Where would they go tonight? To the Emerald Chamber? Sapphire?
Did it even matter?
She had to leave. Had to return to London. Didn’t she?
Confused by her conflicting thoughts, Jemma quietly left the bed and stepped outside to the courtyard. It was still early. The sun was just rising and the temperature felt cool, the early morning painted the palest pink and yellow.
Jemma’s maid appeared in the courtyard with coffee and a tray of breakfast pastries. Jemma refused the pastries but sipped the coffee in a chair near the tranquil pool, listening to the chirp of birds nesting high above in the palm fronds.
Mikael appeared in the doorway a half hour later. He’d showered and dressed and was wearing his robes. “I need to go to Ketama,” he said, approaching her to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “I will be back tonight. I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to.”
She tipped her face up to him, frowning at the amount of time he’d be traveling, first by camel, and then by car. “Won’t it take you all day to get there?”
He kissed her again, this time on her brow. “I have a helicopter here. The pilot’s ready. If we leave now, I’ll be back this evening.”
“And you have to go?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding very decisive.
“Be careful,” she said.
He kissed her one last time, this time on the lips. “Always.”
* * *
It seemed as if it would be a long day with Mikael gone, but Jemma’s maid led her to the Emerald Chamber, with the wall of antique leather-bound books.
Jemma studied the spines, delighted to discover that many were in English, and many were written by her favorite English authors. Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, E.M. Forster, and more.
Jemma selected Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and curled up in bed to read. She read the afternoon away and was still reading when the maid appeared to help Jemma dress for dinner.
“Is His Highness back?” Jemma asked, reluctantly putting the book down.
The maid shook her head. “No.”
“Then why do I need to dress for dinner? Can’t I have dinner here, in bed?”
Jemma finished the novel over dessert and promptly began Sense and Sensibility but ended up falling asleep over it.
She was still asleep, holding the novel, when Mikael arrived at midnight.
He stood over the bed for a moment watching her before carefully plucking the book from her hand, drawing the covers up to her shoulder, and turning the lamp out next to the bed.
He showered in the marble bathroom and then after drying off, joined her in bed. He was naked. But then, so was she.
* * *
Jemma woke up in the night and reached out to her side, relieved and delighted to discover Mikael there.
She moved toward him, and he opened his arms to her, drawing her close.
She pressed her face to his warm chest, breathing in his scent. He was back and he felt good and smelled good and she lifted her face to his, offering her lips. He kissed her, taking her mouth and then rolling her onto her back, to thrust deep inside her.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, taking all of him, wanting to hold him as close as possible, aware that things were changing. She was changing.
She...loved...him.
She loved him.
All of a sudden it made sense. She was happy because she was in love.
* * *
They fell back asleep and then woke up sometime in the morning to make love again. This time Jemma didn’t fall back asleep but slipped from bed to head to the bathroom to shower.
Mikael watched Jemma cross the bedroom, naked, her beautiful body so familiar to him now.
Maybe that’s why his chest felt heavy and tight as he watched her disappear into the bathroom.
Maybe that’s why sex had felt different last night and this morning.
Maybe it’s because she was familiar to him. Important to him.
But she was different, too, he thought. She hadn’t merely been in his arms, but with him...in him...which didn’t make sense, as it was his body filling hers, but somehow she’d gotten inside of him. He had felt her, feeling her not just with his body but his heart.
The emotions and sensations had made the sex more intense.
She’d felt so alive beneath him, so fierce and fragile, so beautiful that he couldn’t get close enough to her, and he’d tried, God knew he’d tried.
Slow, deep strokes, hands holding her down, and still so he could kiss her, ravish her, draw her all the way into him.
And it hadn’t been enough. He couldn’t get enough. Even after one, two orgasms...hers, his.
Before, when he’d pleasured her, he’d wanted to blow her mind, enslave her through passion, make her yield to him. Belong to him. If she was going to be his, she should be happy with him.