet kisses on her thighs.
“So beautiful,” Abir crooned. “So very perfect, everything I have ever wanted.”
She whimpered as he traced his fingertips along her slit, first fluttering over the top where her clit throbbed and then venturing down lower to her opening. She knew she was already wet from what he had done before, but she blushed at the sound of it as his fingers entered her, sweet and slow as if they had never done this before.
“You are so good to touch,” Abir murmured. “You feel so hot and so good around my fingers, I could pleasure you for days if you would let me.”
Lia wanted to make a joke about the kids and their work being less in favor, but then he crooked his fingers just right and a wave of pleasure rolled over her, so intense that it took her breath away.
“Oh!” she cried out in surprise. “Oh please, again...”
Abir chuckled, and this time, he leaned down to seal his mouth over her clit, circling it in warmth and pressure as his fingers moved again. She spared a startled moment for how much he was managing simply with his mouth and his hand, but then he moved again, more insistently, and she was dragged under by her own desire.
He kept her on the brink like that for what felt like forever. Just when she thought that she must surely spill over the top, he pulled back. He gave her just enough time to catch her breath, and then he was bringing her pleasure up in waves that she couldn't fight.
Finally, Lia was reduced to panting sobs, begging him to give her what she wanted. All she wanted, all she had ever needed in the world was this man, and there were tears in her eyes as she clung to his shoulders desperately.
“Please, please, Abir, I need you, I need you so much!”
“I've needed you since I have drawn breath,” he responded, but before she could puzzle that out, his fingers moved just right, and the pleasure that had been building up was all released at once. Lia cried out frantically as her climax broke, wave after wave of need letting go and making her shake with the power of it.
Just as the waves were pulling back, just as her breath slowed and the shivering died down, Abir came over her, his hips nudging her thighs open even further and the thick weight of his shaft pressing along her most intimate flesh.
“Yes?” he asked, grinding against her, and Lia mustered up all of her strength to nod.
“Yes. God yes.”
It wasn't until this moment that she realized how very tightly he had been holding on to his control. He entered her with one smooth stroke, uttering a groan that went straight through her. It was desire, pure and simple, something primal that was bigger and older than both of them. When he sunk inside her, she couldn't stop herself from wrapping her bare legs around his hips to drag him even closer, to have even more of him.
He moved over her with a power that was just short of breathtaking, and when he leaned down to seal his mouth over hers in a deep kiss, she gave herself up to him entirely.
You're what I want. You are everything I have wanted, God I have missed you so very much, please, please...
He groaned against her, and her body started to tighten again, the pleasure which had never quite gone away winding up harder and harder. Lia had a moment of disbelief where she was absolutely convinced that she would not, could not come again, and then she was.
The second climax was softer than the first, as if her body was too tired to give up so much pleasure again. This time it was as if she was being softly pressed in all sides, tighter and tighter until the only thing that she could feel, the only thing she could even imagine, was how good she felt under Abir's body, how the weight of him, his breath warm against her cheek and the way he pounded into her was so good, so very, very good...
When he spilled inside her, Abir pulled back just enough to look at her, and she knew the wonder she saw in his eyes was reflected in her own. The only thing that mattered in that moment was how they held each other, the pleasure they could give each other, and she whimpered with pleasure and with need at how good it all was, how very good it had always been with Abir and how very good it always would be.
It took him a few moments before he could pull away from her, but he still rested his weight on her body, resting his head on her shoulder. Idly, she reached up to run her fingers through his thick dark hair, marveling at how very soft it was and how very lovely.
"I should get up, I'm probably crushing you," he said, his voice little more than a quiet growl.
"No, stay, just a little longer," she said, wrapping her arms around him. "You feel good there. Don't you feel good when I lie on top of you?"
She hadn't done that in years, but he chuckled quietly as if none of that time had passed at all.
"It's a little different. You're just a little thing, after all."
Lia snorted.
"Pal, if you think I'm just a little thing, I'll show you the size marked on my dresses..."
He leaned up to kiss her firmly on the mouth.
"I can't tell you how little I care what that number says," he said, and to her disappointment, he rolled over to his side. Even as he stretched out, however, he left one arm slung over her body, and she was strangely grateful for it. They had been apart for so long that it felt too much to be apart now.
As the pleasure cooled, however, Lia found that she couldn't drift into the sweet haze of drowsiness that she’d always had before.
Why should I? she wondered. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not a grad student who could go in any direction, who could pack up and leave if only she was asked. I'm a mother now, and a working professional, and we didn't talk about any of this before we started. Christ, we have three kids sleeping downstairs, and they just got a father a few weeks ago. This is a huge change, and what does that mean for them? Hell, what does it mean for me? I've known who I am for years now, and what does it mean that I'm going to—
"Hey."
She blinked as Abir leaned over to caress her jaw, turning her face gently to him. In the dim lighting of his bedroom, she could make out the soft curve of his lips, the darkness of his eyes.
"Hm?"
"I've got an important question for you."
She sat up, swallowing hard. She pulled his hand down from her face, but she didn't give it back to him. Instead she squeezed his hand with both of hers, trying to leach out some of the tension she felt stiffening her spine and her shoulders.
"All right," she said. "What's up?"
In the split second before he answered, a dozen different things presented themselves to her. He had decided that this was all he wanted, that he had now satisfied his curiosity about what they had been to each other. He was leaving the US and going back to Shujae immediately. He was leaving, and he was going to fight to take the kids with him and—
"How's your play going?"
Whatever combination of words she had expected to come out of his mouth just then, those were not it. Lia stared at him for a moment, completely blank, and then she simply reached for the pillow at the head of the bed and smacked him with it.
"No!" she cried. "You do not get to make love to me like that and ask me about my play!"
Abir laughed, letting her hit him a few more times before he took the pillow away from her, sitting up as well. Rumpled and with that grin on his face, he looked younger, younger than he had been when they had first met, perhaps, almost boyish.
"Why not?" he asked far too innocently. "You told me that I should always ask that. It kept you honest, you said..."
"I said a lot of things four years ago," Lia retorted. "And it's been so long, and I'm in publishing now, hardly at the forefront of the theater world."
"Anyway," he said patiently, that same grin on his face, "how's your play going?"
She threw up her hands, making to turn away, but Abir grabbed them, pulling her back to look at him.
"Abir..."
"I thought about it, you know," he said, and she stared.
"You... remember what it was about?"
"Don't you?" he retorted. "We talked about it all the time. It went through four or five drafts just when we were together, and you had been working on it for almost a year before that."
"It's not finished," she said, and he tilted his head at her hesitant words.
"But you've been working on it."
Lia blushed, feeling suddenly more exposed than she had even when he took her clothes off.
"Yes," she muttered. "Off and on. I know that it's probably not going to go anywhere. It's just for me, just for fun..."
"But you have been working on it?" Abir asked, and the eagerness in his voice couldn't be faked.
"I- yes."
"All right then," Abir said as if he were coming to a decision. "If you're going to keep working on it, I'm going to keep asking about it. There."
"Just like that?" she asked, amused, and the look he gave her was suddenly a serious one.
"It was important to you," he said. "I know that sometimes, the things that were once important to us become less so as we grow up and our priorities change, but. This isn't one of those things, is it?"
Lia was seriously beginning to wonder if there was something hormonal going on. There was no way she should be this teary over someone asking her about her damned play.
"No," she said, and Abir pulled her tenderly into his arms.
"Then you're going to write it, if only so you can keep me from asking about it," he said, kissing her head, and all she could do was nod and cling to him.
Chapter 8
Lia
"Okay, having three kids, the first thing that you learn is that there are never enough eyes on them," Lia said. "But I'm not going to lie, the security guards are a little weird."
"You mean Nidal and Siraj? They're very normal men. Believe me, they've been thoroughly run through security to make sure—"
"No, not who they are, what they are. I mean. I like them. They're nice. Nidal gave me the best recipe for crepes the other day. But security guards. That's weird."
It was one of the last nice days of fall, perhaps the last truly nice day of the year, Lia suspected, if the rumors of an early winter were to be believed, and they had taken advantage of it for a drive upstate, all three kids in tow. The trip up had been a little fraught, with Henry getting a little carsick and Viola a little fretful, but it was all worth it for the kids running through the apple orchard, shouting and playing. It was the middle of the week, and they were nearly alone at the orchard, except of course for the security guards that had become a near constant presence in their lives now.
"It's not so very weird," Abir said with a shrug. "I grew up with my father's security detail. They were like another set of uncles to me."
"You didn't have them when you were in the US last time," Lia pointed out.
"Things were different then. I was fighting to be on my own. I wanted some space, and for the moment, my father thought it safe to give it to me."
"Safe..." Lia tasted the word on her tongue speculatively. It had meant specific things to her when she was on her own with the kids. She suspected that it meant different things now that she was with Abir.
"It is a precaution," Abir said, giving her a gentle kiss on the temple. "That is all. Whenever we go to Shujae, things are easier. This is only because, well. It isn't just me anymore. It is my heirs. It is the future of Shujae."
Lia was silent. At some point, she knew, they would go to Shujae. They would have to, and even before Abir had showed up in her life, she had planned on it at some point. The kids were half of Shujae and half of the United States, and they deserved to know their heritage. This was just more than she had anticipated.
"Are you worried?" Abir asked as they continued walking after the children running in front of them.
"You tell me, you're the one who has a security detail."
"If I thought there was something to be worried about in this situation, believe me when I say I would have addressed it," he said firmly. "Right now, the only thing I'm worried about is whether Henry is going to run face first into a tree."
"No, that's a legitimate— Henry! Slow down! You almost ran right over Hunter!"
The thing was, however, how very easy it was to see everything as normal. The security detail had become as much a part of her life as her occasional morning commute or stopping at the kids' rooms to wake them up for the day.
She watched Abir lift Viola up so she could pluck the perfect red apple that hung from a tall branch on the tree, and suddenly it felt as if her heart was going to break with how good this all was. She didn't realize she was staring until Hunter touched her hand gently.
"Mama?" he asked, a little anxiety in his small voice, and Lia blinked.
"Yes, honey?"
"Are you okay?"
She thumbed some strange stray tears out of her eyes, squatting down to adjust Hunter's coat. Henry and Viola could be wrecks when it came to their clothes, b
ut Hunter seemed to more slowly come undone over the day, things becoming unfastened and loosened until she turned around and realized he had left a long trail of clothes behind him from door to door.
"Of course I am, sweetie. I'm just realizing how much I love you and your brother and your sister."
Hunter gave her an impressively skeptical look for a kid who wasn't in school yet.
"Love makes you cry?"
She laughed, nodding.
"It does sometimes. Strong feelings make you cry. Sometimes you get so full of feelings that you have to let them out somehow, like when you kids go shouting and yelling all over the place because you're so happy."
Hunter considered for a moment.
"Weird," he pronounced it all, and she laughed, standing up again and giving him a gentle push towards the enormous leaf pile that his siblings had just discovered.
"You'll probably figure it out sooner or later," she said. "Right now, all you need to do is to go play."
It was a wonder to Lia how quickly her kids – their kids – had developed such strong personalities. Sometimes, she wasn't even sure that developed was the right word. Right from the beginning Henry always had to be the first, always had to be the one running and trying new things, jumping in and finding out. Viola was far more inclined to be shy, but she was somehow still the most active of the kids, getting into the most ridiculous spots just because she wanted to see if she could. Hunter, Lia suspected, would always be her most thoughtful child, and there would always be the concern that he might be overlooked, though given his quiet intelligence and his sensitivity, his path might take him to some fascinating places.
She came out of her reverie when Abir came to stand beside her, both of them watching over the kids tunneling through the leaf pile. Sometimes, they were completely invisible except for the rustle of leaves above them, and sometimes they popped up like gophers, laughing and their hair full of leaves.
"You're looking awfully thoughtful," Abir said, and she smiled, reaching out to pull a leaf from his dark hair before letting it drift to the ground.
