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But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he pulled her back into his arms. He stared down at her for a long moment before bending his head to kiss her—the fiercest kiss she could ever have imagined. She knew what he was doing. He was channelling his hurt and his anger and his pain into sex, because that was what he did. That was how he coped with the heavy burden he carried.
Leila clung to him, kissing him back with all the passion she was capable of, because she wanted him just as much. But she wanted so much more than just sex. She ached to give him succour and comfort. She wanted to show him that she was here for him and that she would always be here for him if only he would let her. She would warm his cold and damaged heart with the power of her love. Yes, love. She loved this cold, stubborn husband of hers, no matter how much he tried to withdraw from her.
‘Gabe,’ she whispered. ‘My darling, darling Gabe.’
The breath he let out in response was ragged and that vulnerable sound only added to her determination to show him gentleness. Her hand flew up to the side of his face and, softly, she caressed his jaw. Did her touch soothe him? Was that why his eyelids fluttered to a close, as if he was unspeakably weary? She touched those too, her fingertips whispering tenderly over the lids, the way she had done all that time ago in Simdahab.
Beneath the tiptoeing of her fingers, his powerful body shuddered—shaking like a mighty tree which had been buffeted by a major storm. He opened his eyes and looked at her but there was no ice in his grey eyes now. Only heat and fire.
He picked her up and carried her over to the sofa, and she’d barely made contact with the soft leather before he was impatiently rucking up her filmy blue dress and sliding down her panties. His hand was shaking as he struggled with his own zip, tugging down his trousers with a frustrated little moan.
She was wet and ready for him and there were few preliminaries. But Leila didn’t want them; she just wanted Gabe inside her. His fingers parted her slick, moist folds and she gasped as he entered her, closing her eyes as he filled her.
‘Gabe,’ she said indistinctly, but he didn’t answer as he began to move.
It was fast and deep and elemental. It seemed to be about need as much as desire, and Leila found herself responding to him on every level. Whatever he demanded of her, she matched—but she had never kissed him quite as fervently as she did right then.
Afterwards, she collapsed against the heap of the battered cushions, her heart beating erratically as she made shallow little gasps for breath. She turned to look at him, but he had fallen into a deep sleep.
For a while she lay there, just watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. She thought about what he had told her and she flinched with pain as she took her mind back to his terrible story. He had known such darkness and bleakness, but that period of his life was over. He had taken all the secrets from his heart and revealed them to her—and she must not fail him now.
Because Gabe needed to be loved; properly loved. And she could do that. She could definitely do that. She would care for him deeply, but carefully—for fear that this bruised and damaged man might turn away from the full force of her emotions.
She must love him because he needed to be loved and not because she demanded something in return. She might wish for that, but it was not hers to demand.
She snuggled closer, feeling the jut of his hip against her belly. She ran her lips over the roughness of his jaw and then kissed the lobe of his ear as she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
‘I will love you, Gabe Steel,’ she whispered.
But Gabe only stirred restlessly in his sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DISTANT RUMBLE of thunder echoed Leila’s troubled thoughts.
Had she thought it would be easy? That Gabe’s icy heart would melt simply because he’d revealed all the bitter secrets he’d carried around with him for so long? That he’d instantly morph into the caring, sharing man she longed for him to be?
Maybe she had.
She glanced out of the window. Outside, the tame English skies were brewing what looked like the fiercest storm she had witnessed since she’d been here. Angry grey clouds billowed up behind St Paul’s Cathedral and the river was the colour of dark slate.
She had tried to reassure herself with the knowledge that, on the surface, things in their marriage were good. Better than before. She kept telling herself that, as if to accentuate the positive. Gabe was teaching her card games and how to cook eggs, and she was learning to be tidier. He massaged her shoulders at the end of a working day and they’d started going for country walks on the weekend. Her pregnancy was progressing well and she had passed the crucial twelve weeks without incident. Her doctor had told her that she was blooming—and physically she had never felt better.
