In Too Deep_ Husband Material & the Sheikh's Bargained Bride - Brenda Jackson [47]
Five
Adham swung the mallet with such force he catapulted the ball off the field, sending mud and grass exploding in the air.
How dare she.
Acting the neglected wife. Taking him to task about not fulfilling his marital duties. As if she’d ever wanted more from him than his wealth and status.
But he knew otherwise.
It had all been a tightly woven plot between her and her father. It was why he couldn’t bring himself to touch her again, even though the lust he’d felt from the moment he’d laid eyes on her was intensifying, was corroding his restraint. And damn her, every time he saw her, the wholesomeness of her beauty, which needed no enhancements, overrode his senses. He didn’t even have to see her. He only had to close his eyes to see her stunning honey-tan skin, to feel it beneath his hands, his lips, to imagine the waterfall of glossy mahogany hair sifting between his itching fingers, to remember her mesmerizing chocolate eyes gleaming with passion and her flushed lips trembling with pleasure. He woke up in a cold sweat every night, aching, remembering how her voluptuous body had exuded sensuality out of every pore, a sensuality he’d once thought unconscious. How she had wrapped around him, writhed beneath him. It was almost impossible not to storm her bedroom every night and lose himself inside her again.
Just before he’d met her, he’d been about to tell his father that he’d never take a wife by command like that. Then she’d walked into her father’s hospital room and into his life, and suddenly the idea of marriage was no longer abhorrent to him, becoming all he could think of. The more he’d seen of her, the more he’d become convinced the fates had conspired to bring him his bride, the one woman he could contemplate having children with.
Then he’d taken her. And if he’d had any uncertainties or hesitations about her, her honest and limitless passion, the unprecedented intimacy he’d experienced with her, the unimaginable pleasure, what she’d so explicitly shown and told him had been reciprocated in full, had solidified his resolve, sealed his fate.
The next day, while Sabrina slept in his bed, he’d gone to Thomas Grant, to ask him for her hand in marriage. But the man had spoken first. And Adham had realized.
Grant had targeted him as the best groom for his daughter and the surest way out of his debts. And he’d set Sabrina on him. All her artlessness, her eagerness for his company, her hunger for him had been an undetectable act. And it had worked. Spectacularly.
But Grant had grown desperate in his illness. He’d thought he could no longer afford to let things develop at their own pace, to maintain the illusion of spontaneity. So he’d exposed their plan, laying it out in distasteful terms of give and take.
The wretched man must have been in worse shape than anyone had realized, or else he’d seriously underestimated his daughter’s seductive powers. He’d asked for far less than what Adham had been resolved to offer when he’d thought he was pursuing a marriage built on mutual desire.
Adham had been so enraged, his first reaction was to snatch everything from father and daughter, leaving them with neither land nor deal. But pity for Grant’s desperation had won. Not to mention lust for Sabrina. Even though he’d hated himself for it, he could think of nothing but repeating that night of delirium—and that even more addicting morning after.
Then Grant had died, and Sabrina had been broken up over his death. And although he’d discovered her deception and manipulation, he had recognized her anguish as real. He couldn’t have assuaged his lust for her, no matter how it had gnawed at him. Not even when she’d let him know he could. Especially when she had. He’d been disgusted—with her, with himself—and conflicted about her bereavement, enraged at his decisions, his desires. He’d thought it safest to stay away from her until he regained his sanity and decided how to