by Lynn, Sophia
The reading ended, and the owner of the store announced a quick break. Penny sighed. It was likely time to head home, no matter how much she wanted to hear the rest. She had vague thoughts of going to purchase a few books before she left, but then she glanced across the room, and it felt like her heart stopped.
There's no way, it can't be...
It was the commotion that drew her eye. There was a knot of people around a tall man who looked somehow agitated. From where she stood, it sounded like he was trying to make his apologies to them, trying to extricate himself. Penny noted at first that he was well-dressed with an air of command around him.
Then he turned, irritated, to speak to a woman who kept plucking at his sleeve, and she gasped, squeezing Sola so tight that Sola let out a startled squeak. Penny instinctively loosened her hold, but she felt frozen in place.
Ziyad.
After her initial disbelief, she recognized the man she had been thinking of almost every day for the past two years. He was here, in Washington DC, standing just a dozen yards away from her.
He looks different, a remote part of her mind observed. He looked more grown up somehow, harder. Then Penny thought of how the last two years had changed her, and she realized that Ziyad seemed to have undergone the same changes in himself.
Then panic broke over her like a river breaking through a dam, and ducking her head, she dodged through the crowd. She didn't know why she was running. Perhaps she was running away from the past that had hurt her. Perhaps she was running away from a future she could not control.
Either way, she ran.
Chapter Twelve
Of course the moment the intermission was called, Ziyad found himself swamped. He wasn't sure if the crowd had recognized him or if one person had and spread it around. They had crowded around him like bears at a hive, and for a few precious seconds, he had lost sight of Penny. Somehow, he won his freedom back from the crowd, but when he got to where she had been, she was gone.
The crowd was no longer a problem, but he felt suddenly gutted. Everything good in him was gone, leaving him a hollow husk that moved, talked, ate and slept like a man but could not do anything else. It was a feeling he realized had been with him for two years, but now it shone through him.
He grabbed one of the passing bookstore workers by the arm, barely looking down when the man yelped with surprise.
"Tell Amira that I am sorry I couldn't stay." His voice felt far away, as if it came from someone else entirely. "I'll make it up to her later."
He walked out into the evening. It was fully dark now, with shadows that reached out even darker. The cold in the air was distinct, and he wondered if it thinned the air and made it easier to hear things, because he suddenly heard the sharp cry of a child.
Ziyad frowned, and he might have passed on by if there wasn't another sob right behind it, that of a woman. Every instinct was on alert, and he stalked to where he had heard the cries. He might be in the United States, but he was still a sheikh, and he was fairly certain that diplomatic immunity would guard him if there was someone who had decided to hurt a woman and a baby.
He came around the corner of a bookstore to find a woman standing with her back to him by a car. Under the single light from the bookstore's brick wall above, he could see the straps of her baby wrap around her back.
"Miss?" he asked softly. "Are you all right? Do you need something?"
To his surprise, the woman laughed, the sound sad and wet. His brain was telling him he knew that laugh even before she turned around.
"That's a funny question for you to be asking me," Penny said softly, and his gaze fell on the small baby strapped to her front.
***
A PART OF Penny's mind found Ziyad's look of shock funny. The rest of her was heartbroken. She had to push both of those parts away as he started to talk.
"Who is this?" he asked, and there was awe, fear, curiosity and perhaps just a little anger in his voice. Another woman might have been afraid of him just then, but this was Ziyad, and she had never feared him.
"This is Sola," she said softly. "And if we need to have this conversation, we need to get out of the cold. It's too chilly for her in this weather."
Ziyad looked startled and then appalled at her words, nodding and stepping aside to let her strap Sola into her baby seat in the car’s back seat.
"All right, do you have a car to follow me in? My place is just half an hour away..."
Ziyad shook his head. "I have a driver. He can come pick me up whenever...whenever I like."
She wondered briefly what he was going to say, and then shrugged. "All right. Hop in. Thank God I vacuumed the car last week, otherwise I'd be humiliated."
With a bemused expression, he climbed into the front passenger seat. Whatever else Ziyad was, he was polite enough not to try to have earth-shaking conversations while in a parking lot. He was also silent on the freeway, though he glanced into the back seat often to watch Sola.
"She's quiet," he said, and there was a faint note of worry in his voice.
Penny chuckled.
"That used to worry me too," she admitted. "The other women in my infants group told me they would love to have a quiet baby, and the nurses I spoke to said the same. She's just quiet. She's lively enough, active and engaged, and all her tests show her as normal, so I'm just going to let her be quiet."
Ziyad shook his head. "Nurses and infants groups? That sounds like you've been quite busy for the past two years."
"Yes, I have been," she said, and some of the rage she felt must have come through then because he was silent the rest of the way to the condo.
They pulled into the garage, and he watched again as she expertly removed Sola from the baby seat, carrying her into the house. Penny had never been a particularly house-proud woman, but she was relieved that Angie had been in to help with the cleaning earlier that day. It was still a little cluttered, but at least it had been vacuumed and mopped.
"I'm going to put her to bed, and then we can have our talk, all right?"
He paused. She had never known Ziyad to shy away from anything in the time she had been with him, but now it seemed as if he were gathering up his courage.
"Can...can I watch you put her to bed?"
Something that had been long frozen within her started to thaw, and she wasn't sure at all if she wanted that. Frozen was safe. The man who was looking at her with such hopeful eyes was not.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he could not, but then she found herself nodding. "If you want."
It seemed like the most natural thing in the world for him to fall into step behind her. By this point, Sola was mostly limp against her shoulder, whining quietly whenever her mother moved her too quickly. Due to long practice, Penny was able to maneuver her into her pajamas fairly quickly, but she stirred a little when Penny finally lay her down in the crib. For a moment, it looked as if Sola was going to wake up again, and hurriedly, Penny hummed her a little song that she remembered her grandmother humming to herself in the morning.
With an enormous yawn, Sola fell into a deeper sleep, and Penny heaved a sigh of relief. She waved Ziyad towards the door and followed him, shutting her daughter's bedroom door silently.
She led Ziyad into the living room before turning towards him.
"I suppose you have a lot of questions," she started, but then suddenly his arms were around her, pulling her into a rough embrace that felt like something she had wanted for two years.
All sense flew out of her head, and she threw herself into his solid body with a tiny cry. Oh god, they still fit perfectly; no matter how she had changed or he had changed, they were still perfect in each other's arms.
When his mouth fell on hers with the hunger of a wolf, she met him with equal fury. There was need and fire and grief and pleasure there, and for a long moment, she simply allowed herself to be carried away with it. It had been so long, so long since she had allowed herself to feel anything even half this good, and n
ow it was as if she were starved.
"My god, I've missed you," she heard him groan, and it was as if someone had poured ice water over her.
"That wasn't my fault," she hissed, pulling away.
When there was some space between them, she could still see him looking at her as if he were famished. Penny knew how she looked, with her lips red from kissing and her red braids coming undone, but she glared at him.
"Penny..."
"We have a lot to talk about," she said, making her voice as sharp as she could. There was something ragged about it from their kiss still, but it served well enough.
"All right," he said, nodding. "We do."
They sat down on her couch, and for a moment, Penny felt something almost like vertigo. It felt strange to have Ziyad here in her life now, as if someone had cut him out of her past and pasted him into her condo.
"Is Sola my daughter?" he asked quietly.
Penny flinched a little, but she supposed that was the most important question.
"She just turned eighteen months old, and I certainly wasn't seeing anyone else in Rome," she said softly. "Yes, she is your daughter."
The news made Ziyad draw a deep breath. The look on his face was bewildered, and without thinking of it, Penny reached out to touch his hand. His long, strong fingers wrapped around hers without hesitation, and they sat together for a moment in silence.
What comes next? Penny found herself wondering. Would he become angry at her for not telling him? Would he start saying how shabby and terrible the condo was?
He surprised her, turning towards her to meet her eyes. It was unfair that his and Sola’s eyes were so much alike. She would never be able to deny either of them anything.
"Penny," Ziyad said. "I am so sorry."
"Ziyad?"
"I...I am so sorry that you were here by yourself, that you were all alone. I'm sorry that you were alone when our child was born, and when you brought her home, and..."
Penny felt tears pricking her eyes because it was all true. She had been alone. There were visits from women from her prenatal group, women who had seen how alone she was and made sure to bring food and treats and gossip. There was Angie who came in three times a week, and in the beginning, a midwife to coach her through all of it, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.
She started to speak, but the emotions got the better of her, and to her dismay, tears started to drip down her face.
"Oh god, I can't be crying again," she wailed softly.
Ziyad made a soft sound of distress and pulled her into his arms. Somehow, even after all this time, there was a part of her body that recognized his embrace as safe, as the place where she could simply hide from the world.
"My poor brave one," he murmured. "I am so sorry..."
The tears slowed then stopped, and then she was simply wrapped up in the man she had wanted for years. In all the time she had been on her own, she’d had to make hard decisions, to care for her daughter, to make sure that Sola had what she needed. It would have been impossible without the money Ziyad had given her, but even then it was hard.
But right now, all she could feel was a burning need for him that had never gone away.
Ziyad seemed to feel something shift in the way she rested within his arms. He pulled back, and Penny took her chance. She knew that the smart thing, the adult thing, was to sit back, perhaps even to go to the kitchen so that there was a solid table between them. That way they might be able to actually speak without this kind of physical thing getting in the way.
Then she felt the force of their attraction rising up again, and she realized that speaking through steel bars wouldn't be enough.
"I want you to kiss me, and I don't want you to stop," she whispered. "Take me to the bedroom. Make love to me."
The sound he made was closer to the growl of a wolf than a sound a man would make. Penny made a soft sound of surprise as he stood and swept her up in his arms. Somehow, she had forgotten how strong he really was, how easily he could lift her. Then she decided to stop thinking for a while, throwing her arms around his shoulders and planting kisses along his throat. Between kisses, she directed him towards her bedroom.
He set her down on the bed, and he started to join her when he frowned.
"Should...should we worry that Sola might...?"
Penny shook her head. "Thank god she's been sleeping through the night for weeks now, and if she does get up, there's a baby monitor right there."
That was all Ziyad needed, and Penny watched with appreciative eyes as he started stripping off his clothes with the matter-of-fact efficiency she had always envied. When he was naked, she felt as if her breath was taken away.
She had not expected his body to have changed much, but there were a few subtle differences. He seemed thicker and broader through the shoulders, and for some reason, it made him look more grown up to her. The strength in him was still amazing, and she whimpered a little when he came to lie down next to her again.
"May I take your clothes off?" he whispered into her ear, and holding her breath a little, she nodded.
He was ridiculously gentle as he did it, stripping her slowly and methodically. She could have squirmed with embarrassment from the old and plain underthings she was wearing, but he didn't even seem to notice, intent on uncovering every bit of her skin. When he laid aside the last bit of clothing, leaving her entirely bare before his eyes, Penny had to resist the urge to cover herself. Even in the dim light of her plain bedroom, the differences between her body now and her body as it had been two years ago was plain to her.
I don't get to the gym, and it's not like I've had time to do spa days or anything like that when Sola's so small, she wanted to say, but then she looked into Ziyad's eyes and her hands fell away.
At first there was a searching quality to his expression, as if he wanted to be sure she was the same woman. Then there was an expression of dawning joy and inescapable lust, and it was as if her insecurities burned away in their heat. It didn't matter that her belly was softer, that her hips had widened or that her breasts felt heavier and somehow looser to her. The desire in his eyes told her that she was the one he wanted, and in that moment, in a way she never had while they were in Rome, she gave herself to him.
"I want you," she whispered. I love you was also on the tip of her tongue, but that she couldn't find it in herself to offer up to him.
"I want you more than I want anything else in the world," he groaned, and he started to kiss her.
There was passion and need in his kisses, but there was more to it than that. There was something tender and exploratory as well, as if they had been apart for so long that he didn't trust himself to her yet. It came to her that he was relearning her body, finding the places that made her groan and sigh the most, and she felt a red rush of heat flow through her.
It may have been in Ziyad's mind to take his time and explore her as she lay back and enjoyed herself. They certainly had done so many, many times in the past, and she had always loved the feeling of being cherished and cared for. However, she found that no matter how much she had ached over that memory, she couldn't let that happen now, not when she had the man she’d thought gone forever in her bed. In some ways, it was as if he had been returned to her from the underworld, and she was not going to let this chance go by.
Penny explored Ziyad just as he explored her. He both was and wasn't the man she had given her virginity to two years ago in Rome. He had been a large man then, but now she could feel that he had matured; he was harder, tougher, and a part of her responded to that in a primeval way.
She ran her hands up and down his back, reveling in the smooth skin there and the muscles that moved so easily beneath them. When she boldly reached down to cup his buttocks in her hands, his laugh was both amused and slightly breathless.
"You seem like you want to explore, bella," he teased, and she looked at him with her chin raised slightly.
"I do," she said in her most lofty voice. “Is t
hat a problem?"
"Not at all."
She muffled a yelp as he grasped her firmly in his arms and then rolled to his back, leaving her half-sprawled over him.
"Do your worst then, little minx," he said, and she responded with a smirk.
"Oh, I certainly will."
She started by kissing him, on the mouth, on the tip of his nose, on his closed eyelids. When she nibbled on his earlobes and kissed along the side of his neck down to his collarbones, she could feel the response run through his body. His arms came up to circle her loosely, and she decided she would allow that for now.
She wasn't quite sure they had ever done this, him lying quiet while she moved as she liked. It was intoxicating to have him at her mercy. She swirled her tongue over his nipples, enjoying the way they tightened immediately, and when she carefully set her teeth to one, she loved the shudder that ran through his body.
Against her thigh, she could feel his manhood growing increasingly harder, and when she casually swept her hand down his body, grazing the taut shaft lightly on her way down to his strong thigh, he groaned outright.
"You should be careful," he told her, his eyes flashing. "Teases get what's coming to them."
"Well, then, I had better make sure I fully deserve my punishment, hadn’t I?" she asked daringly.
He glared at her, but when she swept her hands down his thighs and up again, he groaned, clenching his hands into fists. Every pass brought her closer and closer to touching his turgid flesh, but at the last moment, she backed off each time and pulled away, leaving him straining for her touch.
"I'm beginning to think you don't know how to touch a man," he said mockingly, and she shrugged.
"If I don't know, then you have only yourself to blame," she retorted.
For some reason that made him frown at her, and he might have said something if she hadn't chosen that moment to circle his cock with her hand and draw lightly upward towards the tip.
