But if she’d made him her prisoner, he’d make her his.
“Yes, Farah. I want you.”
Some life entered her gaze, agitation, alarm. “But you said…”
He exploded to his feet, stormed to her, plucked her out of her seat and into his arms. “I don’t care what I said. It doesn’t matter what either of us intended or planned. The one reality here remains this…” His mouth crashed down on hers and she convulsed in his arms, cried out. He took advantage, thrust inside her, his tongue driving with unchecked emotions.
He strode to the bedroom in which they’d lost themselves in each other’s arms only hours ago. A lifetime ago. When they’d been different people. He placed her on the bed and came down on top of her. She cried out again, pushed at him.
He stilled at her struggle, slid off her. He’d never force her, not even the woman she’d revealed herself to be. But he’d force her to acknowledge one thing. “You want me, too. I know when a woman feels pleasure at my touch, but you-in my arms, you disintegrated in ecstasy. You’re shaking with needing me inside you, assuaging the ache, giving you the release only I can bring you. Don’t even try to deny it, because I know. And if this is all we can have, then we’ll have it. All of it.”
He held her eyes, demanding her concession, her confession.
And she gave it. With her lashes hiding her expression she dragged his mouth back to hers, scorched him in a blast of hunger as her hands trembled at his belt. He growled in relief, in agony, tore at her clothes. He had her naked, only shredded his shirt open, freed himself, settled his chest over her breasts, rubbed her to a frenzy as she clamped her thighs around him in silent supplication for him to invade her, to merge them.
Unable to stand one more heartbeat outside her heat, her hunger, he rammed inside her.
And right there, buried inside her, knowing that the next thrust would hurtle them both over the edge, he stilled. Reared up. Looked down into her eyes, saw it. The soul that was right, that was perfect, for him, come to complete him, discovered to show him what life held of possibility, to fulfill the promise that had remained unrealized until she was there.
Then she moved, taking him as he took her, her eyes never leaving his. And the dam of pain and anger and disillusion shattered, and every beautiful, overpowering thing he felt for her flooded him. Images of a child with emerald eyes and hundred-color hair deluged him as he jetted inside her, feeling he’d poured his lifeforce into her, causing her paroxysm to spike. Ecstasy rocked them, locked them in a closed circuit until it seemed they might not survive the heights of pleasure, the depths of agony.
When he felt as if his heart would never restart, the excruciating release finally relinquished its merciless grip, let it beat again. Then she let go of his eyes, the deadness back. And the madness lifted, left him groping for breath.
“All those things you said were fabrications.” His choking words were not a question. They were him, realizing the enormity of the mistake he’d made. “Ya Ullah, why did you say them?”
She moved, making it clear she wanted to end their merging. He groaned at the pain of separation, had no choice but to watch her get out of bed like a malfunctioning automaton, go to the wardrobe he’d filled with clothes tailor-made for her, pulled on an emerald summer dress that had made her eyes iridescent when she’d first tried it on. Her eyes were muddy now, vacant.
“I’m just beginning to realize the full implications of you being the crown prince of one of the most powerful oil states in the world. You probably hold the power of life and death over your people. You want it over me.”
He rose from the bed, shuddered at the lifelessness of her voice as he did up his pants, approached her. “I don’t…”
She cut across his protest, her voice becoming an almost inaudible rasp. “You don’t think it enough to have me where you want me, a pawn in your political game and an eager body in your bed, proving your irresistibility. You want to wring me of the last drop of dignity to placate yours.”
“B’Ellahi, Farah, stop. This isn’t what I…”
“You want to know why I said what I did? Can I give you a list?” She echoed his earlier taunting. “How about a reaction to finding out I was means to an end all along? Or wanting to walk away from the worst degradation of my life with the illusion of being on equal ground? Or needing to make you show your true face, so it would be superimposed on that of the man I loved, erasing it from my heart and mind so I can go on living?”
“Atawassal elaiki, I beg you, ya habibati, let me…”
“I beg you to stop. Your plans worked, you got what you wanted out of me, in every way. So go do your duty and take your pleasure with whomever you want for real, for herself, let her provide the ego strokes you need and leave me alone.”
He tried to reach for her. “I can’t…”
She staggered away. “Not until I give you an heir? Is that why you’ll keep having sex with me? What if I told you-”
“You must listen to me. What I said, how I’ve behaved in the past hours, I was only lashing out after all those ugly things you said. Ya Ullah, you made them sound so convincing, the blast of shock blew away my memory, my knowledge of you. But even before you explained, I remembered, each moment-”
“I remembered each moment, too.” She cut across his desperate words, and he looked on in horror as she seemed to fragment before his eyes. “I’m remembering now, each look, each touch, each word I said to you, each sensation as I listened to you, as I felt you touch me with your eyes and hands and lips, cover me, move inside me. And I play it back and superimpose the truth over the illusion. I see your real feelings and thoughts as you watched me squirm in longing and pleasure and hope, as I fell flat on my face in love with you. I see you as you hid behind your shield of indifference, gauging when to poke me, how to make me beg, pant, and humiliate myself more and more.”
He surged, blind, out of his mind with agony, with the need to absorb hers, clutched her into a frantic embrace. She struggled wildly, tore herself away, quaking on sobs so hard he feared they were tearing her insides apart.
“God…the way you strung me along, the way I looked up to you, thought you unique, a man who cares about a woman’s feelings, not just her body, who cares about me. And all the time you could hold back because I was nothing to you, because you felt nothing. All the time you watched me making a fool of myself, lapping up the crumbs you kept dropping, yelping in gratitude. How pathetic did I seem to you, craving your appreciation, disbelieving my senses and believing in your every lie, bursting into flame without you even trying, writhing in pleasure at your merest touch, begging for more? How ridiculous did you find my insecurities and gullibility and readiness to die for you? How much did you snicker the moment my back was turned? How hard did you laugh when you were alone? How hard, Shehab?”