“Where did you find this?”
“In the alcove. Behind the curtain.” She watched his expression carefully. “It was damaged so I mended it.”
His fingers traced the repairs, finding the places where she’d patched the frayed edges, the tear, and the deteriorating embroidery. His touch was reverent, almost pained.
“You shouldn’t have?—”
“Seen it? Fixed it? What, exactly, shouldn’t I have done?”
“Any of it.” But his voice was hollow and defeated. “This was supposed to be destroyed.”
“But you kept it.”
“I couldn’t—” He stopped. Started again. “It was the only thing I brought with me. When I left. I meant to burn it but I couldn’t.”
“Left from where?”
Silence. Long and heavy.
“Who are you, Tarek? Really?”
His eyes met hers, and in their depths she saw something raw and vulnerable. All his carefully constructed walls were beginning to crack.
“That name has no power anymore.”
“Names have power,” she quoted back at him. “You said that yourself. What’s your true name?”
He set the tapestry down with exaggerated care. His hands were shaking.
“My true name is buried along with the male I used to be.”
“But he’s not really buried, is he?” She stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. “He’s still in there. He’s still part of you. I see him every time you help Dani or build something beautiful. Every time you look at me like you’re starving and I’m a feast you’ve forbidden yourself to taste.”
A rough sound escaped him, not quite a laugh.
“You are testing my restraint.”
“Am I?”
She rose on her toes and kissed him.
This time, there was no hesitation. His arms came around her immediately, crushing her against his chest, one hand fisting in her hair to tilt her head back. He kissed her like a man drowning—desperate, consuming, utterly without control.
And gods, it was everything.
She melted into him. Her hands found his shoulders, his neck, the silky fall of his hair. She opened her mouth to him and he made a sound that was almost a growl, deepening the kiss until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
The world narrowed to sensation. The hard planes of his body against hers. The scrape of his teeth against her lower lip. The heat of his hands sliding beneath her shirt, finding bare skin and making her gasp against his mouth.
He walked her backwards until she hit the wall, pinning her there with his weight. One thigh pressed between hers, and she whimpered as she arched into it instinctively, chasing friction, chasing more.
“Jessa.” Her name was a harsh rasp. “I cannot… If you keep making those sounds…”
“What sounds?”
She rolled her hips against him with another needy whimper.
“Like that.” His forehead dropped to hers. His breath came in harsh gasps. “That sound. As if you want?—”
