Her belly shimmered as his fingertips grazed it through her thin top. She let her hands stray to his biceps. So hard and powerful. Everything about Amadou was intense, strong, a little overwhelming.
She gasped slightly as his hand slid inside her blouse and his thumb grazed her nipple. The intimate touch sent a jolt of arousal through her like he’d hit a switch. Her blood heated and she leaned toward him, closing her eyes and inhaling his masculine scent.
“I want to make love to you.” He breathed the words into her neck, hot and insistent.
“Here?”
“Now.” He was already removing her top. Were they really going to make love on his mom’s expensively upholstered sofa? She felt like a teenager again—except that as a teenager she’d probably have been more sensible.
Sensible had deserted her. They tugged their clothes off and eagerly pressed skin to skin. Then Amadou sucked her nipples to hard peaks. She feathered kisses over the hard muscle of his chest, and down to his rock-hard erection.
Then she stopped.
Chapter 11
Lina hesitated. Her husband had told her that giving a man pleasure this way was undignified. Something expected of a whore, not a wife.
Of course this was the man who had brief, vanilla sex with her, then apparently satisfied his less conventional urges with an ancient sex society devoted to keeping royal proclivities—and infidelities—under a cloak of secrecy.
Amadou’s erection shifted slightly, as if anticipating the touch of her lips. She decided to indulge her desires, first licking the tip, then taking it into her mouth and sucking eagerly.
His tortured groans only fueled her own inner fires. She wanted to go on sucking him, but the desire to feel him inside her grew more intense until she rose up and pressed herself against him. “I want you.”
His only reply was a ragged breath, half buried in a kiss, as he lowered her to the soft cushions of the sofa, sheathed himself with a condom and entered her with exquisite care. The sensations were so powerful she climaxed almost immediately, but—her insides still pulsing around him—she wanted more.
As he moved inside her, deeper and deeper, she knew she wanted to climb on top of him. Again, this was something she hadn’t done since she’d last been with Amadou. Her husband had always treated her with the respect and dignity due to his royal bride, and royal brides apparently did not ride cowgirl.
But she hadn’t forgotten. Amadou helped her ease herself into position, and it all came back as if she’d last made love to him yesterday. This time, though, she appreciated the intimacy and tenderness of his touch.
When he whispered her name it excited her as it had always done, but somehow being older and wiser made everything more powerful, more meaningful. Back then she hadn’t known how perfect their partnership was. She hadn’t known that she’d never feel anything quite like it again. That compared with Amadou any other man would be a disappointment and a let down.
Traitorous thoughts, to be sure. And ones she’d never let herself entertain while her husband was alive. Or even afterward, in her grief at losing her best friend and the father of her children. But he’d never made love to her like this.
Never let her make love to him like this.
She rode Amadou slowly, then faster, guiding them both to an explosive climax that flung her forward onto him and left them both gasping and perspiring into the designer fabric of his mom’s sofa.
When she stopped gasping, she suddenly wondered. “Did I make too much noise?”
He laughed. “I have no idea. My mom is a sound sleeper, though.”
“And probably far too discreet to listen. Still, let’s get dressed. I can’t sit and talk to you naked in your mom’s living room.”
Chuckling like teenagers who’ve just gotten away with something, they tugged their clothes back on, then wrapped themselves into an embrace on the sofa again.
“You do realize this isn’t normal?” Amadou spoke softly into her hair.
“Two full-grown adults acting like naughty teenagers?”
“No.” He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. “Two full-grown adults with such a deep and powerful connection.”
She swallowed. There was something—different—between them. Love? No. Love was the feeling that grew inside you along with loyalty and duty to the people you cared about. In many ways this was the opposite of that as it threatened to tug her from her duty and from the people who needed her.
Lust. Passion.
“Just one of those things, I guess.” She tried to say it lightly, to shrug off the deep feelings that rose inside her when she was around Amadou.
“I worked really hard to put you out of my mind,” he said, expression deadly serious. “It took a long time, and I finally succeeded.” His eyes shimmered with emotion. “Or I thought I did. Now all my hard work is ruined.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious. It was always hard to tell with Amadou.
He tilted his head. “Was it hard for you to forget me? Or did I just slip out of your mind the day you left me?”
She inhaled slowly. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t want to lie to him, either. He didn’t deserve that. “I suppose that unlike you I saw it coming so I was prepared. I’d been groomed from birth to marry someone suitable and strategic. Seriously, it was the kind of thing my family discussed at Sunday lunch when I was as young as twelve.”
“You have got to be joking.” He looked suitably appalled.
“Nope.” She wished she could laugh about it. “They said that because I was pretty I was the best hope of continuing the family name and fortunes. Liesel was too plain—they said that openly too, right in front of her—so their hopes all rested on me.”
“No wonder she’s a bit crabby.”
“Truly.”
“But you just went along with their plan like it actually made sense?”
She blinked. “I wanted to make my parents happy. To make them proud. I knew that my looks were my best asset. I was the pretty one, and Liesel was the smart one. I wasn’t going to attend university and have a big career, so my job was to find a good husband and make my family proud.”
Amadou stared. “It may have been another century, but it was the twentieth century, not the eighteenth.”
“I admit that from where I stand now, it all seems ridiculous. I would no more push my children into a strategic marriage than I would sell them into slavery. It was another era back then, though. Look at poor Princess Diana—married off to a much older man who cheated on her. Things have changed a lot since then. At least I hope they have.”
“Maybe you should have told me I was just a temporary fling. Part of your last gasp of freedom.” The glint of humor in his eyes warred with the low tone of his voice.
“I thought it was the same for you. I knew I wasn’t your first girlfriend. I knew I wouldn’t be your last. I guess I didn’t think it was that serious.” They hadn’t lived together—she’d been in an all-girls dorm at her expensive school—or even discussed it. Or anything beyond their plans for the following weekend.
“Maybe I didn’t realize how serious it was until it was over.” He stroked her cheek. “I suppose I didn’t know how deeply I’d fallen in love with you until I tried to fall out of love again.”
Lina’s breath stuck in her chest. For some reason his words hit her like a blow to the chest. He should hate her after how she’d treated him. “It wasn’t easy to leave you. I tried to do it the way you’d rip off a Band-Aid.”
“Because I wasn’t the kind of lover you could bring home to Mama and Papa.”
She didn’t know what to say. “They were very snobbish. They definitely wouldn’t have approved.”
“Of me being a street musician or me being black?”
“Both.” She didn’t try to prevaricate. “They would have been really upset and told me to leave you immediately.”
“So you preemptively avoided the ugly confrontation by doing i
t before they could meet me.”
She nodded, and to her surprise hot tears filled her eyes and flooded her throat. “I should be ashamed. I think I am ashamed. I guess I never really looked at it that way before.”
Amadou took her face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry. You were just trying to be a good girl and make your family happy. Any parent would be proud of you. My mom was probably crying into her pillow in Paris worrying about me—with good reason—so in a lot of ways you’re the better person than me.”
“You’re sweet, but I can see that I was just weak.”
He shrugged. “Not everyone is born strong. You became strong, though. Your beautiful family is a testament to that, and you wouldn’t have them if you’d run away with me.”
She smiled through her tears. “True.”
Amadou marveled at his restraint. She shed tears, and he acted like he was a stranger to emotion. He would let his feelings out later in a song.
How did she still look so lovely? And all the more gorgeous flushed and glowing from making sweet love with him.
He certainly hadn’t expected that to happen in his mother’s elegant living room. If anything he’d thought they might settle for a discreet kiss in the car. He wasn’t trying to rush into anything hot and heavy with Lina.
Partly because he knew it would scare her into hiding. And partly because this experience was taking a toll on him. He’d spent years getting over her, and now he found himself diving back into her embrace like a just-rescued drowning man who hurls himself back into the ocean.
Yet here they were. Where was this going?
Even he wasn’t rash enough to ask the question aloud.
She patted her hair. “We should get back to Paris.”
“I suppose so.” He hated the idea. Left to his own devices he’d like to buy another house like this and keep her locked up in it so she couldn’t run away from him again.
“Why are you laughing?” She lifted a brow.
“You’d be disturbed by how much I don’t want to take you back.”
“I don’t really want to go back either, but I know I have to.”
“Duty calls.” He cocked his head. She’d always choose the call of duty, responsibility and family over him. She’d said as much herself.
“Exactly.” She straightened her silk top. “Sometimes duty is the only thing that keeps me sane. In the days immediately following my husband’s and mother-in-law’s deaths, sometimes I thought I might really lose my mind.” She lifted her chin. “Sometimes I still do. How can we not have found the murderer? Every day I fear for my son, the new king. If I didn’t have functions to attend and have to keep up a brave facade, I might have gone to pieces by now.”
“Are there suspects?”
She exhaled. “Nothing solid. They were in a strange secret society that makes me nervous, but my son thinks that the society exists to protect royals, not kill them. No one ever explains anything to me. I know they’re keeping secrets from me to save my feelings. All I know is that the killer is still out there.”
She’d stiffened while talking about it, and his fingers itched to massage her now tight shoulders. But that felt wrong when she was talking about her late husband’s death.
Did she love him?
She must have, surely. At least enough to conceive and raise all those children with him. And Lina was the type who’d love her husband—really love him—simply out of duty. She was the kind of person arranged marriages were made for.
He rose slowly from the sofa, reluctant to tear himself from their beautiful evening. He couldn’t be sure of the next time they’d be together. Or even if there would be a next time.
And that half killed him.
Chapter 12
“So you have concrete proof.” Amadou walked along the Champs-Elysées with his longtime friend and ally, Jean-Paul. They avoided using the phone and never used email to discuss anything sensitive. You never knew who was watching—as their target would soon find out.
“We have three incriminating phone conversations recorded and one video from a security camera.”
“So none of it’s legal.”
“Nope, and that’s why we need the court of public opinion on our side.”
Amadou blew out a breath. “Risky. He could sue us.”
“Not if two thousand of the most influential people in France can suddenly see him for the kind of fiend he really is. Then the authorities will be forced to crack down on him properly and it will be out of our hands. We’ve been after him for years; he’s slippery as Teflon. I honestly think this is our best shot.”
“If I make this announcement at the Gaia event, my cover will be blown for good.”
Jean-Paul shrugged. “Your high profile and integrity are essential to making the evidence compelling and newsworthy.”
“I suppose you’re right. And there will be a lot of reporters there.” Amadou still didn’t like it much. It was messy and relied too much on other people. He lowered his voice as they moved past a stationary crowd of tourists taking pictures of each other. “I wish I could refuse, but the stakes are too high. I’ll do it.”
“Great. I’ve spoken to the event organizers about your doing a brief talk about your musical inspiration and showing a video of one of your early performances. Only you and I know you have entirely different subject matter in mind. Christine is editing the taped phone conversations and will include a brief testimony from Francie, who we rescued last year.”
He nodded. “I don’t suppose I’ll get to see it beforehand.”
“No. Too risky. No one will see it, but I will make sure that there is a different tape—from an old concert of yours—for the rehearsals and that this one is switched at the right moment.”
Jean-Paul had recently finagled his way onto the board of the Gaia organization, a high-profile big-wig think tank that hosted spectacular events to raise money for charity. In recent years their parties were so high profile that it was considered essential to attend if you had any business or political ambitions. Usually Amadou hated this kind of black-tie affair, but Jean-Paul was right. With so many opinion makers in attendance it would be the perfect opportunity to catch their prey, a prominent Parisian with a penchant for importing unsuspecting girls for the sex trade.
Probably neither of them would ever be invited to another formal affair in Paris, but that was just fine with him.
Lina walked out of Louis Vuitton, where she’d just been cajoled into buying a new shoulder bag for Liesel. She wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but did it really matter? Now Liesel was onto a new urgent want—the big Gaia event Lina rather hoped to avoid.
“You have a ticket already? Why didn’t you say so?” Liesel’s voice rose to a delighted squeal. “I thought we were going to have to call in a favor. Getting another one for me shouldn’t be hard if you’re already on the list.”
“You can have mine. I was planning to go back to Altaleone that day, anyway.” She had no concrete plans yet, but this should throw Liesel off the scent of thinking she had a reason to stay in Paris.
“Nonsense. You can’t miss it. Everyone who’s anyone will be there.”
“I find those events daunting without Emil.”
“You’ll have me!” Liesel wrapped a skinny arm around her back. “How exciting. We must find something to wear. Is Callista going, too?”
“Yes. Her company bought a table.”
“Excellent. She needs to go out and about in order to find a suitable husband. All the crowned heads of Europe will be there.”
Lina suppressed a laugh. That was very unlikely. She knew Darias and Emma weren’t coming, for a start. “She’s been begging me to go with her.”
“We must find her something magnificent to wear.”
So by four that afternoon the three of them were shopping for dresses together and Lina found herself in a paroxysm of terror that Callista might somehow mention Amadou and let that cat out of the bag.
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Not that Callista knew about anything except that first dinner, of course.
“Amadou Khadem is one of the speakers,” proclaimed Callista at last while fondling a cobalt chiffon dress.
Lina froze. “Oh.” She tried to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“Oh, God. He’s that rock star that’s staying at my hotel. What a bore. Cameras everywhere.”
“He’s not a rock star, Aunt Liesel. His music is fusion. They call it desert soul.”
“I don’t care what it is. I like some peace and quiet in my hotel lobby.”
“Did you know that Mom had dinner with him last week?”
Lina tried to pretend she was fully absorbed in the diamante choker neckline of a slinky green gown.
But she could feel Liesel’s fierce gaze boring into her. “What?”
Lina shrugged without looking up. “We’re old acquaintances.” She hoped her face wasn’t heating. She felt like Judas betraying Jesus. “We simply caught up with each other over a bite.”
“You are a dark horse, aren’t you.” Liesel moved in close. “Dinner with a man young enough to be your son. You do know he has girls ogling him everywhere he goes.”
“He’s actually one year older than Mom,” said Callista helpfully. “And I’m one of the girls ogling him. He’s gorgeous.”
Liesel ignored her. “You should be careful,” she said pointedly to Lina. “People will talk.”
“No one other than you,” said Lina coldly. “What do you think of this one?” She pulled a hideous purple dress with a big ruffle off the rack, hoping it would be enough of a distraction.
“Frightful.” Liesel feigned a shudder. “I’m sure Mr. Khadem would love it.”
Callista laughed. “Hey, crazy thought, if he’s going to the Gaia event and we’re going to the Gaia event, why don’t we ask him to sit at our table? My boss would be thrilled.”
“I don’t think so,” said Lina, imagining what an utter disaster that would be. She’d have a hard enough time keeping a straight face just watching him up onstage, let alone sitting right across from him. Or worse, next to him. “I’m sure he has someone more important to sit with.”
Hot Silver Nights: Silver Fox Romance Collection Page 37
