His Defiant Desert Queen(56)

“No.”

He lifted her, drawing her down on him, and with his hands on her hips, he helped her ride him, slow and deep, and then faster as the pleasure built.

After they both came, she tumbled forward onto his chest, and he held her. Her eyes closed. She listened to the thud of his heart and breathed him in.

He felt so good. He made her feel safe. Happy.

She was happy. This was the best place she’d been in months, emotionally, physically. In years.

Silence stretched between them, silence and a tingling awareness that everything had changed.

Mikael breathed in, out, and she traveled with his breath, his chest lifting her, carrying her.

That’s how it’d been when they were joined. She’d felt lifted, carried, supported.

It had been so intimate, and yet it wasn’t just sex. It felt like so much more, maybe because it had been so intense, and so physical, it’d demanded all of her, and she’d surrendered.

Making love to him, she gave herself up to him, offering him everything—her body, her mind, her emotions...her heart.

Why her heart? It made no sense. Jemma protected her heart. She’d learned it was necessary for survival. And yet in one morning of lovemaking, she’d dropped her defenses, lost her boundaries and become someone else. Or something else.

Changed.

There was that word again. She couldn’t help going back to it. Changed. Altered. Shattered.

Confused.

How could sex do that? How could sensation be so powerful? She didn’t understand and yet everything inside her felt open. Her heart felt open.

She pressed her palm to his chest, savoring the steady thud of his heart. “Did you really buy my mother a house?” she asked huskily.

His fingers played with her hair, twisting the long strands. “I will go check and see if the escrow has closed. I expect it will have.”

“And then it will be hers?”

“And hers alone,” he agreed.

Jemma hesitated. “Even if I leave here in four days?”

“No one can take it from her.”

Jemma was profoundly moved, but also troubled. “I don’t know what to say. I know I should thank you—”

“You don’t need to thank me. I didn’t buy it for you. I did it for her.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I met her at Morgan’s wedding. She was kind to me. I liked her. She reminded me of my mother.”

* * *

Mikael left her to check on the status of the house and Jemma showered and dressed, slipping into the long ruby beaded skirt and matching ruby top laid out on the bed. Breakfast was served in the courtyard. She’d just sat down and had her first coffee when Mikael returned.

“Escrow closed. The paperwork has been signed. The house is hers,” he said, taking the chair opposite Jemma’s.

“Thank you,” Jemma said. “Thank you for caring for her. Thank you for wanting the best for her.”

“I do for her what I should have done for my mother.” His brow furrowed, and his voice dropped, cracking. “I was not good to my mother. I failed her, and I will carry that pain, and that shame, with me forever.”

She reached across the table, and covered his hand with hers. “How did you fail her? What did you do?”

“Nothing. That is what I did. Absolutely nothing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When I explain, you’ll be appalled. And you should be. My behavior was selfish and it still disgusts me, but it’s too late to fix things. Too late to make amends.”

Jemma winced at his sharp tone, his voice laced with self-loathing and scorn. “Explain to me.”

“I was twenty-two when I learned the truth about my father and mother, that my father had lied to her, and had destroyed their wedding contract so he could take another wife. I was furious with my father,” he said, “but I’d lost my mother years ago, when I was just a boy, eleven, and I was terrified of losing my father, too. He had so many other children, so many other sons he could admire and love, and so I pretended I didn’t know the truth about the divorce. I pretended that I didn’t know who my father was—a liar, a cheat—and I acted as if my father was this wonderful man.”

“You were his son,” she said. “You were showing him respect.”

“My father had turned his back on my mother. I understood he expected me to do the same. And so I did, even when she came to me on my twenty-fifth birthday, asking for help. She was nervous about her future. She wanted financial assistance, and advice. She was worried she wasn’t managing her money well. She was worried she’d run out if she didn’t have the right investments.”

“Did you help her?”