tied up, her new bikini damp, she was frying a practice prawn in butter with Mikael behind her, telling her to turn it when it went pink.
‘It looks beautiful,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to tell my father about them.’
‘Do you want to go back to Ishla?’ Mikael asked the question he had tried to before, when Layla had been looking at his painting.
‘Of course I do.’
She didn’t even hesitate in her response, but Mikael persisted, knowing her answer had been automatic.
‘Are you sure that you do?’ He saw her face turn just a little and her lovely smooth brow was marred by a frown.
Until this morning she had not considered that she might have to say goodbye to people she cared about. Until now it had never entered her head that she might not want to go back to Ishla.
That she had a choice.
‘Of course I am sure,’ Layla said, though her voice suddenly said otherwise. ‘I love my family.’
‘I know that you do.’
‘It would kill my father if I left.’ Her voice started to rise as she pointed out the reality. ‘It would honestly kill him.’
‘Okay,’ he soothed.
‘I don’t like that question,’ she said. ‘I don’t like how it makes me feel inside. Please don’t ask me things like that again.’
‘I won’t.’ Mikael turned off the gas and, still behind her, wrapped his arms around her and held her till she relaxed back into him. But he could feel that her heart was racing—as, he guessed, was her mind.
‘Go,’ she said, because his words had unsettled her. ‘Go and have your shower. I want to make lunch by myself.’
Mikael left her to it, mentally kicking himself and wondering if he could have handled that any better.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Suppose she’d said no, that she didn’t want to go back?
What then?
Had he been asking her to be his wife?
* * *
Layla was determined to make a beautiful lunch—and she would if the butter knife she was trying to cut a tomato with didn’t flatten it so.
And the onion had made her cry.
Or was she just crying?
Damn you, Mikael, for asking me that, she thought. Damn you for making me stand here and cry and not want to go home to the land and the people I love.
‘Mikael!’ She was suddenly angry and walked through to the bedroom. She could hear the shower was on but had no qualms about walking in. After all, he had bathed her a few times.
What Layla saw, though, had her heart in her throat—and suddenly she wasn’t angry any more.
He looked up and saw the shock on her face as his eyes lifted from where he had been concentrating and he saw her standing there, watching him.
Then he watched her as the shock changed to a delicious smile and she stepped into the shower with him.
‘Continue,’ she said.
Mikael wasn’t sure that he could—until her mouth started working his chest.
‘Is this why you have so many showers…?’ she asked, and he gave a half laugh. ‘I thought you were just very clean!’
She loved the tension in him, loved the feel of his wet skin, and she slipped out of her bikini and then boldly dropped to her knees and kissed up his legs…slow kisses that changed to frantic, because she wanted so badly to touch and to taste what she must not.
He almost pulled her up by her hair, but he wanted her to see this, and wanted her pleasure too. He took her hand and placed it over his, on the outside, so that she did not touch, but she felt the motion and the building tension.
‘Oh…’ It was the nicest thing she had ever felt.
He bent his knees a little and rubbed himself over her and Layla watched in fascination, till her thighs were shaking.
‘Mikael…’ Every stroke brought her closer, and then she watched as their hands stilled but his shaft didn’t, and the moan that came from him as he shot over her was addictive, for she wanted to hear it again and again. It was that and the shots of silver that spilled over her that almost brought Layla to her knees with her own lovely orgasm.
‘What’s that noise?’ Layla gasped, at the sound of bleeping, but she was talking to thin air as Mikael had suddenly bolted from the shower. ‘What is happening?’ she asked, following him out. ‘Mikael, what is that smell?’
Layla found out what a fire extinguisher was as a naked Mikael tackled the wok that she had left unattended.
‘You’re supposed to turn the gas off,’ he said as he put the small fire out.
‘You shouldn’t have turned me on.’
She had an answer for everything, and Mikael stood back breathless and looked at the smoke on his gleaming walls. All he could think was that he was going to miss this.
‘I’ll make lunch,’ he said. ‘First, though, I’m going to get dressed…’
‘Why?’ she asked, wrapping her arms around him. ‘I like us like this.’
So too did Mikael.
‘Do you want to watch some pawn while we eat?’
He gestured to the chessboard and Layla nodded.
‘You didn’t laugh at my joke,’ he said.
‘I don’t joke about chess,’ she said.
But he realised she probably had not understood.
They had a very quick and less ambitious lunch, which consisted of tomato sandwiches with loads of black pepper, and then, naked, she took two chess pieces, shook them behind her back and held out her hands.
Mikael peeled open the fingers on her right hand. He was black. There was a thrill of anticipation for Layla as he set the board up, and she lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. She had had the same flurry of nerves in her stomach when she had first played with a stranger online.
A better flurry, in fact!
‘I don’t want any favours,’ she warned.
‘You won’t get them from me.’
Layla was white, within three moves it was Mikael attacking and Layla on the defence.
He
