No. This isn’t right, she thought, and broke the kiss.
“Please don’t, Mohammed,” she said as she wiped her lips with her three fingers. “Never do that again.”
“You seemed more than willing a moment ago,” he mocked her. She was playing the tease now, taunting him and then pulling away. Then let her play her game. He knew how to win.
“Willing was never a problem. You always found a way to make me willing,” she said.
“Make you? Of course, princess. I forgot. I found a way to make you willing and then when it didn’t work, I raped you?”
“You never raped me,” she said as she blushed in the dark.
“No. But instead of allowing us to become what was natural, a man and a woman together, you hid behind your words and said you would cry rape if it happened again. Did you not?”
She lowered her eyes.
“I did. But it was because in your land and realm, I was your property. I did not want it like that. I didn’t want to come to you as your harem girl.”
“How did you want it?” he asked. His words were so intimate as he stood so dark and handsome before her.
None of this matters, Katharine thought wearily.
“I wanted to come willingly. I wanted to come because I wanted you.”
Mohammed touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
“Katharine, what has changed, what has happened here?” he asked.
She shook her head, ignoring his question.
“Why did you lie to those women?” she asked.
“The women earlier? What lie did I tell?” he asked. His eyes were searching hers.
Katharine closed her eyes. That painful letter. It hurt still to think of it and its contents. Safiya. Pregnant. Son. Married. The pain was still there just beneath the surface, like a wound that had just recently healed.
“Please, I need to leave,” she said, but he blocked her route.
“Katharine, I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“Mohammed,” she said as she stared at him incredulously, “I don’t understand why you are here. What can you possibly want from me?”
“The same as before you were kidnapped. I want us to marry,” he said. He was confused by her reaction. She wanted the marriage just as much as he did. At least she had before.
Katharine felt sick. It was as she thought. He wanted her to be a second wife. She was expected to share her husband with another woman. It was unthinkable. Disgusting!
“Never. I won’t do it.”
Mohammed felt like he had been kicked. After all this time and planning and fearing she was dead, hurt, or worse, here she was denying what was between them to marry another man.
Suddenly he pulled her into him, but there was nothing soft about him or his touch. He held her arms and she could do nothing but be pulled into his hard frame.
“I would maybe be able to let you go, and walk away from the woman I love, if not for one small detail.”
Katharine felt his hands around her arms and dreaded his next words.
“What detail?” she whispered as she looked into his dark eyes.
His lips grazed her neck and she shuddered as he spoke quietly into her ear.