by Maisey Yates
She looked at herself for a moment, stunned by the fact that she could look so … provocative. She’d almost entirely ignored her own sexuality because it had always seemed inextricably linked to her unknown, pre-selected future husband. But now, despite the fact that Hassan’s ring was on her finger, that part of her so long denied was becoming tethered to the man who was out in the living area.
The attraction had been instantaneous. But she had been confident that once she’d spent some time with him it would diminish. It seemed as though she’d have to become accustomed to his sex appeal after all. But his appeal hadn’t diminished. And her attraction was growing. Being stuck with him certainly didn’t help.
She looked down at her breasts, at her nipples pushing against the gauzy fabric. She couldn’t even think about him without having an actual physical reaction.
She huffed out a disgusted sound and pulled her jeans, top and shoes on quickly. Anything to disguise that sensual image she made, standing there in her underwear. Underwear that was definitely meant to be seen.
Her mouth dropped open with shock and a mild amount of pleasure as she took in her fully dressed reflection. She’d never looked so … so outright sexy in her entire life. She turned and admired the view from the back in the mirror. Yes, she looked totally sexy. But … more than that … she looked like herself. She was different, but totally familiar. It was as if that other version of herself—the one who’d been wearing khaki slacks and a matching jacket—had been the stranger. And this was Isabella.
She stepped up to the mirror and looked at the woman staring back at her. Her make-up was lighter than the way her personal servant did it, and her hair was left natural. Loose curls tumbled past her shoulders.
For the first time she felt as though she matched her reflection. This wasn’t the glossed-up princess, made to look so much older and more sophisticated than she was. This was the woman that she was inside.
She took a deep breath and got ready to go back into the main part of the penthouse. She was nervous, she realized. Because she’d only just seen herself for the first time, and now Adham would see her too—with no façade to hide behind.
She turned the handle and opened the door. Adham was sitting on the couch when she came into the main living area. His eyes were closed, his hands clasped behind his head, and his black T-shirt stretched tightly across the hard muscles of his broad chest. The sight of his tanned, toned arms made her stomach knot.
Once again she was very conscious of the fact that he’d seen her underwear. Which was stupid. It wasn’t as if he’d seen her in it. Or as if he’d want to.
Except when he opened his eyes and looked at her, his dark gaze taking a slow tour of her body, there was heat there. Unmistakable, undeniable heat, that burned down to her toes and every interesting spot in between.
“I’m ready,” she said, aware that her voice sounded husky, affected.
The heat in his eyes intensified, and she realized her words could be interpreted to mean something different. She also realized that part of her meant them in that way.
That was wrong. Even if she wasn’t happy about her engagement to Hassan, she was committed to it. The expectation was that she would go to her marriage bed a virgin—something she’d tried decently hard not to think about, if only because it was frightening to think of sharing such a momentous thing with a man she didn’t love or even know.
But now it seemed … it seemed worse, somehow. Maybe because when she thought of kissing she could still feel Adham’s lips moving against hers, still feel the hard press of his chest, the way it had felt to be in his strong arms. As though she were something exquisitely special and fragile. He’d held her firmly enough to keep hold of her, gently enough that she wouldn’t break.
It was him she wanted to touch again. Not just a random man—even if that man had given her a ring. Hassan still seemed random to her. A stranger. While Adham … she felt as if she was starting to know him. To care about him in spite of his hardened nature. Or maybe because of it.
She wanted to reach him, to find out if there was anything soft behind the hardened wall he placed between himself and the world. She wanted to find the root of his scars—not only those he bore physically, but the ones that ran far beneath the surface of his skin. She wanted to soothe his pain.
She looked at him again. The heat had been extinguished, his eyes now cool, flat and black. Perhaps she was imagining everything. The heat and the softness. Maybe he was all rock. But she didn’t really believe that.
“Do you want to walk or drive?” he asked, pulling her coat from the peg and handing it to her, his fingers brushing hers. The sweet, unexpected contact giving her body a jolt.
“Always walk. I love taking in the sights.”
The evening air was crisp, and she enjoyed the bite of it on her skin—especially with Adham’s solid warmth so close to her. It was easy to pretend that it was a date.
Now, dating she’d dreamed of—and often. She’d shut out thoughts of sex, because in a lot of ways it was too challenging, since she knew she would only ever experience it with one man—a man selected by her family for his status, not for any other reason. But dating.
Just being with a man—the companionship, the romance. She’d thought about that so often late at night. Wondered what sort of man she would pick for herself. What it would be like to hold hands, to have her first kiss.
Well, kissing accomplished—even if it hadn’t been anything like she’d imagined—but no hand-holding. That seemed a bit backward. But she was certain Adham wouldn’t be looking to remedy it.
She forgot about hand-holding—well, she didn’t forget, but she shuffled it to one side—when she saw the cinema. It was everything she’d imagined, with neon lighting and brightly lit posters that reflected off the pools of rainwater on the sidewalks, adding a dim glow to the darkening streets.
“Wow. It’s gorgeous,” she said, then felt embarrassed—because it was such a typical thing for most people, yet it was amazing to her in that moment.
“You want to take a picture, don’t you?”
“It’s only a movie theater, Adham,” she said pragmatically, arching her eyebrow.
“Yes, but you still want a photo. Just like you needed to take a picture of your blue door.” He said it now as though he understood, and that made her heart ache with a need that frightened her. It was intangible, something she hardly understood, but so raw, so real, she thought she might double over with the intensity of it.
She couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat as she pulled her camera from her purse and clicked off a dozen pictures of the posters, the lights, the curve of the architecture. She would always remember how she’d felt as she’d stood and looked at this theater. Every time she saw the photos she would remember. Adham’s warmth. His unexpected understanding. The pain in her chest.
She looked at the screen on the camera, at the pictures she’d taken. He positioned himself behind her, studying the photos. His fingers bruised the tender hollow of her neck as he brushed her hair back. “You see beauty in so many places. So many things,” he said, his voice husky.
Her heart thundered heavily in her chest. “Sometimes people miss beauty because it’s buried in everyday objects. But none of this exploration is everyday to me.”
He laughed softly, his breath hot against her cheek. “There is certainly nothing everyday about you.”
She turned to face him then, and she caught the barest hint of warmth in his expression before the hardened mask returned and he stepped away, his body tensing.
“We should go in, or we’ll miss our showing,” he said, moving away from her and opening the door to the theater, allowing her to go in first.
It didn’t escape her notice when he paid for her ticket. That made it feel even more like a date. He bought her popcorn too—greasy and over-salted, and one of the best things she’d ever tasted.
She was excited about the film—until the lights went down and she
suddenly realized how close and intimate it seemed to be seated next to Adham, so close, in the dark.
She shifted and her arm grazed his. Her heart jumped into her throat. She sneaked a glance at Adham out of the corner of her eye. He sat, rock-solid, his expression betraying nothing, the planes and angles of his face stoic. His features were sharper, more defined in the flickering light of the movie screen, his scars deeper, more exaggerated.
Thinking of someone harming him, of him being forced into a life or death situation, made her feel physically ill. She felt sorry for the woman who loved him. He said he didn’t want to get married, but her brother hadn’t wanted to get married again, and all it had taken was the right woman. The right woman would find Adham, but her life would be a misery of worry. She could picture Adham’s wife, curled up in bed alone, wondering if that night was the night her husband would never return.
Isabella’s heart lurched into her throat. When the picture in her mind had sharpened, the woman she’d seen sitting in bed in the dark, her knees drawn up to her chest, had been her.
She blinked and turned her focus back to the movie, back to the story unfolding in front of them, and for a while she was carried away by the beautiful classic romance.
But when the hero finally kissed the heroine she was reminded of what it had felt like when Adham’s lips had moved over hers, his tongue sliding against hers, the friction making her nipples tighten and her breasts ache. Like they were doing right at that moment.
She took a piece of popcorn from the tub and his fingers brushed hers. A short gasp escaped her lips, and she shot him another quick look to make sure he hadn’t heard. If he had, he certainly wasn’t showing it.
Why did he have to appeal to her so much? Why couldn’t her chaperon be short, fat and completely horrible? Why did he have to be this enigma of a man who called to everything feminine inside her?
Adham had opened up a new world of fantasies and desires—made her ache for things she’d never wanted before.
It was pointless and cruel. She didn’t even have the hope of a brief romance with him, let alone a happily ever after.
She looked at his hands, curled around the shared armrest that sat between them. She examined those scars again. She doubted a brief, light romance with a man like him would even be possible. He was the sort of man who would give nothing or everything. There wouldn’t be much in between. And she … she would only be able to give everything. And she would want everything in return. An impossible situation even without the ring on her finger.
His hand brushed hers again and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Attraction, she was discovering, was about a lot more than butterflies in your stomach. It could be all-consuming, a need as elemental and necessary as food or drink. It was quickly becoming that way for her.
Curiosity. That was all it was. It had to be. After all, she’d never really felt drawn to a man like this before. All of the men she’d met at galas and balls and parties had been … insipid. Especially when she compared them to Adham.
Maybe if she were to meet another man like Adham she would feel the same way. Maybe she simply had a type. Except there wasn’t another man to equal him. She was certain of that.
When the credits finally rolled on the movie she let out a gust of breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. She needed distance, or she was afraid she might crawl out of her skin.
Adham’s swift exhalation of breath shocked her. It was almost as though he’d been experiencing the same thing she had. As if he were held in the thrall of this attraction, just as she was.
Once again realism compelled her to ask why on earth a man of Adham’s experience would be interested in a virgin princess who didn’t even know proper kissing tech nique.
“Did you enjoy the movie?” he asked as they exited the theater, his voice clipped, his manner detached.
“Yes. I did.” Hopefully he didn’t want a summary, because all she would be able to give him was a recap of how many times his arm had accidentally brushed hers.
“I’m glad.” He didn’t sound glad. He sounded detached. Bored. That irritated her. She felt edgy and … and turned on. And he was bored.
She couldn’t stand next to him anymore—not feeling as if every nerve ending was on fire, as if the light touch of the breeze was going to tip her over the edge into the dark depths of arousal. Discomfiting to a woman who had scarcely experienced arousal in her life—at least not in such a personal sense.
She walked ahead of him, her steps quick and staccato, her heels clacking loudly on the pavement. He was infuriating. Yes, it would really be pointless for him to feel the same way, because neither of them could act on it, but it would have gone a long way toward satisfying her if she knew that he was at least half as uncomfortable as she was.
He kept pace behind her, obviously unconcerned with her pique, which just made her feel more irritated. No wonder women in romantic movies acted so strange sometimes. Men were infuriating. No two ways about it.
“Isabella.” His deep voice startled her, and she wobbled on her high heel, her ankle rolling as she pitched to the side.
A strong hand clamped tightly around her arm and kept her from crashing to the cement. She found herself drawn tightly against his firm, muscled chest, his heart pounding heavily beneath her cheek.
“Be careful,” he bit out, still holding her.
“It’s the shoes,” she said, unable to catch her breath, her hands shaking from the adrenaline surge of her near fall—and from his hold on her arm.
“And the fact that you were stomping off like an indignant teenager.”
She drew herself back so that she could look at him, conscious that the action pushed her breasts against him. “I was not acting like an indignant teenager.”
“Yes, you were.”
“I was not!” She looked at his face, at his maddeningly flat, controlled expression. “Does anything ever get to you?”
“No.”
“Well, it does to me. It seems like I feel everything and you feel nothing.” She had only intended to reference the way she felt about shopping and blue doors, but she knew that it hadn’t sounded that way. Knew that she had meant much more than that. She wanted to call the words back as soon as she’d spoken them. She’d all but broadcasted her attraction to him, and he was just staring at her, controlled as always.
“You don’t think I feel anything, Isabella?” he said, his voice soft, as tightly reined as the rest of him.
He drew his finger over the line of her jaw, his dark eyes intent on hers, and then she felt it—the first crack in his façade. A slight tremor in his hand, unveiled heat in his eyes. Her heart-rate ratcheted up several beats per minute.
“I feel. Things I have no business feeling. I want things that are not mine to covet.”
He moved slightly, drawing her back away from the glaring streetlight and turning her, pressing her against the side of one of the buildings. The chill from the brick seeped through her sweater. But Adham was still holding her, and his heat was more than enough to keep her warm, to make her feel as if she might be incinerated where she stood, reduced to a pile of ash at his feet.
“What do you think I felt watching you flaunt all that sexy lingerie? Watching you tease me?”
She opened her mouth to protest at his words.
“Yes, Isabella, you were teasing me.”
“Yes,” she said, her throat almost too tight to allow the word passage.
“And tonight? Sitting with you in the dark? You think I felt nothing? With your soft body so close to mine? Your sweet scent enticing me?” His tone was rough now, his hold on her tightening.
And her body was responding.
“You … you’re always controlled.”
“Not always.” He pressed into her, the hardness of his erection evident against her thigh. “Not always.”
And then he was kissing her, his mouth rough at first, demanding, as it had been the first time they’d kissed. She whimp
ered, wiggled so that she could put her arms around his neck and hold him closer, angling her head so that she could part her lips and kiss him back.
Then something happened. His hold gentled, his lips softened, and the slide of his tongue against hers slowed, became almost leisurely, as though he were savoring the taste of her. The thought sent a sensual shiver through her body, made her moan and arch against him.
He moved his hands down, sliding over her curves, cupping her breasts. She gasped. No man had ever touched her like this before. And he was almost reverent in his exploration of her, as though she were a masterpiece.
“Oh, yes.” She tilted her head back, her breath broken, her words a half-sob.
He rocked against her, his hardness teasing her, tantalizing her, igniting passions she’d never dreamed imaginable. He moved his mouth away from hers, pressing his lips against her neck, biting her gently and then lapping the sting away with his tongue before taking her mouth again.
“Adham.” she sighed against his lips
He abandoned her mouth, breaking contact with her abruptly. The sudden rush of air against her body was a shock to her system. He pushed himself away from her, using the wall as leverage, his chest rising and falling sharply, his breath visible in the cool night air.
Embarrassment mingled with unquenched desire, making her feel nauseous, making her knees weak. Now, with only the chill of the brick against her back, and none of Adham’s solid warmth, she shivered.
“Adham?” She reached out her hand to touch his forearm, and he jerked back with a harsh intake of breath.
“No.”
“But …”
He took her hand then, held it up beneath the street-lamp until the engagement ring on her finger glittered in the yellow light. “No.”
She snatched her hand back, her head swimming, her body shaking. She had forgotten for a moment—about Hassan, about Adham’s position working for her fiancé, about her own position in life. There had only been Adham. His arms, his lips, the hardness of his body.
But now reality was back with a vengeance.
