by Lynne Graham
Slowly, Chrissie settled down onto the sofa again, letting the fierce tension leach out of her spine. Her brain felt dazed as though she had gone ten punishing rounds with a boxer. Shock at what she had learned from Jaul was still passing through her in waves. Her bitterness and antagonism had been wrenched from her while she’d listened to the true story of what had separated them two years earlier. Jaul had not ditched her. Jaul had not voluntarily or cruelly chosen to desert her. In fact he had planned to return to her and, had fate not intervened with that accident and the lies his father had told to both of them, Jaul would almost certainly have returned to her.
For a split second she allowed herself to think of how that might have been and she swallowed painfully, struggling to imagine how she would’ve felt if Jaul had come back to her and if he had been with her when she’d discovered that she was pregnant. She realised that she was picturing an entirely different and infinitely happier world and fierce regret filled her, backed by a terrible anguished sense of loss because she was beginning to suspect that Jaul had been as miserable as she was when they were first separated. How could his father have believed he had the right to inflict such suffering on them both?
Hot, burning tears lashed the backs of Chrissie’s eyes in an unsettling surge. She blinked rapidly, intense mortification threatening to engulf her because she only ever cried in the strictest privacy, a discipline learned the hard way after her life had fallen apart following Jaul’s vanishing act two years earlier. She snatched in a deep, audible breath and Jaul swung away from the window, suppressing his uneasy thoughts at the prospect of confronting Yusuf, his late father’s staunchest supporter.
Yusuf would not necessarily be discreet in the aftermath of such a discussion. It was a stark moment of choice for Jaul because he had to choose between his marriage and his respect for his father’s memory. But he knew that that respect was not an excuse to avoid discovering an unpalatable truth. Yet if Chrissie was telling the truth, it would be an appalling truth that he would never be able to live with, he reflected grimly before swiftly suppressing that unproductive thought. As he had been raised to do, he would do what he knew to be his duty and act with honour, regardless of what he found out.
‘Where’s the cloakroom?’ Chrissie asked thickly, dragging his attention back to her.
When he saw the sheen in her turquoise eyes and the dampness on her cheeks, he tensed and took a sudden step forward.
‘The first door at the top of the stairs but the bedroom en suites are closer,’ Jaul volunteered, winged ebony brows pleating. ‘You’re upset...you’re crying...’
Chrissie flew upright as though she were a puppet whose strings had been jerked without warning. ‘Of course I’m not crying!’ she protested huskily. ‘It’s stupid, it’s just all this stuff about the past...it’s confusing me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jaul breathed in a ragged undertone as he closed his arms round her slight, trembling figure to hold her still. ‘I knew that telling you about the accident would rake it all up again, which was why I was so reluctant—’
‘But I had to know the truth,’ Chrissie told him, lifting her chin, an action that did nothing to hide the wet lustre of her eyes.
A tiny muscle pulled taut at the corner of his unsmiling mouth, his beautiful eyes flaring brilliant gold as he scored his knuckles lightly down the side of her face in a soothing gesture. ‘I hurt you.’
Chrissie looked up at him and marvelled at how stunning he was even with his blue-black hair a little messy and his strong jawline stubbled. His black lashes were luxuriant above eyes of stormy gold. Wicked anticipation slid through her to create the kind of sudden tension that made her suck in her breath. As she connected with his burnished gaze a pulse was hammering like crazy above her collarbone. She wanted him to touch her so badly that her fingernails bit into her palms as her hands fisted. He was all lean muscle and potent strength as he eased her closer and her body thrummed, her blood racing like liquid lava through her veins. His warm, demanding mouth swooped down on hers and hot, blistering pleasure shot through her with the force of a lightning bolt.
Jaul lifted her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom next door. As he settled her down on the bed her fingers feathered through his hair and instinctively closed into the silky black strands to hold him to her. ‘Kiss me,’ she told him, desperately needing to think of something...anything other than the reality that Jaul had almost died two years earlier. Had he died she would never have seen him again, never had the chance to hold him close and never had the joy of seeing him proudly hold his son in his arms.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JAUL KISSED MUCH as he made love, melding both passion and sleek proficiency into a devastating sensual assault.
Chrissie had been in emotional turmoil before he’d touched her and once that physical connection was made, she couldn’t break it and she wrapped her arms round his neck, needing that security. Feverish kiss built on feverish kiss, stoking the fire flaming at the heart of her only to increase the ache there.
‘If you let me have you now, I’ll never let you go.’ Jaul growled out that husky threat, staring down at her with compelling intensity. ‘I can’t fight the hunger you arouse in me.’
Chrissie gazed up at him and felt extraordinarily light-hearted for the first time since Jaul had come back into her life. He had not chosen to leave her: events had chosen for him. He had not condoned his father’s interference and if he had been guilty of misjudging her on the question of that money, she needed to remember how newly married they had been and how vulnerable such ties could be in any untried relationship. Did she now punish him for his father’s sins? Did she hold him to blame for having wanted to love and trust his only surviving parent? Although both Chrissie’s parents had hurt her and held views contrary to her own, she had still loved them. She, more than anyone, should understand how basic and strong ran the need to love and trust a parent, she reasoned painfully. With a fingertip, she traced the fullness of his sensual lower lip and gloried in the stormy gold of his gaze, rejoicing in his innate passion.
‘You don’t have to fight it any more,’ she told him softly.
‘We’re not going to rush this, habibti,’ Jaul decreed, peeling off his shirt and depriving her of her breath in the same moment.
‘Rush...’ she urged, dry-mouthed, as he stripped with no more self-consciousness than a child. But then he didn’t have a vain bone in his beautiful body, had absolutely no appreciation of the fact that he was a masculine work of art, a very aroused work of art, she recognised, her face warming as she momentarily stopped staring to kick off her shoes and run down the side zip on her dress. Jaul was all sleek, lean muscle, honed by exercise, lines indented across his six-pack, the vee at his hips rising out of the waistband of his boxers and dissected by the silky furrow of black hair that trailed down to the jutting hardness at his crotch.
‘I rushed the last time...you walked out on me afterwards,’ he reminded her wryly.
‘But not because you were anything less than...er...perfect,’ Chrissie framed in a rush of candour. ‘But because I was all mixed up and I felt even worse after you presented me with that insane pre-nuptial contract I’d signed—’
‘That’s in the past...leave it there,’ Jaul urged. ‘We’re making a new start.’
A new start. Disconcertingly, Chrissie found herself savouring that declaration. He didn’t want the divorce. He wanted them to stay married and raise the children together. There was nothing wrong with that as an aspiration, was there? How could she fault him for that? If she let go of the past, could she too move forward into a more promising future? Why shouldn’t she try? Why shouldn’t she give their marriage another chance? What did she have to lose?
‘A new start...?’ she repeated unevenly.
‘We’re together again with our children. What could be more natural?’ Jaul positively purred as he strolled towards the bed like a glossy prowling panther.
It did feel so n
atural to be with Jaul again, Chrissie acknowledged, studying his lean, extravagantly good-looking features while arrows of piercing heat surged through her in an intoxicating wave that left her boneless. No matter what he believed about her character, Jaul still wanted her, but then he had always wanted her and that was, at the very least, a foundation for the future.
Jaul feasted his eyes on her. ‘Come here. We only have one more problem to solve. You’re wearing far too many clothes,’ he husked, sinking down on the bed and leaning closer to lift the hem of her dress and flip it deftly up over her head.
Chrissie emerged from the folds of the garment with luminous turquoise eyes, wide and bright against her flushed complexion. He unclasped her bra and tossed it aside. ‘I want to look at you.’
Her breathing rupturing in her throat, Chrissie fought an instinctive urge to cover herself and her colour heightened as she leant back against the pillows.
Jaul curved reverent hands over the pouting swell of her breasts. ‘Pure perfection,’ he murmured thickly.
He tugged at the pale pink straining buds and then, emitting a groan of surrender, he lowered his head and hungrily enveloped them in his mouth. It felt so good to Chrissie that she gasped and clutched at his luxuriant black hair. Her whole body was coming alive and singing and the blaze he was awakening at the heart of her was burning fever bright, her lower limbs moving restively, her thighs pressing together on the hollow ache he had roused. At that moment, she had never wanted anything more than she wanted his touch and she shifted her hips, edgy and needy, before her hands began to explore him, reacquainting herself with the corrugated flatness of his abdomen before stroking down to the long, thick prominence of his erection. He was smooth as silk, hard as steel.
‘Stop. I’m too excited,’ Jaul warned her raggedly. ‘I want to come inside you.’
‘Rush,’ she told him again with greater urgency, twitching her hips upwards again while grazing her fingertips teasingly over the crown of his manhood.
‘You don’t tell me what to do in bed,’ Jaul husked.
With a lightness of heart she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, Chrissie laughed out loud. ‘Lie back for me for just five minutes...and I promise you, you’ll do whatever I want,’ she whispered provocatively.
‘Not tonight.’
His hand skimmed down over her tummy and between her slender thighs. A fingertip traced the wet, silky entrance to her body and her hips jackknifed, hunger rising so swiftly and powerfully that she almost cried out.
Jaul shifted down the bed and found her damp, heated core with his tongue and this time she did cry out, her breathing fractured, her throat convulsing as the incredible pleasure blasted her into another reality where blissful ripples of sensation engulfed her, locking out absolutely everything else. Her head twisted back and forth on the pillow, perspiration breaking on her skin, her nipples peaking as his fingers delved deep into her and his talented tongue tormented her into ecstasy. The climax hit her like a speeding train, snatching her up and throwing her high.
‘That was...amazing,’ Chrissie mumbled weakly, the words slurring as he lifted her up and flipped her over to settle her down on her knees.
‘I aim to please, habibti.’
Having positioned her on the bed to his satisfaction, Jaul drove into her tight, wet channel and the sensation of being stretched to the utmost was so irresistibly seductive that a strangled sob of encouragement escaped Chrissie. She was out of control and revelling in the awareness. A frenzy of need gripped her as he surged and ebbed inside her sensitive sheath. With every plunging entrance, her heart slammed against her ribcage and her excitement climbed another notch. He ground his body into hers and then ratcheted up the tempo with long, smooth, deep thrusts until she was literally sobbing out loud with tormented pleasure. Her spine arching, she pushed back against him, guided by an impatient frantic need she could not withstand. As that reached a peak, she went careening over the crest into an orgasm that flooded her with joy, satisfaction and warmth and listened to Jaul groan out loud in completion.
‘Now that was truly worthy of the word amazing,’ Jaul rasped as he turned her back over and dragged her back into the hot, damp embrace of his lean, powerful body.
He had both arms anchored round her, imprisoning her as though at any moment she might make a break for freedom. But Chrissie was exactly where she wanted to be. Strong emotions were still churning round inside her. Jaul had said that hoping was not a sin and here she was caught up in hoping too, she acknowledged ruefully. For the first time she understood herself: she still loved Jaul and in admitting that she was shedding the heavy burden of past memories and disillusionment to focus on the new start he had promised.
‘So...er...you mentioned another wedding,’ she reminded him gently.
‘If you think you could bear it,’ Jaul murmured cautiously, tensing as she buried her head below his chin, wondering whether she was driven by affection or avoidance.
‘I think I could, particularly if it was more like the dream wedding I never got,’ she confided softly.
‘The dream wedding?’ he prompted blankly.
‘Because you didn’t want us to attract too much attention I wore a plain black dress at the embassy do,’ she reminded him. ‘This time around I’d like a proper wedding gown...and, oh, yes, I want my sister to come over for it.’
‘That could all be arranged. Western wedding gowns are very popular here.’
‘Seriously?’ Chrissie looked up at him with surprised turquoise eyes.
The sudden charismatic grin Chrissie had almost forgotten flashed across his lean dark features. ‘Seriously...but it will have to be a rush job. My advisers are hoping we can stage this the day after tomorrow—’
‘The day after tomorrow?’ she yelped in disbelief, pulling free of him to scramble out of bed naked. ‘I need to phone Lizzie and warn her!’
Pleasantly surprised at the ease with which she had given her agreement, Jaul rose at a more leisurely pace. He laughed as he listened to Chrissie chattering to her sister on the phone line in the next room and even paused for thirty seconds to appreciate the picture his wife made standing there stark naked, her slender, graceful figure gleaming porcelain pale and pink in the sunlit room. Concerned that one of the staff might enter without offering sufficient warning, he fetched a towelling robe from the bathroom and held it out while Chrissie dug her arms into it with a lingering smile in her eyes that held his attention like a magnet. He strode back into the bedroom and dug his mobile phone out of his jacket to call Yusuf.
But his father’s former aide was unavailable. Yusuf’s manservant informed Jaul that his employer was in the USA visiting his daughter and that it would be two weeks before he was home again. Jaul grimaced, knowing it would be inappropriate to try and tackle such a controversial subject with Yusuf over the phone. He had no choice but to await the older man’s return. And while he waited, more and more questions and inconsistencies would pile up in the back of his mind. Even worse, he acknowledged with sudden grim awareness, if Chrissie proved to be telling the truth without exaggeration on all counts, he would suddenly be the guilty party, who had virtually destroyed her life, and how could he ever live with that conclusion?
* * *
Chrissie put the phone down and breathed in deep, astonished to recognise that she had been gabbling to her sister like an overexcited teenager. As she asked herself what had come over her, she lodged by the window, which was bounded by a stone balcony and a glorious view of the trees flourishing in the garden below. Was she a total idiot? she was suddenly demanding of herself. She was still in love with Jaul and she wanted to give their marriage the best possible chance to thrive that she could...but.
And it was a very large ‘but’; she had to be realistic and stop behaving like a dizzy adolescent. She needed to view their situation as it was and not wrap it up in fancy trappings, for the surest way to a failed marriage would be setting out with too high expectations only to be r
ewarded with a slow, steady process of disenchantment.
Jaul wasn’t in love with her. Sexual chemistry wasn’t love even though the powerful attraction that had first drawn them together was still red hot. Other facts spoke too loud to be ignored, however, she reflected unhappily. Jaul had come to London to see her in the first place because he’d wanted a divorce and he had only changed his mind about that after he’d realised that he was a father.
He only wanted to stay married to Chrissie now because she was the mother of his children and Tarif was the heir to his throne. Love and affection had nothing to do with that decision. Jaul was prepared to behave as a husband and father, not only to meet the conservative expectations of his people, but also to provide the twins with a stable and respectable home background. It was a praiseworthy motivation but it did not mean that Jaul was happy about embracing Chrissie as his wife and queen or that he would willingly have selected her for that role now.
After all, what choice had Jaul had? His passionate temperament was uniquely misleading. He was a wildly passionate male but, at heart, he was ruled by cool intellect and practicality. The marriage he had chosen to put behind him and dismiss had come back to haunt him in the worst way and now he was trapped with a wife he couldn’t divorce without shocking and disappointing his people. Fate could well be forcing him to make the best of a bad situation. Her skin turned clammy while she pondered that humiliating theory but she knew that it would be stupid to ignore that wounding analysis of their marriage and even stupider to assume that sharing Jaul’s bed meant anything more to him than the casual and convenient slaking of sexual need. Sobered by those reflections, Chrissie tightened the sash on the oversized robe and went back into the bedroom, relieved to appreciate that there were two en suites attached to it. Just at that moment she needed her own space and peace in which to rebuild her poise. Home truths, she thought reluctantly, were necessary to keep her feet on the ground but, my goodness, they could hurt...