21. Chapter 21 Love…At Last
GAbrIEL
We are scheduled to return to Nurayn tomorrow, but my precious jewel has not confirmed she will go through with the wedding.
She has not denied her willingness to marry me again either, but neither has she told me she loved me again. Not since the revelation of the terms of that damned contract.
Not even when I have wrung every ounce of pleasure her body has to give. She tells me she wants me. She says she needs me. She does not say the all-important words, that she loves me.
And there is always a measure of reservation in her eyes when I tell her that I love her.
I walk into my bedroom, with no intention of sleeping there. I have not slept in my own bed since arriving here from Nurayn nearly two weeks ago. Sleeping without my little jewel in my arms is not something I am willing to do again.
I need the affirmation that at least on the physical level, she still considers herself mine.
The sight that greets me upon entrance to my bedroom stops me in my tracks. Even my breath stills in my chest for a long moment.
Her hair unbound and brushed to a sheen, she stands beside my bed in the pink dress.
The dress she agreed was a symbol between us of her trust in me.
Her feet are bare. Like the first time she wore it. When she trusted me with the gift of her virginity.
Throat dry, heart pounding, and my breathing shallow, I stumble toward her, my movements jerky and uncoordinated. "Jawharat qalbi."
I have no other words in this moment.
"I have a present for you." She lifts a decorative oblong box like those she was so fascinated with in the souk.
I bought several carved with a desert rose motif that day, when she was otherwise engaged looking at the silk merchant's stall.
There is one for each piece of jewelry in her shabka, including her engagement ring.
I gave her that box the day after she agreed to be my wife as a memento of our promise.
She will receive the matching necklace, earrings, anklet and stacked bracelets the day before signing the formal wedding contract as is tradition.
Now she offers me a similar hand carved box and whatever is inside, even if it cost ten times the millions I spent on her shabka, cannot begin to compare to the gift of her wearing the pink dress.
Ignoring the box, I grasp her shoulders. "You are wearing it."
"For you." She smiles tremulously at me, her eyes filled with the light of love I feared I would never see again and only now realize has always been there, even when it was dimmed by her hurt.
I have to clear my throat before I can ask, "Because you trust me?"
She nods.
"You accept that I love you?" I have to know if that is what this means.
"Yes." Her beautiful aquamarine eyes shine with moisture. "Even if you were too emotionally dense to see it, I think you fell in love at first sight just like I did."
I cannot take exception to her emotionally dense judgment. I was. "In my defense, I believed love at first sight was a myth."
She nods gravely. "A fairytale that only happens in romance books."
"I believe I need to read some of these novels you enjoy so much."
"If you do, don't expect reciprocity. I'm not going to start perusing the business journals and reports on world politics."
"Good. There is only room for one boring partner in this relationship."
She laughs softly, the sound pouring water onto my heart bringing forth the bloom of eternal love. "You are anything but boring, my sheikh."
"Let me show you how exciting I can be." In the bed that is meant to be ours.
The bed I never want to sleep in again without her body beside mine. I make love to her tenderly, worshipping her beautiful curves, reveling in the love in her touch.
Afterward, she climbs unabashedly naked from the bed and bends down to retrieve something from the floor, giving me an entirely too inspiring view of her heart shaped ass and slick pussy from the back.
When she straightens and turns, she is once again holding the box with my present in it.
Her hair a glorious tangle from our lovemaking, a new love bite rising on the slope of her breast, our combined cum glistening at the juncture of her thighs, she offers it to me.
Grasping her wrist, I pull her back into the bed and my arms before I accept the box. But I do not open it.
Instead, I lock our gazes and let her see the sincerity and deep, abiding love in mine. "The gift of greatest value you will ever give me is yourself."
"I think you might change your mind when you see what's inside," she says with a soft smile.
I shake my head, but open the box. Inside there is a white plastic wand with a tiny window on one side and two blue lines. I have never had occasion to see one before, but although I might have taken longer than I should have to recognize my feelings for my beloved, I am not a dense man.
It's a pregnancy test.
And I have to assume that if she brought it all the way from Santa Fe with her, it's not negative.
Joy unlike anything I have ever known wells inside me.
Pushing her onto her back, I say with ultimate satisfaction, "I have you now, jawharat qalbi. We are indelibly bound together."
"I told you it would be an even better present." She grins and then grows serious. "I knew the baby bound us, whether we got married, or not, but I'm glad the ties that hold us together are soaked in love and not obligation."
"Yes. But you are wrong that the baby is a greater gift. He or she is an extension of the gift of yourself, only making that gift more precious."
She cries and blames it on pregnancy hormones.
I make love to her again and blame it on love.
A love that will last longer than the stars grace the heavens.
Because my very precious jewel has allowed me to claim her heart.