AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Or anger, or shame or guilt or any number of darker emotions that she was used to drinking up like a toxic cocktail when she made bad decisions. Because he was her darkest weakness and deepest want, and when he’d beckoned a finger, she’d gone running, hadn’t she? She was a pushover if ever she knew one.
But the bitterness of regrets, the acidic taste of failure, refused to come this time. Not with the sweet, pulsing ache between her thighs or the swollen sensitivity of her lips or the soreness of her muscles to distract her... Instead, she felt alive and thoroughly debauched and gloriously loved. Maybe she should listen to her body more often and refuse to poison it with negativity, she thought.
Burying her face in the pillow, she gave in to the languid smile that fought its way through. If she put theshoulds and shouldn’tsaside, it felt like fate or the universe or some inevitable course she’d set herself on through the years that it should be Nasir who ultimately destroyed her fear and distrust in herself. As if all the previous wrongs had led to this one right.
But that way also lay the trap of romanticizing not just the sex they’d had but also the entire episode, the entire evening. Attaching meaning and expectations to it when there were none. The whole evening had built to this moment—no, years of attraction and dislike and even shared grief had all led to tonight. A once-in-a-lifetime thing, a self-indulgent, luxurious experience, a reward for all the bad things about her old life she was shedding, enabling her to move on into her new life. Having sex with Nasir was not a mistake, but it wasn’t a new road to explore, either. There, that explanation suited her. She hoped her silly heart got on the same train.
“Turn around, Yana.”
She rolled onto her back to find Nasir kneeling on the bed. Had she been so deep inside her head that she hadn’t even noticed that he hadn’t actually left, he’d just gone into the bathroom?
Hands on her knees, he gently opened her. A cool, wet washcloth on her sex made her hiss out a deep sigh. It felt damned good and that, perversely, made her resentful. “Have you done this a lot, then?”
“What?”
“Ministered to virgins after debauching them?”
His laugh was a booming sound—gravelly, with no hint of actual humor. “Yes. The sacrifice will come next.”
Her mouth twitched. She let out a long, shuddering exhale, so that he knew that she was merely tolerating him. The wet splash of the cloth as he chucked it back into the bathroom made her eyes pop open.
“Nasir, I can look after myself.”
“Of course you can,habibi. I’m under no illusion about what you are capable of anymore. But indulge me, just this once.”
With that terse dictate, he began to pull at the sad remains of the dress from around her tired limbs. With an efficiency that reminded her that he’d once been a journalist covering the most dangerous places in the world, he briskly gathered her hair, pulled her up and dressed her in a T-shirt of his.
“Underwear?”
“Nope,” Yana answered without missing a beat.
“Better and better,” he whispered at her temple and then retreated again.
Only then did she realize she hadn’t felt an ounce of hesitation at giving him a straight answer. As if they were an old married couple, used to the small intimacies that made up the best parts of a relationship. She had this strange sense that this should’ve been awkward and sticky and messy, and yet, it had that ring of inevitability about it again.
“I think you should leave now,” she said, trying to cut the strings of the parachute of her dreams before it flew away into some magical fairyland where the messy, volatile princess conquered her beast with the all-consuming power of her love.
“I think differently.” He returned, dressed in loose pajama bottoms and nothing else. All of his tautly muscled chest and back with its myriad scars beckoned her.
Pure, irresistible temptation.
“Scoot over.”
“I don’t think we need a postmortem, Nasir. It happened. It was fantastic. Now we move on.”
When she didn’t give in to his ruthless demand, he gave her a playful shove to the middle of the bed, and by the time she’d recovered from her quick roll, he was sitting up next to her, with his fingers pushing her hair away from her face.
Under the guise of straightening herself under the rumpled sheet, Yana gave herself a moment to fight the inexorable urge to stay like that, with his fingers raking through her hair with a tenderness she’d craved for so long. She also wanted to push off the duvet, shrug off the T-shirt he’d put on her and arch up into his touch. To dig her fingers into his hair and bring that sinful mouth down to her breasts again. At the mere thought, her nipples tightened, sending tingles straight down somewhere else. It was a weird state of arousal and languidness, and it took all the willpower she had to not just give in to the moment. To not just give in to him.
Shrugging his hand away, she sat up.
“Who said anything about a postmortem?” His voice was silky-smooth but with a hard undertone to it. “Maybe I’m looking for a repeat. Maybe I’m the beast who’s finally got his filthy hands on the virgin princess and would be cursed for the rest of his life if I let her go.”
She sent him a shocked look—his narrative was perceptively close to the one in her own head.
What was real and what was made-up fantasy between them? What was attraction and interest on his part and what was just a bunch of baggage he wanted to be rid of, in order to right his mistakes? And worst of all, why was this intimacy so easy between them? Why did the dark quiet feel like it was weaving a spell around them?
“Why all the lies, Yana? Why make yourself out to be someone you’re not?”
