that idea. Tariq had apologized to her in his own way, she was sure of that. They’d made their peace.
Then why? The answer flitted just out of her reach.
“That is enough for now, Jasmine.”
Nine
Startled, Jasmine blinked. Only when she attempted to get up did she comprehend how long she’d been in the reclining position. Reaching over her head with her hands, she stretched in a luxurious curve, feeling muscle after muscle relax.
“I’m going to head off to the shower. See you at dinner,” she murmured.
Tariq looked up. Desire burst into life in the green fire of his eyes. He stifled it almost as soon as it arose, but answering heat rushed over her in reaction to that single searing glance. So, his passion ran as deep as ever. He’d just decided to hide it from her. Relief that he wasn’t truly indifferent to her made her almost dizzy.
“But why would the thought of a shower set it off?” Jasmine muttered to herself. She was in the shower before she figured it out. “Idiot.” She laughed at herself. Tariq was the man who’d made love to her in front of a mirror. The sultry possibilities presented by soap and water would be tantalizing to him. They were already affecting her.
It stunned her that she wanted to be in a shower with her husband. She could imagine the darkness of his hand against her sudsy skin, and almost feel his big body pressing her against the wall. As a result of her imaginings, she stepped out of the shower hotter than when she’d entered. Her predinner preparations were undertaken in a state of sexual anticipation.
“I have to entice him into a shower with me,” she decided. “Otherwise this fantasy is going to drive me crazy.” She would much rather be driven crazy by Tariq himself.
Midway through brushing blush onto her cheekbones, she paused, hit by a thought that she’d earlier rejected as implausible. Her hair was already secured on top of her head in an elegant knot, with a few loose tendrils around her face. Those tendrils now framed her startled eyes.
“What if he thinks our passion doesn’t affect me with the same power it does him?” One simple fact that she’d always known was that her husband desired her deeply. His hunger was palpable, or it had been until he’d begun to withdraw. Even at his angriest, Tariq had made love to her until she screamed. She tapped her nails on the wood of her dresser in a staccato beat. “I did manage to resist him after Paris, but that was because I was hurting so much, and even then…he could’ve seduced me if he’d stayed another minute.”
However, Tariq didn’t know that. To him, it would appear as if her need was nowhere near the strength of his. To a warrior like him, that would be a blow. It wouldn’t just affect his masculine pride, but would be hurtful. He stubbornly refused to believe in her love, but he’d accepted her passion as real and unfeigned. Jasmine wondered what it would be like if someday she began to believe that Tariq didn’t want her with the same fervor that she needed him. It would rock the one solid foundation in their relationship.
“Goodness.” Her eyes widened in the mirror, bright with realization. “I have to convince him that I want him, or he’ll just continue to withdraw and I won’t even have our passion to build on.” However, the idea of seducing her husband was daunting. He tended to take charge in bed, and his control was amazing. It was annoying, too. If she was going to lose control, then he could damn well do so, too.
“Hmph. Any ideas?” she asked her reflection.
“Do you always talk to yourself?” The amused question had her spinning around in her seat. Tariq lounged in the doorway between their rooms. For a second, she thought he might have heard too much, but his expression was the by-now-familiar warm and extremely irritating one.
“It’s good for the soul,” she quipped. Out of habit, she went to secure the tie on her robe. Then she noticed the way he was looking at her under his eyelids. If she hadn’t been concentrating, she would have missed it. She changed direction, picked up the blush again and turned to the mirror.
When she leaned forward, she was well aware that her robe parted in the middle, offering an enticing view of the rounded curves of her breasts. Or at least she hoped it was enticing. It would kill her if the reason for him keeping his distance was that he no longer found her sexually compelling.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered. Tariq’s fires were the kind that would burn forever. That was what made him so precious.
“What is?” He moved to stand behind her, hands in the pockets of his slacks. While he normally wore traditional garb, sometimes he preferred Western dress. Today he was wearing a blue silk shirt and black pants, the solid colors setting off his rugged masculine beauty in vivid relief.
Her nape prickled with awareness of his nearness, supremely sensitive to his presence. The urge to lean back and rest her head against his firm stomach was so enticing that she had to issue a firm reprimand to herself to behave. If she gave in now, her beautiful, arrogant, sexy husband would once again have her screaming in ecstasy while he remained in control.
With that thought to spur her along, she leaned forward a bit more. It seemed that a lot of seduction in her life went on in front of mirrors, she thought, in an effort to fight her anxiety over her sudden decision to seduce a man who’d proved so capable of controlling his physical passion. Ignoring the voice of fear, she crossed her legs in a movement that looked unconscious. As she’d expected, the robe parted over her thighs and slid off the leg on top, leaving her practically naked.
“Oh, I was just thinking about some of the recent designs on the catwalks.” She waved airily and put down the brush, then picked up the lipstick. Curving her lips into a softer-than-normal pout, she began to smooth on the pale bronze with deliberate slowness. It was more of a gloss, which left her lips looking wet and full, rather than a rich hue. She knew her husband preferred to kiss her lips devoid of lipstick, and tonight was about her husband. By the time they got through dinner, the gloss would be gone, but she hoped that by then she wouldn’t need its seductive qualities. Right now, the glistening sheen looked like a brazen invitation.
Tariq coughed and shifted behind her, but didn’t move away. Jasmine took that as a good sign, but wondered how far she could go. She didn’t want him to guess her plan before she had him safely in bed and at her mercy. She grinned.
“What is so funny?” His voice was rough. She recognized that timbre. Anticipatory heat blossomed in the pit of her stomach. Her heart’s beat turned ragged and needy.
“Homosexual male designers and their ideas about the female body,” she stated with a decisive nod, proud of herself for being able to keep her head while her hormones were in full riot mode. “I mean, look.” She swept her hand over the curves of her breast and hip, lingering just a millisecond too long. “As we discussed before, women are rounded, right?”
“Yes.” He sounded as if he was strangling.
“Then why—” she spread her hand on her bared thigh, drawing his attention to the way the fiery curls at the apex of her thighs were barely covered by the blue satin “—are the latest trends going toward boxes and flat, jagged edges?”
When he didn’t reply, she looked up into the mirror. Before he met her eyes, she gleefully noted the flush along his cheekbones and the heavy-lidded gaze on her thigh. She thought he’d forgotten what they’d been talking about. Wonderful.
“I am sure you are correct in your view,”
