sexual energy and frustration onto him, used his body to satisfy hers. Like she was no better than he was.
She shook her head, her throat closing up, her heart pounding so hard she felt dizzy. “That’s not right, Alik. It is intimate. It’s important.”
“How?”
“You were inside me!” she shouted, not caring if the au pair, who was installed in a room next to Leena’s, could hear. Not caring if people on the street below heard. Not caring about anything but venting her anger, her frustration. Her confusion. The rage that was only directed at herself. “How is that not intimate?”
He looked frozen then, like a block of stone, his features hard, uncompromising. He was silent for a while, and when he spoke, it was like all of the color had drained from his voice. All of the anger, the frustration that had been boiling over a moment before was gone. Leaving in its place an icy calm that chilled her to her bones.
“I am not accustomed to hysterics from a woman I’ve just treated to so much pleasure. I would have expected a thank-you.” He was using that calm, smooth voice that she was sure had seduced countless women, but beneath the words, she could hear the total detachment. Could hear them ring false.
“Why do you have to do that?” she asked.
“What?” He took a step back and leaned against the door frame.
“Why do you have to stop being angry. Stop being…anything. Why can’t you just scream at me if you’re mad?”
“Why can’t you just admit that you want me?”
Her heart rate picked up. Why couldn’t she admit it? Because it felt like a betrayal. No, not of Sunil. He was gone. She knew that, she understood it and accepted it. It felt like a betrayal of who she was. Of what she’d always believed in.
Of who she’d always thought she was. And in that, was a betrayal of her memories.
She didn’t know the woman who had grabbed onto Alik’s jacket, the woman who had devoured his lips like she was starving. The woman who had taken him in her hand and squeezed tight, who had urged him to take her, hard, fast and without regard to the people in the auditorium.
No, she didn’t know that woman at all, and she didn’t have time, or the inclination to get to know her. She had a child to raise, a dysfunctional man to try and fix so he could be a father to his daughter, and introducing her own issues into it would just mess everything up.
More than it already was.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” she said. “This doesn’t matter. Leena matters.”
“When we touch, we burn, princess. This…this isn’t normal…you have to know that.” His voice was low, husky. Genuine.
“I know it’s not normal,” she whispered. “This is as far from my normal as possible. Look at what happened tonight. I don’t…I don’t do this.”
“You know all about sex, Jada, I can see that you do. So why does this scare you so much?”
“Because I know about sex in a committed relationship. I know about sex in bed. The wildest I’ve gotten is leaving the lights on. I…I never even wanted more than that. How can I want this?” The admission was torn from her and it left her feeling raw. Exposed. This whole evening had. As if a veil had been ripped away and shown the world pieces of herself she hadn’t even known were there. The deepest, most secret parts of her brought to the surface for everyone to see.
“If there’s one thing I know about, it’s satisfying desires. If you want it, take it, Jada. There’s nothing wrong with chasing a little fulfillment.”
He was offering her forbidden fruit. And she wanted to take it. “Alik, it’s not fulfillment. That’s what you don’t understand. And we can’t…we can’t bring this into our arrangement. I’m not like you…I can’t stay detached. I can’t see it as just sex, because there is no such thing as just sex to me. It means more to me than that and…I’m not going to get it from you.”
He shook his head. “I won’t lie to you.”
“I know. I appreciate it.”
He backed out the door, his hand on the knob. “I will see you tomorrow.” He closed the door, leaving her to herself.
She sat on the edge of the bed and let the dress fall to the floor. She just felt numb. No, not entirely numb. She wished she could feel numb. Her body was still