He swallowed.
She had been irresistible.
Beguiling him little by little—her shy sexual confidence had increased daily until he wondered which of them was the tutor and which the pupil. But it wasn’t just sex she excelled at. It was other stuff, too. She seemed to instantly grasp what was important to him and what was not. She didn’t say unnecessary things or do that glazed-eye thing women did when they were pretending to be interested in your job. Her interest in his work seemed genuine. His gaze distracted by the hard points of her nipples, which were thrusting against her pink gown, he dragged his mind back to the question she’d just asked him. Something about a meeting...
‘It was good,’ he said vaguely, even though this particular meeting had been months in the planning. ‘Malik was unusually compliant.’
‘So you think he’s eager to embrace solar power at last?’
Kulal frowned. He didn’t remember discussing that either, but he supposed he must have done. And why the hell was he getting into a discussion about renewable energy when he’d come here specifically to make love to her? ‘Not nearly as eager as I am to embrace you,’ he murmured, walking over to the desk and switching off the lamp, before pulling her to her feet. ‘You should be in bed.’
Those amazing eyes widened. ‘I’ve been reading.’
‘It’s late.’
‘So what? I’m pregnant, Kulal—and I’m getting plenty of sleep. The doctor says I’m in peak health and right now I feel wide awake.’
‘That’s good. Because so do I.’ He slid his hand down over one undulating hip and instantly heard a long breath escape from her lips.
‘Kulal.’ He heard her swallow. ‘I...I wanted to ask you some more about the solar power initiative and...and...oh!’
Her words faded away as his lips brushed hungrily over her neck. ‘Which is the very last thing I want to talk about, Hannah. I’d rather concentrate on...this...’ He started rucking up the gauzy gown to explore the silken territory of her thighs, his fingers finding her moist heat as he explored further. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ he said unsteadily.
‘Well...’ She tipped her head to one side as if she was giving the question careful consideration, but he saw her eyes become opaque as his finger found her sweet spot and began to drum softly against it.
‘You were saying?’ he prompted softly.
‘I don’t...remember,’ she moaned.
And neither did he. She felt so good and tasted so good that he could wait no longer. With a low groan, he picked her up and carried her over to the bed, ignoring her habitual protestations, because although she was almost six months pregnant with his child, he could still lift her with ease. She was wearing her nightgown, but Kulal was too hungry to care. In fact, he couldn’t even wait to remove his own robes. But silk and satin could be pushed aside enough for him to gain all the access he needed and before too long she was breathlessly urging him to enter her. Kulal needed no second bidding as he filled her with an erection that had never felt quite so hard. Each thrust seemed to take him deeper. He felt as if he wanted to explode. As if nothing else in the world existed outside this room and this bed. He teetered on the brink of pleasure until at last she gave a strangled cry and almost immediately he let go with a harsh and breathless shout of his own.
Kulal didn’t know how long he lay there before withdrawing from her, but her face was flushed and her eyes dark as they gazed at each other in the lamplight. ‘That was a very welcome homecoming,’ he said eventually.
‘I’m glad,’ she said demurely.
‘Where the hell did you learn to be so...responsive?’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Or are you just one of life’s natural seductresses?’
‘I’ve read some stuff,’ she admitted a little shyly. ‘I figured that an inexperienced wife might drive you into the arms of someone else if I wasn’t careful.’
The unexpected candour and humility of her response made Kulal’s heart punch painfully in his chest. ‘But I promised you my fidelity,’ he growled.
‘I know you did, but I...’
She seemed about to say something else when he saw a shadow cross over her face, and instead she shrugged.
‘What?’ he probed.
‘It doesn’t matter. Honestly.’ She fastened her arms around his neck and planted a lingering kiss on his lips. ‘What matters is that you should enjoy your coming home at night as much as I do.’
‘I certainly enjoy coming,’ he mused.
‘Kulal!’
He gave a low laugh. ‘I don’t really think you’re in any position to be shocked by my words, Hannah—not when you seem pretty unshocked by some of the things we do together. Now...’ his voice dipped ‘...why don’t we rid you of this nightgown—beautiful as it is—which, in my haste to be inside you, I neglected to remove?’
He helped her slide out of her nightdress, but took his time while undressing himself, deliberately making himself step back from the easy intimacy which seemed to have developed between them. Because sometimes, didn’t disquiet whisper over his skin—as warm and as insidious as the slow trickle of blood? Instinctively, his fingertips went to the ridged scar which ran all the way from nipple to belly. At the time, he hadn’t felt the knife enter his body because he had been on a rush of adrenalin, and sometimes he felt the same way now, when he was in bed with his wife.
He had warned Hannah what he would and wouldn’t tolerate within their marriage yet he hadn’t expected her to be quite so accepting of his demands. Hadn’t he anticipated rebellion once she realised he would not bend the stringent rules he had imposed on their union? But she had confounded all his expectations. She hadn’t sulked, or bargained, or pleaded for him to spend the whole night with her. She hadn’t drummed her fingernails on the table and told him what she wanted. She had just seemed to slot into palace life as if she’d been born to it. According to his aides, she spent her days quietly, either in the gardens or in the library, with the occasional trip into the city as she prepared for the birth of their child.
‘Kulal.’ Her voice sounded soft—like a harp playing on a spring evening.
‘What is it?’ Yanking off his robe, he slid into bed beside her.
‘I want...’
‘What do you want, Hannah?’ he questioned indulgently.
‘To...to kiss you.’
It was such an innocent request—how could he refuse? Why would he even want to refuse? Was it because he detected a trace of some indefinable emotion in the melodic caress of her words? Or because kissing represented an intimacy which sometimes felt as if it was mushrooming out of his control? As he bent to brush his lips over hers, he told himself it was only a kiss, but within seconds they were having sex again. If she hadn’t been pregnant he might have been a little rougher with her—made her ride him like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, to demonstrate that this was nothing more than physical.
But if she hadn’t been pregnant, she wouldn’t be here, he reminded himself as his orgasm hit him like a muffled burst of stars. And that was his last coherent thought before he fell into a deep sleep.
His dreams were fitful and he awoke to an unfamiliar smell, forcing open his eyelids to see Hannah on the other side of the bedroom, tipping strong coffee into two tiny glimmering cups. Sitting up in bed, he raked his fingers back through his tousled hair—scowling in confusion as he noticed slats of bright sunlight slanting through the shutters.
‘What time is it?’ he demanded.
She was undulating towards him, her silken gown flowing around her like a waterfall as she carried one of the tiny golden cups.
‘Almost nine,’ she replied, putting the coffee down beside him. ‘You slept right through.’
Was he imagining the hint of triumph in her voice and the look of satisfaction on her face? ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ he questioned, pushing aside the sex-scented sheets and watching her aqua
marine gaze automatically flicker towards the hardness at his groin, before she lifted her eyes to his face. ‘You know I like to exercise my stallion before dawn.’
‘I know you do. But you looked so peaceful lying there that I couldn’t bring myself to wake you. And I assumed one of the servants would take your horse out in your absence.’
His mouth thinned. ‘How quickly you have become used to having servants, Hannah,’ he commented drily. ‘But I think we’re both aware that nobody gives Baasif a ride quite as hard as I do.’
He saw colour creep into her skin and knew that she wasn’t thinking about horse-riding. The throb at his groin intensified. Neither was he. But she needed to understand that this wasn’t going to become like a regular marriage, with them spending every constricting moment in each other’s company. Did she think he would give up his morning ride and become sedentary and fat? To lie in bed with her, drinking coffee and eating pastries? He scowled as he reached for his robe.
‘Why don’t you drink your coffee, Kulal?’ she said calmly and her words suddenly felt like the domestic kiss of death.
‘I don’t want any coffee,’ he snarled.
He pulled the garment over his head and saw the disappointment on her face. But he would be tolerant with her. He wouldn’t berate her for forcing him into something he had told her he didn’t want—not when it was his own fault for falling asleep like that. But it would not happen again, he thought grimly. Never again would he waken to some commonplace scene of domesticity, with her giving him that doe-eyed look which was suddenly making him feel so trapped.
He thought she might be about to do the sensible thing and just let him leave, but she didn’t. She crossed the room and stood in front of him, reaching up to cup his jaw and to run a questing thumb over it—as if testing for herself how rough his new growth of beard was first thing in the morning. It was as much as Kulal could do not to flinch, but somehow he stopped himself in time. And then she started to speak.
‘Kulal?’
He stepped away from her touch. ‘I hope this is urgent, Hannah,’ he said warningly.
She drew in a deep breath as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Must you leave my bed every night, as though I am your mistress instead of your wife?’
He raised his eyebrows, trying to keep it light. ‘You don’t think that such behaviour adds a piquant spice to our relationship?’ he drawled.
‘You’re all the spice I need, Kulal,’ she said almost shyly and then did something she hadn’t done for many weeks.
She blushed.
She blushed and Kulal felt the whisper of danger.
‘Haven’t we already had this discussion?’
‘Yes, but I wondered whether we might review things.’
‘Review things?’ he echoed. ‘Like what?’
She shrugged. ‘I like waking up beside you,’ she said shyly. ‘Just as I like you holding me tightly all night long.’
He frowned. ‘Was I holding you all night long?’
‘You don’t remember? You certainly were. You were murmuring things to me in Zahristanian in the middle of the night.’ She smiled, and the blush deepened. ‘I didn’t have a clue what the words meant, but they sounded...’
His head jerked up. ‘Sounded what?’
Nervously, she ran the tip of her pink tongue in a moist and curving path over her lips as if she had suddenly recognised that this line of conversation was unwise. ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly.
But it was too late because just then, Kulal did remember. Something she’d whispered in his ear in the deepest point of the night when he was deep inside her.
Kulal, I love you.
Kulal, I love you so much.
Had that been her response to his own words of appreciation, which had probably been nothing more than murmured praise for her ability to make him orgasm so often? Had she misinterpreted them—seen her opportunity to strike, by professing for him what he had emphatically told her he didn’t want? He felt the icy clench of rage around his heart as he studied her. Did she think everything had suddenly changed just because they were sexually compatible and could spend the occasional evening eating dinner without having a row? Did she think she could disregard his wishes in order to pursue her own? ‘What’s this all about, Hannah?’ he questioned.
She paced around the suite a bit, moving her shoulders restlessly like someone eager to get a whole load of stuff off their chest. ‘I’ve read various things about your childhood,’ she said at last. ‘Although the information available was quite patchy.’
‘And?’ he questioned, though she appeared not to notice the warning in his voice.
‘And I can see you probably had to learn to be independent because your mother died when you were so young and your father was away a lot. But I can understand that independence, because I had to grow up fast, too.’
‘That’s enough!’
‘Please, Kulal.’ Her words started to falter when she saw his expression, but she forged on. ‘Let me just say this.’
‘I would strongly advise against saying anything else, since I need to shower and get dressed and go to see my advisors,’ he said, but she carried on as if he hadn’t spoken and fleetingly Kulal thought how audacious it was that the one-time chambermaid should so openly disregard the wishes of the King.
‘I’m not asking for the impossible,’ she said, still in that same soft voice. ‘Just that you relax and let what happens happen. That you stop leaving my bed straight after we’ve had sex.’ She cleared her throat and slanted him a hopeful smile. ‘I’ve never seen you looking so contented as when you were asleep this morning.’
It might have worked if he hadn’t remembered her words and Kulal realised it would be easier to pretend he hadn’t heard them. But he knew women well and once that phrase was out there, she would say it again. Oh, it might not be for a week—maybe even a month—but there would be some vulnerable point when she mistook passion or kindness for something more. She would say them again and expect him to start saying them back. And that was never going to happen.
‘Have you fallen in love with me, Hannah?’ he questioned softly and as she drew in a sharp intake of breath, he could see the flicker of hope in her pale eyes.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘I’ve tried so hard not to but it’s happened almost without me realising it. I love you, Kulal. I love you so much.’
Kulal stared at the woman before him, her eyes bright with passion and her cheeks flushed with emotion.
His wife.
His wife who had just told him she loved him.
His lips curved as he felt anger course through his veins. ‘What do you want me to say, Hannah?’ he snarled. ‘That I love you, too? Because, believe me—that is never going to happen.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HANNAH MET KULAL’S icy gaze and desperately wished she could rewind the clock. To take back the words which had stumbled out of her mouth almost before she’d realised she was saying them. Why on earth had she done that? Indulged herself with a declaration of love when she knew for a fact that Kulal didn’t want it?
Because she had been unable to hold it back any longer. She’d blurted it out last night when he’d been making love to her and that was almost understandable, because she had been in the middle of an orgasm at the time. But there had been no such excuse just a few moments ago, had there? Yet she had been unable to hold it back any longer. It had been like a dam building up inside her, before bursting free and washing away all reservations in its path.
‘My words were unconditional, Kulal,’ she amended quickly. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything in return. Honestly. We can just carry on like before and forget I ever said it.’
Kulal shook his head, his cynicism obvious from the hardening of his lips. ‘But life isn’t like that, Hannah. You must realise that. You’ve changed everything. It can’t possibly go ba
ck to how it was before. How could it? Our relationship will grow increasingly one-sided and you’ll want more.’ He paused. ‘More than I can ever give you.’
‘Kulal—’
‘No!’ The word shot from his lips as he glared at her. ‘Perhaps it’s time you heard the whole story and then you might understand. Do you want to know why the information about my childhood is so “patchy”, Hannah? Do you?’
Something in his tone was frightening her. Warning her that she might have done something from which there was no coming back. Hannah clenched her fists. ‘Not...not if you don’t want to tell me.’
‘Of course I don’t want to tell you! I’d rather not have to think of it even at the end of my days,’ he iced out. ‘But you’ve forced me into a corner, haven’t you? Because that’s what women do best. They push and push until there’s nowhere left to go.’ His face grew dark, almost savage. ‘So maybe it’s time you heard the facts about my childhood.’
Hannah forced herself to sit down on one of the chairs, but its soft seat did little to ease her rigid posture as she folded her hands in her lap and looked at him. ‘Okay,’ she breathed.
There was silence for a few seconds, a silence so profound that she wondered if he’d changed his mind and didn’t part of her wish he had? But then he began to speak and his voice was as cold as a winter wind whistling through the rooms of an empty house.
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