Seven

      “Marriage!”

      Laylah’s incredulity echoed in the huge room as she scrambled up from Rashid’s embrace.

      She gaped at him as he, too, rose to a sitting position, totally uncaring of his nakedness, or the fact that he was still gloriously aroused. Or maybe he always woke up in the morning like that…?

      Focus, moron. Not the time to be drooling over his assets or reliving what he’d done to her with them when he’d just said… said…

      “Marriage!”

      The word rang out again before she could hold it back.

      But who could blame her? Yesterday, she’d woken up never expecting to see Rashid again. Today she woke up in his bed, and he was already talking…

      No! She wasn’t going to squeak it out again.

      His hand reached out to smooth a long tress off her hot, damp cheek. “Of course. I took your innocence and I don’t—”

      “Don’t.” His words hit her like a bucket of ice water in the face. Embarrassed at her nakedness all of a sudden, she groped for the covers she’d kicked to the bottom of the mattress a lifetime ago. “Just don’t even start on that.”

      Having Rashid in her life at all was a miracle. Having Rashid as her husband was beyond imaginable. But she was damned if she’d let this progress to a bona fide offer based on that reason.

      “You didn’t ‘take my innocence’, I gave it to you. And will you stop being so archaic and so—so… Azmaharian? Innocence, indeed. So now I’m, what, because you’ve ‘taken’ it—wicked?”

      The eyes that had hardened and cooled with her every word suddenly softened, heated. “Indeed. But then, you were already that as an innocent. Now the mind boggles at what levels of devastation you’ll attain in your… newly forged wickedness.”

      Heat splashed through her as she remembered in detail how he’d… forged said wickedness inside her…

      Catching her swollen-from-his-passion-and-stinging-for-more lip in her teeth and letting the cover go, she leaned to rub her face against his chest. “Why don’t we find out?”

      He caught her by the shoulders as her lips strayed over his flesh, held her off, his smile filling with indulgence. “We will. We have a lifetime to make extensive explorations of every iota of your potential for sensual mayhem.”

      There he went again, talking about lifetimes. Nothing she wanted more than to have several of those entwined with him, but not if it was prodded by his outdated sense of honor.

      She pulled back, this time wrapping the cover around her. “Listen, Rashid, I already told you in embarrassing detail how I had this hopeless passion for you. It turns out I didn’t have a clue what passion was all about, something you’ve rectified with enough clues to fill this place. If I thought I wanted you before, now I know, and just how fiercely and totally. If you want me with anything approaching that ferocity and totality, then there’s nothing more that I want than to be with you. Just not ‘through marriage.’“

      And she realized the real meaning of yet another word. Ominous. That had to be what defined that scowl.

      “You’re refusing to marry me?”

      Her heartstrings shook at the darkness in his rumble. “I’m refusing to introduce the concept of ‘marriage’ at this point.”

      And if displeasure could take form, it would wear just that face, and lash out with that solar-flare-level glare. “Marriage between us now is not a concept, it’s a necessity.”

      “Oh, please, not the ‘innocence’ thing again. I wasn’t saving it for an eventual groom and you did not come and ‘take advantage’ of my ‘vulnerability’ and now you don’t have to offer yourself at the altar of honor and propriety!”

      “You were saving it. If you don’t subscribe to our region’s values, why else are you—were you—still a virgin at this age?”

      “Gah… at this age? Et tu, Brute?”

      “Laylah!”

      His warning growl was the essence of deliciousness. She grinned into his stern eyes. “I do subscribe to some regional values, but certainly not this one. So I’ll refer you to my previous confession for the answer to this question and every other you have now or might have in the future.”

      “What confession?”

      “Do you forget it every time I say it? That I wanted you all my life, of course. What other confession did I make?”

      “I remember a night-long medley of revelations.”

      She nudged him playfully in the ribs. “Admit it, I’m entertaining.” A twitch almost undid his lips’ disapproving rigidity. Her grin widened. “As for finding me in mint condition at this advanced age, it’s only because I wasn’t about to jump in bed with anyone else when all I wanted was you. You could say I was pointlessly saving it for you. So when fate provided both you and a bed, well—you have firsthand experience with how things progressed. Terminally chivalrous, you did your level best to ward me off, to make me back down. But I left you nowhere to run.”

      “I’ve beaten back armies, pulverized my way out of sieges in war zones—on front lines, in boardrooms and in the market. The only reason I didn’t ‘ward you off’ was because I didn’t want to. Because I wanted you so much, I didn’t even stop when I found out you were—yes, here it comes again—an innocent.”

      Her heart tap-danced at the momentous confession. That she’d been the one thing Rashid hadn’t been able to resist, and his desire for her the one thing he hadn’t been able to conquer.

      Her grin grew teasing, even as her eyes filled with joy. “Take heart. By the time you found out, I was no longer any such thing. But how can you compare me to armies and adversaries? Their attacks only made you stronger, made beating them that much easier. Against my desire, you didn’t have a prayer.”

      His grimness deepened as he exhaled. “You got that right. I was never exposed to anything like you. I didn’t know anything like you existed. You… overpower me.”

      She fell back on her heels, rocked to her core. That confession was more than huge. It was historic.

      But the way he’d said it… “You—you resent that?”

      His focus sharpened on her. “No.” The force of his denial defused her rising anxiety. “But… it’s something I have no experience with. I could never abide accepting anything from anyone. Then you come along…” His hand traveled up her arm to her neck then her cheek, cupping it. “The way you want me, what you give me and how much I want it and you—it’s so unknown, I have no idea how to handle it.”

      “You’ve handled it all flawlessly so far.” She threw herself at him, hugged him with all her strength. “But if you feel as shaken to your core as I do, are no longer sure if you’re coming or going like I am, that’s all the more reason to take it slowly and not jump into something as big as marriage.” She raised her face to his. “How about we take it one day at a time? And after a reasonable time—let’s say a month, if you can still stand me—you can bring up marriage again?” She pinched his hard cheek. “And