Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Swallowing hard, she said haltingly, “If you’re about to tell me you’re in love with her—-”
The sheikh abruptly sat up at her words, a stunned expression falling on his handsome face. “Hell no!”
Kyria bit her lip. “I wish I can believe you.”
“Nothing ever happened between us.” The sheikh exhaled in frustration. “I’m not lying. I know it may have seemed that way, and I admit that I had entertained the idea of hooking up—-” When the sheikh felt Kyria stiffen, his arms instantly tightened around her. “It was an idea brought by desperation,” Malik said forcefully. “That’s all. But nothing came out of it. She was always in love with her ex, and in fact she’s gotten back together with him. I’ve partnered with him in business, and Himura’s the only reason that I occasionally hear from her.”
“But you went to visit her in Tokyo,” Kyria mumbled under her breath. Was she really supposed to think nothing of it?
“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 fucking you.”
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.