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“Have you?” She smiled as he moved the loofah lower, over her breasts, circling them, all of his attention focused on their rounded curves. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Why?”
“It’s nice to know I’m not alone.” His eyes lifted to hers, and sparks flashed between them. The sponge went lower, over her stomach, rounded now – visual proof of what had happened between them, and then lower still, between her legs.
She moaned as he used it to spread her limbs and then dropped the loofah to the ground, his hand taking its place, finding her most sensitive cluster of nerve endings and running over them, his eyes watching as she gasped for air.
“You’re addicted to me, too?” He asked, the question drawled, but also, loaded with need – a need to hear her say it again, to know they were both consumed by this madness.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Agreement and understanding bounced from him to her and then he bent down, falling to his knees, and before she knew what he intended, his mouth was moving over her sex, and sensations robbed her of the ability to think, far less speak. She took a step backwards, so she was supported by the strength of the tiled wall, and he held her legs apart while he drove her towards the edge of sanity, towards the doors of heaven, and she cried his name out when she fell apart, her fingers tangling in his dark hair.
And afterwards, she was glad she had managed to stop herself from saying what had been running around and around in her head. She was glad she hadn’t said that she loved him, even when she was pretty sure she did. Even when she suspected addiction and need were all bound up in something much bigger, much more permanent and both terrifying and exhilarating at once.
But she said the words to herself, knowing they were true, and that one day, she’d probably say them to him – and just hope he said them back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SOPHIA MESSAGED ME,” SHE said, stretching languidly, her body satisfied, her mind relaxed. Outside, rain lashed against the windows, and night had fallen, wrapping them, and the island in a sort of wintry bliss. Inside, it was cozy and festive.
Christmas hadn’t been contained to the lounge room. Bella had unboxed every decoration Vitalo’s mother had possessed, and had found perfect places for them throughout the house. In their bedroom, she’d made a wreath from the vines outside, and even though the green had faded days earlier, it was a lovely brambly looking thing now.
Her hands moved down, closer to her stomach, and she ran them over the roundedness there in a newly-formed habit, delighting in the certainty that there was a baby in there, growing and living and doing everything it needed to do before it was ready to swim out and join them in the world.
“Your sister?” He prompted, his hand lifting and trapping hers, curving over the small roundedness of her stomach, his eyes dropping to it with a warmth and affection that made her heart skip a beat.
Bella made a noise of agreement. “She’s going to be in the states. She wanted to catch up.” Her eyes lifted to his and then, at the intensity in his gaze, flicked away again. “I haven’t told her. Any of this.”
“She knows about the baby?”
“Yes. Apart from that.”
He nodded slowly. “When?”
“When will we tell her?”
“When will she be in the States?”
“Next weekend.”
His frown was infinitesimal. “So soon.”
“She doesn’t live there?”
“No,” Bella lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain. “Sophia moved to Abu Faya years ago.”
“For work?”
“You could say that,” Bella’s smile was a flash on her face. “She’s engaged to His Royal Highness Sheikh Addan bin Hazari. But you can’t just marry a Sheikh, it turns out. You have to basically go to college and get a degree in the country. She’s been studying – everything from the history to the language – there’s six dialects she needs to be fluent in – to the culture and the politics.”
“I knew Addan’s father,” Vitalo said, thoughtfully. “Bashira was good friends with Andrew.”
“I know.” Bella’s eyes flicked to Vitalo’s and this time, they lingered there, roaming his face. “They always wished this wedding to take place. Dad used to joke about it, but Sheikh Bashira used to come to see us and he would always bring something special for Sophia. Amyrat Saghira, he would call her. It means ‘little princess’.”
“So it is, what? An arranged marriage?”
“No. Not exactly. She and Addan care for one another. They’re very close friends. They began to write to one another, swapping letters infrequently, for a couple of years, until daddy died when they wrote more and more often, and then she started to spend summers there, and on her twenty first birthday, they announced their intention to marry.”
