Page 46

She wanted to give something back.
The lace, the robe, the woman she’d become these last few days, they weren’t for his pleasure. Not really. They were for hers. For the woman who had come out of hiding.
She wanted him to go mad at the sight of her. She wanted to be his, but he’d walked away, and that still hurt.
No answer came from the other side of the door. Her palm pressed against it, forehead leaning close, her body aching with a need that no longer felt like shame. She turned the handle. Unlocked. Her breath caught. Had he left it open for her? She stepped inside, not sure what she expected, but it wasn’t the deep quiet that pulsed like a wound.
He wasn’t here. Not physically. But everything else was.
The air held him like a memory.
Spice and smoke. Warm leather and desert wind. Salt and musk and something darker, older. It wrapped around her like silk drenched in longing, clinging to her skin, seeping into her lungs, and beneath it all, yes, she caught it.
The ghost of his arousal.
That unmistakable scent of need, thick and male, edged in restraint. The room thrummed with it. She inhaled deeply and almost staggered.
He’d wanted her. So badly it had left a trace.
Her knees buckled slightly. She reached for the doorframe, steadying herself as the image bloomed, his body wracked, hard and leaking, fists clenched against pleasure. Denying himself. Fighting a war she hadn't realized he was still losing. A broken sound slipped from her throat.
She wanted every hard inch of him in her mouth. She wanted to taste the part of him he hadn’t given to anyone. Wrap her fingers around the velvet steel of him, drag her tongue over the salty tip, feel the surrender in his breath when he finally let go.
But more than that, more than the sex, the hunger, the fantasy, she wanted to give him peace. Real peace. Not silence. Not control. Something deeper. Something binding.
She stepped closer to the bed. Sheets tangled. Pillows scattered. Evidence of a night spent wrestling something too big for sleep. Her fingers brushed the fabric, and she nearly wept at how it smelled like him.
She climbed onto the mattress, drawn by scent, by memory, by the unbearable ache still burning low in her belly.
She slid her hand down, and with just one touch, her body jolted.
A cry slipped free, quiet and raw. She was already so close, her clit pulsing with every beat of her heart. She slid again, then again, breath catching, hips pressing into the rhythm. When she opened her eyes, they snagged on the mat.
Her breath caught. It was unrolled, haphazard, as if placed in despair.Hebbiti…what have I pushed you to?
Then it dawned on her. That conversation they had about him being too much, how she was overwhelmed, and how he apologized. He was afraid this…this unparalleled desire for her would be too much for her to handle, and she would leave, again.
He prayed because it was the only thing keeping him frombreaking her trust. That thought crushed her. He was becoming the man hewasbefore he used sex to cope with his pain. This was the first time he hadkneeledsince his terrible loss. Not in some clean, elevated spiritual moment, but messy. Physical. Desperate. Human.
He asked for restraint, asked to be worthy of her in a spaceshemade ready for him.
This man did something to her that she could barely breathe around. His control was respect. He prayed because it was all he had left.
Her body throbbed harder for him, wanted him even more.
Her heart stuttered. She closed her eyes, every part of her aching for his touch, to touch him. He chose mercy over pleasure. Prayer over pain. Grace over gratification.
She stared at the mat. That kind of self-control wasn’t just strength. It told her she mattered. Made the invisible…visible. He not only saw her. He found her worthy of devotion in a language her body had never been taught.
She bent down, hands trembling. Straightened the mat. Turned it east. The direction he hadn’t been able to find, but still reaching for home.
Recalibration of a man’s heart.
She had to find him.
She rose slowly. Her body still burning, but it no longer felt like a demand. It felt like a purpose.
She slipped back through the door, grabbed her keycard, and stepped into the hall barefoot, her robe clinging to her thighs, her hair wild, her pulse steady only because she had something to follow.