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His look alone silenced her.
‘You cannot afford one baby, let alone twins. Your debts are monumental, and you lost your job at the agency shortly after our night together.’
Her eyes were like saucers in her face, her skin blanching pale. ‘How did you know?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me! Have you been spying on me?’
‘Naturally I did my research,’ he said. ‘I thought someone might have taken a photograph of us kissing at the bar, remember? I wanted to be prepared if the story broke in the papers.’ He raked her face with his eyes, his expression grim. ‘You are in no position to fight me.’
‘And yet I would, with all that I am.’
‘It would never be enough.’ He moved closer, near enough to touch. ‘You are in my country, where we play purely by my rules. Even if we weren’t, I have the means—and motivation—to pursue custody of our children through the highest courts in your country. And I would win, India. Your vocational choices make that a given.’
‘Damn it, Khalil, I’m not what you think I am.’
‘Even if that is true, working as an escort is still enough to put doubt into a judge’s mind.’
Her lips parted on a whoosh of hurt and he felt a stirring in his gut, a yearning that spread through him like wildfire, so he caught her face in his hands and held her right where she was.
‘But beyond that, there is a part of you that doesn’t want to fight what I am suggesting. There is a part of you that wants to stay here with me, isn’t there, India?’
Her eyes were like pools of doubts, but they were also awash with desire, so much he could swim in it. He stroked her lower lip, and felt her tremble beneath his touch, the pulse point at the base of her throat visible beneath her translucent skin.
‘I found it impossible to resist you that night, and that same desire flashes through me now, even after—’ he shook his head. ‘What kind of fool does that make me?’
He saw hurt in her eyes right before he kissed her, and he blanked it from his mind. He didn’t want to wound her. He was only being honest. And in that moment, all he honestly wanted was to kiss her until he felt sane again.
She was breathless with the pleasure of his kiss, its unexpected nature catching her off guard, so she was completely lost to him, her knees sagging her body forward, and it was the most natural thing for his arm to clamp around her waist, holding her to him.
Fight him. Fight this!
Her brain was screaming at her, warning her that within pleasure lay the potential for so much pain, and yet they were bonded, the two of them; bonded by babies and something else, an undeniable force that held them together, so that when he lifted her and carried her to the bed, she didn’t even think about saying anything to resist him.
She didn’t want to. It was selfish and short-sighted but India’s craving for Khalil usurped everything else. He undressed her quickly, pausing only to undo his own belt and trousers before he separated her thighs with his knee then pushed into her, kissing her as he possessed her body. She groaned at the immediate sensation of relief then white-hot pleasure, his possession of her swift and urgent, the same need rushing through them both, overpowering them, making speech and sense unnecessary. There was only this.
His fingers weaved with hers, pinning her hands above her head as he moved, trapping her. His other hand roamed her breast, cupping it as he kissed her and thrust deep and hard, faster and faster as their need grew to the point where neither could bear it, neither could fight it: they clung to one another as they exploded, pleasure a burst of light that, for a moment, pushed aside the dark.
Khalil’s body weight on top of hers was blissful, but only for a moment. Reality began to push against her and regrets were not far behind. This situation was complicated enough without having brought sex right back into it. India’s breathing slowed and his weight became impossible to bear, so she pushed at his chest, rolling out from beneath him and standing, lifting a hand to her forehead and shaking her head.
‘That shouldn’t have happened.’
There was no regret in his face, only determination. Had he planned to seduce her? To prove a point?
‘No,’ he said simply, so she realised she’d asked the questions aloud.
‘Then what the heck...?’
‘I meant what I said. Whatever drew us together that night still exists between us. Nothing that happened since has changed our desire.’
‘But it has for me! Everything is different now.’
She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes darken with something like doubt, but it was gone again almost instantly, arrogance back in place.
‘The fact we have this chemistry is a bonus, India. Our marriage needn’t be a disaster—we can share this, and our children. Many people have wed for much less.’
Her jaw dropped, her mind too spongy to make sense of what he was saying. ‘Did you just say—our marriage?’
