The thoughts and emotions that have cross through my body in little more than a day have left me as unsteady as the dunes upon which we stood. I do not know if my heart can hold all of the grief for my home and what I have done besides the love for my Husband and eagerness of our future. Like quicksand at my hooves, I know that one false move will leave me mired in the grasp of what-ifs and what-could-have-beens.

I cannot read of my beloved's thoughts, but I am already bowing toward him. It is perhaps unhealthy of me to push my conflicted feelings to the side to deal with later when I might convince my body it did not need his touch to sustain itself and have a moment alone. But I want to be happy, and to be for him a good Wife, worthy of his choice and favor, despite the many reasons he may yet find misgivings for. Now that I am assured it is not a loveless match, that I have found the other half to my heart, I want nothing more than to be enough for him.

I shiver as he pinches at the mark he had left the night before, and the same deep well of hunger within my body flares with need once more. I had felt it's call last season, but it had been easy enough to ignore. None of the coarse inhabitants of these islands had awakened such a craving inside of me, which was only right. It was only right that my body should react in such a way to my beloved. Quite against my conscious will, my body reacts to his touch and I shift so that I would be ready if he so chose to rise over me once more.

The sound of his voice bids my attention to follow, although it is much like listening to the babble of my teachers on a day when there was much I would rather be doing. As much as I want to hear him, and do, in a way, his touch occupies much of my mind. Every time that he shifts, I find a new part of me that craves his touch, my body burning beneath his affection.

He speaks of a haven here for our faiths and I nod, although I do not know how much of an example I can be for Allah. Frequently I have defied his will to follow my own path, and while this time it has lead me to my greatest treasure, it has not always done so. Among the priests that advised my siblings and I, I was the least favored as too wild, too independent. I understood the basic tenants of my family's faith, but you could not call me a student of it. What use had I for verses when my duty was to my Husband? Once I was married, my social life would be restricted to little more than that of my handmaidens and my husband's concubines. This was why it had been so painful for my mother, I thought, to watch my father take on his concubines, for such restrictions bred pettiness and jealousy.

As he mentions the others, my obedience wavers, and I can feel the tension gather along my neck as it raises. Of course, there would be others, I had known this, and yet the mention of them, while his touch lingers on my skin, is disrespectful. I turn my face away from him, perturbed by his callousness in the wake of all that has happened. It is only his reassurances that they will not rival me, that I will remain the one he holds most dear that begins to wear at the worst of my fury and I nip at his knee, torn between desire and annoyance. "All may walk the Dunes before me and yet I would not tire of choosing you, my Husband."

I do not intend for the words to sound as self-righteous as they sound at first, as though his faithfulness in me was to be questioned for sharing his body with others. It hurts me to think that he might share this moment with someone else, might touch them, and awaken in them the same fire that has consumed my soul, but it is his right by nature. I know that he is too perfect, too charming for me to hold alone. Like a handful of sand from the Dunes, some of his beauty was bound to trickle from my fingers to others. Thankfully, my tone lightens to begrudging amusement by the end.

The vibration of his nicker against my skin reminds me of the fires that burn unchecked through my body and my breath catches on the desire in my throat. How unfair it is for him to be so eloquent when I can barely string two words together for my want of him. Even now, with the evidence of his endurance making my skin sensitive to his every touch I cannot think but of what we experienced beneath the stars. I shudder against him and shift so that I might better hold myself upright beneath his weight.

"I will trust you, Husband. But please," I offer softly, my neck curled back toward him. "By Qetesh, let me choose myself again."

Before the passions of our night before I had not understood the want of such things beyond the desire of a Man. I did not know that the same fire could burn in my own blood with a ferocity that I was unaccustomed to.

OOC: We can end this one here and start a new one later in the day with the brothers maybe? And/or can bring in some of the others Mr. Handsome has brought in? Or we can continue this after, ahah! I don't mind either way <3