She scrunched her nose at him. “I’m not a pet to be sent off to training. Nothing will make me into the kind of wife or the woman Behraat will expect me to be, Zafir.”
His large hands were now on her shoulders, his breath feathering her face. “Your life will change in a number of ways, but I’m confident that you will handle it all. Independence is one thing, Lauren. Marrying the Sheikh of Behraat, another.”
Hand tucked under her chin, he lifted her head up until she looked at him. Pressed his mouth to her temple, “I need you, Lauren. Unlike anything or anyone else in the world.”
Everything within her, every urge she had ever repressed came out to play when it was this man who looked at her as if she was his sanity, as if she could calm him, as if she could rebalance his world.
That he needed her had always been her downfall.
She took his hand in hers. “This will work only if you promise me one thing, Zafir.”
* * *
Don’t ask me for the truth, Zafir thought.
Don’t force me to lie even more, the ones he’d already told scouring him.
Something resolute filled her face, chasing away the hesitation that came before it. And he braced himself and suddenly he knew why he had hesitated so much.
This incredibly delicate, infinitely fragile slip of a woman had power over him.
He’d already indulged himself for far too much when it came to her.
She made him want to be a better man, to risk things he didn’t possess while his duty chained him, forever weighed on his soul. She made him wonder and speculate about, for the first time, life outside of being the sheikh’s favorite orphan, beyond Rashid’s son, beyond Behraat even.
She made him want to reach for the impossible.
“I need your fidelity, Zafir. I’ll face anything if you—”
His breath shuddered out of him. This was a promise he could give and keep with no effort. He wanted no other woman like he wanted her. Once they were married, he would have Behraat, he would have the woman he wanted with an insanity and he would have his child.
For once in his life, he would have everything he could ever want. As long as he could forget that it was all built on a very small lie.
“I have not touched another woman since I came to your apartment that night, Lauren. And I will not touch another ever again.” He didn’t like that she needed his reassurance in it. That she didn’t know what kind of man he was.
But like she had rightly said, he hadn’t let her know him.
He saw the relief in her gaze and traced her cheeks with his knuckles.
A warm smile curved her lush mouth. Stepping onto her toes, she anchored herself on his shoulders and pressed her mouth to his stubbled cheek. The effect of that soft mouth was instantaneous—a searing brand.
Her words whispered at his ear felt like both a blessing and a curse, a vow that he felt to his very soul. “Then yes. I’ll marry you, Zafir.” She smiled against his cheek. “And I’ll try, to the best of my ability, to be an...interesting wife.”
Laughter bubbled up out of his chest. His hands sunk into her hair, he turned her to him.
The minx was laughing. Tightening his fingers, he buried his mouth in her neck and licked the fluttering pulse. Just the way that drove her crazy.
She smelled like sun and desert and warmth and desire, all rolled into one.
Too weak to resist, he pulled her to him until every inch of her thrummed against him. Hard and insistent, his erection pressed against her belly. “I see that you’re not promising to be a biddable wife.”
Her low gasp, the way her hands sank into his hair, his control barely held on. “That would be a lie, wouldn’t it? We both know I won’t be a good little wife. And I’d hate to start our marriage with lies.”
He jerked up and released her. Her smile dimmed and he shuttered his expression.
With light movements, he touched her lips, pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and wished her good-night.
He’d almost stepped out when she called his name.
A frown tied her brow and wariness clouded her dark eyes. And in that moment, Zafir knew he was taking a momentous step, one he could never erase. A strange kind of weight settled on his chest.
“You’re leaving?”
“I promised myself I would never make you feel cheap ever again. That means staying out of your bed until you’re my wife and I have every right under the desert sun to be there.”
He left without waiting for her response. Little time, he had very little time to get over this strange anxiety in his gut.
Little time to indulge in the foolish notion that he was committing a wrong.
He was marrying a woman carrying his child and bringing his country together again. He should be celebrating with a primal roar.