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Typical Khal, she thought, still trying to maintain control. Not this time. She took him deeper into her mouth, feeling his taut stomach muscles shudder beneath her hands.
‘I could have you do this all day,’ he growled, letting his hand coil into the length of her hair, stopping her movement but still not withdrawing entirely. ‘But I cannot wait another moment before I can be inside you again.’
She sat back, running her fingers down his powerful thighs and trying to take a mental photograph of this moment. She did not know how long this mindless passion between them would last. But right now it felt as though they were the only two people in the world and she wanted to savour every moment. His hand encircled her wrist, gently tugging her so that she lay draped over him. She kissed him, softly at first before letting her arousal take over and taking the kiss deeper. Her mind no longer intruded, her body recognising his and knowing just what lay in store.
Strong hands gripped her hips. He thrust upwards, and both of them filled the room with the kind of throaty moan that only came with that very first joining. He thrust deep, filling her to the hilt, and withdrew halfway before he let his hands drift to his sides and went still.
>
‘Show me how you like it,’ he said, lying back to watch her with a look of deep male appreciation.
She bit her lip, feeling momentarily vulnerable with his eyes devouring her, but the delicious slide of him inside her was enough to move her thoughts elsewhere quickly enough. She moved over him slowly, finding her rhythm and gasping at the sensation of being filled so very deeply.
She trusted him completely, she realised, suddenly unable to look at him as the force of her emotions began to build, along with her climax. He moved, sitting up so that their chests were only inches apart; his hands on her hips kept her rhythm in check as he thrust in time with her. After the mind-exploding pleasure of their orgasms had passed there was only silence, and then the sound of their laboured breathing. Khal moved away first, darting a quick glance in her direction before lying flat on his back.
Something in his eyes told her that he felt it too, this painful closeness. She inhaled, feeling a lingering tightness in her chest from the force of keeping her emotions in check. She stood from the bed, moving to the bathroom on shaky legs and closing the door gently behind her.
This was so much more than feeling overwhelmed by sex, she thought, biting her lip at her own naiveté. She had known she was in danger from the moment he had looked into her eyes in that wedding tent. He had started out as the man she had been forced to choose and somehow wound up being her perfect fit. Her lover. The word seemed to caress something deep inside her, a tiny speck of romanticism that she would never have dreamed existed within her cynical heart. But there it was, clear as day. And, just as that speck began to glow and blossom, realisation dawned that she had done what she had vowed not to do.
She had let her emotions get involved. She had fallen in love with her husband.
* * *
Khal woke with a start, a light sheen of sweat on his chest as he sat up in the unfamiliar bedroom. It took a moment to realise where he was. He stood up, walking to the long terrace doors and opening them a few inches to take in a breath of fresh air. The city of Valar spread out before him in a glittering blanket of lights. The dream had been much the same as it always was. Priya’s voice haunting him, reminding him of his unworthiness, only tonight she had not been alone. Beside her, Cressida had appeared, tears falling from her eyes.
He contemplated slipping out to his own room, but immediately disregarded the idea as cowardly. He was not some kind of lothario who slipped in and out of bedrooms in the darkness. He splashed some cold water on his face and went back into the bedroom. The light beside the bed was on and to his dismay he found Cressida was sitting up, waiting for him.
‘I had not meant to wake you.’ Khal lay heavily back down onto the bed, turning on his side to take in the beautiful sight that greeted him. Cressida lay back against the pillows, ash-blonde hair spilling around her bare shoulders and the satin sheets tucked demurely under her arms to cover her chest. The innocent display of modesty was a delicious distraction from his troubled thoughts; he could think of no better way to redirect his mind than by peeling away those sheets, inch by glorious inch...
‘You were talking in your sleep...’ Cressida disturbed his train of thought, a nervous tone to her quiet voice ‘... I was debating whether or not to wake you but then I heard you get up... I wasn’t sure if perhaps you were sleepwalking.’
‘I hope I at least said something entertaining,’ he joked easily, but still he wondered how much she might have gleaned from his night-time ramblings.
Cressida did not smile. ‘I believe that you...you were dreaming of your wife.’
He could hear the sadness in her voice, the uncertainty. ‘You are my wife. Let us not get mixed up on that fact, habibti.’
‘You were saying her name.’ She took her lip between her teeth, worrying it slightly, weighing up her words before she spoke. ‘Priya. Do you dream of her often?’
Khal exhaled, deeply uncomfortable with the turn this conversation had taken. He had never spoken to a soul about the dreams that’d plagued him since Priya’s death. How their final conversation seemed to haunt him so heavily. And even now, four years later, the dreams would come back every now and then. It tended to happen at very inopportune times, like when he slept in a jet surrounded by staff or the first night that he slept beside his new wife after making love... He silently cursed himself.
‘I’m not exactly sure what triggers the dream, maybe stress or lack of sleep. It just kind of happens every once in a while.’ He curled one arm behind his head and studied the ceiling for a moment, knowing the conversation had only begun, judging by the curious look on Cressida’s face.
‘No one ever seems to talk of how she died,’ Cressida said slowly. ‘It’s as though it’s some great big secret. Ironic, coming from me, I know.’
Khal attempted a smile but found the muscles in his face seemed suddenly tight. He did not speak of Priya’s death to anyone. He never had. Other than to aid in the investigations into her accident, no one addressed the subject and he certainly did not bring it into conversation. It felt as though every comfortable boundary in his life had begun to slowly erode from the moment he had met Cressida.
‘You don’t have to speak about it,’ she said quickly, feigning a sudden interest in the pattern on the sheets that covered her abdomen. ‘It’s probably quite presumptuous of me to even ask. I’m sorry.’
Khal felt like an utter ass, seeing the look on her face. Of course she had the right to ask; they were married and he had just been speaking another woman’s name in their bed. The rules surrounding their marriage were still blurred at present, neither of them knowing exactly what was okay or not. The initial agreement for a marriage in name only had most definitely been broken, but it left them in a kind of limbo. They were not man and wife in the truest sense, but neither were they the kind of formal arrangement he had originally envisioned. He knew that right now was most definitely one of those moments where he needed to do the difficult thing.
‘It’s not something I’m usually comfortable talking about,’ he said slowly, watching as her eyes raised up to meet his. He reached out and laid his hand over hers on the sheets. ‘But you spoke through your own discomfort; therefore perhaps it is only fair that I do the same.’
‘You don’t have to...’ Cressida began quickly.
‘I want to,’ he said, surprised to realise that he was speaking the truth. ‘I told you once before that my marriage was not all that it seemed. To the public we were untouchable. I was the picture-perfect husband and she the perfect wife.’ He shook his head, a cruel laugh escaping from his lips. ‘Not a single soul knows the last words she ever spoke to me... The words that haunt my dreams at night. She told me that she would rather die than be my wife a moment longer.’ Khal turned his head, expecting to see disgust in Cressida’s eyes. But what he saw there instead was more uncomfortable. Pity. Oh, how he had despised that look of pity on people’s faces in the months following his wife’s death.
‘Couples have arguments all of the time,’ Cressida began.
