And this time, when she fell apart, he shouted out her name like a hoarse prayer and came with her.
She didn’t know how long she slept, or if it was even sleep—maybe she’d simply passed out from the enormity of what had happened? What she’d finally done? But when she woke again, she was tucked up next to him and he was playing with her hair, sliding the slippery strands through those clever fingers of his, that enigmatic expression still on his darkly gorgeous face.
That face of his she felt was stamped inside her, somehow, like a brand.
Sterling felt made new. As if he’d taken her apart and put her back together, and she would never be quite the same. She felt deeply and irrevocably changed. Altered, as if she might not recognize herself in the mirror the next time she looked.
She felt as if he’d taught her how to fly.
And she couldn’t tell him that. He couldn’t know. It was a slippery slope—
“Sterling.”
She jolted back to him, to that curious light in his eyes and that little curve to his deliciously full mouth.
“Rihad,” she said, and she wondered if his name would always sound like that to her now. Like a poem.
“I want to ask you a question.”
“Anything.” She meant it. Especially if they could keep doing this. Just a few hundred more times, she thought, and that might take the edge off.
He shifted closer to her, propped himself up on one elbow and smiled into her eyes.
“Tell me one thing,” he said, in that voice of his, so low and now intimately connected to something deep inside of her, as if he could simply flip a switch and she would long for him. She did. His dark gold eyes gleamed. “How is it possible that you were a virgin?”
Sterling went very, very still. He reached over and pulled a long strand of her hair between his fingers again, and this time, he tugged. Gently enough, but it seared through her anyway.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, though her voice sounded faint—or maybe she couldn’t hear it very well, over the clatter of her heart against her ribs. Because what else could she say? “Who’s ever heard of a virgin my age?”
His gaze held hers, steady and direct. “I didn’t ask you whether or not you were a virgin, Sterling. I know you were.” His lips curved into something tender if not quite a smile, and it pulled at her. “Hail Sterling, full of grace.”
“It’s true,” she whispered, because the thought hadn’t occurred to her, really. Not fully formed anyway. “I accidentally performed a virgin birth.”
“I asked you how.”
“The usual way.” She blinked when his eyebrow arched. “By which I mean IVF, of course. I did tell you that your brother was gay.”
“Yes, thank you.” His voice was as dry as the desert all around them. “I gathered that, as I saw no heavenly host hanging about the pool just now. How were you a virgin in the first place, Sterling? You’re not a nun, virgin birth aside.”
She had to clear her throat, because she couldn’t get up and run. He would catch her in an instant and she’d end up answering anyway, just with a greater display of his superior strength to be awed by when she did. She had absolutely no doubt.
“Well,” she said after what felt to her like a very long while, though he didn’t seem to move a muscle throughout it, “it wasn’t a plan. It just happened.”
“How does such a thing just happen?” His gaze moved over her, and some heretofore unknown romantic part of her thrilled to that expression on his harshly beautiful face then, as if it really was tenderness. And oh, how she wanted it to be. “You were a beautiful girl on her own when you went to New York. A cautionary tale, really.”
She opened her mouth to tell him another lie, but she couldn’t, somehow. It was as if everything really had changed, whether she liked it or not. It wasn’t only the sex. It was the baby. The way he’d saved her from herself when she’d been out of her mind on hormones and guilt. It was that he hadn’t hit her—had seemed astonished she’d thought he would. It was his gentleness now. It was the way he’d taken over her body so completely and yet still left her wanting more.
Who was she kidding? It was him.
And Sterling didn’t want to think about what that meant. She thought she knew—and that was truly insane. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. And there were different levels of the truth.
“My foster parents were the nicest people,” she told him, smiling slightly as if that might make these things easier to talk about. As if anything could. “That’s what everybody always said, in case we weren’t grateful enough. They were kind. Giving. They took in kids like me who’d been otherwise completely abandoned. They had their own kids. They were active and responsible members of the community. Everyone adored them.” She couldn’t look away from him, though she wanted to. “And why wouldn’t they? My foster parents never left any marks. Sometimes they just hit us and other times they liked to play elaborate games, using us as targets. They practiced their aim with cigarettes, cans. Sometimes forks and knives. But there were never any bruises anyone could see.” She saw that dark thing move in his gaze and smiled again, deeper and harsher. “They always told us we were welcome to tell on them, if we dared. That they’d enjoy ripping little nothings like us apart in public. Because no one would ever believe a word we said about the saints of the neighborhood, and they were right.”
“Where are these people now?” Rihad asked softly. Dangerously, as if, were he to speak in his usual voice, he would raze whole cities to the ground with the force of his fury.
And it made something long frozen deep within her unfurl in a little blast of warmth.
“They’re behind me, that’s where they are.” She smiled at him, a real smile that time, and when he slid his hand along her cheek, she leaned into it. “But after that I knew how evil people were, once they thought they had all the power. How vicious and cruel. So I made myself into an Ice Princess who didn’t like to be touched and was always much too sober to have any fun anyway, so everyone left me alone. And then Omar came along, and I didn’t have to worry about that stuff anymore, because everyone believed I was with him. And that’s how I accidentally ended up a virgin.”
Rihad didn’t speak for a long time, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking. What was happening behind that austere, ruthless face of his and that disconcertingly sensual mouth. She wanted to lick him until neither one of them could think anymore. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck, as if he could keep her safe from all the things that swirled around her that she couldn’t even identify. He would, she thought. He really would.
And God help her, the things she wanted then, that she was too afraid to name.
“But you let me take you.” His gaze was even more golden than usual then, and it set her alight. “Twice.”
“Yes.” Her throat was so dry that it hurt when she swallowed. “I did.”
“Why?” He traced a line from the tender place beneath her ear, down and around to stroke the line of her collarbone, as if
