But that was okay with her. Because she didn’t want to give him up yet either. If he took her—when he finally took her—she’d revel in the moment and carry it with her for the rest of her life.
However long or short that might be.
Chapter Ten
A crash somewhere close jolted Nasir from sleep.
Confusion hit as he blinked at the sunlight streaming into his cell, reflecting off the white walls and bathing the entire room in warmth. But it was quickly replaced with a wave of heat when he registered Kavin’s naked body pressed tight against his under the threadbare blanket.
A smile curled one side of his mouth when he remembered carrying her from the bath to this bed last night, laying her out, and pleasuring her all over again with his hands and mouth, then falling asleep in her arms when they’d finally both been breathless and exhausted. The way she’d given herself over to him touched him in a way he couldn’t define. Touched him in a way no one else had ever done.
His smile faded. He stared across the room at the shadow of the bars high on the wall above his head and thought of Talah. If she were still alive…if she were at home, waiting for him, would he be feeling what he was right now?
His heart thumped hard as he looked down at Kavin, her face resting gently on his chest, her hand over his heart. He’d loved Talah, had wanted to spend his life with her, but it had always rubbed him the wrong way that she’d never been able to commit. Even right up until that last moment they’d spent together, something had been holding her back.
Did he feel differently about Kavin because she needed him in a way Talah never had? Or was it something more?
His mind was a sea of confusion. He didn’t know what to think. What to feel, for that matter. Something had happened to him yesterday—something he hadn’t expected. And now, all he could think about was finding a way to spend more time with Kavin. To figure out what it was about her that touched him. It didn’t matter that she was Ghul and he was Marid. All that mattered was that he wasn’t going to be satisfied with only two more nights. He wanted weeks. Months. He wanted…
Years.
Holy Allah…
His pulse picked up speed as a rush of emotions pummeled his chest from every side. Revenge and hatred were no longer fueling him. What now gave him life, what breathed air into his lungs, was the thought of freedom. With Kavin. And a life free of war and prisons and the horrors he’d lived with for so long.
“Yes. Yes…this is who you are, Nasir. Remember it…”
Talah’s voice, as strong as he’d ever heard it, faded slowly until it was only a whisper in his mind. Until he didn’t need it anymore to drag him back from the darkness.
Pulse pounding, he looked back down at Kavin, at her sweet, succulent lips, at the tangled red hair around her face. At her delicate, porcelain skin. At the bruises around her neck and down her arms where that guard had held her, then to the fading lash marks across her breasts. Marks he’d noticed last night and had wanted to ask her about, but hadn’t because he didn’t want to ruin the moment. But seeing them now, in the light of day, a burst of anger whipped through him. Anger, surprisingly, that he could control. Anger that gave him purpose. A purpose he’d been lacking since being enslaved.
Voices echoed from the hallway.
The guards, he realized. Coming to drag him to his daily training. He only had seconds before he’d be separated from Kavin again. Hopefully for only a few hours.
“Rouhi,” he whispered, gently shaking her.
Her lashes fluttered, and she groaned. But when she focused, those jade-like eyes of hers darkened with desire just as they had last night. Then her lips turned up in such a provocative way, he swelled against her thigh.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
“A very good morning.” He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. Electricity arced between them, a shock that rippled through his groin. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself all over again in her kiss, but forced himself to pull away. “Your servant will be here to check you anytime.”
Her smile faded as he eased up to sitting. She moved next to him and brushed the hair back from her face. “I almost forgot about her.”
He hadn’t. Suddenly, anything that had to do with Kavin was foremost in his mind. “I heard the guards outside. They’ll be here soon.”
He climbed out of the bed and walked to the bath, where he picked up her dress and his pants from the ground. When he brought them back to her, he didn’t miss the way her cheeks flushed as she studied his naked body.
Heat rushed through his veins, reigniting that arousal he’d been fighting all morning. “Do you like what you see, rouhi?”
Her cheeks turned bright red, but she tipped her face up to his, not trying to hide her interest in the least. “Very much.”
Blood rushed to his cock, made him hard all over again. He dropped the clothes on her lap, then leaned down and kissed her, pressing her back into the mattress, thankful for the scraps of cloth preventing him from taking what he so desperately wanted. “Don’t tease me. Not yet.”
He nipped at her bottom lip, loving the way she tasted, the way her silky fingers raced over his bare back. Somehow, he found the willpower to push away from her body and drag his pants on. She sighed and pulled her dress over her head. But her eyes stayed locked on his abs and—he was pretty sure—his hips. Making him that much harder.
While he tried not to notice, she pushed from the bed and let her skirt fall down her legs. “Will you tease me again tonight? Or will you…you know?”
He buttoned his pants. “Will I what?”
She smoothed out her dress, then sat again. “You know…take me.”
The hitch to her voice froze his hand against his waistband. And the thought of doing just that, of lifting the dress she’d just put on and pushing deep inside her body, inflamed him from the inside out. “Do you still want me to?”
Her chest rose and fell, the soft swell of her breasts dragging his attention from her face to her body. Her gorgeous, beautiful body no one but he had touched. “Yes,” she whispered. “More than I ever expected.”
Guards and impending servants forgotten, he dropped to his knees in front of her. The need to make her his in every sense of the word burned hot, but he fought it back. Because what he wanted now wasn’t just her body. He wanted her soul too.
When they were eye to eye, he brushed his fingers against her cheek. “Kavin, I want that too. Desperately. But when we make love, it will be on our terms, not on some highborn’s.”
Her brow furrowed as she searched his eyes. “But if you don’t… Before the days are up…he’ll…he’ll have me—”
His heart cinched down hard, a heart he hadn’t felt in so long he was almost shocked to know it was still there. A heart she had reawakened. “He won’t. I won’t let him.”
“But how will you stop him? If the allotted time passes, and I’m still a virgin—”
“I won’t share you.”
“You won’t be able to stop him. We’re both just slaves.”
He squeezed her hand resting in her lap, wanting, needing her to believe in him in a way Talah never had. “I will keep you safe, Kavin. Trust me. I’ll find a way.”
She stared into his eyes with that unreadable expression so long he wasn’t sure what she was thinking. And he held his breath and waited, wondering if she’d brush him off the way Talah had. Wondering if he was destined to repeat all the mistakes of his past…losing not only what was left of his heart but of his mind too.