It took no more than feeling him inside her—filling her beyond her capacity, embedding at the gate of her womb—to shatter her. She screamed as an orgasm unleashed all her tension, squeezed her around him inside and out.
Igniting with her, he fed her convulsions with thrust after thrust, mingling his growls with her shrieks. “Aih, khodeeni kolli, eeji alai—take all of me, come all over me.”
Pleasure raged on until he roared and slammed into her, the pulse of his release wringing her of sensations. She sobbed, her flesh quivering around him.
Possessing her slack mouth, he filled her breathless lungs with his ragged breath, rocking gently inside her, satisfying her to her last tremor.
“Awhashteeni...bejnoon...”
I missed you...insanely...
Her head flopped on his shoulder as she tried to get her nerves to spark. She needed to hold on to his reality, his magic, to ward off the doubts. “It’s been...less than...two days.”
“Kateer. Tw’hasheeni wenti gossad aini.”
Too much. I miss you when you’re right before my eyes.
Could all this...sincerity be a lie?
He strode with her wrapped around him to the bathroom. He lowered her gently on pristine white marble before reluctantly, carefully, withdrawing from her depths.
She moaned at his beauty and caring as he kneeled in front of her, taking care of the evidence of their lovemaking. Then he rose to his feet, muscles rippling under his shirt as he struggled to stuff his erection into his pants, his emotions an open book for her to read in his eyes.
But how could that be the truth? The mainstay of Rashid’s character was his reticence. How could he have become so...uninhibited? Because of her overwhelming effect on him? Or because it was easy to say and pretend what he didn’t feel?
Which explanation sounded more plausible?
The answer, validated by the evidence of history, was so incontrovertible, her stomach heaved. The dream she’d been living in quivered on the verge of plunging into a nightmare.
It was no use trying to ignore this. Doubt was poisoning her, snuffing out her life. She had to know for sure.
What if he denied it? Would she ever feel secure again? Would the doubts ever go away?
Yes. They would. Her mother had no idea who Rashid was. She was projecting her own end-justifies-the-means beliefs on him.
Rashid would tell her the truth. And she’d believe him.
She urged his head up as he rained kisses and words of worship all over her face and neck.
His glazed-with-passion, heavy-with-indulgence eyes met hers.
Feeling like she was about to jump off a cliff, she asked, “Do you need to marry me to become king of Azmahar?”
His face shut down. But not before she saw it.
The alarm. The dismay. Of premature exposure.
Everything her mother had said was true.
* * *
Rashid stared at Laylah, feeling his heart had burst.
So this was it. What he’d been dreading. The catastrophe that would end everything.
Every shred of control he’d been struggling for years to muster suddenly drained away. The chaos that was always hovering at the edge of his awareness crashed into his mind, unraveling it...
No. He couldn’t afford to surrender to the volatility that threatened to swallow him whole. He had to contain this.
Then he opened his mouth, and his voice sounded like he felt, desperate, out-of-control. “Is...is that what your mother told you?”
Her eyes, for the first time ever, were a void, expressing nothing. “I want you to tell me.”
His hands dug into her shoulders, feeling if he didn’t cling to her, she’d disappear. “I don’t care about the throne anymore. I only care about you. You must believe that.”
He had no idea if that helped or hurt his case. There was nothing in her expression to guide him.
“But it’s true that, no matter if you’re the best candidate, without an alliance with Zohayd, you won’t claim the throne?”
She needed the truth, and he’d give it to her. He’d explain how things had started, how they’d changed. She’d understand.
Maybe it was for the best this had come out, so he’d stop self-consuming with worry, so total disclosure would leave no possibility for anything going wrong or coming between them.
He still couldn’t breathe due to anxiety. “Azmaharians believe they need Zohayd’s alliance to survive. I always believed this dependence on Zohayd was toxic, and intended to make Azmahar fully independent if I became king. But I was left in no doubt that to become king I had to form a connection with Zohayd. The only way I could rival Haidar’s and Jalal’s blood relation to Zohayd’s king was to form one of my own with him.”
“And the only way was through marriage.” Her voice was as expressionless as her face. “Since I am the closest thing Amjad has to a sister, and I happen to be the only available female Aal Shalaan, anyway, you had no choice but to marry me.”
Hearing her analyze the plan he’d once weaved turned his stomach. And that was before she went on.
“So you planned to hunt me down, pretend you didn’t find me as abhorrent as you did my family and con me into marriage. Once you impregnated me and your heir replaced me as a perpetual blood bond, you’d discard the worthless creature you believed me to be.”
The accuracy of her projections drenched him with desperation. “Whatever I thought or planned, everything changed from that first night. That first hour.”
A faraway look came into her eyes, as if she was looking back into that time. “It was no coincidence that you were there that night. I felt your presence for weeks before that.” His choking silence corroborated her assumption. “You were studying me, like a hunter would his prey, finding out my habits, my haunts, to use this knowledge and my obliviousness to get to me. Once you made ‘accidental’ contact, you used the data you gathered to manipulate me into entering your trap willingly, even eagerly. As I did.”
Hot needles invaded his heart. “That was true, until you were attacked. Everything changed from then on. Everything.”
“You mean the attack you planned? The rescue you enacted?”
He almost doubled over with her accusation.
This was beyond his worst fears. That she’d think...think...
Her next words had protests recoiling in his chest, hacking into it. “The ironic thing is, you didn’t need to set me up. If you, of all people, had offered me a marriage of convenience, I would have jumped at the opportunity. That was how much I wanted you. I would have agreed to your cold deal and dreamed of one day melting your heart, of making you see me as more than a means to your end. I would have probably realized the mistake I had made sooner rather than later, but you would have gotten what you wanted by then. Just think about it—the truth would have served your purpose far better than this charade.”