Chapter 2: The Door Knocks at the Worst Time
The world narrowed to a single point of contact, a slow burn spreading outward from where their bodies joined. Samir moved with a care that bordered on reverence, his breath warm against her temple, his hands braced on either side of her shoulders like he was afraid she might shatter.
Yara wanted to make a joke about that. Something about how she wasn't made of glass, about how he could stop treating her like a relic and start treating her like a person. The words were right there, perched on the tip of her tongue, ready to fly.
Then he shifted his hips, and the words died in her throat.
Her gasp was real. Not the theatrical thing she'd been doing all evening, not the exaggerated sounds she'd practiced in her head during those long, boring engagement parties. This was something else entirely—a raw, surprised intake of breath that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her lungs.
Samir froze above her.
"Okay?" he asked.
She wanted to say something clever. Something dismissive. Something that would put the power back in her hands, where it belonged. Instead, she just nodded, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
He moved again, slower this time, watching her face with an intensity that made her want to look away. She didn't. Couldn't. His eyes held hers like a question, like he was waiting for permission to continue, like he actually cared whether she was enjoying this and not just whether she was enduring it.
It was, she realized with a start, the most unnerving thing anyone had ever done to her.
"Stop looking at me like that," she managed.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm a—" She broke off as he pressed deeper, her sentence dissolving into a sound that was half laugh, half moan. "Like I'm a puzzle you're trying to solve."
"You are a puzzle."
"I'm not. I'm very simple. I'm the simplest person you'll ever meet."
"You're a liar," he said, and kissed her before she could argue.
The kiss was different from before—softer, somehow, despite the urgent press of his body against hers. She felt her legs wrap around his waist without consciously deciding to do it, felt her hips rise to meet his, felt the rhythm build between them like something alive.
Her eyes drifted closed. The candlelight flickered behind her lids, orange and gold, and somewhere in the back of her mind she was still cataloging everything—the scent of amber and beeswax, the cool silk beneath her back, the solid weight of him above her. She was still thinking, still analyzing, still holding a piece of herself back.
And then he hit something—some angle, some depth—and the thinking stopped.
"Samir," she breathed, and it wasn't a joke, wasn't a tease. Just his name, stripped of everything but need.
He responded by moving faster, his breath ragged against her throat, his hands sliding down to grip her hips. The chandelier above them had stopped dripping petals. The nightingale had gone quiet. There was nothing in the world but this—this heat, this rhythm, this impossible pressure building somewhere deep in her belly.
She was close. She could feel it, that edge approaching, that precipice she'd read about in the books her cousins used to pass around under the table at family gatherings. She'd always assumed those descriptions were exaggerated. Theatrical. The kind of thing people wrote to make the whole act seem more significant than it actually was.
They weren't exaggerated.
"Oh God," she said. "Oh God, oh God, oh—"
Three sharp knocks rattled the carved wooden door.
Samir froze.
Yara's eyes flew open, her body still buzzing with interrupted pleasure, her mind struggling to catch up with reality. The knocks came again—three hard raps, the kind that brooked no argument, the kind that said whatever was in this room was less important than whatever was outside it.
"Master Samir." A voice filtered through the heavy wood, male and nervous and vaguely familiar. "Master Samir, I am sorry to disturb you, but your mother—"
Samir pulled out.
The sensation was abrupt enough to drag a frustrated groan from somewhere deep in Yara's chest. She watched him scramble off the bed, watched him snatch his trousers from the floor and fumble with the fastenings, watched his face transform from flushed lover to horrified son in the space of a single breath.
"Samir," she said.
He didn't answer. Just kept wrestling with his trousers, his cursing quiet but inventive.
"Samir," she repeated. "What is—"
"Your mother sends her apologies," the voice continued through the door, "but she requires the bride's sheet. For the family's honor. She says it cannot wait until morning."
The words took a moment to penetrate. Yara lay there, naked and slick and still trembling with unspent need, trying to parse what she'd just heard.
The bride's sheet.
Bloodstained.
For the family's honor.
"Oh my God," she said.
Samir finally met her eyes. His expression was a complicated thing—frustration and embarrassment and genuine anguish all warring for dominance.
"I'm going to kill her," he said. "I'm going to kill my mother."
"Wait. Wait. She wants—she actually wants—" Yara sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. "Right now? Right this second?"
"She cannot possibly—"
"Tell her I said no."
"Yara—"
"No. Absolutely not. I am not handing my bodily fluids over to your mother like some kind of—of—produce delivery." She was laughing now, the absurdity of it hitting her all at once. "Does she want it framed? Does she want me to sign it? What's the protocol here?"
"This isn't funny." Samir finally got his trousers fastened and was pulling on his shirt with furious, jerky motions. "This is—this is a disaster."
"It's a farce. It's a complete and utter—" She clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to smother the laughter that was bubbling up from somewhere uncontrollable. "Oh God. Oh God, Samir, she's standing outside the door right now. Your mother is standing outside our bedroom door waiting for proof that we've—that you've—"
She couldn't finish the sentence. She was laughing too hard.
Samir shot her a look that might have been angry if he weren't so obviously panicked. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm not! I mean, I am, but I'm also horrified. It's a very complex emotional state." She scrambled off the bed, still clutching the sheet, suddenly aware of her complete nakedness as the cool air hit her skin. "What do I do? Where do I go? Is there a back exit?"
"This is my mother's house. There are no back exits."
"Then I'll jump out the window."
"We're on the third floor."
"I'll survive." She was already moving toward the bathroom, the sheet trailing behind her like a bridal train. "I'll survive, and then I'll kill your mother, and then I'll write a memoir about the whole experience. It'll be a bestseller."
"Yara—"
"Answer the door, Samir." She paused at the marble threshold, turning back to look at him. He was standing there with his shirt half-buttoned and his hair sticking up in twenty directions, looking more undone than she'd ever seen him. She felt a sudden, wild surge of affection for this ridiculous man who had somehow married her. "Answer the door and tell your mother I'll deliver her precious proof in the morning, like a normal person."
"You're not normal."
"Neither are you. That's why we work." She blew him a kiss, then disappeared into the bathroom, pressing the door closed behind her.
The marble was cold under her bare feet. The bathroom was enormous—all white marble and gold fixtures and mirrors that reflected her back at herself from a dozen different angles. She looked flushed. Wild. Her hair was a disaster, her lips were swollen, and there was a mark on her shoulder that would probably bruise.
She looked, she realized, like someone who had just been thoroughly kissed.
And the most absurd part was that she hadn't even finished having sex yet.
She sank down onto the edge of the tub, still wrapped in the sheet, and listened to the muffled sounds of Samir's conversation through the door. She couldn't make out the words, but she could hear the tension in his voice, the clipped responses. His mother's manservant, whoever he was, was getting an earful.
Yara pressed her hand to her mouth again, fighting a fresh wave of giggles. This was not how she'd imagined her wedding night. Then again, she hadn't imagined her wedding night at all, except to imagine that it would be awkward and boring and probably involve a lot of uncomfortable silence.
She had not imagined it would involve a harried servant demanding proof of her deflowering while she stood naked and unfulfilled in a ridiculously opulent bathroom, listening to her husband argue with his mother by proxy.
She looked at herself in the mirror again. The sheet had slipped down, revealing the upper curve of her breasts, the flush that had spread from her cheeks down her neck and chest. She looked ruined. She looked alive.
She looked, she thought, like someone who might actually enjoy being married after all.
The door to the bathroom opened.
Samir stood in the doorway, his shirt still half-unbuttoned, his expression a mixture of fury and exhaustion and something else—something that looked almost like amusement, hidden beneath everything else.
"Well," Yara said. "How did it go?"
"She's not happy."
"Shocking. Your mother, not happy? I'm stunned." She tilted her head, studying him. "What did you tell her?"
"That we would provide the sheet in the morning. That she should not disturb us again."
"And she accepted that?"
"Not remotely. But she has no choice." He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "I told her that if she sent anyone else to our door tonight, I would take you to a hotel in the morning and she would never see her grandchildren."
Yara blinked. "You used the grandchildren card."
"I used everything I had."
"On our wedding night."
"I know."
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, slowly, Yara's grin returned.
"You know," she said, "this is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me."
"I just fought with my mother about a bed sheet. That's not romantic."
"It's not the fight that's romantic. It's that you did it for me. For us." She stood up, letting the sheet fall. "You didn't try to make me comply. You didn't tell me to just give her what she wanted. You told her to wait."
"It's none of her business."
"Exactly." She walked toward him, aware of his eyes on her, aware of the way his breath caught as she got closer. "So. Here we are. The door is locked—I assume you locked it?"
"Yes."
"Your mother is probably pacing in the hallway, plotting her revenge."
"Almost certainly."
"And we're standing in a bathroom, half-dressed, completely frustrated, and utterly alone."
"Yara—"
"I haven't finished yet," she said. "You haven't either. And I have it on good authority that there's a perfectly good bed in the next room."
His eyes darkened. "You're serious."
"I'm always serious about unfinished business." She reached up and pushed his shirt off his shoulders. "Unless you don't want to. Unless you'd rather stand here and brood about your mother's judgment."
"I want to."
"Then come back to bed."
He didn't move. Just stood there, looking at her with those earnest brown eyes. "You know this isn't how it's supposed to go."
"Nothing about us is how it's supposed to go." She reached down and took his hand, tugging him toward the door. "That's what makes it interesting."
He followed.
The bedroom looked different now—messier, somehow, the evidence of their interrupted tryst scattered everywhere. The sheet was crumpled, the pillows were strewn across the floor, and there was a distinct lack of bloodstains that would need to be addressed at some point.
Yara didn't care about any of it. She pulled Samir toward the bed and pushed him down onto the mattress, climbing over him with a purpose that made him laugh.
"What?" she demanded.
"You're very... determined."
"I'm efficient. There's a difference." She settled onto his lap, her knees bracketing his hips. "Now. Where were we?"
"I believe I was in the middle of proving something."
"Right. The proof." She leaned down, her hair falling around them like a curtain. "I'm still not entirely convinced, by the way. This whole thing might still be a waste of time."
"It's not."
"I'll be the judge of that."
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so tender, so unexpectedly gentle, that it stopped her in her tracks. She stared down at him, feeling suddenly exposed in a way that had nothing to do with being naked.
"You're strange," she said.
"So are you."
"I know. I've always been strange. It's my best quality."
"It's not your only good quality." He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. "You're brave. And funny. And you don't let anyone tell you what to think."
"Charms. All of them, just charms. I'm actually very easy to manage. You'll see."
"I don't want to manage you."
She blinked. "What do you want?"
"You."
The answer was so simple, so direct, that she didn't have a response prepared. She just sat there, looking down at him, feeling the weight of his hands on her hips and the warmth of his body beneath hers and the strange, terrifying thing that was growing in her chest.
"I don't know what to say," she admitted.
"You don't have to say anything."
"That's a first. Usually you can't shut me up."
"I know." He smiled up at her—that patient, warm smile that she'd grown so used to over the past six months. "It's one of my favorite things about you. The way you fill every silence like you're afraid of leaving room for anything else."
"That's very perceptive."
"I'm an engineer. We're good at noticing patterns."
She laughed, despite herself. "Okay. Fine. You win. Let's finish this."
"Are you going to snap your legs shut again?"
"I was thinking about it." She shifted her hips, settling more firmly against him, and felt him inhale sharply. "But no. Not this time."
"Promise?"
"Absolutely not. My promises don't mean anything, remember?"
He groaned, but he was smiling, and then his hands were pulling her down and his mouth was on hers and the thinking stopped again.
The rhythm was different this time. Slower, yeah, but something else, too—a syncopation that belonged to both of them, a tempo they found together rather than dictated one to the other. Samir's hands moved over her body like he was mapping territory he intended to revisit, learning every shoreline and curve and secret hollow that made her breath catch or her fingers tighten on his shoulders. Yara rode him with a focus she usually reserved for arguments, her usual commentary silenced by the way he filled her, the way he looked up at her like she was something worth worshiping.
She wasn't going to come, she decided. Not because she couldn't—the pressure was already coiling low in her belly, the edge rushing toward her with terrifying speed—but because she wanted to prove something. Wanted to hold out. Wanted to make this last.
Then he shifted, and the angle changed, and she lost the argument with herself.
Afterward, they lay tangled together in the ruined sheets, both of them breathing hard, both of them slick with sweat despite the cool night air. Yara's head was on Samir's chest, her hair spread out like a dark tangle of seaweed, and she could feel his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.
"Well," she said eventually.
"Well," he echoed.
"I have some notes."
He laughed, the sound vibrating through his chest. "Of course you do."
"Nothing bad. Just—constructive criticism." She propped herself up on her elbows, looking down at him. "The pacing was good. Maybe a little slow at the start, but you made up for it."
"Glad you approve."
"The crying afterward was a nice touch."
His eyes flew open. "I didn't cry."
"You got a little misty. I saw it."
"I did not—"
"It's fine. It was sweet. Very endearing." She was grinning now, that familiar mischievous expression spreading across her face. "Makes me feel powerful. Like I've broken you."
"You haven't broken me."
"Give it time." She settled back against him, her cheek pressed to his chest. "So. We've done the thing. How do you feel?"
Samir was quiet for a moment. She felt his hand come up to stroke her hair, gentle and rhythmic.
"I feel like I understand why people fuss," he said finally.
"Good answer." She closed her eyes. "I might be willing to admit that the fuss isn't entirely unfounded."
"High praise."
"I'm very generous." A pause. "Samir?"
"Yes?"
"What are we going to do about the sheet?"
He groaned. "I was hoping you'd forgotten."
"How could I forget? Your mother is literally waiting for evidence that I'm no longer a virgin. It's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to me."
"I'm going to have a word with her tomorrow. A long one. About boundaries."
"Boundaries." Yara snorted. "In this family? Good luck."
"We're married now. We can set our own rules."
"That's very optimistic."
"I'm an optimist."
"I noticed." She lifted her head to look at him. "You know what else I noticed?"
"What?"
"Your mother only sent someone after we'd been in here for a while. That means she was waiting. She knew exactly when to knock." Yara's eyes narrowed. "She was listening at the door, wasn't she?"
Samir covered his face with his hand. "Probably."
"Oh my God. She was listening. She was standing in the hallway listening to us have sex and then she sent someone to interrupt because she wanted—"
"Please stop talking."
"—to establish her authority. To remind us that she's still in charge. That's the most passive-aggressive—" Yara broke off, laughing again. "I love it. I actually love it. I'm going to do the exact same thing to my daughters-in-law someday."
"You're going to have daughters-in-law?"
"Apparently. According to your mother, that's the whole point of tonight." She gestured vaguely at the bed. "Baby-making. The continuation of the line. All that."
"Yara."
"What?"
"How do you feel about that? The baby-making part?"
She went still. It was a fair question—the first direct question he'd asked about the future, about what came after this night. She knew what she was supposed to say. She was supposed to smile and nod and talk about how excited she was to be a mother, how eager she was to raise the next generation of whatever family name she'd married into.
"Do I have to have an answer right now?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. Because I don't have one." She settled back against him, her cheek finding its place on his chest. "I don't know if I want to be a mother. I don't know if I want to be a wife. I don't know if I want to be any of the things I'm supposed to want. I just—" She sighed. "I just want to be me. And I'm still figuring out what that means."
Samir was quiet for a long moment. Then he pulled her closer, his arms wrapping around her like a cocoon.
"I think that's fair," he said.
"Really?"
"Really." His lips pressed against the top of her head. "We have time. We have the rest of our lives to figure it out."
"That's a very long time."
"I know. I'm looking forward to it."
Yara closed her eyes, letting the warmth of him seep into her bones. The chandelier was dark now, the candles burned down to nothing, but the room still smelled of amber and roses and something else—something that was just the two of them, mingled together in the dark.
"Samir?"
"Mmm?"
"You're not what I expected."
"I know."
"I mean—" She struggled to find the words. "I expected you to be... I don't know. Difficult. Possessive. The kind of man who thinks his wife is a possession instead of a person. But you're not."
"I'm not."
"You're just... you. And you let me be me. And I don't understand why."
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "Because you're the most interesting person I've ever met. And I want to see what you do next."
"That's very romantic."
"You said you didn't write anything down."
"I did, actually. I'm taking notes." He was smiling—she could hear it in his voice. "For reference."
"You're ridiculous."
"I know. You are, too. It's why we work."
She laughed, and he laughed with her, and somewhere outside the window, the nightingale started singing again. The door was locked. His mother was probably still fuming in the hallway. The sheet was still unproven, the evidence situation unresolved, the future uncertain in a thousand different ways.
But here, in the dark, with his arms around her and his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, Yara felt something she hadn't expected to feel on her wedding night.
She felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
"Samir?"
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow, when your mother asks about the sheet, I'm going to tell her we used it to make a parachute and escaped out the window."
"Yara."
"I'm serious. I'm going to commit to the bit."
"I know you are."
"Are you going to stop me?"
"No." He pulled her closer. "I'm going to watch."
And that, she decided, was the most romantic thing he'd said all night.