Nalini Singh - Craving Beauty

Hira began to nod, her midnight-and-gold hair slid­ing across her bare shoulders. "You started your busi­ness with the money you made from your investing."

"Yes, with a little help from the bank. The first com­pany I bought was a dying little family outfit that produced these unique toys. I busted my gut with it and sold it when I finished college for a profit that was big enough to allow me to buy my next company. Within five years of graduation, I was a multimillionaire."

"And you did it by saving dying companies, not loot­ing them," she murmured. "A harder road."

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the veiled praise. "It's the way I like to work." Not by ripping apart but by slowly, painstakingly, gluing a fractured masterpiece together. He'd spent too many years with people who'd tried to destroy him. He couldn't do that to anyone or anything else.

"You were a very determined boy." The admiration in those mountain-cat eyes didn't dim. "How did you get involved with the orphanage?"

He found himself wanting to tell her, when he'd kept his secrets from everyone else. "I met Father Thomas about a year after I returned to my parents. He gave me a steady job cleaning the church after school. He also gave me...hope." He'd taken a beat-up, hard-as-nails kid and taught him the value of compassion and integrity.

"Later, when I needed to borrow money from the bank to finance that first business, he guaranteed my loan. I tried to pay him back with shares in my next com­pany, but he said that he wouldn't take money from one of his sons." Being called "son" by Father Thomas meant far more to Marc .than any biological relationship.

"I begin to see why these boys mean so much to you," Hira murmured. "You wish to give them a chance in life as Father Thomas gave you. You're a good man, Marc Bordeaux." A gentle kiss on his cheek sealed her words.

"I'm a man, same as any other." His tone was husky, not from lust but from the light in her exotic eyes.

His wife smiled at him like he'd given her the moon, when he suddenly realized he'd never given her a single present that wasn't big and expensive and meaningless.

"Ah, but you're my man, Marc. That must mean you are blessed." Her lips curved in a teasing smile.

Chuckling, he rolled over, pressing her into the mat­tress. "Is that so, princess?" Nothing had ever felt as right as telling his secrets to this woman with her pride and her curious honesty. Perhaps this Beauty might just be willing to love her Beast.

Less than a week later, Marc found himself standing on the verandah, waiting for his wife to return home. She'd left early that morning for her first class and it was now after five. Despite the way the lost boy inside him had wanted to cage her with protection, despite the primitive in him who'd growled mine, he'd tried to be gentle when she'd left, because the past week had been the most wonderful of his misbegotten life. His wife had opened herself to him, heart and soul, mind and body.

It was the first time in his life that he hadn't been lonely.

Right then he knew that if there ever came a time when Hira rejected him, it would be because he'd de­cided to let her go. And quite simply, he never would. He'd fight to the death like some feral thing before he watched her walk away.

Second by second, minute by slow minute, his wife had worn down his defenses and made a place for her­self in his heart. The vulnerability was so sudden and ran so tearingly deep he didn't dare release it to the light of day. He just knew that only Hira could calm the ache within him.

But in spite of the new depth of their commitment to each other, a part of his wife remained out of his reach. The crazy thing was, he knew exactly why she some­times acted as wary as a wild deer. If he could wring Kerim Dazirah's neck, he would. Hira's father had planted that fear of trusting the one you married in her, a fear that even now shadowed her eyes.

An engine sounded, snagging his attention. A second later his wife's cherry-red sports car came around the corner. Parking in the drive, she exited and ran up to him, leaving her books in the car. Dressed in a long denim skirt and plain white shirt, her hair pulled back in a tight braid, she glittered like a perfectly cut diamond.

Delighted when she ran into his waiting arms, he swept her off her feet and spun her around, her laugh­ter wrapping around them like a silken whisper. When he finally slid her slowly down his body, her sparkling eyes had him leaning down to savor the taste of her lips. She opened for him, warm and welcoming. Her fingers spread on his white T-shirt. "I like the way you welcome me home," she whispered, her tone husky.

The sight of her well-kissed lips, wet and luscious, made him want to ravage her. "Did you have a good day?" He was trying very hard not to demand her where­abouts for the last few hours, since her lecture had fin­ished long before.

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his waist, raising her face for another kiss. Tightening his em­brace, he indulged both of them with a slow slide of lips and an even slower stroking of tongues. It was a kiss of lovers, one that left them both breathless.

"My day was interesting but strange." One hand slipped up to lie against his heart. "I learned many things at their big library, made a friend—" her smile was both surprised and delighted "—and found out that young men today have no morals."

His whole body tensed at that disapproving sound, the arms around her turning into steel bands. "And how did you learn that?"

"They kept trying to court me when I'm clearly a wife." She raised the hand with her wedding band on it. The fine gold sparkled in the light of the setting sun. At the same moment, a cool breeze ruffled the fine curls at her temples, causing goose bumps on her arms.

He tugged her inside. "What did you do?" Closing the door, he led her to the living room sofa and sat down. She cuddled up next to him, one hand on his ab­domen, while the fingers of her other hand drifted up to play with his hair.

Her look would've done justice to a particularly self-satisfied cat. "I told them I was yours and I used your name. They stopped."

He bit back a grin. "You used my name?" He loved it when she touched him like this.

"Yes. Apparently they are scared of what you might do—it didn't take me long to find out that you have a rep­utation, husband." She scowled, and he knew she'd ques­tion him on that reputation later. "Now I'll have peace. I said that—" her voice dropped a few octaves "—my husband would not be pleased with their attentions."

He gave up trying to hold in his laughter. "God, you're amazing!" He tugged her into his arms and kissed her smug little face.

"I am glad you understand that."

"So what will you do with your degree once you've finished?" he asked, hungry to learn her dreams, to be allowed into the secret world of her hopes and wishes.

"Well, I've only just started but. . .I thought I might like to be a teacher like the ones at the university."

He caught the uncertainty in her tone. "You'd make a wonderful lecturer."

Her smile bloomed. "Do you really think so? I'd have to do much more studying to become such a teacher. It will take a long time, especially since I want to spend a lot of time with the boys when they are ours, but I think I can do it if I work hard."

"I have every faith in your stubbornness, cher ," he joked, touched by the way she was embracing his dream. "If you're not careful, you'll make us respect­able. Can you see me at some faculty dinner, discussing business theory?"

She laughed at his horrified tone. "I shall try very hard not to tame you—it's fun having a husband with a reputation such as yours."

He grinned. "Tell me more about your day."

A frown marred her face. "Well...many people asked me if I was a model, as if a woman with a certain kind of face could be nothing else."