“I do not want your feelings,” he said viciously. “I do not want your love. I do not need it!”
An expression crossed her face, one he couldn’t read, and abruptly she reached up and took his face between her hands, her palms cool against his burning skin. “Yes, you do,” she said softly. “I know you do. I can see it in your eyes.” Her thumbs moved across his jaw and her touch felt so sweet that he didn’t stop her. “You don’t have to be afraid, Isma’il.”
He stared into her face, despair licking through him. Whatever she felt, it didn’t matter. As soon as he’d got back to the palace, he’d felt the same old slickness on his fingers, the darkness of Khalid eating away inside him. Violence and pain staining him.
The desert hadn’t healed him. The desert hadn’t scoured him clean.
Nothing would.
And now here she was, telling him she loved him. Offering him something he wanted so badly he couldn’t speak. And he could never, ever have it.
The bleakness settled down in his heart and he reached for her, ripped away the tie that bound her hair, releasing the golden mass of it to fall over her shoulders. Then, he buried his hands in it, pulled her head back and covered her mouth with his own.
He would take this. Take her. One last, fleeting moment for himself. So selfish and wrong, but he didn’t care. She’d accused him of being just like Dan and he was. That’s the kind of man he’d been all along.
Lily made a sound somewhere between a moan and a gasp, and then her arms were around his neck and she began to kiss him back, as hungry and as desperate as he was. He let himself drown in the taste and heat of her, pushing her hard against the desk, his body against hers, feeling the softness of hers yield to hardness of his. She gasped his name in his ear as he pressed harder, then gave a soft cry as he hauled her up onto the desk and dragged the skirt she wore up around her waist.
That they were in an office where any of the palace staff could walk in at any moment didn’t matter. That he had no protection on him didn’t matter either. In fact, neither occurred to him. All he wanted was to be inside her and that was the only thing he cared about.
Her fingers gripped his shoulders, digging in as he pushed his hand between her thighs, gripping the lace of her knickers then jerking it away hard, material ripping. Lily’s breath hissed in his ear, as he pushed her thighs open. He didn’t ask her if she was okay with this. He didn’t ask her for permission. He jerked away the desert robe he hadn’t bothered to change out of, ripped open the trousers he wore underneath it, and reached for her. Dragging her to the edge of the desk. Thrusting into the tight, wet heat of her. Lily cried out, her nails digging harder into his shoulders. Then, she wrapped her legs around his waist, arching back on the desk, encouraging him deeper.
His mind blanked. She was so hot, hotter than the desert sand, hotter that the sun. Burning through him like a sunbeam refracted through a magnifying glass. And he let the heat of her burn away what the desert could not. The blood. The pain. The guilt. The fear.
Her nails found his skin, pushing hard beneath his shirt, scoring him. Branding him. He welcomed it, wrapping her hair around his wrist and pulling her head back to expose her throat. Kissing her, licking her skin, his teeth against the delicate cords of her neck. Marking her as she marked him. Wanting her to carry him with her when she left. Because she could not stay. He could not have her near him.
“God . . . Isma’il!”
He heard the desperation in her voice, so he put his hands between her legs, where they were joined, stroking the little hard bud of nerves at the apex of her thighs, giving her more pleasure. Pushing her over the edge. And when she sobbed in his ear, he let himself go.
Taking what he wanted. Another moment of complete and utter freedom.
For long minutes afterwards he couldn’t move, and it was only when her arms tightened around him that he realized he was shaking. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay and it never would be.
Isma’il wrenched himself out of her arms, stumbling back, putting his clothing back to rights with shaking hands.
She sat on the desk, a shocked expression on her flushed face. “Isma’il?” Her hair was down around her shoulders, her skirt up around her waist. She looked sexual, desirable, beautiful. Unbearable.
He turned blindly away, walking out of her office. She called his name again, but he didn’t stop. He just wanted to leave. Get away from her. Get away from the shame of what he’d done to her. Of what he’d taken.
The wide hallways of the palace echoed with the sound of his footsteps, echoed with too many memories. Memories he’d been suppressing for years that suddenly poured through his mind like water from a cracked dam. His father’s violent rages. His mother’s cries of pain. The stink of his own fear, his helplessness at being too small, unable to stop the monster.