He turned to her then and she’d never seen his face so open, so bleak before. It was as if all life had been leached from him and he saw nothing but pain. His gaze dropped from hers and fell to her lips but he made no movement. It was up to Anna to slip her hands round the back of his head, press her fingers through his hair and pull his face down to hers. She needed to reassure, she needed to show him her love for him and, above all, she wanted to connect with him again. He felt distant and she had to bridge that distance before it became insurmountable.
His lips were cool to her own. But she held hers there, softly pressing, feeling out his with her own, insisting on a warmth of feeling that she knew to be there. But still she could not feel he was present. She pulled away again.
“Zahir, please.”
He lifted his finger to her face and swept it across her cheek. “I’ve only ever seen you cry once before. When you were pleading for your son. And now?”
He looked at her with the old spark: whether it was curiosity or something else, she didn’t care. She was just glad to see something.
“Now, I’m pleading with you.”
He hesitated only a moment, his eyes roaming her face before he pressed his lips to hers and kissed her with all the heat and need that she could have desired. But too soon he pulled back. Silently he pushed up her sweater and pressed his cold hands against her warm stomach making her muscles clench with shock. He slid his hands under her bra and closed his eyes as his thumbs rubbed hard against her nipples. But his restless hands didn’t stay there; they slid under her body and before she knew what he was doing he’d lifted her in his arms and lain her down on the bed.
She gasped as his warm lips followed his cold hands and she felt the wet heat of his mouth upon her nipples, drawing them tight until she felt the instant spiral of desire swirl inside her, obliterating all else.
Then his lips moved to hers in a kiss, so intense, that she was barely aware that he’d removed the remaining clothes that lay between them until she felt the smooth slide of him inside of her. She gasped against his lips and fell into his quickening rhythm. There was no softness, no lingering sensuous enjoyment to their love-making this time. The intensity of the kiss was reflected in the intensity in his eyes and his body. It was as if he were desperate to make that connection with her, not just on the physical level but on the emotional. They climaxed swiftly—their bodies aroused as always by each other, but their minds unwilling and unable to prolong the sensory experience.
Afterwards they lay, facing each other, holding each other, their legs still entwined, Anna’s cheek pressed against Zahir’s chest, feeling his heart beat and praying that he wouldn’t retreat from her, that he’d passed through the pain and could go on again, stronger than before. But he was so proud, so controlling, that she couldn’t imagine what effect his newly acquired knowledge would have.
The pain hurt more, if anything, Zahir thought, after he’d made love to Anna. It was as if he’d chosen to embrace feeling, rather than do as he’d always done, and bury it so deep that even he didn’t know it was there. He looked down at her. She lay still, her cheek pressed to his chest. He knew her eyes were open, he could feel the flutter of her lashes against his chest. He understood the reason for her silence. She was giving him the only comfort she could. Herself. She was everything to him now. Everything. And the love-making they’d just had didn’t show her how much he felt for her.
But he would.
CHAPTER TEN
Anna sifted through the letters and plucked out a recycled brown envelope and turned it to see who it was from. The Sorbonne. She slit it with her finger and withdrew the paper with shaking hands. Her first assignment results. She read it and felt the grin slowly spread across her face.
She looked up at Zahir over the breakfast table. They were sitting outside, on the rear terrace of the house, surrounded by lush green plants and tall trees reaching up into a pale blue sky. No more had been said after the previous night. Zahir’s face under the soft morning sun was more open than before but what she read there didn’t comfort her. He raised his eyes suddenly to hers, the frown lines deepening, while his eyes reflected back to her a little of the light of her smile.
“Good news?”
“A+!” she dropped the results in front of him.
“You are surprised? I’m not.”
“Relieved is what I am.”
He picked up the letter. “And a personal note from the tutor inviting you to participate in the honors stream. We must go out and celebrate.”
She shook her head, smiling, her bare foot running up the side of his leg. “We must stay in and celebrate.”