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‘I wasn’t!’
‘Oh, yes, you were!’ His eyes glittered. ‘Just because I haven’t had to fend for myself doesn’t mean I don’t know what to do, if I need to—and you wouldn’t need to be a culinary genius to be able to cut off two slices of bread and wedge a little salad between them.’
Round one to Khalim, thought Rose with unwilling admiration as she bit into the most delicious sandwich she had ever eaten.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LIVING with a prince wasn’t a bit as Rose had expected—though, when she stopped to think about it, what had she expected? It wasn’t exactly the kind of situation where you could rummage through your life’s memory box and come up with a comparable experience, was it?
But there was only one word she could use to describe it. Bliss. Sheer and utter bliss.
She had never lived with a man before—had never felt any desire to make such a commitment to anyone before Khalim—and she was amazed at the way they just kind of slotted together as though this had always been meant to happen.
To her astonishment, the same things made them laugh—though for all the wrong reasons. Television game shows and badly made sitcoms, for example. And corny jokes which Khalim had apparently never grown out of since his schooldays.
‘It is enjoyable to have someone to share them with,’ he murmured to her one morning, when she was about to leave for work.
She heard the trace of wistfulness in the deep timbre of his voice. ‘What an isolated life you have led, Khalim!’
He shrugged. ‘Of course. It goes with the territory.’
And the territory in his case was real, not imagined.
And the other aspect of their life which was as close to perfection as Rose could imagine was their love-life. Their sex-life, she corrected herself automatically.
Just because Khalim sometimes astonished her with amazing tenderness during the act of love, didn’t mean that he actually felt love. Sex was sometimes tender, just as some times it was fast and furious, or deliciously drawn-out. In fact, it had a hundred different expressions, and Khalim seemed intent on exploring each and every one with her.
On the downside, there was no doubt that Khalim had been spoiled—both physically and spiritually. There was often a tussle as to who got their own way, with Khalim often expecting her to accede to his wishes, simply out of habit.
‘No!’ she protested one evening, when she walked into the kitchen to find that the breakfast cups and plates still hadn’t been stacked in the dishwasher. ‘It’s your turn to sort out the kitchen, Khalim!’
Khalim’s eyes narrowed. This was fast turning into the farce of a camping trip he had been forced to endure at school at the age of thirteen! ‘Haven’t we taken this living a normal life to the extreme?’ he demanded fiercely. ‘Surely even normal couples get someone in to do the housework!’
‘Yes, they do,’ said Rose patiently. ‘But that doesn’t include general tidying up, does it? And anyway—’ she looked up
at him in appeal ‘—isn’t that more of the same of what you’re used to? People waiting on you, so that you don’t live in the real world at all?’
Khalim gave an impatient little snort. Didn’t she realise that when she opened those great big baby-blue eyes at him like that, he would agree to almost anything? He walked over to where she stood, like some bright and glorious vision in a short white skirt and a clinging scarlet T-shirt, and pulled her into his arms.
‘Khalim, no!’
‘Say that like you mean it!’
‘I do!’ she said, half-heartedly.
He shook his head as he lifted her face to his. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, my beauty,’ he murmured, and bent his lips to hers.
She responded to him the way she always responded—with complete and utter capitulation, opening her mouth greedily to the seeking warmth of his, and tangling her fingers luxuriantly in the thick, black hair.
He gave a groan as he cupped her T-shirted breast, thinking how he had longed to hold her in his arms like this all day. She was like a fever in his blood, a fever he must purge before too long. He must. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he demanded heatedly.
‘No!’
‘No?’ His black eyes glittered. Why was she saying one thing, while her body was saying the precise opposite? ‘You mean you want me to do it to you here, standing up?’
Rose felt the instant pooling of need. He was outrageous! Irrepressible! She loved him—oh, how she loved him. ‘No,’ she said again, and with an effort disentangled herself from his arms, knowing in her heart of hearts that she was going a little bit over the top about this. But for heaven’s sake—there was a principle at stake here! ‘Well, really I mean yes—but not until after you’ve stacked the dishwasher!’
‘If you think I’m going to allow domesticity to start dominating the important things in life, then you have made a very poor judgement, Rose,’ he’d said, with a silky and sexual threat, and kissed her again, very soundly.
