Annie West - The Sheikh's Reluctant Queen - The Sheikh's Destiny

But last night he’d made love to her with as much hunger as ever. Was that not enough anymore, and being the chivalrous knight that he was, he was trying to find a painless way out of this mess? What would she do if this was true?

After a night in a hell of uncertainty, morning brought with it the searing light of realization. Why Rashid was pulling away.

It had to be because she’d told him she loved him.

At first, it had been in the throes of passion, then gradually afterward she’d said it at every opportunity. She hadn’t worried when he hadn’t said it back. She’d thought it had been too soon for him, but she had been certain it was coming.

What if, instead of being truthful with him about her emotions, as she’d thought she should be, she’d only pressured him? And his response to her fervor, when he believed he couldn’t reciprocate it, was to pull away?

Unable to hold back anymore, anxiety and urgency eating through her restraint, she snatched her phone up, dialed his number.

He picked up on the second ring. She recognized the background sounds. He was in his car.

“Laylah—”

She cut him off before he could say anything more. “I didn’t… didn’t mean anything when I said I loved you. Please, just forget I said it.”

A cacophony of sounds was all Rashid heard after Laylah told him to forget she’d told him she loved him.

It wasn’t until a policeman knocked on his window that Rashid realized the noise was a storm of honking.

He’d braked in the middle of the street.

He didn’t remember ending the call with her, or what exactly he said to the policeman. He only knew he found himself parked in front of the entrance of her building, staring up at her window, one thing pummeling through him.

She’d come to her senses.

He’d been dreading she would. Almost waiting for her to.

He shouldn’t have waited. He should have pushed for marriage sooner. But he’d been terrified he’d scare her away, yet it had been hell trying to pull back. But it had also been a heaven he hadn’t known existed, being with her. Being loved by her.

For she had loved him. Her love had been so pure and intense, had permeated him from her every touch and word and action, he’d basked in its unbelievable blessing with every breath. He hadn’t known how or why she’d loved him, but she had.

He’d been trying to tell himself that, with Laylah being so overt about her emotions, when she agreed to marry him, no one would suspect that their marriage was not for the right reasons. That it would serve his purpose, get him everything he’d planned.

But with every hour in her company, every other consideration had ceased to exist. Nothing mattered anymore but her. Everything from her, with her, had overwhelmed him, undone him. With her he’d finally understood what happiness was.

But he’d left it too late. Even when he’d done everything in his power to stop her from realizing the truth about him, time had exposed him to her for what he was. A damaged, dangerous monster.

What had he expected? He shouldn’t have been in her heart in the first place. He didn’t deserve to be there.

Without knowing how, he found himself on her apartment doorstep just as she opened her door.

A huge gasp escaped her at the sight of him, the streams of tears already pouring down her face thickening.

Feeling sorry for him? Regretting that she had to let him down?

He couldn’t bear for her to feel bad. Never on his account. He’d sacrifice anything for her to never shed another tear.

Before he could say anything, she dragged him inside, her eyes all over him before she hugged him with all her strength, smothering her face in his chest.

“Rashid, ya Ullah, Rashid… you’re okay, you’re okay…”

Struck to his core at feeling her against him again, he stood, unable to move in her embrace, everything inside him demolished.

“I went insane when I heard that commotion and the line went dead and I couldn’t call you back. I thought you had an accident…”

Her voice broke on a sob that fractured his muteness, made him choke, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“What matters is that you’re okay.” Suddenly, she undid her frantic hold on him, embarrassment in her every line as she moved away. “I—I meant what I said, Rashid.”

That she wanted him to forget that she’d said she loved him.

He owed her the complete truth, if only in this. “How can I ever forget the one real honor and profound joy I ever had? The memory that you once loved me will fuel the rest of my life, and at its end, will be my one worthwhile achievement.”

Confusion then stupefaction gripped her loveliness.

Then she blurted out, “What do you mean ‘once’? You think I…? Oh, no, Rashid, I only meant I wasn’t pushing you to reciprocate when I said I love you. I had no other purpose behind it but telling you how I feel. I thought you felt pressured by my confessions because the month I asked for is up and you didn’t—didn’t…”

It was his turn to be flabbergasted.

“You thought…” He stopped, hope too joyous, too brutal. “You thought your declarations of love made me reconsider my proposal? ”

Delightful peach invaded her honeyed cheeks. “I didn’t know what to think, so I thought the worst. Y-you must know what yesterday was.”

“It was the one-month anniversary of the attack. But this morning, this hour, is the one-month anniversary of my proposal.”

Her eyes rounded on still-fragile hope. “Y-you mean…?”

“I mean I was coming at the exact time I proposed last month, this time to ask… to beg that you consider marriage. Not because I want you and because my honor dictates it. But because my life would mean nothing anymore without you.”

Suddenly, his arms were full of hurtling, clinging love and eagerness made flesh and blood. And he wrapped himself around her, containing her, vowing to never let her go again.

Those minutes when he’d thought he’d lost her had hurt far more than the injury that had left him scarred, had been more desperate than any time he’d thought he’d die.

Deluging him in kisses, Laylah buried her fingers in the hair he was growing back for her, her voice a throb of silk and night and hunger. “My life would mean nothing without you, too. It never did. I love you with everything I am, Rashid…”

Reeling with disbelief that this perfect being continued to love him, he carried her where he could seal the magic of those moments with that of their passion and turn the once-impossible fantasy into reality.

What felt like a lifetime later, but what was actually only a couple of hours, still overcome with Rashid’s last possession and the echoes of the aborted scare, Laylah stretched luxuriously against his hot, hard body.

His beloved face was flushed a marvelous copper tone. His whisper, when it came, spread its dark compulsion inside her. “Do I take it all that was a yes?”

She snuggled into his body more securely. “You mean you didn’t hear any of the hundreds of yeses I said? I must have raised Chicago’s noise pollution levels to an all-time high.”

“Just give me one now that your blood has cooled.”

She rubbed her thigh against his. “You mean you don’t know yet that you and cool blood are mutually exclusive?”

His arms gathered her into his body with such tender reverence, trembling with the same emotion that blazed in his eyes. “Laylah… give it to me. One yes. Total and final.”

And she gave it to him. Her irrevocable pledge. “Yes, Rashid. As total as my whole being and final to my life’s end.”