Her face was on fire, and the only reason she could force the words past her lips was because her desire was stronger than her embarrassment.
"Oh god, please, Jahin, I want you to touch me," she gasped. "Please, your hands, your mouth, anything, but please touch me, it has been so long. I'm afraid I'll die if you don't touch me, please!"
She could feel the way she had sharpened his appetite with her words. His eyes turned smoky, and Bedelia saw him bring himself back from the brink. There was a moment, she thought, where she almost had him, where he might simply have thrown himself on her and given her the climax that she needed.
Then he reined himself back in with what looked like a superhuman will, and he grinned at her.
"Your wish is my command..."
He pulled her legs open with a single smooth motion, and then he was stretching out between them, his arms hooked under her knees and his mouth trailing hot kisses up her thighs. This time, however, instead of stopping short of her most sacred flesh, he continued, and she felt his clever tongue sliding up along her slit, opening her with just a few passes. She groaned at how sensitive she was, but he worked her flesh skillfully, never letting the sensations get to be too much. A few times, she could feel her body start to shake with pleasure, but every time it happened, he drew back, letting the pleasure die down until his mouth built it up again.
Bedelia couldn't stop herself from flailing; instead, she gripped giant handfuls of the sheets, trying to keep herself from flying apart. She knew she had asked for this, but now she was almost frightened by the intensity of the sensations.
Jahin's motions grew steadier and stronger, and his hands on her thighs tightened. He pressed his lips against her folds, as if he was drinking down the very essence of her, and in that moment, she couldn't resist him any longer.
Her eyes were open wide but they saw nothing, and her entire body tightened in a half-dozen powerful waves of desire. There was nothing she could do to stop herself from feeling the way her climax rolled through her, and so she simply surrendered herself to it. She cried out until she was hoarse, and it was still not enough.
It seemed to take an eternity before the powerful convulsions calmed and then stopped, and she was still shivering a little when Jahin came to lean over her again.
"Are you all right, darling?" he asked, and the only response she could muster up was a tired giggle.
"I feel like you made me burst into a thousand fireworks," she said dreamily, and he laughed.
"Good," Jahin said with feeling. "That's what I wanted."
Somehow, she found the presence of mind to look up at him slyly.
"That's not all you want," she murmured, and he looked down with a slight smile.
"No, it's not, but perhaps that is all we should do tonight. I know the doctor said you could act as you normally would, but perhaps you should rest after..."
"No," she said, and then marveling at her own boldness, she reached her hand down between them. Touching his cock, all hot silk over steel, was a pleasure that made her sigh, and she reveled in the soft, surprised sound he made.
"I want you," she said, her voice hoarse. "I don't want to do this if we don't do it together."
She thought he looked like he might want to resist, and she squeezed him gently, purring at his gasp and at the way his erect flesh jumped in her hand.
"You want me," she repeated. "Show me, please."
That broke his control, what little there was left of it. He growled like a demon let out of hell, and then she felt him fall on her, his mouth closing over hers as if there was a chance a kiss might have been enough, if it was only passionate enough, if it was only powerful enough.
It wasn't, however, and she could feel his erection press against her thigh. When he broke the kiss, she looked up at him.
"Do what you want to me," she said clearly. "That's what I want most."
She felt his strong hands turn her over on her stomach before he pulled her hips up. On her knees and elbows, she felt exquisitely vulnerable, brilliantly sexual. There was no mistaking this position. He wanted her immediately, and he would not wait.
Without pause, he plunged deep into her, drawing out slightly before plunging deep again. She cried out, but it was only at the pleasure of being filled by the man that she craved, the one that she had yearned for so long.
He was gasping and groaning, crying out in English and Arabic. Some of the things he said would make her blush later on, but now she could only feel the heat of them as he told her in no uncertain terms how much he needed her, how much he wanted her.
With one final, deep stroke, he pushed all the way inside her, filling her in a way that felt like heaven. He went still, groaning roughly as he found his own peak, and then she felt him reach forward to clasp her around her body.
She was astonished when he lifted her straight up and back to rest her back against his chest with his cock still inside her.
"Jahin...?"
"I didn't want to lose you so soon," he murmured gruffly. "I just wanted to keep you with me a little longer."
There was something about the sentiment that brought tears to her eyes, and they stayed like that for a while. Finally, he drew away, and she rolled down to snuggle under his arm instead.
"I...want you so much," Bedelia said solemnly, and he looked at her with a slight smile.
"I'm afraid you are going to have to give me just a little bit more time," he said.
She smiled at him, but it wasn't a real smile. She hadn't just meant that she wanted him physically. She meant that she loved him, and she couldn't hide that from herself any longer.
Chapter Nineteen
Life settled into a kind of rhythm, but Bedelia knew there was a darkness to it. No matter how good their days were, no matter how pleasant their nights were, there was a shadow hanging over them. It followed her as she did her exercises, as he escorted her to her doctor's appointments, even as she lay in his arms at night.
This isn't permanent, she told herself, and the echo that occurred in her head said, This isn't real.
What she and Jahin were doing was no different from two children playing house and pretending it could last forever. The truth was that the future was looming, and she didn't know how to prevent it from eating them alive, all of them, her, Jahin, and their triplets.
It was like a curse, she thought. If she spoke about it, she would break the fragile peace that had grown up between them. If she didn't speak of it, it would continue to spread, creating an insidious blight over the future that she could not see.
When she was with Jahin, it was possible to be happy, to enjoy her time with him, to feel the love that bubbled up out of her as naturally as water came up from an underground spring. When she was apart from him, Bedelia could feel her doubts circling viciously, waiting for the right moment to attack, to make her aware of how tenuous this life truly was.
They lived as if there was no tomorrow, and slowly it was wearing her away. She could feel herself growing tense and tired, and more than once, she worried about what it was doing to her children growing inside her.
Once, Jahin walked in on her crying softly in the morning. He held her in his arms until she stopped, and then as she washed her face with a cold cloth, he came up behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Whatever that was, it looked hard.”
“Just hormones, I guess,” she said with a slight smile, but her smiles were getting harder these days.
Still she hung on. Bedelia felt as if she was swinging from moment to moment with Jahin. When she was with him, she lit up like a Christmas tree. When she was without him, she felt as if she were in the dark. Something deep inside her was telling her that there was a long period of darkness coming, but she couldn't look at it.
In fact, Bedelia did such a good job of avoiding the darkness that she was completely blindsided when she found an article online about Jahin and the princess of Idira.
It had been a quie
t afternoon, and after her exercise, she was reading the news. Jahin's name leaped out at her, and she read the headline almost casually before she realized what it was about. She could feel her heart beating faster and a light sweat breaking out on her forehead, and she read it again.
SHEIKH JAHIN ABDUL KATTAN ENGAGED TO PRINCESS ALLIYA AL-MUZZIN OF IDIRA!
Bedelia suddenly felt dizzy, the way she felt when she hadn't eaten much lately. She wondered half-frantically when she had eaten last, because it was better to think about that than to focus on what she was looking at. She couldn't take it in. The article’s words and letters swam in front of her as if they were fish, and she was trying to catch them, trying to make them stay still on the page so that she could read them properly, but they refused.
Abruptly, Bedelia felt as if she was feverish...her entire body was tingling, and her blood was rushing in her ears. Shaking a little, she took a sip from the glass of water next to her, but it spilled on the floor, making her cry out with frustration and shock.
Of course, it was just then that Jahin entered the penthouse, a newspaper tucked under his arm and whistling a tune under his breath. She spun around to face him just as he registered her distress, and then he was right next to her, one arm around her shoulders, the other trying to ease her down to the chair.
“Bedelia, what's the matter...?”
“You...you're getting engaged,” she said miserably. “The...the paper said...”
He barely glanced at the paper before turning his gaze back to her, a slight frown on his face.
“That piece of nonsense? Bedelia, I told you. You need to ignore this. It isn't true. I have been introduced to the princess exactly once, and that was some weeks ago. I am not getting engaged to her.”
The expected rush of relief from his statement didn't come, and suddenly, Bedelia couldn't stand to have his arms around her. She shook her head hard, and somehow, she managed to push him away. She left one hand on the chair for support, and she rounded on him angrily. The fury seemed to come from some deep and hidden part of her, one that had been closed off and left to fester. Now that it was coming out, there was no end to it, and distantly she knew she was no longer able to control it.
“You've told me? Yes, you've told me over and over again. I need to ignore this, I need to overlook it, and now you need to tell me, Jahin, what the hell should I be looking at instead? You've told me that we should live in the now, and my god, I have tried. I live in the now, and I never look forward. Well, let me tell you something, sheikh of Muneazil. I have three children inside me, and I'll be honest, that's a lot of future! It's your future because they are your heirs, but it is my future too because I am their mother...”
She paused, and stunned, he reached for her. Bedelia knew she couldn't take that right now, however. She knew she couldn't let him touch her because if she did, she would simply crumple again, like she had before. His touch, his words, they would all conspire to weaken her and keep her looking only where she was rather than where she might be. Where she would be when these children were born.
“No, Jahin. I am not going to ignore this. Not when I feel about you the way that I do. Not when we are going to have three children and when the world feels this uncertain to me. I can't. Don't ask me to.”
She didn't understand the look he was giving her. He looked as if he had been struck by lightning, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. When Jahin found his voice, she did not expect what he said.
“What do you mean, the way that you feel about me?”
Bedelia couldn't stop herself from laughing incredulously.
“My god... That is what you focus on? All right then, Jahin. I love you. I have for a long time, and what we are doing, it hurts! It hurts every day, and I cannot do it any longer. I'm sorry I thought I could, but I can't and...”
At some point, her words had gone distant and tinny. There was a pit in her stomach, and for a moment, she thought she was going to be sick, but that was all very removed. She felt as if she was a hundred miles from her own body, and even Jahin was looking very far away, as if she was gazing at him through a long, dark tube.
There was a great rushing sound, a feeling as if she was being floated off a dark cliff, and then everything went mercifully silent.
***
THE WAITING ROOM was comfortable, even luxurious, but it didn't change the fact that it was, at the end of the day, a waiting room. They had rushed a newly conscious Bedelia between the swinging doors, and even as they had, he had heard her protesting, telling them that she was fine, telling them that she could get up, that there was nothing wrong with her in the slightest.
Jahin had tried to follow, of course, but he had been met by a woman with a stern look on her face.
“There is absolutely nothing that you can do right now besides get in the way,” she said, shaking her head. “If her condition changes, if she gets better, or if she gets worse...you will be told and decisions can be made then.”
For a moment, Jahin had stared at her, seeing not a nurse doing her job but someone who was between him and the woman he loved, and that could not be tolerated. Then sanity had gotten the better of him, and he had nodded curtly, turning to prowl the waiting room.
Love.
She had said the word, and then he could no longer ignore it. It was what he felt for her, it was what had been between them from the moment he had rescued her at the horse fair. It was only pride and fear that had kept him from seeing it, and now...now he might never get to say it to her.
Jahin tried to shrug off the cold clutch of terror that surrounded his heart. Surely they would have told him if there was something seriously wrong with her. Surely they would have told him immediately.
He remembered multiple births were always riskier for the mother. Had something gone wrong?
Would they all survive this? What would happen afterward?
He had thought that he knew what fear was before. Now he knew that what he had experienced before was nothing compared to this. This was sheer helplessness, and nothing in the world, not his money or his power, could stop something terrible from happening.
His gaze kept traveling to the doors where they had taken Bedelia. In that moment, he would have given anything and everything simply to see her smile again, simply to know that she was all right.
Almost as if summoned by his thoughts, a doctor came through the door, a serious look on his face.
“Sheikh Jahin? A word with you please.”
Jahin felt lightheaded as he approached the doctor, and his heart clung to the love that it had only now dared to speak.
***
WHEN BEDELIA WOKE up, she realized that she was in a hospital bed again with almost a casual sense of irritation. Then she realized she wasn't alone, and that someone was holding on to her hand tightly. She blinked at the dim lights in the room, and when she turned her head to one side, what she saw melted her heart.
Sitting slumped over in a chair next to her was Jahin, his head propped up on his free hand, his eyes closed in sleep. For a brief moment, she simply took the opportunity to watch him. He was so handsome, but it was more than that. There was something vital to him, something fiery that was there even when he slept.
She must have moved or made a noise, because he stirred, and then he was watching her with those copper eyes that seemed to see directly into her soul.
“You're awake,” he said. “Are you feeling all right? Do you need a doctor?”
She thought about it for a moment, her hand ghosting over her belly, but she shook her head. “No, I actually feel just fine. What happened?”
“Another blood pressure spike. They explained it to me. Common enough in multiple births, but they can be terrifying and harmful if they are not treated. In the morning, the doctor will come and speak to us about ways to prevent it from ever happening again.”
She blinked. “Morning? What time is it now?”
“Almost one in the morning. Bedelia, that doesn't
matter right now. Will you listen to what I have to say?”
She blinked at the urgent note in his voice, and when she nodded, his hand tightened on hers.
“I have been a fool,” he said, his voice tight with regret. “I have acted out of fear and out of pride instead of following my instinct, which told me the truth within minutes of meeting you.”
“And what truth is that?” Bedelia asked, her heart beating like a bird in her chest.
“That I love you. That it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, what my emirate thinks or what five hundred years of tradition say. What matters is what I feel, and what you make me feel.”
“Don't...” It was too much. She felt that if he were going to turn her down now, it would break her in a way that couldn't be repaired. “No, don't say this if you don't mean it, don't you dare.”
His free hand came up to gently touch her face. She leaned into his touch with a murmur of longing, and he pressed his forehead to hers.
“But I do mean it. Bedelia, the things that you make me feel, the love that you bring to me, this is a gift beyond measure, beyond words, and I was a fool to deny it as long as I have. I love you, and I want you as my wife.”
She stared at him, and she started to shake. This couldn't be true. It couldn't be. “Jahin...”
“Say yes,” he said softly. “Say yes, and I will marry you, and we will belong only to each other. We will love, and fight, because we are only human, and we will teach our children to do the same. Only say yes, Bedelia. Say you love me, and I will make the world yours.”
She felt as if the breath was caught in her throat, but her heart was shouting it so loudly that she was almost surprised he couldn't hear it.
“Yes,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, and then he was standing, crushing her in his arms. “I love you, and all I need is you. I don't want the world, I just want you...”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Thank you, I love you, and you will be mine for as long as the sky lasts, as long as the mountains stand.”
She laughed a little. “That sounds like something out of a story. Like I've just woken out of a hundred years of sleep, and you're the one who has awakened me.”
Sheikh's Virgin Love-Slave Page 26