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“Non-threatening,” he supplies.
“I’m not threatened by you.”
“Not by me, but what you want from me.”
Heat stains my face. Am I so obvious?
“Yes, I understand how you feel, little one.” My eyes dart back to his. “You want to hate me for what I did to your father, and yet at the same time, you want me to make love to you. You don’t want a baby with me, and yet you want to feel my body move within yours, simply for the pleasure you know I can give you.” His words reach inside me, shifting things around, making me intimately aware of every cell in my body.
There’s no sense in lying. “I do want that.” I face his eyes bravely now, courage stirring through me with the admission. “I’ve never met a man and felt such an instant attraction. I can’t explain it, and God knows I resent it. Why you, of all people?”
His lips twist in a humourless smile. “A question I have asked myself, believe me.”
My eyes widen.
“Yes, azeezi, I feel it too.”
“But you’re far more experienced,” I murmur. “You must be used to this kind of thing.”
His head dips forward. “It’s true, I’ve known many women.”
Jealousy spears me, sharp and unexpected.
“But you’re the first wife I’ve wanted.”
It’s a joke, and I smile, flattered in spite of the fact it’s meaningless; I’m his only wife.
“I didn’t come here for this.”
“Here on our honeymoon?”
“Here to Qabid.” I valiantly search for my dignity. “It’s not just how you look. I’d seen pictures; I knew you were handsome. But when I walked into your office yesterday,” I frown, looking at my watch. “The day before,” I correct. “I felt…”
His eyes roam mine, his nod slow. “It was the same for me.”
“So why tell me to go back inside?”
His exhalation of breath ruffles the hair on my head. “Because you’re not what I expected.”
“No?” My heart thumps.
“I thought I would hate you.”
“You don’t?”
His smile is dismissive. “Not entirely.”
“Jeez, thanks.”
He runs his thumb over my lower lip and my mouth opens on a sigh; he slides his thumb inside so I groan a little, swaying forward. “I thought I would hate you, and that I would sleep with you to cement our marriage. Now, things are considerably less simple.”
“So not hating me is a…bad thing?”
He runs his thumb down my chin and I make a soft, juddering noise. His eyes are watchful as his thumb grazes the flesh of my throat, tormenting me with the lightness of his touch, the promise in that small, gentle contact. “It changes things.”
I close my eyes, surrendering to this. “What things?” The question emerges as a tortured whisper.
“How we should proceed. Go to bed, azeezi.”
