Chapter 132

• ‘Xavian?’ Bolder in the dark, relieved that he was home, wanting the row to end, Layla did not wait for an invitation. Her hands reached for him, her body coiling around his, but he halted her hand with his wrist, pushed her away and then lay tense and angry in the dark as he felt her confusion beside him.
• He closed his eyes, willed sleep, but every time he drifted off he felt again as if he were on water, lying in the middle of the desert…He felt the rise and fall of the ocean beneath him, felt the sun scorching his body. There was nowhere to go for Xavian—and no mistress chambers to send her to here.
• Here in the desert, no matter how he fought it, he was steadily going insane—and there was nothing he could do. Fear, a fear he had never known before nor would ever admit to, meant that it was he that reached for her now, because she was soft and warm, breathing and real and alive.