Chapter Fourteen
"Mom!" Ben said with happy surprise. "I didn't know you would be home yet."
"I finished up early, and I got tired of being busy all the time on top of it," she said with a faint smile. "I was thinking we could do something fun tonight."
Was it Laurel's imagination, or did relief flicker across Bassam's face? Still, the smile he gave her was genuine as he stripped off his jacket, hanging it carelessly over the back of the chair.
"It's good to see you done so soon," he said with a nod. "I was beginning to be afraid that the article was just eating you whole."
"Sometimes, I get afraid of that as well," Laurel said lightly. "It's important to keep it from happening. What shall we do tonight?"
There were a number of options, it turned out. There was dinner at a new place that had just opened nearby, there was a movie that Bassam and Ben were curious about, there was plenty to see and do in Tir. However, when it came right down to it, none of the three really wanted to leave the penthouse, and privately, Laurel was glad. When the three of them were together, there was something profoundly strong and unbreakable about them, like a steel circle that was made with exceeding skill and care.
There were the ingredients for an excellent chicken carbonara in the refrigerator, and as it was one of the very few meals that Laurel could cook, she insisted on preparing it. Bassam insisted on helping, and as he cut up the vegetables next to her, she felt her heart squeeze. There was a life where she could have this. There was a life where it wasn't beyond her grasp or hanging by a thread. At some point, she had missed it, however, and now it was gone.
"Laurel? Are you all right? Do I need to cut onions out in the dining room away from you?"
"Hmm, I've never been sensitive to onions before, but maybe yes. I seem to be growing sensitive in my old age."
She smiled at him and then turned away before he could see that the tears had nothing to do with the sweet onions he was cutting up.
The meal was delicious, and afterward, Bassam introduced her and Ben to a game that he had played when he was a boy.
"I was spending some time out in the desert with my father," Bassam said, pulling out a gorgeously inlaid wooden box. There were a dozen smooth, rounded hollows carved into the top, arranged in two rows. "This is a game that goes back perhaps two thousand years, and it is played all over the Middle East."
The box opened to give them sets of polished stones, some turquoise, some rough garnet, some amethyst. Bassam taught them the game, which was a little like checkers and focused on ending with as many of your opponents' pieces as you could.
As it turned out, both she and Bassam were fair at it, but Ben had a positive genius for getting the pieces where they needed to be. Far from being disappointed at his losses, Bassam laughed with pleasure at the boy's feat, and at the end, he gifted him with the box.
"It should be yours," he said. "I only got it after four months, when I finally beat the man who taught me. I only beat him once. You've beaten me three times now."
The expression of pride and pleasure on Ben's face was a thing of beauty, and Laurel looked at it closely, wanting nothing more than to memorize it, keep it encased in crystal and amber in her heart.
That night, after Ben's half hour of quiet time was up and she came to make him turn off the light, he called to her. "Mom?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"We...we had a pretty good time tonight, didn't we?"
"We did. You were very good at that game Bassam taught us."
"You were too," he said, but it was clear that his mind wasn't on the game. "Mom...are we going to stay here? Are we going to stay with Bassam?"
She bit her lip. She didn't want to lie to her son, but what she was going to do next made lying look like small potatoes to say the least.
"Bassam cares about you very much," she said. "I think he would be happy to have us stay."
"He likes you a lot too," Ben protested, and she couldn't resist the urge to ruffle his hair.
"You're sweet," she said, but he shook his head.
"I'm telling you the truth, Mom. He really cares about you."
She hesitated and then shrugged. "I know. Do you know that I love you? More than the wind and the stars and the moon?"
He laughed and blushed a little as he said, "Aww Mom. You know I love you too."
He was already getting a little too big for this, Laurel thought. Soon enough, he would start to push aside the affection, wanting to stand on his own. She hugged him hard and planted a kiss on his head.
One to grow on, she thought, and she thought that she might break, not be able to do it after all.
"Good night," Laurel said instead.
After she closed her son's door, she padded to Bassam's bedroom door. She resisted the strong urge to knock, and instead, she let herself in. He was bare-chested, but he still wore his trousers, and he smiled to see her as she shut the door behind her.
"Do you...do you want me here tonight?" she asked, unaccountably shy.
"Of course I do," Bassam replied swiftly. "I always do."
The words he had almost spoken the night before hung between them. A part of Laurel wanted to run away from them, but instead, she closed the distance between her and Bassam. He smelled perfect to her as always as she buried her face in his chest, her arms looped around his waist. Perhaps if she just clung to him, everything would be all right. Everything would be fine, and she would be a different person. She would be someone who didn't have to run, who could stay and see where this life was going, with this gorgeous man and her beautiful son.
He sighed softly as he gathered her into his arms. He was perfectly warm, perfectly safe.
"Sometimes, it feels as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders," he murmured. "Please, tell me what you want. I would move the world to get it for you."
The truth trembled on the edge of her tongue...her confession, a secret that was nearly as old as Ben was. It was too heavy to swallow, but somehow she did it again, and when she looked up at Bassam, it was safe inside her once more.
"I want you," she murmured. "I want you so. Please...please take me?"
For a moment, she saw the hesitation in his eyes. He knew there was something else, something she was trying to blot away, but then she pressed her lithe body against him, and he could no more resist the fire they created together than he could stop a river in its path.
He leaned down to kiss her, and there was the hunger there that had always made her shiver. Bassam's tongue swept into her mouth, past her waiting lips, plundering her as if she was perfectly his. It was a gesture pulled back from savagery only by the fact that she knew he cared for her.
There was a darkness there as well, and she could feel that darkness when he threaded his fingers through her hair and tightened them into a fist. He held her still as he kissed her precisely how she liked, more like a storm than a man. She held her hands flat against his chest, not pushing away, but feeling the strength that ran through his body. There was something primal about the way he held her, as if all that mattered in the world was slaking the needs of their bodies.
"I want you," he growled, breaking their kiss for just a moment. "Do you have any idea how much I want you?"
"Show me," she whispered, and with half a laugh, he swept her up in his arms and then dropped her on the bed. His power and speed could still leave her breathless, and then he was stripping down to the skin. Naked he was as perfect as some pagan god, and she couldn't keep her eyes from the narrow taper of his hips, the lithe muscles of his body, and the dark member that jutted out in front of him, speaking his need more clearly than words ever could.
She reached for her own clothing, but he stopped her. In a moment, Bassam was nearly on top of her, and he reached for two fistfuls of her shirt. The fabric came apart as if it was paper, leaving her only in her bra and panties. The sensation of being suddenly so bared was incredibly intoxicating, and that was before he reached for her panties, giving them the same treatment.
Her bra she removed herself, but then they were naked, hot skin pressing against hot skin, hands and mouths reaching for whatever they could reach.
"Perfect, perfect woman," he growled. "I cannot get enough of you, I will never get enough of you."
Suddenly, he pinned her to the bed with one hand while his mouth searched for the perfect spot at the base of her neck. As she moaned and writhed underneath him, he placed a single, perfect love bite there, sucking hard and grinding his teeth delicately at her soft flesh. When he pulled back, her hand flew up to touch the tender flesh, which felt hotter than the rest of her skin.
"You marked me," she said, her voice hushed, and he looked down at her, a sharp grin on his face.
"You wanted to be taken," he replied. "This is what that is like."
She couldn't stop herself from whimpering at his words, because yes, this was what she craved. She wanted to stop thinking, to let everything go for just a few hours. That was all she wanted, and Bassam was the one to give it to her.
He stretched on top of her, carrying most of his weight on his elbows, and for several long moments, he simply kept her pinned while he kissed her. There was something insolently slow about his kisses, as if he were a lord exploring property that belonged to him. She submitted to this as long as she could, but then when she felt as if her body would burst with sensation, her hand snaked down between them. She found his cock, a smooth, hard column of silk over steel, and when she squeezed, slowly and with care, he growled.
"Insolent, impatient little thing, aren't you?" he murmured in her ear. "Seems like you need to be restrained."
She barely had time to register what he was saying before he pulled off of her to grab a pillow. When he had it positioned where he wanted it, Bassam grabbed her as if she was no heavier than the pillow herself and pushed her over it, her rear in the air. She felt absurdly helpless and vulnerable in this position, and that was before he came to kneel behind her.
"Such a gorgeous offering, just for me," Bassam crooned, and she felt him stroking her moist entrance with a single finger. Before she could stop herself, she whimpered, pressing her hips back against him. He murmured with approval at her motion and slid another finger inside her. It took her a moment to realize that she was riding his fingers of her own accord, but she was so far gone that she could not even be embarrassed by it.
“I want you, I want you, I want you,” Laurel chanted under her breath, desperate to find whatever magical thing it was that would make Bassam cave, that would get him to give them both what they needed.
“God, I can't tell you how much I need you,” he said, and if there was something more than physical desire there, neither of them paused to think about it. Abruptly, he finished playing with her, and he knelt behind her, his hands on her round hips.
He entered her with one long thrust, and for a moment, it was so perfect that they simply stayed still. It was enough to feel him inside her, to be so connected with him that she thought she could feel his pulse through her own skin. All she could do was dig her fingers into the blankets underneath her, bracing herself and pressing back against him.
Then with a sound that bordered on the savage, he seized her hips and started to thrust deep inside her. His motions started slow, but then as the need rose up in both of them, they quickened, his hips snapping against hers.
“Do you want me?” he growled. “Do you need this?”
With every thrust, he was driving her closer and closer to the apex of her desire. In that moment, she wasn't sure she could have denied him anything.
“Yes, yes, yes, please,” she cried out, burrowing her face into the blankets so she wouldn't shout. “Please, yes, I need you, I love you Bassam...”
It was as if her words had unleashed something inside him. He pressed deep into her, his weight driving her forward. The speed and strength of his motions drove her to the very peak, and then after one twisting moment, she toppled over the edge.
Every muscle in her body stood out taut, and then she had to bury her face into the blankets underneath her so she didn't scream out her pleasure. She shook hard, not sure whether she was calling his name or even if she was saying real words. The electricity of their joining made her want to hang on to this moment as long as she could, but finally, finally, she collapsed into the mattress as Bassam thrust into her with a growl of satisfaction.
She could feel him spill deep within her, and something made her very still. This was the second time they had had sex without the benefit of a condom. The first time had been over a rush of pleasure, much like this one, but it finally triggered a realization that made her freeze.
No. There was no way.
She pushed the thought out of her head, because it was impossible. She was forty years old. It must be completely....
She whimpered a little as Bassam pulled out of her, and he was there, touching her gently and rolling her back flat on the bed.
“Sweetheart? Are you all right?”
Somehow, she found a smile for him, reaching up to gently touch his face. There was a deep scream inside her at the idea that she would never be able to do this again, that this would be the last time this kind of love would ever happen between them.
“I am,” she lied, and she thanked heaven for the fact that it was dim in the room. He could not see the grief around the edges of her smile. “Only perhaps we have overdone it. I'm feeling a little worn out...”
Bassam made a soft noise of displeasure, pulling her gently alongside him so she could rest against his muscular body. She was on the verge of falling asleep, but then he spoke again.
“Someday, I want you to tell me everything,” he said, his voice a bass rumble. “I want to hear everything that you think and feel and believe, and I want to know you as well as you will allow me to. Someday, there will be no secrets between us.”
It broke her heart that he was speaking about a day that would never come. She could see his vision for the two of them, and it was so beautiful that she could barely stand it. It made her want to cry and shout and scream at the unfairness of the world, but at the end of the day, she was the one who had authored this mess. She was the one who had harbored such terrible things and then allowed them to burst into the world.
Laurel knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the one to blame for the misery and the darkness that would settle over all of this if she wasn't careful, and that was why she had to leave.
She felt Bassam sigh when she did not respond. He kissed her tenderly on the crown of her head, making her catch her breath.
“Perhaps someday,” he said, and she knew that her heart was never going to recover from this.
Somehow, Laurel actually managed to get some sleep. She was lulled by the sweet heat of Bassam's body next to hers and the strength of his arm wrapped around her tightly. Surrounded by his strength, his scent and the sheer presence that he wore like a cloak, she felt the safest she had ever been in her entire life.
Her dreams were strange and difficult to remember when she finally woke up, the dark night finally beginning to turn into a beautiful Shajae morning. Instead of trying to go back to sleep, Laurel lingered for only a moment in bed with her lover, but then pushed herself away. She wasn't sure how many moments she spent looking down at him, seeing the stronger light come through the window to kiss his sensual fingers. It was only when he started to stir, his hand reaching out to where she used to be, that she quickly took her leave.
Just as the door closed behind her, she heard him murmuring her name, and Laurel closed her eyes. If she hesitated for even a moment, she might falter and fall back. She might let this all come tumbling down, and she couldn't do that, not to the people she loved most.