Afterwards, cradled in Azrael’s arms, Molly felt as though she was floating in the most sublime contentment she had ever known.
‘That was amazing... I want to keep you,’ Azrael husked without the smallest warning.
‘What?’ she mumbled uncertainly.
‘I don’t want to reconsider our marriage in a few months’ time... I want to keep you,’ Azrael reiterated calmly as though that were the simplest sentiment in the world to express.
I want to keep you. Very much as if she were a pet or a piece of property, Molly interpreted in astonishment. ‘We didn’t discuss anything like that,’ she reminded him hesitantly.
‘There is nothing to discuss,’ Azrael declared, sitting up, so devastatingly handsome in that instant that he literally stole the breath from her straining lungs. ‘We both got so carried away we didn’t even think of using protection.’
Her eyes flew even wider and she too sat up, clutching at the sheet. ‘Protection?’ she repeated blankly.
‘I forgot,’ he told her truthfully. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘It wasn’t safe. A few weeks ago it would’ve been,’ Molly told him worriedly. ‘But I missed some pills after Tahir took me because I didn’t have them with me here. I was planning to start taking them again at the end of the month.’
‘You could be pregnant now, aziz,’ Azrael declared quietly. ‘I was out of my mind with excitement. I did not have control and neither did you but if you do conceive—’
‘But I don’t want to be pregnant!’ Molly protested, marvelling that within minutes of feeling closer to him than she had ever felt to any living being, she could then be blindsided by the reality that he thought and functioned on an entirely different plane. ‘It’s too soon. I’m not ready for motherhood yet.’
Azrael was starting to frown as he slid fluidly off the bed. ‘Why the fuss? You’re my wife! What could be more natural than to have my child?’
Molly looked heavenward. ‘It doesn’t work that way in the West. Having children is something a man and a woman discuss and decide on together.’
Azrael had tensed, dark eyes flaring with gold lights. ‘If choosing not to have my child is that important to you, you should have considered the risk for yourself. I forgot but so did you.’
Molly gritted her teeth at a truth she was not in the mood to hear at that moment. Unhappily she wasn’t accustomed to having to consider risks in the pregnancy stakes because he was her first lover. Azrael was affronted, as if even the chance to have his child was a wonderful opportunity that no normal woman would wish to evade. Offence was stamped into the grim lines of his lean dark face and the aggressive angle of his stubbled jawline.
Azrael was very much taken aback by Molly’s attitude to the risk they had run together. Only as he registered that he had forgotten to use a condom had it occurred to him that he would very much like to have a child with Molly. After all, the only surviving member of his family was his kid brother and his heart warmed at the prospect of having a proper family in the future with children he could call his own.
Ironically he had imagined how warm and loving Molly would be with a child. His own mother had been too distant and reserved to act like the loving, caring mother he had longed to have as a little boy. His instantaneous, idealistic vision of building a happy family with Molly had shattered beneath a withering rejection, which he saw as unfeeling. After all, if she did conceive would she then reject his child or think less of that child because she had not planned its birth? Or were her reservations more basic? Was it simply his child she did not want?
‘In future I will be very careful to utilise protection,’ he declared coolly. ‘I will leave it to you to decide whether we will ever reach this magical day where we will sit down and discuss what comes naturally to half the world!’
Molly compressed her lips in silence. Djalia was not the most forward-thinking place. Having a wife was clearly fundamentally linked in Azrael’s brain with having a family and he had taken it for granted that she would feel the same way. That she did not immediately wish to embrace motherhood was clearly unwelcome news to him.
‘And now I must leave until we meet at the wedding tomorrow,’ Azrael informed her and even his Mr Grumpy expression couldn’t hide his relief at the prospect of escaping her unnatural attitude to conception. ‘Your attendants will be arriving soon to prepare you as a bride.’
I’m falling in love with him, Molly registered in sudden dismay because she could see right through him just then and she could see that Azrael was both offended and deeply hurt. Her reluctance to conceive was being viewed as a rejection. It bothered her so much to see that in him that she was horribly tempted to put her arms round him to offer comfort. Unfortunately, that would be the wrong thing to do because Azrael had to learn that while it was apparently fine for him to make unilateral decisions for Djalia he could not expect the same freedom and authority within his marriage. I want to keep you. Spontaneous laughter bubbled up in her throat and she had to struggle to hold it back because he would definitely misinterpret that reaction.