“Cure you?” he spat.

She winced at his sharpness, nodded. “Something like that. Seemed he counted on me being so ashamed of my shortcomings, I would let him steer me whichever way he wanted. But you know me. I’m incapable of hiding what I feel. So I said, if I couldn’t enjoy it, didn’t want it, why bother? He tried to humor me for a long time, but his act started to crack. Seemed that when all the work he’d done wasn’t paying off, his endurance started to give. Then one day I blurted out, why not just be friends? And he erupted. Just like a volcano. Kept spewing for an hour, honest. Who would want to be my friend? He’d only endured my inexperience and my odious character for the money, which he thought he deserved, not a brainless idiot like me. I was amazed. I’d aggravated him to the point where he threw away half a billion dollars rather than put up with me. Then, when said money was lost, he even called me, gloating over his lucky escape and over the fact that I was now not only a cold bitch but a penniless one, too.”

Shehab glowered at his hands, feeling his every nerve charging up with murderous intent.

But was he any better than this man? Hadn’t he done the same to her? Manipulated her to an end unconnected with her? As she’d felt from day one?

No. His cause was just. And he’d started his own manipulation under false impressions about her, the worst. And he’d pleasured her, would die before he hurt her in any way. While that man, who’d deceived her, scarred her for life…

He rose, stood on the bed, looked down on her. “I’ll find that scum. Then I’ll send him on a one-way trip to hell.”

She blinked in alarm, then gave a nervous giggle. “Oh, Shehab, he’s not worth one drop of this magnificent machismo. Save it all for me.”

“You’re not buying him mercy like you did the paparazzi,” he bellowed. “The man who made you think being hounded by them was preferable to being exposed to his species, the man who convinced you you had something lacking, when you only have extra endowments, the least of which was the sense to feel repulsed by his dirty soul’s touch, when there’s no woman who has more sensitivity, or is more capable of being ignited and pleasured than you. He robbed you of your innocence when he didn’t even want it, when he reviled that incomparable gift. And he’ll pay, slowly, for all his crimes.”

She gave a huge sob, launched herself at his legs, hugged them. “Oh, Shehab, if you want to avenge me, you just did. More fully and fantastically than you can ever know. Just forget him, or you’ll make me scared to tell you anything from now on.”

He looked down on her, grappling with aggression, with the raging emotions at seeing her like this, at his feet, the cover pooling on her thighs and exposing the sweep of her graceful back and flared hips in a pose out of his deepest erotic fantasies. He felt his turmoil leveling as his aching eyes glided over the luxurious waterfall of her sun-kissed hair cascading between his rigid thighs, her lips almost buried in his erection.

He took all he could then snapped, sank to his knees before her, hauled her to him, mingled her with his limbs and lips.

He came up from the endless kiss, looked down at her as she lay in his arms, her eyes drugged, her trembling hands pushing his abaya off, exposing him to her hunger.

She started talking again as she pushed him to his back, to start the exploration she’d claimed a right to, one of the events he now lived for. “But this guy was right about one thing. I did experiment with physical intimacy after him…” He stiffened, and she soothed him. “I didn’t go beyond kisses, with good-looking men I found nice enough, agendas and all. I’d decided to go in with my eyes open and have fun. I thought if the kisses went well, I’d go further.” He started to growl and she dipped her tongue into his navel. “I hated the first’s scent and taste. The second’s voice, his breathing, the noises he made in his throat made me want to slap him. With the third, when I found myself thinking when I can get this over with so I can go back to that donut I was eating, I knew Dan was right about me being unable to enjoy physical intimacy.” He came off the bed when she buried her face in his erection, inhaled him, moaning long in enjoyment. Then she raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes. And her eyes. Ya Ullah, her eyes.

This was Farah, letting him see into the very depths of her heart and soul. Then she told him.

“But I realize now I can’t feel physical passion without an emotional one. And that’s why you’ll always be the only one to ignite and pleasure me. Because I love you.”

Everything ceased. To matter. Ceased, period.

Because I love you.

He stared at her, paralyzed under the onslaught of every contradictory emotion in existence. She loved him. Loved him.

And she was taking his hand, her trembling lips burying in its spasticity, her eyes glittering with so many emotions, he felt inundated. “I loved you at first sight, and I’ve been falling deeper every moment since.”

Was this how necrosis struck in someone’s heart? With emotions that actually generated damaging heat, like a laser? Could he have been blessed by so much, the love of this incomparable woman, her total trust…when he deserved none of it?

But no. He deserved it. For she’d seen through the thin layer of manipulation to the emotions that had blossomed toward her unchecked, unstoppable from the first, every spark of it true. That was what had made her fall in love with him. She’d been reciprocating his feelings.

And though he felt he deserved to lose her in atonement for how he’d led her on, how he still couldn’t confess everything, since it wasn’t only his life or fate in the balance, he had to reach out and take all she offered. And she was offering her all. And he needed it all to live, to exist. He would throw his own need at her feet.

He slipped off the bed, pulled her to its edge until he had her sitting up, then kneeled between her legs. He wanted to pour it all out. But he couldn’t. He was overcome. She had overcome him. He lowered his head to her knee, reiterating her name raggedly, as if in deepest prayer.

She cried out, tried to pull his head up, her fingers trembling in his hair. He put his on top of hers, pressed them to his head, showed her he wanted to be cradled in her lap, needed to be held to her heart, surrounded by her generosity, blessed by her love.

And his magnanimous Farah complied, hugging and hugging him, spilling hot love and tears all over his face and hands.

“Please-” she hiccupped “-don’t make me sorry I told you. Don’t feel as if you owe me anything. I know how honorable you are, and I’d die if I made you feel bad, or compromised. I knew what I was doing, and I never expected anything in return. I’m just happy I’m normal, that I found you, a man who deserves my total trust and love. When it ends, I’ll go on knowing I experienced true fulfillment. That for once I had what my name proclaims me to be. Joy. You gave me that, and I’ll always cherish the memory of our times together.”

He stared up at her, struck at the horror of what he’d inflicted on her. She might have subconsciously felt his emotions, but she’d been unable to believe they existed. And she still hadn’t protected herself at all. She’d given him all of herself, trusted him, expecting nothing, believing she’d have nothing of him in return, convincing herself the morsels he’d given her so far would be enough.

He surged, clamped his lips over hers, unable to bear one more word. “B’Ellahi, ya habibati, er’ruhmuh…have mercy, my love. Ahebbek, ya farah hayati, aabodek, I love you, joy of my life, I worship you. It’s I who loved you on sight, who wanted everything to be perfection for you, wanted to give you time to know me as I prayed you might come to feel a fraction of what I feel for you. You own my heart, by right of being the first to ever wake it. You own my body and life, by right of offering yours for them. And now you own my soul by right of giving me your essence in all selflessness. But you say you don’t expect anything of me. Does this mean you don’t want it? Won’t you take it, when I offer it? Everything that I am? Will you not make me complete, give life reason and texture and purpose? Will you not marry me?”

Farah had gone still with his first words, her eyes, those emerald heavens like pools in an earthquake, their waters welling, shaking in place. When his heart emptied of blood and wouldn’t fill again, silencing him, she gasped as if she’d been underwater, was coming up for a life-saving breath. Then the pools of her eyes turned to rivers, and her face shuddered out of control with jubilation and disbelief. And finally, belief.

And he was in her arms, crushed to her breasts, surrounded by her delirium and joy and the absoluteness of her love.

And she sobbed it all to him, the one thing he craved to hear, her happiness as she consented. “Yes, yes…yes, yes, I’ll be your wife, I’ll be with you always…” She withdrew, her eyes wide with wonder and love so fierce it was painful. “Oh, God, you really love me.”

He reared up, spread her on the bed, came over her. “Ana aashagek-I…I…there’s no word for it. Esh’g is a concept that has no equivalent in English, more selfless than love, carnal as fiercest lust and as reverent as worship and as impossible to shake. I always thought it part of the innate hyperbole of my culture. But it isn’t, it’s the one thing that approximates how I feel for you, about you, with you. Aasahagek. Enti mashoogati. What I feel, and what you are to me.”

She melted beneath him, nerveless, overwhelmed. “It’s too much…oh, darling, too much…”

He consumed her gasps, drained her tears. “Nothing will ever be too much for you, everything I have or do or feel or am is yours. Enti rohi, hayati…my soul and life…”