She opened her mouth to ask what she should forgive him for—and he took advantage of the moment to kiss her.
He pulled her even closer to him as he pressed her lips with his own. The kiss was hard and insistent. He gave her no choice. He explored her mouth with desperation, as if she might disappear at any moment.
He tasted even better than he smelled. Every molecule in her body responded on cue, turning into a charged particle. Her cuffed hand, carrying his along with it, clamped against the back of his neck, feeling the contrast of hard muscle with the silk of his hair.
It wasn't a tender, tentative first kiss. It was the kiss of long practice, of knowledge of secret desires. Of intimacy.
And then he broke it off, leaving her legs even more jelly-like than before.
"I'm sorry, hayati." He leaned his forehead against her own, his beautiful grey eyes closed in something like pain. "I shouldn't have done that. But I once vowed I would never lose you again. Now it seems that I have. And I was a fool for so long, thinking I would forget you, that my life meant anything without you in it. When I admitted to myself it was hopeless, that I could love you only... That was the day I truly began to live. Yet I had known it all along. I studied in school only so you would think me intelligent. I worked hard so you would not think me a useless person who had only inherited his position. And I trained my body so you would want me in your bed."
She was too stunned to say anything. All she could do was hang on and try to absorb the insanity coming out of his mouth.
"So, I did stalk you, as you say. I had kept up with your life by sending detectives to tell me about you every few years, telling myself I did it out of friendship. But once I admitted it was a love I could feel for no other, I arranged for you to win tickets to a resort."
"You're a liar," she said, but her voice came out weak as dishwater. "It took me three tries to win that radio contest."
"And if I'd had to pay for ten more tickets before you won, I would have. Radio WYOW found me an excellent patron. They kept their silence well."
She stiffened. When she'd finally gotten through on the line, she'd known the answers to all seven trivia questions, no problem. Like the contest was designed for her to win it.
"I knew that if you could return my love, no man would be happier than me, but if not, no man was more wretched." He bent his face into her shoulder, inhaling her scent. "It was no difficulty for me to find you at the resort. Charming you into spending time with me was more difficult. But once someone gets past your defenses, you have the warmest heart. I still don't know why you fell in love with me, hayati, but I will always be grateful."
Max's pulse beat in her ears like the countdown to an explosion. Even though she wasn't sure of her legs, she shoved him away. He was deluded, even if it was a tempting delusion. She couldn't believe a word he said. This was the man who kidnapped her, she reminded herself, trying to call up the terror being abducted, of having a drugged cloth pressed to her face and losing consciousness and control.
Pain crossed his features, but he masked it quickly. "Yes. It is too soon. I know it is too soon. I apologize."
"I need the washroom," she said, unsteady on her feet and in her mind.
***
Sayd gave her privacy, in a way. He stood outside the door; she closed it as best she could, but the chain between the handcuffs held it open a crack. Luckily, he had planned well, since...
"Why did you free my left hand instead of my right?" she asked, a little afraid of the answer.
"Because you're left-handed."
She was. But he could have seen that or something. He'd admitted to stalking her, after all. It was a 50/50 chance, really. It didn't mean he knew her better than that.
Once she flushed and arranged her clothes, he came in, filling the small room with his large body. I trained my body so you would want me in your bed, he'd said. If he wasn't insane, she would want him, she admitted. Hard to get past the whole "abduction" thing, though. No matter how certain he seemed that she belonged to him.
Sayd stood behind her at the sink and they washed her hands together. He entwined his fingers with hers. His hands were even warmer than the water. He took his time sliding the soap over her palms like they were an erogenous zone. With his arms around her, it felt like they were.
"Sayd." Her voice was barely louder than the water. "Why was I in the hospital?"
"Routine check-up," he answered instantly, as if he'd prepared to say it.
She let it go. Just his imagination, after all. If she'd been in the hospital, she'd remember. Besides, there were more important things. "If you're royalty, where are your bodyguards?"
"I slipped away from them to come to you."
"But the Crimson Hand?" There, she said it without laughing. Almost as if she believed he was being followed by terrorists.
"Have never attempted to kill me," he clarified. "Only you."
His crazy was air-tight; she had to give him that. "Something you said confused me."
"Just one thing?" He gave her a half smile as he turned off the water and began to wipe every drop of moisture off her fingers with the softest towel she'd ever felt. She didn't have to do anything but hold her hands out.
"You said we met for the second time in the Dominican. Where was the first?"
The effect of her question was immediate. His hands and body froze. That muscle in his jaw ticked with raw emotion. After the barest instant, he threw the towel back on the rack like it disgusted him, and stepped away from her. "That's not important. I shouldn't have said it."
She looked up in the mirror and smiled at him, pretending to accept what he said. It seemed to her if she could make him tell her, and figure out where she knew his name from, she could help him with his mental illness.
He rolled handsome grey eyes. "You can't even lie when you say nothing. You won't let it go, will you?"
"Sure I will." She did her best to act offended. It didn't even sound authentic to her own ears.
***
Max didn't kid herself that he would uncuff her for bed. Nope, she'd be sleeping with him for sure. At least she'd be fully clothed. And he hadn't restricted her to the chair again.
Of course that meant that she'd been attached to him, forced into intimacy as they moved around the cabin. He insisted on washing the dishes, though he'd tried to use the hand soap on the plates and glasses. She'd shown him how to squirt the dish soap into the water, thinking he really had this "Arab Prince" act down pat. Of course a Middle Eastern sheikh would have servants to do this stuff for him.
Then, he'd declared it was time to sleep. They'd gone into the bedroom to find the sheets carefully folded on a mother-of-pearl inlaid chest at the foot of the enormous bed. Seductive mouth turned down in a frown of grave distress, he'd admitted he had no idea how to make up a bed.
"Lucky I'm here, then," she'd said, laughing.
Way too seriously, he'd agreed. "I'm very lucky you're here."
Cuffed together, they'd had a hard time tucking in the fitted sheet, which kept coming off on the other side. She didn't bother suggesting it would be easier if he unlocked her. He might be insane, but he wasn't stupid.
So they muddled it out and she showed him how to make a hospital corner with the flat sheet. He mastered the technique just by watching, and tucked the sheet under the mattress flawlessly on the other side. The way he crossed his arms and nodded his great satisfaction at his work made her smile.
She felt hyper-aware of his every move. The way his thighs flexed in the legs of his low-slung jeans. His chest, solid as the massive mahogany headboard. Most of all, his gaze all over her. He didn't bother to hide his interest, to play it cool. He didn't wait for her to look away. He just drank her in.
Even when she wasn’t looking, she sensed him watching her, and blushed to the tips of her ears.
To distract herself, she travelled back in her mind, searching for when they'd met before.
There were a few Arabic men at her
software company. Programmers, mostly. Kalil was the most devout, going into one of the small meeting rooms to pray at specific times of the day, while some of the others didn't even observe the Ramadan fast. None of them were anything like Sayd.
She racked her brain for guys she'd known in college, but none of them were hot as her abductor. She definitely would have remembered him.
The only other candidate was the first boy from the Middle East she'd ever met. But that couldn't be him. It had been kindergarten, for crap's sake. The poor kid's parents had shipped him to Newark when he didn't speak a word of English. He hadn't been a bit like Sayd. Not handsome and confident. Definitely not motorcycle material. He'd been skinny and miserable and alone.
The bullies from fourth grade had picked up on his coffee-colored skin like sharks scenting blood in the water. He'd been too little, too different. Alone, he was an easy target. He'd tried to talk to the bullies in his native language, sending them into spasms of laughter.
The worst part of it was that on the first day he'd come, her six-year-old self had just been grateful the bullies had someone else to pick on instead of chanting "Maxi-pad" at her all lunch hour long. The thought of her relief still filled her with sick shame.
The day they'd dumped him in the mud was acid-etched into her brain. That was the day her strong sense of justice had been born. It had been so unfair. About six of the big boys had cornered him and shoved him down into a puddle.
Even now she burned at the cruelty of it. She'd hated those boys even then, and hated that she couldn't do anything about it. Hated their pointing and sadistic laughter.
But that day, the little boy hadn't fought back, as he'd done before. Weeks of teasing had finally killed all emotion in him. That was the thing more unfair than anything else. Even then she sensed some light inside him going out. He'd sat in the puddle, doing nothing, until they'd gotten bored and left.
She still didn't know why she sat down next to him, soaking her jean overalls, but she had. That morning, her granddad had given her a roll of Butter Rum Life Savers, which she'd brought out and shared with him. One by one, sitting in the cold mud, they'd silently eaten the whole package. She gave him the last Life Saver of the pack. When the bell rang, they walked back to the classroom together.
The next day, she heard he'd transferred to another school.
That boy's name was not Sayd, she knew. Besides, she could never imagine the big, masculine man prowling like a lion around the bed putting up with teasing. The idea was ridiculous. Plus that little boy hadn't been a prince. The bullies had called him something cruel. Something feminine. What had it been?
She would like to remember that boy's name, though. For his own sake. She hadn't thought about him for years. Part of her hated herself for forgetting. She should have kept up with him. Maybe she could now. If she had someone good at stalking people handy.
"Sayd?" she asked. "Are you really a king?"
"No."
Well, at least his delusion had limits.
"Not while my father lives," he clarified.
Or maybe not. "So your family has resources and power."
He looked into her eyes, searching for something there. "Do you need resources and power?"
"Maybe the resources," she said, for once hoping there was something to his fantasies. "There's someone I'd like to find."
He set his jaw. "A man? Should I be jealous?"
She shrugged. "Just this boy I used to know. I shouldn't have lost track of him. But I was really young at the time."
He smoothed a wrinkle in the sheet. "Sometimes it is best to leave the past where it lies."
It seemed like an odd thing to say for a man who was desperate for her to remember these years he said she'd lost.
"Come," he said. "It is time for bed.
***
Max stared at the three skimpy lace nighties Sayd had laid on the bed.
"I like the blue one best," he told her. "It matches your eyes."
"Well, I think you'll look fabulous in it. I'm not wearing any of these, buddy."
He lowered his lids in a classic smoldering look. "You're welcome to sleep nude. I like that even better than the blue one."
She snapped her fingers in front of his nose. "Wake up. You're dreaming already."
"Very well," he conceded, pointing to the drawer where he'd found the tiny excuses for sleepwear. "There is another."
The silver silk pajamas were more acceptable. Except there was the problem of getting into them while wearing handcuffs. He seemed to read her mind and brought out the key. With one hand, he unlocked her. The other held her wrist in place, one thumb caressing the sensitive pulse point where her palm met her arm. Warmth spread through her body, touching places she didn't know were connected to her wrist.
As soon as she was free, she ripped her hand away and grabbed the pajamas to hold like armor in front of her. "I'll just be a second."
She took a step toward the door—and found a too-handsome sheikh in her way. "What now?" It dawned on her. "You don't expect me to change in here?"
"You have no need to be shy. I have seen your body hundreds of times."
Yeah, through binoculars. Just when she started to think he was sane, out came the crazy. She sighed. At least he seemed devoted to this marriage fantasy, to a slow seduction.
As if to encourage her, he pulled his shirt over his head.
Damn, it should be illegal to have shoulders like that and belong in the loony bin. And with such a pretty hallucination—that he loved her more than anyone in the world. What woman wouldn't be tempted to indulge in a little Stockholm syndrome with this guy?
Then he pulled the leather strap out of his hair, letting it fall in a soft, sexy wave. She whimpered mindlessly.
When he began to unzip his jeans, she came back to herself and turned away, volcanic magma rising to her cheeks. Not letting herself think twice, she scooted off her own jeans and stepped into the bottoms. She dashed off her tee shirt and mashed the pajama top down over her head. Once she had it on, she maneuvered her bra off through the sleeves.
"You do not normally sleep wearing panties," he said, his voice a low rumble.
She turned back to see him lying under the covers, one shackle still around his wrist. The other lay open, waiting for her. She couldn't see any way out of it. If she went for the door, he'd be on her before she got there.
Max climbed onto the bed and offered her wrist. "You're right about the panties. But I think I'll wear them tonight."
He fastened the cuff around her with as much gentleness as possible. Then he looked at her from under dark lashes. "Doesn’t matter. I can take them off as easily as anything else."
With her suddenly dry throat, she couldn't make a peep. All her thoughts focused on what he was wearing under that sheet. Clearly he didn't wear a shirt at night. Bottoms or not?
Trying to put it out of her mind, she rolled on her side and faced the wall. Her eyes just didn't want to close, though. So she just listened to the sound of the blood thrumming in her ears.
It didn't get better when he rolled against her back and whispered. "No goodnight kiss for your husband?"
"You're not my husband. You're suffering from insanity."
"Truly, I am suffering. But I'm also your husband, though I don't expect you to believe that now." His masculine scent enveloped her. His hand flattened on her belly. "I will get you help, Max. We will find out what has been done to you, and the Crimson Hand will pay."
She rolled her eyes. The Crimson Hand again. "Tell you what, Sayd. I'll kiss you if you promise to stop talking."
"A bad bargain," he said. "I enjoy talking to you almost as much as I enjoy kissing you. And I haven't seen you for three months. However, if it pleases you, I agree. I assume we can talk again in the morning."
No way would he be satisfied with a fast peck on the cheek. Her blood heated at the thought of another kiss like the one they'd shared earlier.
She had to try anyway. She tur
ned her face to give him a quick kiss. He was quicker. He untangled from her and lay on his back. Clever boy. This would force her to lie on his chest to reach his mouth.
Well, she was clever, too. She got on her knees and bent over him, minimizing contact. Or at least that was the idea.
His hands cupped her jaw, drawing her toward him. Despite her doubts, she let it happen. Their lips met, soft and sweet.
The kiss was almost—but not quite—chaste. He moved his mouth, catching her bottom lip between his for the barest instant. It came close to being less of a kiss and more of a promise of one. That kiss revved her body like nothing else would have. Her heart thundered under her ribs. Her thighs went weak. Every part of her ached for more.
Then he let her go, rolling away without a word, leaving her dazed and spinning.
Bastard, bastard, bastard, she cursed when her brain started working again. He seemed to know how to get her hormones humming—and leave her wanting.
Frustrated to the point of insanity, she slapped him on one hard pec with an open hand. "You jerk. What the hell was that?"
He feigned confusion at her, making a big show of drawing his eyebrows together and shrugging those cliff-face shoulders. Then he put a long, elegant finger to the divot under his nose in the classic gesture for silence.
If he'd pushed her, she would have resisted. But this? Now she was aroused and needy and there was a man not only willing, but stunning, lying next to her. You didn't get many chances to sleep with a demi-god devoted to your happiness and who had just proven he respected what you wanted. Her body had been growling for his touch since they met and now all she had to do was reach out for him.
With some part of her recognizing this had been his plan from the start, she full-on straddled him and forced him to look at her. As she knelt over him, her hands on the pillow, her hair streamed down on either side of his handsome face.
This was a bad idea, but it seemed like the best bad idea she'd ever had.
Handcuffed to the Sheikh (Hot Contemporary Romance Novella) Page 3
