“Then what is it you want from me?”
“Respect. Being treated like more than a whore.”
“I don’t treat you like that.”
“You do. You did last night. Like a woman who was there just to satisfy you.”
“I gave you pleasure,” he said, “more than I did the night that…”
“You know what? I preferred the night you came first,” she said, the color in her cheeks deepening.
“How?”
“Last night was balm for your ego, Alik. You can’t pretend otherwise. So you proved you were a stud and you…” Her eyes drifted to Leena. “I know she doesn’t know what we’re talking about but I can’t help thinking that this could be a scarring early life experience for her.”
Alik set his daughter down in her crib and put a shape sorter in front of her, and even though she shot him an indignant look, she didn’t scream. “Outside.”
He and Jada walked out of the nursery and he closed the door behind them. “You may finish telling me why I left you sexually unsatisfied now,” he said dryly.
“You were proving something about yourself,” she said. “You weren’t giving to me. That other time? You just lost control. And I think I liked that better. It was honest, at least. I’m tired of…I’m tired of not having honesty.”
“When have I not given you honesty?”
“You did at first, but now…now you’re protecting yourself and I’ve had that relationship, Alik. Where everyone is hiding what they want so they don’t hurt anyone, so they don’t hurt themselves.”
“I thought you didn’t want love.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why bother to make comparisons?”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t. But I would rather have fast, than pleasure brought from your calculated control.”
“That makes no sense, Jada. Sex is about pleasure.”
“That’s not all it’s about. Didn’t you hear what I said to you last night?”
Yes. He’d heard it. That she would have been better off alone than with him when it came to getting pleasure. He hadn’t liked it at all. The rejection had cut through his compromised defenses with stunning accuracy.
“Hard to miss.”
“Sex is about intimacy with someone. About connection. It’s not about an adrenaline rush, or feeling good for a few minutes. Until you realize that you’re missing out on a huge piece of what sex is. You’re missing out on making love.”
“And you’re an expert?”
“Alik, I’ve had the best sex with you. No question. In terms of pleasure, in terms of excitement…I didn’t have any clue it could be so good. But I’m lonely after. And I’m cold. And I’ve had quite enough of that.”
He didn’t like hearing that. That he hurt her. That he was spreading the chill inside of his soul to her. She was so warm, so beautiful and full of light. Thinking he might be damaging that…the pain of it stabbed right through the walls he kept around his heart.
“I am sorry for that,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”
He’d been too busy trying to protect himself to worry about what pushing Jada away might do to her, because until he’d listened to her talk just now, he hadn’t truly understood how sex could be connected to emotion. To the way you felt about yourself.
That wasn’t entirely true. He’d been on a journey to understanding it since the first time he’d touched her. Because when they were done, the feel of her lingered. Her smell haunted him, feminine and exotic, jasmine and spice and pure enticement.
He had never been able simply to have her and put her out of his mind. He’d never been able to look at her and then put her out of his mind. Like her spice lingered on his skin, Jada always lingered in his thoughts.
“I know, Alik. You never intend to hurt anyone. You just don’t always understand how other people…feel.”
He didn’t. Because he didn’t feel in the same way other people did. And he hated that in himself now. Hated it because it had caused Jada pain. Because it might cause Leena pain later.
“I always thought if I smiled enough,” he said, “then I would start to feel happy. If I did enough things that made me feel good, it might turn into something more. It doesn’t work that way. It never made me feel a damn thing. But Leena does. You do.”
“Me?” she asked, her cheeks paled.
“Yes. I am sorry I hurt you. Knowing that I did…it hurts me.”
“Empathy.”
He nodded slowly. “New for me. I am pleased to have found it. I owe you, for the way I treated you last