He confused her, her big husband who moved like a desert hunter with his lean body and watchful gaze, and who smiled at her as if they shared some secret.
Marc heard Hira leave her room. He wondered what she was doing wandering around the house at this time of night. His heavily aroused body was keeping him awake, but she had no such excuse. From the way she'd run, the woman had no more desire for him than she had for a rabid gator. Grunting, he got out of bed, pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and started downstairs. To hell with caring for her sensibilities. If she couldn't handle the scars that marked his body, they might as well find that out fight now.
He'd never had trouble drawing women, but they'd been tough women, women who prowled for men and knew exactly what they wanted when they got him. And it wasn't tenderness. Gentle, pretty women like his wife tended to find his patched-up body and face distasteful. If he knew that, why was he putting himself through this? he asked himself bleakly.
Shaking his head, he walked downstairs. When he entered the kitchen, Hira was pulling down the tin of hot chocolate from a high cupboard. Her hair fell thick and straight over her shoulders like a black-and-gold mirror, shimmering against the vibrant yellow of her thin robe. Lord, but she was beautiful. If only if he could figure out whether that beauty was also of the heart, he might yet survive this marriage.
"Hungry?" he asked, walking into the room.
Startled eyes in that strange shade of lightest brown met his. She blinked as if to ensure he was real. "I couldn't sleep." It was a grudging admission. .
He deliberately crossed his arms across his chest, wanting her to look at him, really look at him. Despite her sophistication, even she wouldn't be able to hide an instinctive reaction. "Neither could I."
Her eyes refused to budge from his face. "Do you want some?" She put down the tin and opened the fridge door. "There is no milk!" Clearly frustrated, she glared at him over one shoulder.
He grimaced. "We'll get some more groceries tomorrow."
She closed the door and put the tin away, scowling at him. "But I don't have what I wish now."
"A little delayed gratification never hurt anyone." Now, if only his body would understand that, they'd both be far more comfortable.
Pursing her lush lips, she started to walk past him, nose in the air, hips swinging in a way that was utterly natural and sublimely female. The same devil that had got him in trouble before made him reach out and grab her upper arm, warm through the cool material of her robe.
Those almond-shaped eyes, mysterious and layered with secrets, clashed with his. "Let me go."
"Why?" he asked, encouraged by the slight blush in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes.
"Because I don't wish to do this and you said you wouldn't use force."
Was that fear in those magnificent eyes? No, he thought, gentling his voice nonetheless. "But what about persuasion?" His breath whispered over her lips, his tone husky. He made no effort to hide his honest desire for her. The sexual awareness between them couldn't be one-sided, not when every breath he took burned with passion.
She reared back. "You wouldn't be able to persuade me to do something distasteful to me." Her words were like swords, stabbing into him, adding to the scars on the inside, scars so bad that it was better they lived in darkness.
"If you try despite knowing that, it will make you no more than an animal in heat."
Hurt more than he would've believed by that verbal shot, Marc dropped her arm and turned his back to her. At least now he knew that this hasty marriage had no hope of ever surviving. Then why couldn't he reconcile himself to walking away? "Good night, princess."
Hira stood there staring at Marc's rigid back, aware that she'd hurt him. She had never intentionally hurt another human being in her life. Conscience told her to apologize; the part of her that he'd been taunting was smug, but the biggest feeling was confusion. For there was nothing distasteful to her about her husband. Despite trying to keep him at a distance, she'd allowed him close. Romaz had never made her feel this chaos of mingled joy and terror. And she'd thought she'd loved him.
Overwhelmed and unable to understand what was happening to her, she whirled on her heel and escaped to her room. Inside, she paced across the small space over and over, shocked at the heat that had flooded her body at her husband's proximity. Her mother hadn't told her of these things. All she'd said was that if her husband was a gentle man, he would be careful of her fears.
Hira herself had learned long ago how things were in the marriage bed. However, she had no practical experience. Even with Romaz, she'd behaved with the utmost decorum. It had been easy to resist his attempts at seduction.
Too easy.
Her mind and heart urged her to accept the truth she'd been avoiding since the moment she'd met Marc-she hadn't been in love with Romaz, had instead been attracted to the dream of freedom he'd held out. If she'd loved him, it wouldn't have been so very easy to keep him at arm's length. If she'd loved him, she would've burned for him as she did for Marc, this husband she barely knew.
Faced with a man a hundred times more masculine than her only other would-be lover, a man who she believed would be demanding and impatient with her inexperience, she was lost. Brought up in a cloistered environment, she'd never been allowed to mingle with males such as her husband. Though her family had tried to make a match for her with the sheik, they'd never allowed her to be alone with him.
But tonight she was all alone with a man who wished to exercise his rights as a husband but didn't believe in forcing his bride. That meant that if she wanted to make this marriage more than words on paper, more than two strangers sharing a house, she would have to get over her cowardice and approach him, for she knew he wouldn't come near her again. He had too much pride, pride that she'd slashed at tonight with her panicked response.
He'd been so close, so overwhelmingly male, so potent that her entire body had seemed to go up in flames. She'd been almost dizzy with the sudden, shocking desire to place her hands on that magnificent chest and stroke until his control snapped, though she had no idea what she would've done with an uncontrollable male on her hands.
Even more scandalous was the way she'd ached to rub herself against that steel-hard body.
She'd just wanted like she'd never wanted.
And her own desire had so frightened her that she'd struck out at the cause of her unease, wounding him when he'd done nothing to deserve it, when he'd apologized for hurting her with his earlier burst of temper. He'd been so sincere that she knew he'd told her the truth.
It had been easy to forgive him, for she didn't mind living with a man who had a flash-fire temper. In fact, she preferred it to her father's coldly judging silence. But tonight Marc hadn't shown her temper but such emotionless rigidity that she knew she'd caused serious damage.
With her actions she'd shattered the already fragile support base of their marriage. Now she was the one who'd have to rebuild it. Scared, not knowing how a woman went about seducing a male as strong as her new husband, she curled up in bed, thinking she'd never get to sleep.
She dreamed of silken sheets and a hunter of a male with eyes of liquid mercury. A demanding, hungry and powerful lover who refused to let her keep any part of herself back from him. A man who gave as much as he took and left her drenched in sweat, her body aching for a possession she had no knowledge of.
Four
Midmorning the next day, Hira stood at the kitchen window watching her husband chop wood in the backyard. He'd ignored her since she'd come downstairs. It was likely that he was only outside because she wasn't. Not that it would do him much good to ignore her if she didn't wish to be ignored. Her father had often cursed her for being as stubborn as an old camel. She'd taken it as a compliment.
It would be Marc's own fault if she followed him out. After all, he shouldn't have dressed only in those blue jeans if he hadn't wished her to watch him. What woman could resist running her eyes over that muscled form, as lean and dangerous as a wolf in its prime? And she'd found that watching him led to wanting to touch him, just as she'd wanted to stroke him last night when he'd appeared before her only half-dressed.