It had been the most mind-blowing sex of his entire life—but that should not have surprised him, not really.
After all, he had been waiting for this for a long, long time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THROUGH the soft darkness Sienna became aware of her heart as it beat within her, strong and loud and steady. And then she became aware of another beat and another heart—so close to hers that it almost felt as if it was inside her. She felt warm and complete— as if she had been made whole at last—the slight aching deep inside her a glorious physical reminder of what had seemed like a perfect dream.
Opening her eyes, she took in the scene with something approaching disbelief. It had not been a dream. She was lying on a carpet in a dim, cool corridor in Hashim’s arms, her dress around her hips, and he was staring down at her. Impossible to read what was in those glittering black eyes, but his question gave her some idea.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked quietly, his voice as deadly as the silent snakes which glided around the foothills of Qudamah’s mountains.
‘Tell you what?’ she teased.
‘Do not play games with me! You are a virgin!’
She heard the accusation in his voice and the pink bubble of contentment began to dissolve. ‘I was,’ she corrected.
He shook his dark head. ‘I cannot believe it!’
‘I’m afraid you have incontrovertible evidence, Hashim.’
‘But… how?’
At any other time his incredulity would have been almost laughable, but now… now it just hurt. ‘Surely you don’t need me to tell you that?’ she questioned quietly.
His mouth tightened. He was still reeling from this one incredible piece of knowledge which had rocked his world just as surely as his orgasm had. For the fact of her innocence had blown all his preconceptions out of the water. And it had done something else, too….
From the start his instinct about her had been that she was innocent, but the existence of the calendar had convinced him that her innocence had been a sham. But if that instinct had been correct then what about the other ones which had crowded in on him at the time? The ones which had left him muddled and confused making him wonder if he had found in her something which he had not thought possible?
And hadn’t he been glad to abandon those feelings by seizing on her questionable past with something like relief? As if he found it easier to live in a state of cynicism rather than one of hope and longing, like other men.
He shook his head again, dazed and angry, too. ‘It should not have been like that.’
She wanted to tell him that it had been perfect, but something in his attitude was puzzling her. He was acting as if something shameful had just taken place—rather than the something wonderful it had been. She stared up at him. ‘What was wrong with it?’
‘Wrong?’ A frown creased his brow as he studied her face, rather as a scientist might intently bend over a test tube. ‘Nothing was wrong with it.’ How could she fail to understand? ‘But it would never have happened if I had known. Why did you not tell me, Sienna?’
Because she hadn’t been thinking of anything except the touch of his lips and the hard, strong embrace of his lean body. She had found it impossible to stop something she had wanted for so long—even though she had denied wanting it. Had told herself that it was wrong to want it.
‘We weren’t having much of a conversation at the time,’ she said, aware that her voice sounded flippant.
‘Your first time should not be with a casual lover on the floor of an anonymous house,’ he said, and his deep voice was tinged with regret. ‘Your virginity is a gift which you have clearly treasured, as every woman should. You should have saved it for a man you love. Who loves you.’
And with those sad words he smashed all her foolish hopes and dreams. He made her feel as if she had offered him fresh flowers at dawn—still wet with the morning dew—and he had taken them and carelessly tossed them into the gutter, to be ground underfoot into dust and crushed petals.
He seemed so far away, even though he was right next to her. A moment ago he had been kissing her over and over again, but he was not kissing her now. The hands which had wrought such sweet magic were not touching her now. It was done. Finished. And Sienna felt the dull ache of dawning realization, which eclipsed the deeper aching in her newly awakened body.
She had allowed… no, she had been a more than willing participant in allowing herself to be brought here. To lie with him on this hard stone floor and to…to…She would not use the words ‘make love’, for it had not been that. It had been nothing to do with love. He had just told her so.
So why were erotic and tender images still jostling for position in her mind? The way she had called out his name in breathless wonder. The way her body had shivered its pleasure, and the way that pleasure had grown and surged and taken her into a place where the senses reigned supreme. And she had stupidly allowed herself to believe that for him it meant more than simply pleasure. That his whispered words of encouragement and pleasure had been voicing some deeper emotion than mere desire—a longing more precious than lust. But in that she had been totally wrong.
Sienna swallowed, forcing the memories away, for they would soon bring nothing but pain. It was too late for regret, but not too late for pride. ‘Well, there’s no point in having a post mortem, is there?’ she said, hearing the false brightness in her tone.
He was silent for a moment, and then his eyes imprisoned her—searching and seeking to know. ‘Why has there been nobody else?’ he demanded.
It was a question she had asked herself many times—and, oh, how it would feed his monstrous ego if she told him what she suspected was the truth: that he was the only man she had ever remotely imagined making love to. Men had tried, but they had failed. Or was it she who had failed—to abandon foolish hope and try to make the best of an ordinary life?
‘You make it sound like a fault on my part that there hasn’t been,’ she said bitterly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘What happened between us that last time. The way I behaved. Did that put you off men?’
‘In a way.’ But not the way he meant.
‘You should have told me,’ he said, and now his voice was angry. ‘Back then you should have told me. But now—now when you are older and more independent, a true woman at last—you should have said something!’
‘Would you have believed me?’
Another silence.
‘Would you?’ she persisted.
‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I guess I wouldn’t have.’ He felt like a man who had been swimming towards a familiar shore only to discover that he was headed for a strange land of which he knew nothing. None of it made any sense to him. How could it? She? Of all people? A virgin?
‘Because you’d already made your mind up about what kind of woman I was. The photos proved that I must be some sort of slapper!’
Hashim’s eyes narrowed, his English for once deserting him. ‘Slapper?’
‘The kind of woman who will just sleep with anyone. You didn’t look further than skin-deep, did you, Hashim? You just made a judgement about me. But people are a lot more than they appear to be on the surface. Not cardboard cut-outs but living and breathing flesh and blood, with flaws and strengths all their own! Don’t you realise that?’ she finished.
‘I’m afraid that my position sets me apart,’ he told her coolly,