AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Shai’s lips faltered in their forced lift, so he tried harder and beamed wider, making deep grooves cut into his cheeks beneath his beard.
But she wasn’t fooled for even a moment.
Small hands reached up to cup his face, her thumbs tracing the dimples on either side that bracketed his mouth, her gaze worried.
“What a beautiful mask you wear,” she murmured.
“And yet your eyes remain somber and dark. What can I do to change this? Please tell me what to do.”
He turned to her fully then and rested his forehead against hers, shutting his eyes, hiding from her the only way he knew how since she saw so much.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“There is nothing I ask of you. And nothing that you owe to me. What we share between us is freely given and received. It is merely a mood.”
“I am allowed to have them, yes?” he teased gently. “I am only human.”
“Shai…” she breathed, pulling him closer so that she could kiss his mouth, his eyelids and cheeks.
“What can I do? I want only joy for you. I want only the best things. I want—”
“You can come to the fair with me,” he said, pulling slightly away to look into her eyes.
“Just a man and a woman celebrating life. Indulging in pleasure. We will drink and eat our fill. Find treasures together at the merchant stalls. Then dance and make merry as long as you like.”
She smiled at this, finally letting his darkness go.
“You can dance?” she asked with exaggerated skepticism.
He nodded, eyes crinkling in a real smile this time.
“I never claimed to be good at it. But you can be the judge.”
“Why have I never seen you dance?” she asked now with real surprise and a bit of outrage, as if he’d been deceiving her.
“When would there have been an occasion for it?” he returned.
There hadn’t been, as she well knew. A personal slave and protector did not neglect his duties to make merry.
“But… In the past three years you have been away from me.”
He bit his tongue to stop himself from saying,because you pushed me away.
“Surely there would have been time for relaxation and dancing? We may work long days in the kingdom but we Egyptians love to celebrate often and heartily.”
He tucked a curling tuft of hair behind her ear.
“Perhaps I did not have the right person to share time with,” he murmured.
She smiled radiantly.
“Perhaps you were waiting for me.”
Always. He’d always been waiting for her.
Only Heba.
“Perhaps,” was all he said instead, dimpling his cheeks for her because she seemed inordinately fond of this feature.
