'You would prefer that I take this second wife who makes you flee in pain when the subject appears in front of you?'
'She is what you need, not me.' It almost choked her to say the words. But they were dealing with the truth here, painful though that truth may be. And the truth was that she was no longer the right wife for the heir to a sheikhdom.
'I have the wife I want,' he answered grimly.
'But not the wife you need, Hassan!' she countered wretchedly.
His eyes flicked up to clash with her eyes, is that your way of telling me that you no longer love me?' he challenged.
Oh, dear God. Lifting a trembling hand up to cover her eyes, Leona gave a shake of her head in refusal to answer. Without warning Hassan was suddenly moving at speed down the length of the room.
'Answer me!' he insisted when he came to a stop in front of her.
Swallowing on a lump of tears, Leona turned her face away. 'Yes,' she whispered.
His sudden grip on her hand dragged it from her eyes. 'To my face,' he instructed, 'You will tell me this to my face!'
Her head whipped up, tear darkened eyes fixing painfully on burning black. 'Don't-' she pleaded.
But he was not going to give in. He was pale and he was hurt and he was furiously angry, I want to hear you state that you feel no love for me,' he persisted. 'I want you to tell that wicked lie to my face. And then I want to hear you beg forgiveness when I prove to you otherwise! Do you understand, Leona?'
'All right! So, I love you! Does that make it all okay?' she cried out. 'I love you but I will not stay married to you! I will not watch you ruin your life because of me!'
There-it was out. The bitter truth. On voicing it, she broke free and reeled away, hurting so much it was almost impossible to breathe. 'And your life?' he persisted relentlessly. 'What happens to it while you play the sacrificial lamb for mine?'
'I'll get by,' she said, trying to walk on legs that were shaking so badly she wasn't sure if she was going to fall down.
'You'll marry again?'
She shuddered and didn't reply.
'Take lovers in an attempt to supplant me?'
Harsh and cruel though he sounded, she could hear his anguish, 'I need no one,' she whispered.
'Then you mean to spend the rest of your life watching me produce progeny with this second wife I am to take?'
'Oh, dear heaven.' She swung around. 'What are you trying to do to me?' she choked out tormentedly.
'Make you see,' he gritted. 'Make you open your eyes and see what it is you are condemning us both to.'
'But I'm not condemning you to anything! I am giving you my blessing to do what you want with your life!'
If she'd offered to give him a whole harem he could not have been more infuriated. His face became a map of hard angles. 'Then I will take what I want!' It was a declaration of intent that propelled him across the space between them. Before Leona knew what was coming she was locked in his arms and being lifted until their eyes were level. Startled green irises locked with burning black passion. He gave her one small second to read their message before he was kissing her furiously. Shocked out of one kind of torment, she found herself flung into the middle of another-because once again she had no will to fight. She even released a protesting groan when her feet found solid ground again and he broke the urgent kiss.
Her lips felt hot, and pulsed with such a telling fullness that she had to lick them to try and cool them down. His breath left his body on a hiss that brought her eyes flickering dazedly up to his. Thick dark lashes rested over ebony eyes that were fixed on the moist pink tip of her tongue. A slither of excitement skittered right down the front of her. Her breasts grew tight, her abdomen warming at the prospect of what all of this meant.
Making love. Feeling him deep inside her. No excuses, no drawing back this time. She only had to took at Hassan to know this was it. He was about to stake his claim on what belonged to him.
'You will regret this later,' she warned unsteadily, because she knew how his passions and his conscience did not always walk in tandem-especially not where she was concerned.
'Are you denying me?' he threw back in a voice that said he was interested in the answer, but only out of curiosity.
Well, Leona asked herself, are you?
The answer was no, she was not denying him anything he wanted to take from her tonight. Tomorrow was another day, another war, another set of agonising conflicts. Reaching up, she touched a gentle finger to his mouth, drew its shape, softened the tension out of it, then sighed, went up on tiptoe and gently joined their mouths.
His hands found the slender frame of her hips and drew her against him; her hands lifted higher to link around his neck so her fingers could slide sensually into his silk dark hair. It was an embrace that sank them into a long deep loving. Her dress fell away, slithering down her body on a pleasurable whisper of silk against flesh. Beneath she wore a dark gold lace bra, matching high-leg briefs and lace-topped stockings. Hassan discovered all of this with the sensual stroke of long fingers. He knew each pleasure point, the quality of each little gasp she breathed into his mouth. When her bra fell away, she sighed and pressed herself against him; when his fingers slid beneath the briefs to cup her bottom she allowed him to ease her into closer contact. They knew each other, loved each other-cared so very deeply about each other. Fight they might do-often. They might have insurmountable problems. But nothing took away the love and caring. It was there, as much part of them as the life-giving oxygen they took into their lungs
'You want me,' he declared.
'I've always wanted you,' she sadly replied.
'I am your other half."
And I am your broken one, Leona thought, releasing an achingly melancholy sigh.
Maybe he knew what she was thinking, because his mouth took burning possession that gave no more room to think at all. It came as an unwelcome break when he lowered her down onto the bed then straightened, taking her briefs with him. Her love-flooded eyes watched his eyes roam over her. He was no longer being driven by his inner devils, she realised as she watched him removing his own clothing. Her compliance had neutralised the compelling need to stake his claim.
So she watched him follow her every movement as she made a sensual love-play out of removing her stockings from her long slender legs. His dark robe landed on the floor on top of her clothing; the tunic eventually went the same way. Beneath waited a desert-bronzed silk-smooth torso, with a muscled structure that set her green eyes glowing with pleasure and made her fingers itch to touch. Those muscles rippled and flexed as he reached down to grasp the only piece of clothing he had left to remove. The black shorts trailed away from a sexual force that set her feminine counterpart pulsing with anticipation.
He knew what was happening, smiled a half-smile, then came to lean over her, lowering his raven head to place a kiss there that was really a claim of ownership. She breathed out a shivering breath of pleasure and he was there to claim that also. Then she had all of him covering her. It was the sweetest feeling she had ever experienced. He was her Arabian lover. The man she had seen across a crowded room long years ago. And she had never seen another man clearly since.
He seduced her mouth, he seduced her body, he seduced her into seducing him. When it all became too much without deeper contact, he eased himself between her thighs and slowly joined them.
Her responsive groan made him pause. 'What?' he questioned anxiously.
'I've missed you so much.' She sighed the words out helplessly.
It was a catalyst that sent him toppling. He staked his claim on those few emotive words with every driving thrust. She died a little. It was strange how she did that, she found herself thinking as the pleasure began to run like liquid fire. They came as one, within the grip of hard, gasping shudders and afterwards lay still, locked together, as their bodies went through the pleasurable throes of settling back down again.
Then nothing moved, not their bodies nor even their quiet breathing. The silence came-pure, numbing, unbreakable silence.
Why?
Because it had all been so beautiful but also so very empty. And nothing was ever going to change that.
Hassan moved first, levering himself away to land on his feet by the bed. He didn't even spare her a glance as he walked away. Sensational naked, smooth and sleek, he touched a finger to the wall and a cleverly concealed door sprung open. As he stepped through it Leona caught a glimpse of white tiling and realised it was a bathroom. Then the door closed, shutting him in and her completely out.
Closing her eyes, she lifted an arm up to cover them, and pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling on the tears she was having to fight. For this was not a new situation she was dealing with here. It had happened before-often- and was just one of the many reasons why she had left him in the end. The pain had been too great to go on taking it time after time. His pain, her pain-she had never been able to distinguish where one ended and the other began. The only difference here tonight was that she'd somehow managed to let herself forget that, until this cold, solitary moment.