His Pregnant Prisoner

Part 42

Karim turned away from Nakayla, a crack inching its way through his already battered heart.

His father had flown all the way to New York? Why? He knew, Karim had warned him, that he had to stay out of his personal affairs. That he wouldn't be manipulated for Tahiti or any other reason.

That his child would not become some pawn of contention between Nakayla and him...

Yet he had gone and now Nakayla was here, because she...

Bracing himself, he allowed himself to look at her. To let himself believe that she stood there, and was not a figment of his nightly imagination, as it had been the past month. To breathe the air she filled with that wild, lavender scent of hers.

But he would not hope again.

He would not let her cripple him further. He would not become a fool like his father and risk everything. He would not give in to the savage urge to tie her up in this very room and ensure she never left him again.That way, lay only madness.

But Ya Allah, she tempted him. She'd always tempted him into madness, into selfishness, into hoping for impossible things, into gut-wrenching love that threatened to make him lose his sense of himself.

Into almost letting it all go to hell—everything his father and he had built for Tahiti.

Almost.

If he did, he would never forgive himself and he would come to resent her and it would be the utter ruin he'd always wished to avoid.

Not reaching for her now was like trying to avoid the harsh, beautiful, glittering sun while standing in the middle of the desert, however.

He clamped her chin with his fingers, a primal roar threatening to burst out of him. How many times would she test him, torment him? How much lower would she bring him?

"If you believed his threats to be empty, why are you here?"

"I didn't know then. But now..." She shook her head and when she looked up, a sheen coated her midnight-black eyes. Her mouth trembled. "I...came back for you, for us. I came back because I realized what a coward I've been, Karim. I came back because I love you so much."

Karim stiffened, even as her words chipped away at him. He released her and fisted his hands. "You have said that before, habeebti. And I believed you."

He pushed his hand through his hair, feeling as weak as a leaf. And she was the gust of wind that could forever blow him away.

Her shoulders rigid, her stubborn chin lifted, she nodded. Tears fell onto her cheeks and it was all Karim could do to not take her in his arms. But he'd reached for everything she'd offered once, believed that he could have this light, this happiness that she brought him along with Tahiti.

That he needn't be alone after all for the rest of his life, with nothing but the desert and Tahiti stretched before him, that he was loved.

"I know how much I hurt you." She took a bracing breath, and wiped away her tears. And he could see her heart in those brilliant eyes of hers, her courage, her honesty and her love for him. He felt ragged then, at the battle within. And for once, he desperately wanted to lose.

"I'm so new to this whole thing," she was saying then, and each step she took toward him sent his pulse racing, crumbled his will, word by word. "It was myself I didn't believe in, Karim, not you. But now I know myself. I believe in myself and that makes what you feel for me so much clearer. Makes this wildfire between us so gut-wrenchingly simple.

"I followed you before I even understood myself, Karim. Now...now that I can trust myself, I would follow you to the end of the world."

She pressed her mouth to his, tentative and hot and a punch to his senses. Like a kick to his gut. Like pleasure so intense and shocking that it bordered on pain.