She had never felt more like a woman.
* * *
Adjusting their bodies so that she was on her back, Azeez slowly pulled himself from under Nikhat. Her soft snores made him smile, but his curiosity, now blazing like a wildfire, refused to be distracted. He turned on the bed lamp on his side. The feeble light threw her lush breasts into focus and for a few minutes, he was lost.
She instantly turned sideways again, seeking warmth, and he stilled her with an arm around her waist.
And there it was.
The scar he had seen just as he had found glorious climax. Not that the blinding pleasure he had found in her was in any way blunted by his sudden observation. But now, the sheets cooling off around them, now that the edge of his hunger was blunted, he couldn’t stop wondering.
The scar was about a half inch wide and was right above the hair that covered her sex. It looked precise, and he realized it was the result of a surgery.
Instantly, he thought of the name she had given him for her condition, wondered at the seriousness of it.
Exhaling a harsh breath, he pushed out the concern and curiosity, too. They had both known that this was about one night.
Glorious sex after six years of abstinence was frying his brain, warping his mind. Nikhat and he were tied together by a curious twist of fate but nothing else. It had to be.
She shivered and he pulled up the duvet to cover her naked body.
He lay back down on the bed, on his side again, and gathered her close. The scent of sex and her, a delicious combination, settled deep into his skin. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she snuggled into him. Her eyes fluttered open, drowsy and sated, her mouth curving into a satisfied smile. “Can we do it again?”
He laughed and tasted her mouth again.
Her eyes fluttered closed. “All I need is a little rest, and I will be ready for round two.” She cracked her eyes open and winked at him. “Unless it’s your creaky joints that aren’t up to scratch, really. If so, we will—”
He sent his fingers on a search up her thighs, until they found her buttocks and gave her a little squeeze. She yelped and hid her face in his neck.
His throat clotted, and he marveled at how easily she had made him laugh at himself. And he stilled at another realization. Even the pain in his hip, his inability to move inside her as he wanted without pain shooting down his leg, hadn’t derailed him the way it usually did. And, of course, he couldn’t contest the fact that it was because it was her. He swallowed the bittersweet realization. “Sleep, habeebi.”
* * *
The next morning, Nikhat woke alone in her bed. Sunlight glinted across every surface in her room, touching everything with a golden glow. Moving to her side, she dragged the pillow next to her toward her nose and took a deep breath. That dark scent of Azeez, with undertones of sex and sandalwood, instantly evoked tingles across her skin. Smiling, she lay there for a few more minutes, reliving last night.
The same sense of lightness and contentment pervaded her as she showered and dressed in a long cotton skirt adorned with beads and tiny mirrors that fell to her ankles, and a thin silk blouse in a pale yellow. Adding large dangly earrings that she had bought in a quirky jewelry store in Brooklyn, she studied her reflection in the mirror.
Color filled her cheeks and there was a light in her eyes. She looked every inch like a woman who had been loved, very thoroughly, last night. Refusing to let her thoughts veer into negative territory, she pulled a comb through her long hair, pulled it to fall in an angled ponytail over her shoulder and set off in search of Azeez.