Hira was stunned speechless by Marc's defiant declaration. Her proud, inflexible husband had to know that by acknowledging his love, he was giving her a weapon over him, and surely he'd never give such a weapon to a woman like he'd once believed her to be, a mercenary beauty like that bitch Lydia. He wasn't finished, either.
"I love your smile and, yes, I love your face. How could I not, when I adore the woman you are? I love the way you talk to the boys and let each of them feel as if he could win your hand if he were old enough. I love the way you're so generous with your body and your affection."
His voice was raw; painfully, powerfully intimate. "I love the way you try to love the bayou because I love it. I love you, and I've had it with trying to hide what I feel."
Powerful and passionate, it was her first true glimpse of the intensity of her husband's feelings. His love would be wild, an inferno that would demand everything from her.
Trembling, she raised her hand to his cheek and leaned close. "Marc, husband, I c-can't..." Her voice was an emotion-choked whisper.
"Hush. I know." There was something bleak in his gaze. He'd given her his heart with no expectation that she'd reciprocate. How much strength did that take for a man who'd never been loved? How much courage? How much love?
Her heart felt so big in her chest, Hira didn't know how it remained inside her body. "Did you know my father has never once told my mother that he needs her? Not once. Yet he relies on her for so many things."
"I need you more than you'll ever know." It was a rough acceptance, another glimpse into his proud heart.
This hunter of hers had far more depths than she would've believed when they'd married. Dropping her hand, she moved closer and began to unbutton his shirt. "What about when I'm old? When I have wrinkles? Or lines from bearing children?"
"I want to grow old with you. I want to put laugh lines on your face, and I want the birth of our children to change your body. Imagine a lifetime of change, cher. A lifetime of learning each other anew." His eyes were liquid silver but shadows still hovered in the background, remnants of the neglected child, the final pieces of the vulnerability he hid so well. "What's the fun in remaining the same?"
His shirt was open under her hands. She pushed it off his shoulders and to the floor. Her hands went to his belt. A big male hand stopped her.
"No, sweetheart. You don't have to...give me anything. My love's free. And it's for always."
It was his tenderness that shattered any remaining doubts she might have harbored. He sounded so very careful, so very worried that she might feel obliged to him, so very concerned about her, when he was the one who'd taken the risk of stripping his soul bare.
Swallowing, she raised her head and looked into those ghost-gray eyes. "Marc, husband, I once told you I could tell lies very well."
"I'd rather have honest affection than a dishonest avowal of love," he said, mistaking her meaning. There was an intensity in his gaze that challenged hen This man would never settle for gilt when gold was his goal.
She bit her lip. "No, I mean to say that I once told you a lie. I didn't plan to, it just came out that way." She'd been panicked and afraid, and it had been the only thing she could think of to keep him at a distance.
His face hardened. "Oh?"
"I said I wouldn't have picked you if I'd had a real choice. I said that the only reason I married you was because there was no way for me to refuse my father's commands."
"Yeah." Marc had tried to get over that, but it continued to torment the bayou boy inside of him. The one who'd never been chosen for love. The one who was so madly in love with his wife that her lack of feeling for him hurt him with every breath. But he would never let her know that because as he'd said, honest laughter and affection were better than dishonest love.
"Did you know that my father had a marriage offer for me almost every week?" Hira confided softly.
He stared at her, his mind immediately beginning to holler questions.
"Marir was just one of many. I could've picked one of the others, because there were several with businesses that would've complemented my father's. And of course they had impeccable family links." She was talking really fast, as if trying to get something past him.
His mind and heart refused to let her off that easily. "Would Kerim have let you?"
"Oh, yes, for if I was an unwilling wife to you or any other man, it would've jeopardized his business. Far better to have me be a willing wife whom he could mold, even if that meant I was married to someone less influential.
"At the time that my father ordered me to marry you, I told myself I didn't put up a fight because I was hurting from Romaz's rejection, but that rejection had come many months previously. I'd had over eight offers for my hand since then. One was from a prince in another desert country, another from a British millionaire who is considered a very eligible bachelor."
Something hungry deep inside Marc, went very, very quiet. "Eight?"
She nodded and gave him a guilty look. "None of which I had trouble rebutting, though my father drove me crazy with his orders for me to agree. He kept threatening to throw me out on the street. Marir was his attempt at scaring me when I refused all the suitors after barely a single meeting. He would never have wasted me on a lecherous old friend. Don't be angry with me."
She was fiddling with the button on his jeans, even as she explained. Her lashes hid her eyes but he could tell she was giving him surreptitious peeks to see how he was taking the news.
He narrowed his eyes. "You made me feel like I was the best of a bad lot." His tone was light, his heart buoyant as he finally understood what his proud princess was confessing.
She'd preferred the scarred bayou beast over every other man who'd asked for her hand.
Looking up, she made a face at him, a smile flirting with her eyes when she saw that he wasn't angry. "You were. Except for you, every other male was bad. Then I saw you, and suddenly I had no resistance. I could no longer fight my father—all my will was gone, lost the moment you smiled at me. You were just the best. Compared with anyone. So, you see, I wished you for my husband. Only you."
Her unknowing echo of his thoughts only made her confession more poignant. He felt his throat lock as the power of what she was saying roared through him.
When he didn't answer straight away, she said, "Do you understand, Marc? You're the love I waited for all my life, though when you came, it took me a while to recognize you. You see, I didn't expect you to be so blatantly male." The teasing light in her eyes made him kiss her.
After he, set her free, she continued to speak. "I feel so much for you, I don't know if I can find the words to tell you. In Zulheil, there is a saying—Ul al eha makhin. Makhin al eha ul. Lael gha al aishann." Her voice was full of so much passion, he could almost see her love in the air.
"What does it mean?"
"You belong to me. I belong to you. Together we are complete." Her voice shook.
It was perfect, saying what he'd wanted to but hadn't been able to. "Princess, I promise you that that will never change. Never."
"Until I loved you, I didn't know the whole of the woman I could be." Her eyes were huge and wet. "That woman's love will only grow stronger with time."
Leaning forward, he sealed their pact with a kiss. When she sighed and melted into him, he couldn't help but stroke that golden skin of hers, now almost dry. "You didn't finish your bath," he whispered against her lips.
"Ummmm." Giving him a sultry smile that was mil of a joy he'd never before seen, she slipped out of his arms and into the water, beckoning him with her finger.