‘Lesson one,’ he ground out. ‘Do not shout at me when I am tired.’
He kicked open the bedroom door and dropped her down on the bed. ‘Lesson two, do not call Djalia primitive or backward—’
As her lips parted furiously to add even less welcome adjectives to the line-up, Azrael laid a hand across her mouth. ‘Be quiet,’ he told her without hesitation. ‘When you insult my country, you offend me. Stop doing it.’
Rigid with rage, Molly jackknifed in an effort to throw him off her because he had her pinned to the mattress by his superior weight. He knelt over her, her arms held still by his hands, and he was much too strong for her to fight.
‘I may well be a primitive man because I have had to do many primitive things in my life but I would never treat a woman as a piece of property or physically hurt her. And no, you know I am not hurting you at this moment,’ he growled, lean, darkly handsome features grim with warning as he made that point.
Molly dragged in a steadying breath. ‘I will not insult your country again,’ she conceded quietly.
‘Thank you...’ Azrael freed her arms and sprang off the bed, giving her a fleeting view of his taut behind in denim that roused unfortunate memories of her glimpse of his naked back view in the cave.
Molly’s face suffused with burning colour. She watched him lean back against the stone wall by the window like a panther lounging in sunlight. He was so incredibly sexy. Something clenched at her core and she dug her hips into the mattress as if she could squash that feeling, but it filtered up through her in a hot liquid surge, a hungry awareness that refused to die.
‘We can work on the shouting. There are ways of learning better control,’ Azrael told her helpfully.
‘Wanting to slap you won’t help me learn better control,’ Molly told him.
‘You are my wife—’
‘Stop it!’ Molly reared up against the tumbled pillows. ‘Stop saying that!’
‘What is the point of arguing with the truth?’ Azrael murmured sibilantly, his entire attention welded to her as her glorious hair shimmered in the sunlight like highly polished copper. ‘Would you truly strike me in anger?’
Molly shook her shoulders and pursed her lips. ‘Probably not. I’m not the violent type, but you do enrage me.’
‘I am trying to be reasonable,’ Azrael confided, scorching dark golden eyes still locked to her.
‘Your reasonable isn’t like anyone else’s reasonable,’ Molly framed abstractedly, her veiled gaze resting on his sculpted lips as she relived the taste of them.
‘Look on being my wife as a job. I will pay you for your compliance,’ Azrael spelt out softly. ‘I will make it well worth your while to stay here for a few months.’
Molly was mesmerised by his presence and his dark silky voice. He could have been reciting the numeric tables and she would not have reacted. He was offering her the role of wife as a job which paid a salary. That would take care of all her problems at home, she acknowledged reluctantly, but accepting money from him in such circumstances seemed utterly wrong to her.
‘I’m not sure,’ she muttered in bemusement as Azrael approached the side of the bed and settled down on the edge of it within reach.
‘You can trust me,’ Azrael intoned. ‘I will keep my side of the bargain.’
Her brow furrowed into an anxious frown. ‘It’s very expensive keeping Maurice in that care home, but I do only pay weekly top-up fees. The authorities cover most of his costs because he had very little money of his own,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘He’s happy at Winterwood. I sold my mother’s jewellery to pay the extra charges but I have only enough funds left to cover next month’s bill.’
‘I will take all that responsibility from your shoulders,’ Azrael purred, brushing a stray ringlet back from a delicately flushed cheek to gaze down at her. ‘I would be honoured to help you care for your only living relative, but I think it is very sad that you were forced to sell your mother’s jewellery to meet the obligation.’
‘It was only a ring and a brooch that belonged to my grandmother,’ Molly muttered shakily.
The brush of his fingertips across her cheekbone made her want to reach up a hand and touch him back, but she knew, meeting the burning dark gold of his eyes, that what she wanted would only encourage the kind of dangerous intimacy that neither of them should want. There was a burn at the junction of her body, a hot, liquid throb of awareness that made her achingly conscious of a part of her body she had always ignored, and she shifted her hips uneasily. Her breasts were swelling in the cups of her bra, the nipples pushing forward. She sucked in a ragged breath, entrapped by the overwhelming power of what she was feeling.
‘I have emeralds the exact colour of your eyes,’ Azrael told her huskily, dense black lashes low over his bright eyes. ‘You would look magnificent wearing them.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Azrael...’ Molly breathed helplessly, insanely tempted to reach up and drag him down to her so that her fingers could lace hungrily into his luxuriant black hair. ‘I’ve never worn proper jewellery in my life.’
His hands settled around her waist and he lifted her across him, bringing her down on his lean, powerful thighs. ‘Open your mouth for me,’ he breathed thickly, one hand curling into her hair to tip her head forcibly back over his arm.
He tugged at her lower lip with the edge of his teeth and a low whimper of sound escaped her. She opened her mouth and he delved deep and she jerked, almost pained by the new sensitivity of her awakened body. He claimed her mouth with a sensual savagery that was as intensely erotic as the hand tracing the silken line of her inner thigh. Instinctively she parted her thighs, craving more, needing more.
He traced the taut fabric stretched over her heated core and her heart leapt and her breathing fractured, the craving rising to an unbearable height. He skimmed the edge of her knickers out of his path and gently outlined the tender pink flesh beneath before circling the tight little bud where every nerve ending in her body seemed to reside. Excitement raced through her at a feverish pace, her body shifting restively as he discovered the damp, honeyed slickness between her folds and slid a single finger into her tight opening, gently testing and teasing the entrance at the same time as his thumb rubbed across her. And she cried out, her hips rising to his hand, her body out of her control and rushing for the finish line. The heat and the ache of need combined and she shattered into a sudden intense climax that tore her apart at the seams.
Azrael lowered her limp body back against the pillows and smiled down at her dazed face with satisfaction. ‘Instead of arguing, we should go to bed,’ he murmured persuasively. ‘It would be much more enjoyable.’
‘But not very wise,’ she whispered giddily. ‘We’re not going to have a real marriage.’
Azrael said nothing. He knew what he wanted. He would play a waiting game. He would fight for what he wanted. After all, that was nothing new to him. He had always had to fight for everything that was important to him. She wanted him and he could work with that. Their marriage would be real in every way because nothing less would satisfy him.
Initially he had felt trapped and resentful about a marriage that he had not personally chosen. Azrael had always liked to plan major events, but Molly had come at him much like the sandstorm, throwing his life into turmoil, and it was a turmoil that he was discovering he could actually find exhilarating. Molly with her passion, her hot temper and her quick, enquiring mind. Molly, who had no fear of him, no ridiculous reverence and no desire to flatter him. She treated him like an equal and that was a very precious trait to find in a woman, Azrael acknowledged, because all his life he had been treated as different, separated by his royal birth from other men even when he was a soldier in training. He had always been a loner, but with Molly he no longer felt alone. So, why would he