Marriage Behind the Fa?ade (11 page)

When she came again, he crawled up her body, kissing his way over her sensitive skin. He was still wearing the riding boots, his black trousers open at the waist and hanging low on his hips.

Sydney could only stare. He was an erotic fantasy, a desert lover come to claim her. She was aching, quivering with need. The pale maiden ready for the possession of her dark lover.

“Do you want me, Sydney?”

“You know I do.”

“That wasn’t enough for you?” he asked silkily.

She shook her head against the pillows. She knew she must look wild, her hair plastered to her head from the shower, her skin flushed with the glow of amazing sex. But she didn’t care.

She needed him inside her. Needed him to breathe.

He urged her up, turned her so that she was facing away from him on all fours. He stroked her sex, kindling the flame again until she was panting with need.

And then he plunged into her. Sydney arched backward, her hair fanning across her back. Malik wrapped an arm around her waist, held her against him as he thrust into her body. His other hand found her, moved expertly against her slick flesh.

It was raw, earthy, and she loved it. He could have taken her gently, reverently, but instead he’d taken her with all the power and wildness he possessed.

It wasn’t fairy tale lovemaking—but she didn’t want fairy tale lovemaking. She wanted
this.

This raw need that scorched her from the inside out. That branded her as a sexual being who craved the kind of release that only this man could give.

She came again in a hot, hard rush, collapsing against him while he held her steady and pumped into her body. This time, he followed her, his body stiffening as he moaned her name.

She loved the sounds he made when he was stripped of his control, the way his body jerked and shuddered.
She
did that to him. It made her feel powerful, needed.

His fingers stroked along the column of her spine, his touch reverent. He collapsed onto his back, and she turned so that she could face him. He reached up to push away a hank of her hair that had fallen across her face, and then cupped the back of her head and pulled her down for a lingering kiss.

“You’ve destroyed me,” he murmured.

But what she was thinking was that he’d destroyed her. It didn’t matter what happened, how many days they spent together, whether they made love or studiously avoided touching one another—she felt something for this man that was never going to dissolve. Time and distance hadn’t managed it so far, though she’d convinced herself that it had.

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. One afternoon in his arms, and the truth was too blinding to ignore.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHEN Malik awoke, the tent was dark. He moved his foot, grateful that he’d at least managed to get out of the riding boots at some point. Beside him, Sydney was curled into a small ball. He lifted onto an elbow, smiled as he gently drew her curtain of hair from her face. He’d always loved the way she slept.

She lay on her side, her body curled as tight as it could be, as if she were trying to make herself smaller. He frowned for a moment. It was very much like Sydney to try and make herself disappear. He’d known, when they were together, that she often tried to go unnoticed.

She truly believed that she was without any remarkable qualities, which he found both interesting and baffling. He’d never known a woman who was more remarkable, or more certain she was not.

He stretched and climbed from the bed naked, in search of the food they’d left on a table nearby. It was cold in the desert at night, but he was still too hot to bother covering up. He found flat bread and olives, a bit of cheese. He didn’t need much, but he needed something if the way his stomach was growling was any indication.

Sydney didn’t stir. And no wonder. It was a mystery that he could.

His body was sated, content—his mind was not. He thought back to that moment in the shower when she’d taken him in her mouth. He’d nearly come apart then and there, but somehow he’d managed to keep it together long enough to regain control of himself.

He felt a moment’s guilt for the way he’d taken her once they’d made it to the bed. But he’d been so on edge, so unsure of himself and so raw with the wounded feelings he’d buried down deep that he couldn’t lie in her arms and spill himself into her body with her soft limbs wrapped around him and her cries in his ear.

He’d needed to take her like an animal, needed that slight disconnect that turning her away from him would give.

Except that he’d failed rather spectacularly. Because it didn’t matter how he made love to Sydney, she still managed to crack him wide open until his feelings were so raw that he wasn’t sure how to deal with them.

When he’d recovered sufficiently, he’d dealt with them by taking her again, this time as they entwined their bodies together, limbs tangling, hands clasping, tongues dueling for supremacy. Her cries of ecstasy fueled some hidden fire in his gut that only made him want to push her further and further over the edge.

Malik pushed a tired hand over his eyes, rubbed his arm against his face. It had been a very long afternoon, punctuated by bouts of sleeping combined with the sort of lovemaking that turned him inside out each and every time. He didn’t care to examine why, though he knew he would have to at some point.

All he knew was that Sydney was a fire in his body like no other woman had ever been. He was addicted to the rush he felt whenever he was inside her, addicted to the way she made him feel better than he’d ever felt in his life. With her, he felt … right.

Somewhere during it all, they’d managed to eat.

He’d told her last night she would be his wife again. He didn’t know precisely why he’d done it, except that he’d been angry with her for being so determined to push him away again. She’d walked out on him once, and he’d been too proud to go after her. He should have done.

He should have chased her all the way to L.A. and reminded her why they were so good together.

But she was here now, and he wasn’t going to let her go again without making very sure she understood precisely what she would be giving up.

“Malik?”

“Over here,” he said. “Do you want something to eat?”

She pushed herself up in the bed and yawned. “No thanks. What time is it?”

Malik shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t checked. It’s probably earlier than it should be.”

“What do you expect? We did sleep part of the day away.”

“Is that what we did?” he asked, making his way back to the big bed and the warm woman waiting for him.

She laughed. “Sometimes.”

“How are you feeling?”

She lifted her arms in a sensual stretch. “Tired. Sore.”

He’d hoped she would say
happy.
He told himself not to care that she did not.

“Perhaps we should have taken it slower,” he said instead.

“I’m not sure that was possible.”

No, probably not. He’d never been very good at maintaining his control with her. “Nevertheless, you almost succumbed to heat stroke. I should have been more careful.”

She shook her head. “And yet here I am, remarkably alive and unaffected by your callous treatment of me.”

He tried not to laugh. It didn’t work. “I should love to treat you callously more often.”

She sighed. He didn’t like the wistfulness he heard in the sound. Something was coming that he’d prefer to leave alone for the time being. He was not, however, going to get his wish.

“It was beautiful, Malik. Wonderful and amazing, as always. But how does sleeping together help the situation?”

Her words pricked him. He had no idea what happened next, how making love to her fit into his life beyond this very moment, and he didn’t want to think of it. They’d had an extraordinary day together, getting to know each other’s bodies again, feeling the emotion that burned between them as they did so.

Being inside Sydney wasn’t just about sex. He knew that, but he didn’t know what else to call it. How to say it. He knew she was determined to move forward with the divorce, determined they could not build a life together, and he couldn’t think of one good reason why she was wrong.

Except that it
seemed
wrong somehow. Why couldn’t they figure it out? Why couldn’t they take it a day at a time and try to build something more lasting?

“It helps me feel calm,” he said lightly, because he wasn’t prepared to take the conversation any deeper.

She blew out a breath. “Does it make you feel anything else?” she asked, her voice smaller than it had been.

He pulled her to him then, stretched out over top of her, his mouth finding the sweet skin of her throat. “You know it does, Sydney.”

Her fingers slipped over his shoulders, a small moan issuing from her as he licked the flesh of her neck and then blew softly on the wet spot. “But I
don’t
know it,” she said. “I have no idea what you feel. All I know is we have this amazing chemistry in bed together. But that’s not enough, is it?”

“It’s a start.” He didn’t want to talk about feelings, not right now. The idea of it created a hard knot of tension deep in his belly. “Why question our good fortune?”

He palmed her breast, tweaked a nipple as she gasped. “Malik,” she breathed. “This is serious.”

“I know. Very serious.” He claimed her lips, delved inside with his tongue. She kissed him ardently, her hands threading into his hair as her body arched.

He was growing hard again. He knew the moment she realized it, because she gave a little moan. And then she tilted her hips up and ground them against him.

“Temptress,” he said, and then he bent his head and took the hard bud of her nipple into his mouth.

“Oh—I can’t think when you do that.”

“Then don’t think. Feel.”

“But Malik,” she said on a half groan. “I want to talk to you. I want to know you. I want more than just this.”

He lifted his head. Irritation was growing inside him. Frustration. And a sense of panic that was completely foreign to him. “I ache for you, Sydney. I’ve ached for a year. Is this not enough for you?”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “No,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

Malik rolled away from her with a groan. He put his arm over his face, covering his eyes. His body throbbed, but that was nothing compared to the piercing throb of his heart.

“We’ve been down this path before,” she said. “And look where it got us.”

Malik sat up and began to hunt for his trousers. “If you will remember,
habibti,
you ran away.” He knew he sounded cold, but he had to. It was that or cave in to the hot emotion in the air—and he wasn’t ready for that. He would never be ready for that.

“I did run. And maybe I was wrong, but you share some of the blame, too.”

“Yes, I know this.” He found the trousers, shoved a leg in first one side and then the other before standing and pulling them up to fasten them.

“That’s it?” she said. “You’re leaving? You’d rather have sex or walk out than talk to me?”

She sounded bitter. And angry.

“Right now, yes.”

She got to her knees in the middle of the bed. He tried not to look at the way the dim light from the lamps limned the silky skin of her breasts. The way it kissed her curves, disappeared in the shadowed cleft between her thighs. She put her hands on her hips, and his gaze shot up to her face, more for self-preservation than anything else.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that? You talk about me running away, but what about you? You can’t face any conversation that might be about the way you feel.”

He stood there, clenching his fists at his sides. Willing himself to be calm and methodic about this. He thought back to his childhood, to those days when he’d longed for someone—
anyone
—to tell him he was loved, valued. Wanted for more than dynastic reasons. For more than reasons that were only about tradition and duty.

His father was proud. He cared for his children in his own way, but he wasn’t demonstrative. And his mother …

Malik frowned. His mother had no maternal feelings whatsoever. Children were a duty, something one produced before handing them over to be raised accordingly. She only became interested in him when he was old enough to do what he wanted without recourse.

He’d never talked about his feelings because there was nothing to talk about. No one to talk about them with. Since he’d become a man, he’d heard those three words often—
I love you
—but always from women whose motives he did not trust. Women who wanted to trap him for his wealth and position, not for who he was at heart.

And who was he, really? What great prize was he?

Malik ground his teeth in frustration. “Our relationship didn’t break down overnight. I don’t imagine it can be fixed overnight, either.”

“Relationship? Is that what you call this? I thought it was just sex.”

“What do you want from me, Sydney? We’ve been apart a year. Do you expect a declaration of true love?”

“No,” she cried quickly. Too quickly. “That’s not what I want. Not what I expect.”

And yet he knew she did. She was a woman who was open with her feelings, even when she thought she wasn’t. Her every emotion was written on her face. He couldn’t be like her, even if he wanted to. He was too used to protecting himself, denying himself.

What happened if he tore down the walls between him and the world? “I’m not sure I can be what you expect,” he said. “I can only be what I am.”

“How do you know what you can do,” she said sadly, “if you won’t even talk about it?”

The next morning, Malik announced they were leaving. Sydney looked up from the tray Adara had just brought in for them, her heart sinking into her stomach.

“But we’ve only just arrived. I thought you had business to conduct.”

Malik’s handsome face was studiously blank. “I’ve done what I needed,” he said. “We’re moving on to the city of Al Na’ir. You will be more comfortable there.”

“And by done what you needed, do you mean enticing me into your bed again?” It was the wrong thing to say, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

His jaw looked harder than granite. “That was so very difficult to do, wasn’t it? No, Sydney, that is not what I mean.”

She lifted her chin. No, it hadn’t been difficult, just like it hadn’t been difficult when she’d met him last year.

“Be ready in an hour,” he said. She thought he looked as if he would say something else, but instead he turned and went back outside. Sydney balled her hand into a fist and punched one of the cushions on the couch.

She had no one to blame but herself. She’d known what being with Malik again would mean, and she’d fallen headlong into hedonism anyway.

Her body was still languorous from their intense lovemaking of yesterday. She’d lost track of how many times they’d awakened from a nap to sink into each other again. It had been a day of excess, of pleasure so intense she’d wanted to weep from it.

It had also been a day in which she’d realized that nothing had changed for her. She was still in love with Malik. She’d pushed him to talk, but it hadn’t quite been fair of her. Only a few days ago, he’d told her about Dimah, about his family and his relationship with them when she’d asked.

Compared to what they’d talked about before, it had been a lot of revelations in a short span of time. Malik did not open up easily. She knew that, but she’d been feeling so vulnerable after realizing how she still felt about him.

She’d wanted to know he was affected, too. That some part of him wanted more than just sex. The way he’d touched her in the shower, his hand trembling—it had to mean something, didn’t it? And after, when he’d been so focused on her pleasure, so determined to make her feel good—what had he said?
I have not forgotten even a moment of making love to you.