by Olivia Gates
“Your services would have been circumstantial, since I would have come to your bed anyway, if you wanted me there.”
At her admission, his eyes simmered with a triumphant glow. Which was weird, really. Didn’t he already know any woman would throw herself at his feet, if only he would let her?
But it was clear her words didn’t only please him, they stoked his lust. The heat emanating from him rose, igniting her own higher, and the hardness below her became a steel shaft of discomfort digging into her thigh. Her core throbbed with an empty ache she’d only ever felt since he’d touched her.
She wanted to wind herself around him, to tell him to forget everything—her need for his services and his for an heir—and act on the need burning them up.
Instead, she said, “As I was saying, even if you wanted me on sight, that still doesn’t translate to considering me for the role of mother of your heir. From my vast experience with the obscenely rich and powerful, sexual desire is not even among the prerequisites in choosing who to procreate with. I’m sure a man like you has strict criteria for said role, and countless other women who’re better candidates for it than me.”
“I may be obscenely rich and powerful, but I already told you I care nothing about anyone’s rules. I make and follow my own.” Sensual appreciation weighed down his lids, filled his lips as his hand painted her from shoulders to buttocks in luxurious caresses. “But I do have extremely strict criteria in the mother of my heir. That’s why only you will do.”
“Why? Do I somehow fulfill more criteria than others?”
“You fulfill every single one, and others I didn’t even have till I met you.” He cupped her cheek hungrily, his gaze devouring her. “I want my heir to be born of the perfect woman.”
This made her snort. “Boy, are you barking up the wrong woman. I’m so far from perfect I’m in another galaxy.”
His fingers sank into her hair, gave a pleasurable tug at her nape. “You are perfect to me. Just like I, with all of my glaring flaws, am perfect to you.”
Her snort was more indelicate this time. “What glaring flaws? You are perfect, and would be so in anyone’s eyes.”
“Would I? That’s news to me, since both allies and foes consider me a monster.” Before she could object, he pressed on. “From what you know of the business world, you must know what it took to rise to my current status and to maintain it. You know I must be ruthless and remorseless, and that I don’t give a damn what the world thinks of me, and that nothing is beyond me. From our interactions so far, you must realize I’m dangerous, even deadly, and I can destroy anyone I decide deserves it, even kill them, without turning a hair.”
She stared at him. He’d put everything she’d felt about him in her bones into words. Everything that made him even more perfect to her.
She nodded slowly. “Instinctively, and logically, I know you’re all that.”
His lips spread in satisfaction. “All that makes me the opposite of perfect to everyone. Except for my partners, I’m someone to dread, or at most to appease, either in the hope of winning my favor or avoiding my danger. As for the women who pursue me, most risk it for the lure of said obscene power and wealth, and a few for the misguided fantasy of attempting to tame the most dangerous predator there is. But all fear me, and none trust me.” His arms squeezed her tighter into his containment, his eyes growing more possessive. “You’re the only one to ever see me for what I am, scales and claws and fangs and all, and instead of putting you off, everything about me is exactly what appeals to you. As you say in your region, I’m the one to yemla ainek—the one to ‘fill your eye.’”
It was as if he was reading her mind. More, her deepest, most private beliefs and yearnings.
Again she nodded, not even thinking of contesting his verdict. “I left naiveté and idealism behind when I was seven, grew up in the cutthroat worlds of highest-level politics and business. I’ve long since learned that the best men need to have a lot of monster in them to be merciless enough to make the painful decisions, cunning enough to beat evil at its game, strong enough to enforce harsh changes for the better and resilient enough to be the one left standing after a war and doing as much good as possible in this crazy world.”
His eyes darkened with her every word, until those fathomless black pupils engulfed the glowing emerald. She felt as if she was watching a panther in the seconds before he pounced. And she couldn’t wait for him to. Even when she knew she might not survive his ferocity.
Then he did. Growling deep in his gut like his namesake, he brought her fully over him, making her feel she was no more than a twenty-pound baby. It should have been terrifying to realize just how much stronger than her he was. But his roughness was infused with such care, it only sent all her senses soaring.
She tumbled over him, the skirt of her dress riding up as he splayed her thighs wide, had her straddling him. The moment she felt him fully against her, between her legs, she almost fainted with the spike of arousal. Then his lips opened over her neck, and she did swoon. Her head fell back, giving him fuller access, surrendering to his pleasuring.
She needed this, needed him, come what may.
“You feel and taste even better than I imagined. Jenan...”
She jerked as if at the sting of a lash when he said her name. She’d never liked her full name. Now it inflamed her to hear it on his lips, in that voracious growl. But he was sending her out of her mind with everything he did. The way he moved against her, breathed her in, touched and kneaded and suckled her... It was all too much.
And too little. She needed more. Everything. His mouth and hands all over her, his potency inside her.
“Numair...”
At hearing her moaning his name, the same desperation she felt reverberating inside her seemed to emanate from his body in shock waves. Then he swept her around and brought her under him on the couch, then bore down on her.
The world disappeared again, nothing remaining in her awareness but his greed and urgency and lust dominating her.
Spreading her thighs around his hips, he pressed between them, his hardness grinding against her entrance through their clothes. Her back arched deeply to accommodate him, a cry tearing from her very recesses at the feel of him, the sight of him above her.
“Jenan.” His growl sounded pained as he surveyed her for one last second. Then his lips claimed hers, branding them. She opened wide to his invasion, and his tongue thrust deep, singeing her with pleasure, breaching her with need, draining her of reason.
Pressure built—behind her eyes, inside her chest, deep in her loins. Her hands convulsed on his arms, digging into his muscles, everything inside her surging, gushing, needing anything and everything he’d do to her. His fingers and tongue and teeth exploiting her every secret, his manhood filling that distressing void he’d created inside her...
Something buzzed against her thigh, made her lurch beneath him. After moments it stopped. Then it started again until it finally made him stiffen above her. Then he was cursing viciously as he rose off her.
The moment she lost his anchoring, she whimpered. His tempestuous glance told her he was feeling exactly the same. Wild with hunger and frustration.
He whipped out his phone in barely controlled fury. He only bit off a few phrases before ending the call. She vaguely understood it was one of his Black Castle partners. It figured only one of them would warrant Numair interrupting their first kiss.
As she finished the thought, she found herself snickering. First kiss indeed. First ravishing more like.
Numair’s grimace filled with mock reproach and a too-real self-deprecation as he surveyed her still boneless condition. “I’m glad one of us is not in agony, and can still laugh.”
“I’m not laughing... I’m snickering.”
His huff sounded genuinely amused, not to mention surprised. “Thank
s for the correction. Care to share the source of your merriment? I can use something to take my mind off the urge to hunt Antonio down for interrupting us. Or to pounce back on you and finish what I started.”
Before she blurted out for him to just do the latter, she remembered they’d been in the middle of a game-changing conversation. And they hadn’t reached a resolution yet. There might not be even one to reach.
Dismay finally made her pull herself up from her flagrant surrender. Numair remained towering over her as she sat up, like some all-powerful genie from a fable. The searing sensuality of his scowl made it almost impossible for her not to pull him back over her. Only the “heir” thing stopped her.
Before she could reintroduce the subject, Numair suddenly came down beside her again and, with shocking ease, pulled her back onto his lap.
After sealing her gasping lips in a kiss that robbed her of volition, he pulled back, his eyes smoldering, explicit with what he’d do to her once she stopped arguing.
“Do you still have any questions why I chose you?” He took a hand to his lips, nibbled on it in lieu of her mouth and had her gasping and squirming in pleasure. “It’s because I don’t want my heir to only be born of the perfect woman, but of perfect pleasure. And it is perfection between us. The way we make each other feel is magical. And I will accept nothing less. I will have nothing else.”
She had no more arguments about that. It was magic. At least for her. But if he said it was the same for him, she had to believe him. He had no reason to lie or even exaggerate.
Almost all men in her experience had reason to do both. They thought all desert kingdoms swam in oil money, didn’t believe her when she’d said Zafrana didn’t. Even those who did believe her still thought she was talking relative poverty in the millions instead of billions. She’d had too many imposters try to land the loaded princess they’d thought she was. Her ex had been one of those.
But Numair was far richer and more powerful than her whole kingdom put together, with Saraya thrown in for good measure. She could only believe what he said, and that the desire he displayed was 100 percent real.
But he’d spoiled it all with that heir talk.
He was now suckling her fingers, each pull a stab of pleasure in her core. It was almost painful to stop him, to relinquish the delight, but she had to make him realize how preposterous she found his demand.
“Numair...I do want you, completely, even mindlessly.” He growled and pressed her harder into his erection, dragging another moan from her depths. “But no matter how much I want you, I can’t act on my desire when I know your sole purpose of sleeping with me is so I’d give you a baby.”
He gave the finger he’d been suckling a sharp nip, heightening her distress. “It’s far from my sole purpose. It’s actually the product of my only purpose now. Untold pleasure. Which I will give, and take, as often as you can stand.”
She squirmed over his lap, making both their conditions worse. “What if it turned out to be a disappointment instead? What if all those initial fireworks fizzled out, and we turned out to be incompatible in bed?”
His lip curl was dismissal itself. “We will be incendiary. The moment you say yes, I’ll demonstrate.”
Feeling squeezed into a tighter corner as his every word decimated her arguments, she still asked, “When you say heir, you mean a male child, right? What if I agree to your insane proposition, and I get pregnant with a girl? Or I can’t get pregnant? Or you can’t father children?”
His smile became more forbearing, as if he considered her what-ifs ridiculous, and her adorable as she worked herself up in a lather.
“Finished enumerating your worst-case scenarios?” He shrugged a shoulder, making everything she’d said irrelevant. “You only have to say yes and I’ll take care of the rest.”
She had to laugh. “I did think you were a god when I laid eyes on you, but you clearly think you are literally one, if you think you can make fate bow to your desires like that.”
He gave another nonchalant shrug. “I always create my fate to my specifications. As I’m doing right now. I recognized you as the one tailored to my every need and demand. Once I have you, I’ll fulfill every major milestone I have left in my life’s master plan.”
That made her sit up on his lap. “Okay, time out. I know you’re master of all you survey and all, but even you must know how crazy you just sounded. I hate to break it to you, but there is stuff in life that is outside your control.”
“We can and do control our destinies. You can either relinquish control over yours by considering others who’d never truly appreciate your sacrifice or even fully benefit from it, or you can say yes to me and take control of your fate.”
“How would being an instrument in your so-called master plan make me mistress of my own fate?”
“Because contrary to everyone else in your life, I will never threaten your autonomy. At your demand, I will only boost your powers, support your plans and remove obstacles from your path. You will choose to say yes to me, because you’ll weigh all pros and cons, and the pros will crash heavily in my favor. Once you do, we’ll become lovers. I’ll give you anything you’ve ever wished for, in and out of bed.”
“When you say pros and cons, getting rid of Hassan is among the pros, right? You are making this quid pro quo.”
“No. I promised I’d rid you and Zafrana of Hassan, and I will, no matter what happens between us. You can immediately tell your father you’ve found a solution for all your problems and are sending Hassan to hell.” He nibbled the fleshy side of her hand, and she involuntarily pressed harder into him in response. “You will become my lover and bear my heir because of a dozen other reasons, all borne of your free will. The foremost one is because you can’t wait to be in my bed, taken and mastered, serviced and pleasured.”
He punctuated his last words with suckles and nips that had every cell in her body clamoring for everything he’d just tantalized her with.
“What free will?” she moaned, deep and long. “Ya Ullah, Numair, now I know what it feels like to be swept along on a deluge. You are one.”
“I will sweep you into a realm neither of us has ever entered, one of pure pleasure. Then when you become pregnant, we’ll marry.”
She choked. She coughed until she felt as if her life force would be expelled. As Numair realized her distress, his efforts to end her paroxysm only made things worse.
When the shock-induced attack finally came to an end, she looked up at him through eyes that felt inflamed. “Why can’t you be like other men and just do the obvious thing? I ask you for a huge favor, and you ask for one in return and be done with it? You had to go demand an heir, and now marriage? Who said marriage was an option at all?”
His face became implacable. “I do. And it wouldn’t be an option. It would be a must.”
This made her push out of his arms, needing to put some breathable space between them. “Thanks, but no thanks. I was married once, and it isn’t for me. The most I fantasized about was a hot affair with a sex god who had the power to get my kingdom out of its worst historical bind. I’m not up for becoming a wife. Certainly not to a man who, when all is said and done, considers me the best specimen to procreate with.”
His lips pursed disapprovingly as he watched her scooting away from him. “Apart from the blatant inaccuracy of this last statement, you’ve already discussed having a child with me, which means you were considering it. What did you expect you would do once you were carrying my child? That you’d have it in secret, give it to me and disappear? Or that you’d have it out of wedlock, a princess from your region of all places? Or did you think you’d have it here and cut all ties with your kingdom? And where did you figure I’d be in all this? On the sidelines, content to see my child once every blue moon? Sending checks and not taking any role in its upbringing?” Before she could think of a resp
onse to his barrage, he declared, “We will get married as soon as you become pregnant.”
Bombarded by his inexorable will, she felt as if she’d choke again. Before she succumbed once more, she fumbled for the purse she’d dropped on the coffee table, then stood up unsteadily.
Once she’d taken a few air-filled steps away from him, she said, “I need time to think.”
Then, on trembling legs, she strode out. He let her walk away.
As she opened the main door of the suite, she almost crumpled to the ground with fright when he caught her back.
She could swear she’d walked here all alone!
As he turned her, she started spluttering, “How...?”
He drowned her in a kiss that ended any possibility for independent thought or movement.
It was him who finally released her, only the storms in his eyes betraying his state of emotional and physical arousal.
Before he let her spill out the door, he said, “I’m giving you till tomorrow evening, then I will send my right hand for you. Tomorrow night, you sleep in my arms.”
Four
Numair watched Jenan receding down the corridor as if she was escaping a widening chasm.
Every step taking her away from him had him vibrating with dread that he’d just committed the biggest mistakes of his life. Letting her go, and before that, introducing the subject of heir and marriage so prematurely.
What if, in spite of the unstoppable desire that had exploded into existence between them, he’d come on too strong, and she’d run away thinking it the better fate to marry Hassan, a man she’d find far easier to handle?
Expending the last of what he’d previously thought was limitless willpower, he squashed the urge to stalk her, haul her back inside, lock every door and simply overpower her reluctance and misgivings. He might have decreed he’d take her tomorrow night, but everything in him was roaring for him to claim her right now.
