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Temptation was dragging her under, pulling her into a tide of responsiveness and need. But it was madness, and a madness of his making. With a super-human effort, she broke apart from him, shoving at his chest and spinning herself around, so she had some space. Only space was an illusion – he was everywhere! In the air she breathed deep into her lungs, in the black recesses of her eyes, in her mouth, right down to her toes.
“Don’t kiss me,” she said warningly, lifting a hand to her mouth and touching her lips as though she could wipe away what they’d just shared.
“We can do it without kissing,” he said with a lift of his shoulders, his tone mocking. “But it’s a lot less personal.”
She glared at him. “We aren’t doing it at all,” she denied hotly. “I’m not going to simply sleep with you because you’ve decided it’s time! That’s not how things work. We’re husband and wife. How and when we have children is our decision, not yours alone. I appreciate you’re used to ruling with supreme autonomy but I’m not your subject to command.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what you are,” he said with a hint of steel in his voice.
“So you’re going to order me into your bed even when it’s the last place on earth I want to be?”
He laughed softly. “I don’t think I’ll need to order you there.” He raked his gaze down her body, his attention lingering on the way her breasts were straining at her dress, two firm peaks of desire, echoed by her parted lips, flushed cheeks and huge pupils.
The room was filled with the sound of her breathing, hoarse and rushed. “Having children is not something I can just rush into.”
“You must see the importance of acting now.”
She turned away from him, so he wouldn’t recognize the acquiescence in her eyes. The truth was, she did want children. Desperately. She’d had a lonely upbringing – her only sibling was ten years her senior and they weren’t close. Her father and she had been basically estranged and her mother had been miserable and cold. Chloe yearned for someone to love, someone to fill the void in her heart. But a baby? Would she know what to do? How to love one? How to care for one?
“My father is dying.” The words were torn from Raffa and they sledged right into Chloe’s solar plexus. “And I want to give him this. I am begging you, Chloe, to help me. You are the only person; this is the only way. Will you help me?”
Her stomach twisted as the grief and desperation in his words ran through her. “You’re not just asking me to lend you my car for the weekend,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is a big deal.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You’ve done this before. Had children, I mean,” she said, her skin heating at the unintentional double entendre, when she hadn’t been referring to his sexual experience at all.
Slowly, she turned back to face him, and her skin was pale, her eyes uncertain. “You want me to do this for you?”
He swept his eyes shut and his strong, handsome face, wore visible signs of strain. “Yes.”
“I want something from you in return.”
That got his attention. His eyes flew wide open, and he lanced her with the intensity of his gaze. “Go on.”
“We both know why we married,” she spoke stiltedly, frowning a little, for once her mask of unflappability dropping to show her true feelings. “Our fathers were determined that we would and neither of us wanted to upset them. It’s one of the main reasons I knew this marriage would work – that we both put such a high value on loyalty to our families.”
He tipped his head forward in silent agreement.
“Plus, Apollo considers you one of his closest friends, and despite the fact he and I aren’t particularly close, I do respect his judgement.”
He continued to be silent at the reference to her older half-brother.
“But I don’t know you, Raffa.” She took a step towards him, her frown captivating. “I don’t know what foods you like to eat, nor what music you listen to. I don’t know what books you read – or if you read at all, for that matter. I don’t know what makes you laugh, I don’t know anything about the man I married.”
“And whose fault is that?” He queried smoothly. “You took yourself to Qadim just as soon as the ink was dry on our contracts.”
“You gave me the house in the city,” she was spurred to defend. “Did you think I wouldn’t go there?”
“I thought you would go there occasionally,” he said with a gentle rebuke in the words. “Instead, you’ve used it as a hide-out, spending every bit of time you could away from me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t hiding. I just… like the city,” she finished lamely.
“Be that as it may, if you had wanted to get to know me then you could have.”
“Fine,” she conceded with a sharp jerk of her head. “You’re right. But I can’t make love to a stranger. I’m just not wired that way.”
“How little you know of your body,” he said, almost regretfully. “You were quivering in my arms just now, and I guarantee that your insides were churning with wants. That your knees were weak and your belly tight, your breasts tender, your mind spinning with ways in which to find pleasure…”
