He bit back a groan as the images and sensation bombarded him. He could almost feel his hands running down the smoothness of her slippery body as he lathered her, kneaded her under a steady jet of warm wetness, as he drove inside her tight, fluid heat, over and over until she climaxed around him, singed him with her pleasure. Then he would rinse her, caress and fondle her, whisper to her how she felt around him, what more he’d do to her as he brought her down from the pinnacle of pleasure, had her simmering for the next ride.…
He exhaled forcibly, trying to expel the encroaching madness. “I’m glad Ryan enjoys the beach. Activities on the sand and in the sea are the best natural form of physiotherapy for him.”
She bit her lower lip, made him feel she’d sunk those white teeth in his own, in his heart. “I never even took him to the pool. I was afraid to expose him to physical stress because I had no way of knowing if I’d be harming him. So it was his first exposure to the sea, and as you saw, he went berserk with delight.”
He had been as thrilled as he could be in his condition with Ryan’s joy. “We’ll come here as often as possible, then.”
She gave him such a look, hesitant, anxious, as if asking him what was to become of them, what kind of life they’d have.
What did she expect? They’d come here, they’d be together everywhere, where he’d be Ryan’s father and her parenting partner, but never again her lover. They’d never be a real husband and wife and just a simulation of a family.
B’Ellahi, why was she here? Trying to smile and make small talk and shake sand out of his hair? Did she think he could be her easy companion now as he shared Ryan’s upbringing?
Or was she considering resuming their intimacies because they were now married, for worse or worst?
Would he want this, if this were what she was after?
No. He’d either have all or none of her, couldn’t share…
“Fareed, there’s something I need…I have to confess to you.”
His focus sharpened on her. Her incandescent beauty was now gilded by the lights emanating from the villa. The spasm of sheer love he felt for her, the enormity of it, suddenly crystallized one irrefutable fact.
He was wrong. He had been wrong. About everything he’d felt or thought since he’d found out she’d been Hesham’s woman.
What she had been didn’t matter. What she was did.
She was the woman he’d loved on sight, the only one who’d ever aroused his unadulterated desire, possessed his unqualified trust and admiration. She had been a selfless lover to his brother, then as sacrificing a mother to Ryan. She’d been the best thing that had ever happened to him, too, his life’s first absolute intimacy. And he had been willing to give up anything, risk anything for her. His assets, his peace of mind, his hopes, his life. He now realized he could give up even more. He would.
He’d give up his jealousy, that Hesham had loved her first. His guilt over loving her when Hesham no longer could. His anguish over surviving when Hesham was no longer there.
But maybe she was already meeting him halfway. With this confession she wanted to make. He gestured for her to go ahead.
“You didn’t question the reasons I stated for hiding Ryan’s paternity…” She stopped, her agitation mounting.
He had to spare her. “There was nothing to question. You were doing what Hesham would have wanted you to do. He lived in fear of our father finding him and spoiling his life and yours. He clearly knew what Emad did, that our father was looking for him, not in the way I thought, out of anger. When he knew he’d die, he knew if he ever found you, you could lose Ryan to the man who almost destroyed him. My siblings and I were lucky because we had our mothers, whom everyone called the lioness, the Amazon and the harpy, to fend for us. But Hesham didn’t. His mother died giving birth to him.”
Her gaze wavered. “Hesham said your father never let anyone mention her to him as he grew up.”
Fareed exhaled another of his frustrations with his father. “It was whispered around the kingdom that she couldn’t withstand him, being this artistic, ethereal creature. It did seem that our father was so furious with her for being different from what he’d wanted, then for dying, that he banned any mention of her. When he realized Hesham was turning out like her, he did everything to force him into the mold he thought acceptable for a son of his. Hesham was right to fear our father and to instill that fear in you. If Ryan had fallen into his hands, he would have suffered an even worse fate because Hesham at least had us, older siblings who’d done all we could to temper his autocratic upbringing. So I understand that you had to hide the truth with all you had. I only wish you’d trusted me. At least, trusted Hesham’s decision to entrust your and Ryan’s futures to me.”
She grabbed his forearm, urgency emanating from her. “I trusted you with Ryan’s life, with both our lives when I came to the land I feared most on the strength of nothing but my belief in you. But it’s more complicated than you think. And when we…we…”
“Became lovers?” He placed his hand on top of hers before she could retract it. “I can see how this made you feel more trapped. But after I was furious with Emad when he revealed the truth, then told my father, I can’t be more thankful to him now. Like we say here, assa an takraho shai wa hwa khayronn lakom.”
She nodded. “You may hate something and it’s for your best.”
He smiled. “I’ll never stop being impressed by how good your Arabic is. Hesham taught you well.”
She blushed. Blushed. With pleasure at his praise. And at the ease with which he now referred to Hesham, and the beauty of the relationship she’d shared with him?
Then her color deepened to distress again. “But Emad didn’t find out the full truth. And when you know it, you won’t find acceptable excuses for my half truths.”
He took her by the shoulders. “No, Gwen, whatever you hid, I’m on your side, and only on your side, always.”
The tears gathered in her eyes slipped down the velvet of her cheeks as she nodded. “Hesham said your father told him his life story when he was fifteen. He said he married three women, one after the other for political and tribal obligations, had children from each, sometimes almost simultaneously.” Fareed knew well the story of his father and his four wives and ten children. He had a feeling she’d tell him things he didn’t know. “But he didn’t love any of them.”