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“Yes,” he allowed grimly. “I did.”

Her eyes widened in incredulous hurt.And that’s it?

“At that time...” The sheikh was visibly struggling to speak. “I was still...raw...over what happened between us.” The sheikh had never been the type to explain his actions, but at that moment he knew he would do anything to vanquish the unspoken pain he saw in Kyria’s eyes. “I seized any excuse to leave Ramil, tried anything that had the possibility of making me forget you.”

“Katerina—-” And this time, Kyria, too, was having difficulty speaking. “You thought she could be one of those possibilities?”

“I did.” The sheikh’s lips twisted. “But it didn’t work. None of it worked—-” He broke off as if he had suddenly recalled something distasteful.

“Malik?”

His jaw hardening, he said flatly, “I don’t want to lie to you, Ky. All these years...I was no saint. I know you know I’ve had women, and in the past two years there were a lot more of them. I wanted to fuck all of your memories out of my mind, but every time I did have a woman in my arms, I would close my eyes and see you.” He saw her pale, but his gaze remained on hers, unflinching. “In my mind, I was fuckingyou.”

A tiny gasp of shock escaped Kyria, and the sheikh’s jaw clenched more tightly. He mentally prepared himself for all kinds of recriminations, telling himself that he deserved whatever she threw at him.

But when she finally spoke, it wasn’t at all what he expected.

“I’m glad.”

They were words he had wanted to hear without knowing it, and Malik found himself sucking in his breath when he saw the rest in her gaze.

Desire, white-hot, tumultuous, uncontrollable, the kind that didn’t care about right or wrong—-

The kind others might find sick and depraved—-

The kind that shouldn’t have existed in two people who were raised to see each other as siblings—-

With those eyes, she was asking him to make love to her, and they both knew it. She was asking him to do what he had been dying and aching to do for as long as he could remember, but somehow, a part of him simply knew.

“You’re not going to take me.” Her whispered words were not a question, and her faint tone was underlined by hurt.

The sound made him expel his breath, and the sheikh clasped her face with both hands. “No, Ky. Not just yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I need you to be sure about us.” His jaw clenched. “Even now, a part of me is furious with myself for touching you. I still feel like I’ve taken advantage of you.”

“But you didn’t,” Kyria cried out. “You’re never the type to take advantage, Malik, and you would never take advantage of me of all people.”

Her impassionate defense made him smile, but even so the sheikh said with gentle firmness, “Not just yet.”

“But Malik—-”

“We’ll both know,” the sheikh said quietly, “when it’s the right time. I can promise you that at least.”

And so Kyria had to satisfy herself with those words, knowing that it was the last time they’d speak of that topic, and with her worries about Katerina over as well, their late-night talks eventually turned to more pleasant matters.

Most times, Kyria would succeed in convincing Malik to tell her about past instances that might have given him an idea about his attraction to her. The first time she had asked him of this, he had given her a look. “You really are quite the sadist, aren’t you?”

But even so, he had eventually given in, just like he always did, and Kyria could listen to him for hours after. He told her of how he had first found her sexually attractive at sixteen, and of how he had rigidly controlled his reactions towards her since then. The women he had fucked while pretending they were Kyria, she already knew, but what stunned her was how he had felt afterwards. He told her of how he would never let himself to be near her if he had just come back from fucking another woman.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Malik said with a self-deprecating shrug, “but that’s how I felt. I felt like I’d end up making you dirty if I touched you with the same hands that had touched another woman’s body.”

Those words had awed and humbled her, but more than that it made her realize just how much she meant to him, and how long and how hard he had to suffer while waiting for her.

“I wish I had known back then,” she couldn’t help whispering afterwards. Turning around, she placed her hands on his naked chest and pushed herself up so she could have a better look at his beloved face. “I’m sorry, Malik. I wish I had known so much sooner—-”

He slowly shook his head. “I don’t.”