by Maisey Yates
“It does. A month ago you couldn’t have walked into that room without being thrown into a flashback. That’s change, Zahir.”
“It isn’t real. It doesn’t change the fact that I could still lose my control at any time. At any moment. And that is like knowing I could descend into hell. At any time. At any moment. Go to bed.” He turned away from her, his broad back filling her vision.
She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, and yet she knew he wouldn’t welcome it.
“I’ll be in our room,” she said tightly. Her things had been moved into his suite for the wedding night, and of course there was no way either of them could have opposed it, not when the public was supposed to believe it a real marriage. And her father was meant to believe it was permanent.
She walked back inside and wandered through the empty corridors, up the winding staircase that led to the suite Zahir had been installed in when he’d first arrived. She pushed open the door and kicked her high heels off, the arches of her feet burning when she was finally standing flat-footed on the ground.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, the thick fabric of the wedding gown bunching up around her hips. Zahir. Her heart ached for him. Her heart ached for herself. And she wanted to punch stupid Ann in the face. Because he had done well. So well. And it wasn’t fair.
She rested her chin on her palms. She shouldn’t even stay in here. No one would know if she went back to her room. She grimaced. Yes. The staff would know. And while they were certainly not bad people, if offered the right incentive, secrets might get spilled. She flopped back onto the bed, her dress spread around her. The time difference, the wedding, the entirety of the last month and a half … it all caught up with her.
The world felt as though it tilted and she closed her eyes. Then she was falling through the mattress, sinking into a sleep brought on by exhaustion and grief.
Zahir walked into the bedroom, his fingers stiff from the cold. His knee was nearly frozen and the pain was blinding. Likely a little bit of arthritis, brought on by the injury, made worse by the cold weather. Something to make him thankful for the melting heat of Hajar.
He prayed again that he would never have to spend too much time in this freezing iceberg of a country.
His eyes caught hold of a bright white shape on the bed, glowing in the darkened room. Katharine, spread out like a snow angel in her lacy bridal gown. His chest constricted and he battled to take in a breath.
Hearing her in the position of defending had been … in all the low points in his life, it had ranked. And considering the lows he’d endured, that was saying something.
But he was her husband. He was meant to protect her. Even if he was only a temporary husband. And when he’d gone to do that, when the woman had turned her insults to Katharine … he had been nearly frozen. For fear of the swelling emotion in his chest giving way to something beyond him, bigger than him. It had been rage, and a kind of fierce protectiveness he’d only ever experienced during that flashback in the market.
Of course, Katharine wasn’t the kind of woman who would ask for protection. She was the kind of woman who stormed a castle and claimed her future husband, not caring if he had a reputation as a monster.
His impression of her in the ballroom had been that she was a tigress. And that held true. Even if she did look delicate now.
“Now that she’s retracted her claws,” he mumbled to himself, loosening his tie and sitting in the chair that was next to the bed.
He didn’t imagine sleeping in a gown like that—the kind that had to have layers of fabric and boning and whatever other medieval torture device women were using to attempt perfection these days—was comfortable, but he didn’t dare help her out of it.
Because, while the dress was lovely, it was without the gown that Katharine was perfection. And if he touched her soft skin, just a brush of her bare body against his palm, he would be lost.
It would be easy now. To wake her with a kiss, to take advantage of the dark, and her sleepiness. He ached to. Shook with his desire. But he was poised on the brink, balancing on the edge of a blade. His control was ready to snap. The feelings she roused in him were unknowable to him. For so long, he had simply been dead. Feeling again … he did not know what to do with it. What it might do to him.
Or to her. Katharine was everything lovely and light.
He feared that the darkness in him would consume that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOMEONE was yelling. A terrified sound. Terrified, but full of rage.
Zahir opened his eyes and realized it was coming from him. He braced himself on the arms of the chair, his breath coming in short, powerful bursts.
A cool hand pressed against his forehead and the darkened room started to come into some focus.
“Are you all right?”
It was Katharine. Again tonight he was a fool in front of her.
He tightened his hands into fists and stood from the chair. Katharine stepped out of his way. He couldn’t see her expression in the dark. But he didn’t want her to see his, either, so that eliminated the possibility of turning on any lights.
“Fine,” he gritted. Anger erupted from him, his body unable to contain any more tension. He had reached the end of it. “At least it didn’t happen today, right? At least I didn’t shame you with it. Though I came close.”
She stood there, arms crossed, her head cocked to the side. He still couldn’t read her face.
“What do you dream about, Zahir?”
Why not tell her? Why hold it back? She had seen it all. She had seen him flashback, and now she had seen him in the grips of the terror that sometimes found him in his sleep. There was no more pride left to lose.
“People. And then there is screaming, and darkness and nothing. It’s the nothing that terrifies me the most,” he said, closing his eyes. Instead of the scene he had described, he saw Katharine as she had looked coming down the aisle, an angel. His bride. “It was like … not existing. For endless hours. Or maybe it was only seconds. But it was a void. Cut off from everything, even pain. I fear sometimes, it wants to pull me back in.”
She knelt before him, clasping her hands on his. “It won’t. It can’t.”
He opened his eyes again, and she was still there, her face in his mind, and before him.
“I’m always afraid that I missed something,” he said, his voice hoarse. “If I had only been paying attention more that day. I could have stopped it. It eats at me. And I always have to watch. It makes the flashbacks, the lost time, feel even more dangerous. And how is that for honesty?” he gritted.
“I don’t think less of you for being affected, Zahir. I would wonder what was wrong with you if you weren’t.”
“Why do I live, Katharine, when everyone else … when they do not? It is the thing I cannot seem to reconcile.”
She took a step closer to him. “For some reason, you seem to assume that you are less worthy. You aren’t.”
“You say it with such confidence.”
“Because I know you.”
“I have wondered—” he swallowed “—if it was a mistake.”
“It won’t be if you don’t make it one,” she said. “Look at all you’ve done for Hajar. You’ve made the economy, your people, stronger. And you’ve helped mine.”
“It is the voice in my head. You know what I mean. Your father, he’s the voice in yours.”
“We need new ones.”
“No argument.”
She went back to the bed and climbed onto the left side, lying on her stomach, her arm under her face. He went to the right side of the bed and lay on his side, looking at the shape of her body, outlined in the pale moonlight.
Sleep tugged at him again, and he went. And his mind was filled with Katharine.
Katharine had never imagined that being back in the heat of Hajar could be a relief. And yet it was. Austrich was her home in many ways, and yet, in just as many ways it wasn’t. There was a disconnect there. A kind of stress uni
que to being in the same space as her father.
She was free of that here. At least more so than she was back at the palace.
She wondered where Zahir was free. If he ever was.
He’d just lain next to her last night. On their wedding night. Never making a move to touch her. She’d wanted him to. She’d hoped he would.
She didn’t know to what end. No, she knew, the end would be heartbreak for her. Because if she got any closer to him … it would be impossible to be away from him.
In him, she saw the definition of strength. It didn’t mean never showing a crack, it didn’t mean not feeling fear or despair. It meant going on anyway. As he did.
“Do I have … what am I meant do now?” she asked as they walked into the Hajari palace.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Go on as you always have. Without moving any furniture, of course.”
He spoke the words with humor and it made her stomach tighten. That something that had been so devastating to them didn’t have that kind of power over him anymore.
“No, of course not.”
“You could, actually,” he said, his voice deadpan.
“I could what?”
“Move furniture if you want to. Just make sure I know. But you’re right, Katharine, this is your home now. And that means you should be allowed to live in it. You aren’t a captive, and this isn’t prison.”
“Thank you,” she said, her throat tightening.
He looked at her for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He raised his hand, cupped her cheek, stroking his thumb over her skin. And he simply looked at her. He didn’t lean in for a kiss, like she hoped he would. He simply stared, his touch soft, intoxicating. And so not enough.
She raised her hand and covered his with it, holding him to her, just for a moment.
Emotion filled her, overflowed and threatened to spill out. Emotion she didn’t want to feel. Emotion she shouldn’t feel. But she did. And she didn’t want to identify it. Even if it was standing in her subconscious waving a name tag in her face, letting her know just what it was. What it had to be.
She had to ignore it. Because if she didn’t …
Zahir said he didn’t feel love. But he felt pleasure. She knew he did. She had felt his body, hard against hers, and she knew what it meant. Knew that he wanted her as she wanted him.
Because as stupid as it would be, and she had well and truly established that it would be stupid, she wanted to know what it was like to be with Zahir.
Selfishly, she wanted more of what he’d given to her that night in her room. That rolling, building pleasure that broke like a wave over rocks and left her spent and breathless in the aftermath.
But that wasn’t all. She wanted to give to him, too. She wanted him to understand that, no matter who he was before, he was the man she wanted. The man he was now.
She moved away from him out of necessity, because if he kept touching her like that, she was going to do something bold. And she was saving her bold for later. For the plan that was formulating.
“I might go out walking later. I was thinking I might go to the Oasis.”
“If you wish.” He frowned. “I do not want you to go alone.”
Neither did she. “Can you come with me?”
“After I’m through in my office. Some things backed up while I was gone.”
“More papers to sign? Sorry.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “It’s all right. You were right. If I’m here, I have to make sure it matters that I’m here. I may not be a soldier anymore, not in the way I was, but I am still here to protect my country. My people. To stand in the gap for them, even if that takes the form of sitting behind a desk approving legislation.”
“Go for it,” she said, her heart suddenly feeling too big for her chest.
“I’ll see you later.”
Yes, he would. And she had plans for him. Big, important plans. The kind that made her feel shivery all over, and completely weak in the knees.
Zahir watched the sway of Katharine’s hips as she walked in front of him, her body barely covered by another of her tempting sundresses. The pack she’d decided to bring was bounding in time with her steps, and for some reason, it drew his attention even more insistently to her pert, round butt.
Of course, that could be because he was a man, and, no matter what, that’s where his attention was inclined to go. Yes, he was only a man, one who had gone entirely too long without sex, and she tested him beyond his limits.
Out here, in the desert, he could take her. Make her his.
The need, the desire to do it was so strong he was nearly immobilized by it.
He could not. Even with only the desert bearing witness, it wouldn’t change the risk. It wouldn’t change the fact that he would be using her.
“I might need some help,” she said, gesturing to the large stones that helped keep the Oasis closed off from the rest of the desert.
He raised an eyebrow and walked over to where she was. She smiled at him, a little bit too widely, and a little bit too innocently for his taste. “Help?” he asked, not believing her at all.
She nodded. “Just a little bit. Just help … um … help me keep my balance.”
She stepped up into the rock, her range of motion limited by the skirt of her dress, and he put his hands on her waist, ensuring she didn’t fall backward, although he highly doubted she would have.
Still, it was worth it. Touching her again, feeling her soft body beneath his hands … he had nearly lost it in the palace earlier when he’d touched her cheek. He’d been so tempted to lean and brush her lips with his, then press her body against the wall as he’d done earlier.
To spend all of his passion in her, to give her pleasure like she’d never known. Oh, yes, that was what he wanted.
He ignored the pressure of his growing erection as he climbed the rock after her and stepped into the shelter of the Oasis. The sound of running water reverberated off the rock walls, the chill it provided so welcome in the heat of the desert.
Katharine set her pack down and reached her arm around behind her, doing what could only be described as a shimmy before the shoulder straps on her dress loosened and drooped.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought we might swim,” she said. Again, far too innocent.
“There is a pool in my gym.”
“I know.” She shrugged her shoulders and the dress melted into a puddle of fabric at her feet.
She was left standing in nothing but a pale yellow bikini that barely covered her curves. And it was still too much. She bent and opened the zipper on her backpack and straightened again, the expression on her face guilty. “I brought you some shorts.” She held out the pair of dark swim shorts he wore when he worked out.
She turned and sauntered—it was the only word for it, really—to the edge of the pool and dipped her toe in. There would be no stopping her, he could see that. He shrugged his T-shirt over his head. If he were honest, his resistance was at an all-time low. And while he shouldn’t want it, the chance to be so near to her, with so little clothing involved, was too tempting to pass up.
And it would give him the chance to watch her face again when she saw his body. In the gym that first day she’d admitted she’d seen enough. He wondered if she would feel that way now.
He looked over his shoulder and watched Katharine, totally focused on the cold water climbing her midsection as she went deeper into the pool, and pushed his pants and underwear down his legs, pulling his swim shorts on before she turned around and was able to see just how interesting a sight he found her.
“Coming?” she asked.
She had no idea how close he was. Rather than offering up that bit of information, he smiled and made his way down to the pool, not wasting time acclimating to the temperature. He lay down on his stomach and pushed through the water. Katharine was still only belly button deep, her eyes round, her nipples beaded tight, and obvious again
st the tiny triangles of her top.
“Cold?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not exactly. Feeling a little warm, truth be told.”
“Then come in.”
“Getting closer to you won’t solve my problems.”
He straightened, treading water for a moment. “What exactly does that mean?”
She cleared her throat. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this. I meant … being near you, it’s what’s making me hot. Seeing you like that.”
“Like this?”
“Almost naked. That first day … in the gym … you took my breath away.”
“My scars did, you mean?” he asked, swimming close enough for his bare feet to connect with the sandy bottom of the pool.
“Your scars are—” she took another step, the water rising higher on her body “—they look painful. In that sense, yes, they are unattractive. But they don’t cover up what an amazing body you have.” Her cheeks were pink, from the heat or embarrassment, he wasn’t sure.
But he was having trouble thinking straight. His body was on fire, his heart threatening to pound straight out of his chest.
“You said you’d seen enough,” he grated.
“Only because if I saw more I knew I was … I was going to do something to really embarrass myself. I had never felt anything like that before.”
“I thought you loved my brother.”
“Not like that. I cared for him. I was sad when he … I was sad, of course. He was a nice man, and I could have even been happy with him. But I never felt passion for him. I never wanted him. Not like I want you.”
“But he was … he did not have scars. And I’m not just talking about the scars on my skin.”
“They aren’t what I see when I look at you, Zahir.” She went deeper and pushed forward, skimming across the surface of the water in a smooth motion, stopping just in front of him. She pressed a kiss to his chest, just above his heart, right by a deep, jagged line of damaged flesh.
“Are you seducing me?”
“Is it working?” she asked, green eyes so earnest it hurt.