up off the carpet into his arms to carry her down the corridor, a process accompanied by much giggling from Saffy. Halfway towards their bedroom he started kissing her and an arrow of sweet, piercing heat slivered between her thighs, smothering her amusement and awakening her body to desire.
‘Being alone with you is all I’ve thought about all day,’ Zahir admitted, settling her down on the gigantic bed, which she noted was already clear of cushions and turned down in readiness for their occupation. Evidently the staff might be well acquainted with the habits of newly married couples.
As he cast off his robes and she kicked off her shoes Saffy smiled at his honesty. ‘One-track mind.’
‘Always…with you.’ Zahir nuzzled against her slender throat, kissing and licking a sensitive spot below her ear that made her quiver and tightened her sensitive nipples. Then he groaned. ‘I need a shave—’
Saffy grabbed him before he could spring back off the bed. ‘Not right now,’ she told him squarely.
Zahir laughed. ‘I don’t want to scratch you.’
‘Face facts. I won’t agree to you going anywhere right at this minute,’ Saffy told him, smoothing appreciative palms up over his broad muscular chest and then down very, very slowly and appreciatively over his six-pack abs. ‘This is my time and I’m holding on tight to you.’
In the moonlight, Zahir’s lean features were taut. ‘You mean that?’
Saffy’s fingers trailed daringly lower and closed around his bold erection.
With a roughened groan of satisfaction, Zahir flung himself back against the pillows. ‘You’re absolutely right. Nothing would move me right now.’
Saffy leant over him, her mane of hair trailing across his abdomen. He said something in Arabic. She pressed her lips to the tiny brown disc of a male nipple and moved in a southerly direction, taking her time as she kissed and stroked her way down his beautiful bronzed body.
‘This is our wedding night…’ Zahir muttered thickly. ‘I should be doing this to you.’
‘My turn later…right now, I’m in charge,’ Saffy whispered just before she found him with her mouth and his hands lodged firmly into her hair, his hips rising to assist her, and an exclamation of intense pleasure was wrenched from him. Proud of her own boldness, no longer ashamed of the desire he roused in her, Saffy was thoroughly enjoying herself.
She loved having him in her power, revelled in every response he couldn’t control and experienced a deep sense of achievement when he could no longer stand her teasing caresses and he dragged her up to him and flipped her over to ravage her lush lips with an almost savage kiss.
Making love to Zahir turned her on and no sooner had he registered that fact than he rose over her, all masculine, dominant power and energy, and thrust his engorged shaft into the silky wet tightness of her inner channel. She cried out in delight and then he was moving and stretching her, ramping up her level of excitement to an almost unbearable degree. It had never occurred to her that slow and deep could be as thrilling as fast and hard, but he wouldn’t let her urge him on and control the pace.
‘No, this we do my way,’ Zahir growled, flexing his hips, sending a shiver of exquisite sensitivity over her entire skin surface, her nipples straining as he shifted position and angle to torture her more.
He kept her straining on the edge of climax for a long time and the ripples of growing excitement were engulfing her like a flood when, in receipt of one final driving thrust, she found a wild, scorching release that shattered her into shaking, sobbing weightlessness, utterly drained by the joy of the experience. She lay there for a long time afterwards, wrapped in his arms, steeped in pure pleasure, marvelling that they were together again.
‘Now perhaps you’ll consider telling me what or who transformed you in the bedroom from the terrified girl I remember into the woman you are now,’ Zahir urged in a roughened undertone that nonetheless shockwaved through her like a sudden clap of thunder.
In receipt of that request, a little shudder of repulsion travelled through Saffy’s suddenly ferociously tense body. No, she could not do that; no, she could not risk sharing what had happened to her lest it destroy the new bonds they had created. She could feel him waiting for her to speak, literally willing her to speak in that dreadful expectant silence. As the silence continued and she failed to respond the strong, protective arms wrapped round her tensed, loosened and then carefully withdrew and he shifted his lean, powerful body away from hers, forging a separation between them that she could feel aching through every fibre she possessed.
Zahir wasn’t giving her a choice and he wasn’t about to conveniently drop the subject for the sake of peace either, she recognised wretchedly. He wanted to know; he was determined to know and he had a will of iron that would chip away at her obstinacy day after day. He wouldn’t let it go and the distance that would create between them would provide fertile ground in which suspicion might well fester. Would he then start to doubt that he was truly her baby’s father? Would he wonder if he had really been her only lover?
Stinging tears stung Saffy’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks in the darkness. He was always so honest; he never seemed afraid of anything, never seemed to worry about how other people saw him. Why couldn’t she be the same? Why couldn’t she just spill it all out and stop worrying about how it might damage his view of her? But Saffy couldn’t find an answer to the never-tell-anyone barrier that existed inside her mind. The therapist had had a lot of trouble getting her to talk and finally she had had hypnotherapy to overcome what she was too afraid and ashamed to remember, and only then, in possession of full knowledge, had she found it possible to move forward…
BREAKFAST FOR SAFFY and Zahir the following morning was an almost silent affair. Zahir, being Zahir of course, was scrupulously polite and yet in every glance, every intonation Saffy imagined she heard condemnation, suspicion, doubt that she could be trusted as he believed he should be able to trust his wife. Nausea stirred in her stomach as she contemplated the piece of toast clasped between her fingers and with a stifled apology she fled for the nearest bathroom to lose what little she had eaten.
Afterwards, weak and with hot, perspiring skin she lay down on the bed, relishing the restorative coolness of the air conditioning wafting over her.
Zahir strode through the bedroom door, stunning dark golden eyes intent on the picture she presented. ‘With all the flowers surrounding you here you look like the Sleeping Beauty…’
Saffy parted pink lips. ‘But this doesn’t feel like a fairy tale,’ she whispered apologetically because if there had ever been a romantic male, it was Zahir. And how on earth could a romantic male ever come to terms with something as ugly as her biggest secret?
‘I’ve phoned Hayat’s obstetrician.’
‘Why the heck did you do that?’
‘You’re sick. You need medical attention,’ Zahir informed her with a stubborn angle to his jaw line.
‘Being sick in early pregnancy is very common and not something to make a fuss about,’ Saffy countered steadily.
‘I shouldn’t have tired you out last night,’ Zahir responded tight-mouthed, his beautiful eyes shaded by his outrageously lush black lashes.
Saffy thrust her hands down onto the mattress to lift herself up into sitting position. ‘That’s got nothing to do with this—this is only my body struggling to adapt to being newly pregnant and it’s normal.’
‘I will stop worrying only when the doctor tells me to do so. I’m responsible for looking after you,’ Zahir asserted, unimpressed by her argument. ‘And while I realise that you’re not feeling like it, you must make an effort to eat some breakfast to keep your strength up.’
And the