His Defiant Desert Queen(59)

                She could barely look at him, excruciatingly shy. The sensations inside her were still so intense. How could she climax without him even touching her between her legs?

                Mikael turned her face to him. “Did I scare you?” he asked quietly, his dark eyes searching hers.

                She shook her head, but there were tears in her eyes. Her emotions felt wild.

                “What then?”

                “You’re just very good at all...that.”

                He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “It was too much.”

                Her eyes burned. Her throat squeezed. “I don’t know you.” His touch was soothing. It eased some of the tension within her, but not enough. “I don’t know you,” she repeated. “And for me to feel this way, physically, I think I should.”

                * * *

                Jemma always found a way to surprise him.

                But it wasn’t her words that surprised him now, as much as her emotion. He felt her confusion. She didn’t understand what she was feeling.

                She wasn’t who he thought she was. She was nothing like her father. And her softness and sweetness reminded him of his mother.

                Suddenly, he wondered what his mother had been like, as a girl, before she’d married his father. She must have been daring and adventuresome. She was American, after all, and she’d married his father, a sheikh, and although she’d loved the exoticism of her husband’s culture, she’d apparently never assimilated into the culture, and Mikael’s father hadn’t helped her adapt, either. He’d left her to fit in. Left her to sort it out for herself.

                A mistake.

                But then, their entire marriage had been a mistake. Even he had been a mistake.

                His mother had said as much, too.

                His chest grew tight, the air bottled inside his lungs.

                He did not want his future to be like his past. He did not want his children to grow up with such terrible unhappiness.

                He lifted Jemma’s hand, kissed her palm, her wrist, feeling the flutter of her pulse against his lips. Her skin felt soft and warm. She was soft and warm and he felt the strongest urge to protect her.

                “I have a gift for you,” he said, leaning back on the cushions.

                “I don’t need gifts,” she answered, still unsettled, still reserved. “In fact, material things just leave me cold.”

                “So how can I spoil you?”

                “I don’t want to be spoiled.”

                “What can I give you then?”

                She studied him for a long moment. “I want to know about you. Tell me something about you.”

                “Me?”

                “Rather than presents, every day tell me something new about you.”

                “Showering you in jewels would be easier.”

                “Exactly.” She looked at him, her expression almost fierce. “So if you want to give me something meaningful, give me part of you. Let me know you. That would be a true gift...one this bride would treasure.”