Chastened, Farah realized her words had been unnecessarily inflammatory, but she wasn’t one to avoid a situation. “One can only be rejected and discarded so often before one starts to take offense.”
“Discarded?” He enunciated the syllables with a dumbfounded artlessness.
“You left me last night. Why?” The moment Farah asked the question, she wanted to take it back. What right had she to act like a jilted bride? He’d said he would get her with child, but affection hadn’t been part of the bargain, had it?
He poured himself another drink and gave her his back. “You wouldn’t have wanted me to stay.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to if I didn’t want it.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You keep saying that.” She huffed. “But I comprehend more than you realize!”
Dorian stilled, his broad back tense and immobile as a mountain. “What do you presume to know about me?” he asked coldly.
Farah chose her next words with care. “Only that last night was a first for both of us, and I think it was a rather rare and unexpected experience. I suppose I anticipated—I don’t know—an acknowledgment of the pleasure we shared.”
“I thought our pleasure was acknowledged rather loudly,” he commented wryly, tossing back another scotch.
“It was,” she agreed, heat rippling across her skin at the memory. “And then you were gone almost without another word.”
“And it will always be thus. I will not sleep with you. Ever. I’ll thank you not to ask me again.”
“You will not? Or you cannot?” she prompted gently.
His glass made an angry sound as he slammed it on the table. “Christ, woman, can you leave no wound unsalted? No shadow unilluminated?” He stalked to where she perched on the chaise, looming over her. “Do you have no darkness or secrets that you’d rather not expose to me? Do you not fear I’ll use them against you? Because that’s what people do. What I do.” His features were more uncertain than angry, more desperate than dangerous.
“You are the only person to whom all my secrets have been bared,” she answered honestly. “And I had no choice in the matter. I have not only been naked in front of you, but also exposed to you, in every way.” She let that sink in, watched him realize the truth in her words. “And,” she continued, her eyes drawn to the snug fit of his trousers and the ridge beneath. “I found some of those expositions rather liberating.”
His gaze darkened, taking on that dangerous glint that she’d come to understand was unpredictable. She liked him this way, anything was better than the wall of ice.
“You see, husband, I have nothing left to fear but death.”
“That is where you’re wrong.” His usually silky voice thickened to the texture of the jagged Highland stones. Whether from the strong liquor or the bleak memories swirling in his eyes, she couldn’t be sure. “There are so many things more terrifying than death.”
In that moment, Farah was certain he’d been exposed to them all. She tilted her head back, feeling the stretch in her exposed throat as she gazed up the expanse of his torso to meet the dark glitter in his devilish eye. “What is it that you fear, husband?” she asked, allowing herself to lean toward him in infinitesimal degrees. “Why do you deny me your company at night?”
He watched her move toward him, making no attempt to stop her. Nor did he retreat. “My dreams,” he muttered. “Often they’re nothing more than memories. They follow me back to this world and they’re—violent. I could hurt you, Farah, badly, and not even realize what I was doing until it was too late.”
That was why he’d left? To protect her? “Perhaps we could work on it. Next time we could try—”
“There may not need be a next time.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You could already be with child.”
Farah’s hand flew to her abdomen. “Surely, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t—you know. It likely takes more than once.”
“We’ll revisit this discussion when we know if it’s relevant or not.”
“But, don’t you want to?”
He leaned closer as well, that cruel sneer affixed to his features. “Do you? Do you want me to defile you like that again? To tie you up and use your body as a receptacle for my seed, an object for my pleasure?”
Of course she did. Without question. But the way in which he worded his queries perplexed her. “You weren’t the only one who found pleasure.”
“What if you hadn’t?”
“But I did.”
“Not in the way you were supposed to, not for your first time.”
Farah shrugged. “Who gets to say how we find our pleasure together?”
“I hurt you,” he gritted out, his lips drawing tight, even as his body responded to the conversation.
“Yes, for a moment, but as I understand it, all virgins experience a bit of discomfort at first. You also pleased me beyond words. And I’d like to think that—I could do the same if you’d let me.” Farah curled her fingers within her gloves. It was epically difficult not to reach for him. His body, so at odds with his mind, strained and beckoned to her, and she’d promised not to reach out, no matter how badly they both craved it. So she kept leaning forward, toward the flat expanse of his stomach, a flesh-colored shadow beneath the crisp white of the shirt tucked into snug dark trousers. Beneath the dark wool, that long ridge of his manhood flexed and strained, and her body answered as she imagined it always would.