26

Kai traced her baby hairs that were slick against her head as his intensity towards her didn't stop. "Marriage means you can be safe and solve all your problems. Side effect of my gift is that I can be seen with you as much as I want and the world will shut up. I want them to be silent as I walk with my lover."

Yuliya could feel in that minute that something changed in the room. She had always wanted to be an ordinary person, but that would always be denied to her. Someone else would have laughed out loud and started to say that he probably said that to everyone. Maybe she was so weak that she was here wanting him, not wanting whatever it was he was doing to stop. "You really want it to be me whose like that with you?"

Kai started to push her hair back over her ears, her side bangs now freed from the gel that was holding them up. She was going to loose the sleek clean outlines and look wild. She did want that a bit as her inhibitions slipped slow. "You have a respect coming from being a prince's consort. You need stability now as that situation was not normal. If you needed something to make you go out, maybe I would be more casual with you."

Yuliya wanted to lean into his hand as it luxuriated against her hair. "I've been listening to everything that you've been saying and I am having some difficulty understanding your intentions. Let me try to explain what I have understood so far. You . . . are asking me to be your lover. You're not asking me on a date because of who my husband used to be, but you want to offer a legal and social arrangement so you can give me safety from the scandal that would ensue from me being associated with you."

"See you do understand."

She shook her head with a half smile. "Mr. Afuru, your thinking is correct in all of it's methods but one. What if this turns out to be a marriage that you cannot remain it? The morning after the marriage if you find out my personality traits are not docile as you've wanted, I'm sure you'd be horrified at what you've just done. It's very easy to get married as you already know, but getting divorced and extricating from each other is where the money will all be gone."

"What if I don't want you to leave in the morning that will come? What if I'm not horrified, but have a nice deep satisfaction that this wife is the one I want? What if I wake up every day and decide I choose you? I will not have more than one so you'll never have to worry that I will wander away from you."

His manner of speech made it seem like a sensible way to go. The velvety voice stroke her right where she wanted it as if he was aware that she was thinking of how nice it would be for their affair to go further. He knew she wanted to throw her inhibitions aside and actively wanted her to. Women were always supposed to be the epitome of virginity and propriety but her husband had thought such ideas were relics of a bygone age. He wanted her to be an active participant in their love story and their bedroom life. Hassan thought a woman should be a part of heaven the same as the man. As she had already been exposed to these ideas, it was not the first time so she would not bend forward like a willow to the ground that Afuru was tempting her with. But my my was it a temptation for sure. "As flattering as these words are to a widow, you do understand that I am still attached to another person to wed still? I cannot say for sure that you are trustworthy. How is your truth more worth to me than that whom has been my lover for some time? A woman should stand up for her man. I haven't as I have doubts, but I should. Maybe Vasko has some good in him that I see that you cannot?"