Free Marriage Behind the Fa?ade by Lynn Raye Harris

words called up a wealth of erotic memories in her mind.
    “I’m certain we could think of a few more things to try,” he said.
    She shook her head. “It won’t work, Malik. You can’t talk me into going to bed with you.”
    “Who said anything about a bed?”
    A crash of thunder reverberated off the water and Sydney jumped. Malik caught her as she stumbled into him. He held her close, his heart thundering as fast as her own. His big body was so solid, so comforting. She felt like an ice cube dropped into warm water. She was thawing, melting, losing herself.
    It had always been so with him. He had only to touch her, and she responded.
    He shifted—and she felt the press of his erection against her body. Without conscious thought, she leaned into him. Malik sucked in a breath.
    “Careful, houri,” he growled in her ear. “Or you will find yourself in my bed before you know it.”
    She wanted to be there. Ached to be there. One more night with Malik, one more night feeling more alive than she’d ever felt in her life, more cherished …
    No. He did not cherish her. He never had.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, pushing away from him. He let her go without protest, his arms dropping to his sides.
    Her skin sizzled from the contact with him, her pulse throbbing—in her temples, between her legs.
    “I’m sure it would be fabulous, but I’d still regret it in the morning,” she told him. “It won’t change anything between us. And it would make the remaining time together even more difficult.”
    “So we cannot be, how do you say, friends with benefits?”
    A twinge of sadness curled through her. “We’ve never been friends. I think we skipped that part altogether.”
    Malik shoved a hand through his dark hair as he blew out a frustrated breath. “No, perhaps not.”
    Sydney bit the inside of her lip. That was not an admission she’d expected from him. “I feel like I know nothing about you.”
    “You know the most important things.”
    “How can you say that? I know nothing! Until tonight, I didn’t even know you liked Shakespeare.”
    “I went to university in England. Shakespeare was inevitable.”
    “See, I didn’t even know that much.”
    He spread his arms wide in frustration. “Then what do you wish to know? Ask me, and if I can, I will tell you.”
    Another peal of thunder sounded over the ocean. It was less violent now, less surprising. What did she want to know about Malik? Everything, and nothing. Everything because she knew nothing, and nothing because she didn’t want to open herself back up to the pain of caring for him in any way.
    But curiosity won out over restraint. “I’d like to know why you and your brother are so uncomfortable together.”
    He closed his eyes briefly. Pinned her with a hot glare. “Of course you would ask this. And I have no answer for you. We were close as children, but drifted apart later. Our lives were … formal.”
    “Formal?”
    “You lived in a house with your parents, yes?” When she nodded, he continued, “We had nannies, and we did not always live in the same house. Our mother was … nervous, let us say. Children were too much for her.”
    “Too much?” A knot was forming in the pit of her stomach as she imagined the Al Dhakir children growing up without their mother.
    She could see tension in the set of his shoulders, the thrust of his jaw.
    “We saw her, but we were to be on our best behavior when we did. She preferred socializing with her friends to children. I think it was not quite her fault, really. She was young when she and my father married, and the babies came right away. She didn’t know what to do with us, so she retreated behind the veil of wealth and privilege she was afforded.”
    “And your father?”
    He looked sad. “A good man. Very busy. And very formal. I think he had little time for my mother, and so she had little time for us.”
    Sydney thought of her own parents, of how much they loved one another and how happy her