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She looked up at him and thought how lucky she was to be here even if just for a little while. ‘I’ve done everything,’ Layla said. ‘I have danced…’
‘You can really dance!’ He nodded approvingly.
‘I have had a romantic dinner with a very romantic man. We have held hands, touched knees, kissed…’ she looked over at him. ‘We have exceeded my list with orgasms.’
‘Good.’
‘I have had flowers, a whole day in bed…’ She counted things off. ‘A day out sightseeing.’
‘What was your best bit?’
‘Apart from the orgasms? Then your verdict party,’ she answered immediately. ‘Have you enjoyed it, Mikael?’
‘Very much?’
‘What was your best part?’
He paused as he tried to think, but he could not choose a best part, from her biting her teeth at him on the day they met, taking out that ruby—there was not one part that he could list above another.
‘It’s all been good,’ he settled for saying. ‘Though I do feel bad about our row.’
‘Mikael!’ she scolded. ‘I loved our row. If it wasn’t for our row you wouldn’t have had to calm me down and agree to bring me to your home…’
Mikael actually laughed. ‘Were you manipulating me then?’ He was impressed rather than annoyed. ‘Do you ever stop?’
‘Never.’ She grinned. ‘Every word I say is with the intent to get what I want…’ She looked over to Mikael, still smiling and looking a whole lot happier than he had on the day they’d first met. ‘Can we have sex like the actors do?’
That was the wish she had made.
And he would make it come true.
‘Yes,’ he said, and decided that for however long they had left he would simply let himself love her.
‘You could film it with your phone and then we could watch it together afterwards,’ Layla said as he led her down to the cabin.
‘No!’
‘It would be fun.’
‘Not a chance,’ Mikael said, and he meant it even though he was laughing.
He would miss her so.
‘You are so good to me,’ she said as she sat on the edge of the bath and watched him shave just so that he wouldn’t mark her.
‘Why wouldn’t I be good to you, Layla?’
‘All the people who think you are a savage bastard…’ she said. ‘They don’t know you.’
‘I don’t want them to,’ Mikael said.
He’d liked living under his lonely rock—a career that consumed nearly all of him and pretty meaningless sex had been enough till now. But tonight, for one last night, he stepped out into the sun.
‘You remember what I said back at the car?’ she said as he dried his face. ‘That even if I beg…?’
‘Layla, you don’t have to worry about that,’ he said. ‘Right—where do you want me?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Am I coming home from work, or are we already in bed? What was happening in the episode of that TV programme you saw?’
She started laughing—on a night she’d thought she never would. It was a side to Mikael she had never seen.
They were drunk on lust and enjoying it.
‘We’re on a boat and sailing for ever,’ Layla said as he took her face in his hands. ‘Tomorrow never comes.’
They had shared many, many kisses, but she had never tasted him so tender as his hand traced her spine and then unhooked her bra. She felt her breasts naked against his skin; it made her ache from the inside.
It was Layla who went for his belt but then changed her mind. Her hand held him through the fabric, growing him, holding him, stroking him, till Mikael pushed her hand away and led her to the bed.
Layla lay there, watching him undress, and she slid under the sheet as a naked Mikael joined her.
He kissed not her mouth but the breasts he had never tasted, and Layla relished the gentle licks and soft sucks, looking down at his lips as he blew her nipple to a painful peak and then kissed down her stomach and then back upwards.
‘Take them off,’ she said as his fingers stroked her through her bikini bottom; she wanted to feel him there.
But Mikael would not.
And so she did.
She undid the sides as he kissed her, and they wrestled just a little with each other, and with self-control—and then Layla’s hand went where it must not, and she held him with no barrier this time.
Mikael rose to his knees and Layla looked at him.
‘Just a little way?’
‘Not a chance,’ he said, and his hand was over hers this time as she stroked him, feeling the soft, soft skin that encased his manhood, moving him closer to where she wanted him. And it was cruel, for they deserved more.
Mikael moved down the bed and kissed along her thighs, over and over, till she pleaded with him to taste her there again.
This time he pulled her legs so that they lay over his shoulders and down his back, and she felt every breath from him; the flicks of his tongue were intense and they made her sob with both need and frustration, for she wanted him inside.
He struggled to stay gentle, not to bury his face in her mound and suckle and nip and probe her till she was ready—for that was where his mind was, and so too was Layla’s.
‘I don’t care, Mikael…’ she said as her fingers tried to pull his head from her, as she tried to move her legs so he would slide up the bed and take her. ‘I don’t care what happens when I get back…’
But his arms held her legs down, and his tongue was more rapid and probing, and he took her from the edge of potential disaster to temporary oblivion. Yet even as she came to his mouth, even as her body rode the high, somehow it was not enough.
She still wanted more.
‘I want to taste you,’ she said, and she smiled as she felt him moan with want between her legs.
‘You said…’
‘I can do this,’ she said—for she would make her own rules. She would never do it with another…she would marry Mikael the only way she could: with her mouth. ‘Please, Mikael, I will only ever do this with you.’
He lay on his back and Layla lay astride him, lowering her head to the base of him and slowly kissing the long way up.
‘My hair…’
She lifted it and tied it into a knot.
‘That is better,’ Layla said. ‘Now I can concentrate.’
She kissed him with her eyes open—not just his lovely shaft but down to his balls, which she took one by one into her mouth and sucked gently, because every bit of this she wanted to remember for ever.
He tasted clean, and she was about to give thanks for all the showers he took, but the moan from him and the slight pressure on her head told Layla he might not appreciate a break for conversation.
She was as turned on as she had been when his mouth had been on her, and she felt one hand cupping her bottom as his other hand guided her just a little further down.
She ran her tongue around the top and then swallowed him a little way down, and then more, over and over, working him with her hand, somehow imagining that the hips that bucked in her mouth bucked between her legs.
Yes, she married him—for she would never be as intimate with another, would never moan and purr in pure pleasure.
She forgot her stride for a second, coming herself as he moved in her mouth, and just as it subsided Layla got the shock of her life as he swelled and started thrusting and she felt the first splash of Mikael.
He had meant to warn her. Instead he’d been taken back at the speed and strength of his orgasm.
He heard a small gasp from Layla—and even in the throes of his pleasure she made him smile. Kneeling up, holding her mouth closed with her cheeks bulging, she was the only woman in the world who could be about to spit and somehow not offend.
But instead she took a deep breath and swallowed.
‘Oh, Mikael!’ She was truly stunned for a moment, but then she smiled. ‘That was fantastic.’
‘It was.’
‘A little more practice and I think…’ Her voice faded.
They had almost run out of time.
‘Come here,’ he said, and brought her back to his arms for their last night on earth together.
Neither wanted the morning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#udf5bcffa-daff-5220-88df-914fbf2b1eb6)
MIKAEL DID NOT SLEEP.
All night he heard the buzzing of a helicopter and wondered if it was for them—or more likely an air search that had nothing to do with Layla.
As she started to stir he kissed her head and smelt her hair. It smelt of the ocean and their time had run out.
She woke but did not open her eyes, because she didn’t want it to be today.
‘Layla?’ He turned. ‘I know you’re awake.’ He watched her smile with her eyes closed and he smiled at her too. ‘Do you want breakfast?’
‘No, I feel too sick to eat.’
Her eyes were still closed and he saw just the tiniest glimmer of moisture at the edge of them. He did not want to make this harder for her, even if it was almost killing him.
‘Thank you for giving me a lovely last night,’ she said.
‘It was my pleasure.’
She opened her eyes and knew she wanted to open her eyes to him every morning; it felt as if this was the way the world should be for ever, with Mikael on the pillow beside her.
His eyes roamed her face and he took her hand. He had never wanted love and yet here it was now—and he was about to lose it.
‘Marry me?’
She heard the words and they made her chest hurt. They made her eyes sting and they made her heart soar—and yet it plummeted in the next instant at the absolute impossibility of any future for them, so she answered him in the way that must serve them best.
She laughed.
‘Layla…’ He would not be swayed. ‘I will sort it with your family. I will speak with your brother…’
‘Mikael, you would be bored without your cases.’
‘I mean marry me and live here,’ he said, and she sat up and hugged her knees to her chest.
‘Mikael, I live in a palace. As beautiful as your home is, do you really think I would want to give up my life?’
He said nothing.
‘Will you give up your life and live in Ishla?’
He took a breath. ‘If you let me speak with your family we can work out exactly what we want.’
‘You really think my father would entertain the idea?’ Again Layla laughed. ‘Of course not. And so it is time for me to return to my family. I told you that if you gave me one more night then I would return happy. Now I keep that promise to you.’
Mikael sat as she headed to the bathroom. There was no request for assistance this time; in fact she closed the door.
Layla stared at her reflection for a very long time, telling herself over and over that she could do this. Reminding herself that she was going back to a family whom she loved very much.
Except on the other side of the door was a man she loved in a different way; he was there in her heart, and she felt right now as if that heart was breaking.
She pulled on her silver dress and slippers and felt as if she was dressing for her own execution.
