by Sarah Morgan
‘No. Not yet.’
Denied the completion she craved, she moaned against his mouth. ‘Not fair.’
‘I want you. All of you.’ He murmured the words against her mouth and she parted her lips and tried to steal a kiss but with her hands held and her body trapped beneath the powerful strength of male muscle, she wasn’t the one in control. He kept his mouth just out of reach of hers, close enough to drive her crazy and make her desperate for his kiss, not close enough for her to take control.
‘Mal—’
‘I want you to trust me.’ He spoke softly but there was no mistaking the command in his voice and had they been in a different position she would have smiled because he just couldn’t help himself. Even now, in this position of extreme intimacy, he had to be in control.
‘I don’t trust anyone but myself.’
‘Up until now that might have been true—’ His fingers, placed tantalizingly close to that delicate part of her, traced her so gently, so skilfully that the exquisite pleasure swelled to something close to pain. Her body throbbed with her need for him and he knew it. She knew he knew it because she felt his smile against her mouth as he finally lowered his head to hers and gave her what she’d craved. His tongue slid over hers, bold, demanding and unashamedly sensual while all the time his fingers worked magic. And still he held her hands. Still he held her trapped and the ease with which he did it confirmed that physically he was the stronger, but she couldn’t allow herself to surrender in the way he wanted her to surrender.
‘Let go of me. I want to touch you.’
‘No. For now, I’m the one in charge. The sooner you acknowledge that, the sooner I let you go.’ His hand pushed her thighs wider and with a single smooth movement he was inside her. Deep, sure but achingly slow and gentle and that control on his part tore at the last straining threads of hers.
She moaned and he withdrew slightly and then moved again, deeper this time, his hand on her hip, controlling her movements. The look in his eyes made it hard to catch her breath and she wanted to close hers, to block him out, but something in her wouldn’t allow it so the connection continued, deepening an experience that was already terrifying.
It had never been like this before. The sex had always been amazing and each time had been different but never, ever had it felt like this. Never this close. Never this—personal.
He’d never demanded this much from her and she’d never given this much.
She felt the strength of him, the power of him stretching her, possessing her and she wrapped her legs around him, always active, never passive and he smiled against her lips because he recognised that need in her. He knew her so well. He knew all of her and she tried again to block him out because the level of intimacy was terrifying. She was bound, not by the fact that he held her hands, but by the fact that he held her heart. If she begged him, he’d let her hands go. Physically, she’d be free. Emotionally, she knew she’d never be free. He was the only man she wanted. He was the only man she’d ever wanted and those feelings bound her to him as securely as if she’d been handcuffed.
‘Stop fighting it—’ he kissed her slowly ‘—stop fighting me and pushing me away.’
‘I’m not pushing you. Thanks to you, I can’t move.’
‘I’m not talking about physically and you know it.’ His mouth was still on hers. Gentle and yet demanding at the same time. ‘I’m talking about everything else.’
‘What else is there?’
‘You know.’
Yes, she knew and this time she managed to close her eyes, moaning a low denial. ‘You are asking too much.’
‘I’m asking a lot. But not too much.’
‘You don’t know.’
‘If there are things I don’t know then it’s because you’ve never trusted me enough to tell me. I won’t hurt you.’
And she knew he wasn’t talking about the physical side of their relationship. He wasn’t talking about sex or anything that they were doing right now in this bed. That wouldn’t have scared her. What scared her was the fact that he would hurt her. Maybe not now, or even tomorrow but at some point in their relationship, perhaps even when she’d started to rely on having him in her life.
He’d hurt her before …
Panic washed over her. ‘Mal—’
‘I want it all, Avery. Everything you’ve never given before. I want that from you.’ His free hand locked in her hair. ‘I won’t be satisfied with less than everything.’
She moaned because he was deep inside her and thinking clearly no longer seemed easy and natural. In fact thinking felt impossible as he took her in a slow, sensuous rhythm that drove her wild.
‘I want to know about the dream.’
‘The dream?’
‘Those dreams you have. Tell me—’ he breathed the words against her mouth as he broke one erotic kiss and started another ‘—tell me what it is that makes you moan in your sleep and wake with dark circles under those beautiful eyes.’
She was dizzy from his kisses, melting and desperate from each carefully timed thrust. ‘I dream about work—’ she moaned as his tongue slid into contact with hers and her senses exploded ‘—work.’
‘Work?’ His hand moved down, lower, sliding under her bottom, holding her firm as he deepened his possession. ‘It’s work that makes you cry out?’
‘Yes.’ She was on the point of begging because he’d held her at this point for so long and she didn’t think she could stand it any longer. She ached with need. She craved him in a way that was indecent.
‘You’re lying. Tell me what you dream about.’ The husky tone of his voice was unbearably sexy and she wondered how he could still string a sentence together when she herself was barely able to give voice to a moan.
‘Avery—’ Purring her name, he sank deep into her quivering flesh and Avery lost her grip on control, every sense in her body teased to its limits under his skilled touch. As she lost control of herself she realised that her mother had got it wrong. Yes, she could be responsible for her own orgasm, but it was so much better when someone else was. And she could be responsible for her own heart too, but sharing it was the greatest gift she could give and she wanted to share it with this man.
‘You,’ she gasped as he brought ecstasy crashing down on them. ‘I dream about you.’
Mal lay in the dark, wrapped in the scent of her and the softness of her, holding her in the curve of his arm as the rising sun sent arrows of golden light shooting across the desert. Apart from the night of the scorpion sting, this was the first time she’d allowed herself to fall asleep in his arms, as if it were somehow a weakness to do that.
And there was no doubt in his mind that she saw it that way. As if admitting to having feelings for a man somehow threatened who she was.
It was ironic, he thought, because in many ways she was the strongest person he knew and yet he understood that her independence was driven by fear as much as anything. Fear of being let down. Fear of hurt. She’d told him little about her past but what little she’d told him had been sufficient for him to form a picture of a life lived devoid of paternal influence.
He’d read about her mother. About the impressive divorce lawyer who had sacrificed everything on her way to the top. Clearly she’d also sacrificed her relationship with Avery’s father because there was no mention of him anywhere, and no doubt that negative experience was responsible for her damaged view of marriage. He told himself that he shouldn’t judge, especially given that he knew countless men who had done the same thing. Men who had put their own ambitions before the needs of their loved ones. Marriages died. It was a fact of life.
But they’d made progress.
It wasn’t much of a leap to go from ‘I dream about you’ to ‘I love you’.
And he was confident she was ready to make that leap.
She woke to warmth and a safe feeling. Struggling up through clouds of sleep, Avery opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was bronzed skin and male muscle.
/> Mal.
She’d spent the night with Mal. The whole night. Not just a few hours and not even just sleeping in the same bed, but with him, snuggled. Joined. And after months of trying to piece herself back together, piece by broken piece.
Warmth was replaced by dismay. What had she done?
It was like spending a year on a diet and then taking a job in a chocolate factory and binging from dawn to dusk. She was furious with herself—and with him for assuming that he could just pick up where he’d left off.
Panic exploded and she tried to wrench herself away from him but his arms tightened like a steel band, locking her against him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m suffering a serious case of morning-after regret. Let me go.’ Had he always had muscles like this? She strained against his hold but there was no shifting him.
‘You’re not going anywhere. If there are things you want to say then you can say them here.’
Pressed against his warm naked body with every passing second reminding her of last night and weakening her resolve?
‘Let me go.’
‘Never.’ He didn’t open his eyes and a slight smile tilted the corners of his firm, sexy mouth. ‘You are running away from me yet again like the coward you are.’
‘I’m not a coward.’
‘No?’ His eyes opened a fraction and he looked at her, his expression shielded by the thickness of dark lashes. ‘Prove it, habibti. Stay where you are. Do not create the distance your instinct tells you to create. Last night, for once, you were honest. Embrace it. Face the fear.’
‘Last night I was an idiot. And I don’t want this! I had it once before and it was truly horrible.’ She shoved him hard and sprang from the bed, her heart racing and panic gripping her like the talons of one of his falcons.
‘Horrible?’ His tone was several shades cooler. ‘You are saying our relationship was horrible?’
‘Not our relationship, no, the part when it ended.’ Flustered and confused and horribly conscious that she was naked, she grabbed the nearest item of clothing, which just happened to be his discarded shirt. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’
He lifted himself onto his elbow, his inky black hair flopping over his forehead. The sheet drifted down, displaying packed muscle and abs as hard as steel. ‘Given that you were the one who ended it, no, I don’t.’
She thought back to that time and didn’t know whether to cry or punch him. ‘Never mind.’ The words were thickened around the lump in her throat and she pulled on the shirt, covering herself. ‘Forget it. I’d be grateful if you’d do your powerful Prince thing and call your helicopter. It’s time for me to go home.’
‘Wearing nothing but my shirt?’
‘I’ll change.’
‘Don’t bother. I’m not letting you go again.’ He was so sure of himself and who could blame him after the way she’d folded in his arms only a few hours earlier.
‘It isn’t your choice, it’s mine and I choose not to do this again. I won’t make the same mistake twice.’ But she’d already made it, hadn’t she? She’d already taken more than a few steps down that path. And the wounds of her healing heart were already bleeding again. And that was her fault. Despite everything, she’d allowed them to be ripped open a second time.
‘Are you pretending that we’re not good together?’
His lack of insight was like a punch to her belly. Her emotions overflowed. ‘You don’t have a clue, do you? You have absolutely no idea.’ She paced to the far side of the bedroom on legs that shook so badly she wasn’t confident of their ability to fulfil their purpose. ‘We’ve done this once before, Mal, and when it fell apart it left me in pieces. I was … was broken, and helpless and utterly pathetic and … God, I can’t believe I just told you that.’ Turning away from him, she covered her face with her hands. ‘Just stop this, please. I don’t want a post-mortem. Last night was last night but that’s it. That’s all it was. One night. No more. I can’t give any more.’
But it was too late. He was already out of the bed and next to her, gloriously naked and completely indifferent to that fact. ‘You were in pieces?’ The light humour had gone. In its place was nothing but raw emotion. ‘When were you in pieces? Because whenever I contacted you, you were the most perfect example of someone completely together. I did not see a woman in pieces, I saw a woman who didn’t give a damn. Until last night that’s all I’ve ever seen when I’ve looked at you.’
‘Well, what did you expect?’ She let her hands drop and she was yelling now, completely forgetting to lower her voice and incapable of playing it cool. ‘After everything I gave you, you did that to me.’
‘Everything you gave me?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice cracked. ‘With you I did something I’d never done with a man before—I gave you my heart and you sliced it up into a million pieces and served it up in public like chopped liver. “Here, look at this everyone, help yourself.”‘ That confession was followed by a horrible silence. She waited for him to say something but instead he simply stared at her, his cheeks unnaturally pale.
He swallowed, although that manoeuvre appeared to cause him difficulty. ‘You were the one who ended our relationship.’
‘And weeks later you were engaged to Kalila. And news of that engagement was everywhere. I couldn’t go on the Internet without having pictures of the happy couple flashed in front of my face. And everyone was watching me, waiting for me to fall apart. Everyone. It was like being an exhibit in a zoo. Do you know how hard it was to drag myself out of bed in the morning and face the world? Because I can tell you it was hell.’
He looked shell-shocked. ‘Avery—’
‘And as if it wasn’t bad enough, you then had the gall to ask me to organise the evening party to celebrate your wedding. You had to rub my face in it.’ All the emotion that had been locked inside her for so long came flowing out, smothering her and choking her. ‘And I had to laugh and smile and say, “Of course I don’t mind,” to what felt like a million nosy people who wanted to stop and stare at our massive car crash of a relationship. It was bad enough that you asked her to marry you so soon after we broke up, but to ask me to organise the party knowing that I wouldn’t feel able to refuse—’ she was sobbing now, tears soaking her cheeks as she finally lost control. ‘How could you do that? How could you want to hurt me and humiliate me like that? How could you?’
Ashen, he muttered something unintelligible and reached for her but she snatched her hand away and dodged him.
‘No! There is nothing you can do or say to make this right. I’ve always thought that long-term relationships were doomed but with you, just for a moment, I was happy. And hopeful. And then you did that.’ The words ended on a hiccup. ‘And it wasn’t an accident. You did it to hurt me. And you did. You did hurt me, Mal. And I won’t let you do it again.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAL stood frozen to the spot, staring at the space where only a moment ago she’d stood. Stunned, he sifted through the words she’d thrown at him, sorting them in order of importance. And when he’d done that, he cursed softly.
Mouth tight, he rapped on the door of the bathroom. The door that she’d locked, of course. ‘Avery? Open up. Now.’
When there was no answer, he stepped back and contemplated his options. Examining the lock, he strode across the bedroom and retrieved the bag he’d taken into the desert. The knife felt heavy in his hand and he stared at the blade, wondering if it would serve his purpose. Silently thanking Rafiq who had ensured that he was armed with no end of practical skills, he manoeuvred the knife and successfully unlocked the door.
She was huddled on the floor of the bathroom, her arms locked around her legs, his shirt barely covering the tops of her pale thighs. His entry earned him a scowl. ‘So now you can walk through locked doors? Get out.’
‘No.’
‘It isn’t enough to hurt me once? You have to do it again and again?’ Her gaze dropped to his hands. ‘And with a knife?
Is this a new blood sport?’
He’d forgotten about the knife in his hand and instantly he put it down, thinking that he’d never seen her like this before. Never seen her with her emotions so clearly on display. ‘I did not hurt you intentionally.’ With the same care and caution that he would have approached an injured animal, Mal squatted down next to her. ‘I didn’t know, habibti.’ He purposefully kept his voice soft and non-confrontational but that didn’t stop the sudden blaze of fire in her eyes.
‘Didn’t know what? That you are an insensitive bastard? That just means you have a depressing lack of self-insight.’
He chose to ignore the insult because he recognised it for what it was—a last frantic defence from someone who was terrified. ‘I didn’t know you’d given me your heart. Until today, I didn’t think you had. I thought that was a prize I hadn’t won. You didn’t say anything and I—’ he let out a breath ‘—I failed to pick up the signals.’
‘And you’re such an expert in body language.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘You didn’t have to be an expert.’ The derisive glance she sent in his direction spoke volumes about her view on relationships. ‘I was with you for a year. A whole year. What do you think that says?’
‘To me it said that we were having a good time.’ Mal saw the shimmer of an unshed tear stuck to her eyelashes and his heart clenched. He lifted his hand to brush it away gently with his thumb but she flinched away from him. The shirt she’d grabbed was too big for her and as she flattened herself against the wall of the bathroom it slid down, exposing one pale shoulder. Just a glimpse, and yet it was enough to force him to shift positions for his own comfort. Enough to remind him that this woman affected him in a way that no other woman ever had. ‘It didn’t tell me that you were in love with me. I didn’t presume that and you didn’t tell me that. Not once did you say those words.’