She took in a deep breath, but that wasn’t a good idea. She wasn’t aware of her hands gripping his black tee shirt, but he was. Encouraged it even. Hell, he wanted to rip his shirt off and feel her soft hands against his chest.
“Touch me, Arianna,” he groaned, taking her hand and shifting it from his shoulder to his chest.
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered, but lost the battle to resist the urge to touch him, to let her fingers explore. The way he was holding her, touching her…she could barely pull in a whole breath. She wanted more, but something niggled at the back of her mind, telling her to leave.
“You should,” he countered. “You really should.” And with those words, he shifted slightly, pulling her hips more firmly against his. Arianna gasped, surprised both by the sudden movement as well as his knee pressing between her legs. “You should do a whole lot more, Arianna. Let me make love to you.”
Holding her breath, afraid to move, she stared up at him. “You would want to? With me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yes! Aljahim, yes!” He moved his mouth to her ear, nipping at her earlobe. “Will you let me show you what it could be like?”
She shivered, thinking that she already knew what it would be like. Amazing! Mind Blowing!
But then she’d eventually have to leave, go home to her lonely apartment, to her job where she’d run into Hayden every day, and witness her friend’s happiness. Natalie was already gone, living in Spain with her new husband, so at least she would only have to witness her bubbling excitement over her new life and her wonderful son for short periods of time. It would only be herself and Katia. Then she realized that Katia was off with her husband, traveling with him on business as well.
It would be a painfully lonely life, she thought.
No. Pulling out of his arms, she took several steps away from him. “Thank you,” she said, and blinked. Laughing, she admitted, “I’m not sure if I’m thanking you for the offer of sex or if I’m grateful that you allowed me to pull away.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears, flustered and trying to think clearly. “I don’t think that having sex would be a good idea.”
“Why is that?” he asked, leaning a muscular shoulder against the granite column. The position made her mouth fall open slightly as she took in the bulging muscles on his arms. Goodness, even his forearms were amazing!
Shaking her head, she took a few more steps back, suspecting that she was losing her mind when she started to think that a man’s forearms were enticing.
“Sex would only complicate things.”
“So, don’t make it complicated,” he replied, as if that were the most obvious answer.
She sighed, mimicking his stance. “To me, sex is complicated. It confuses things, muddies a relationship.”
A dark eyebrow went up with her words and she was suddenly defensive. There was amusement in his eyes now and she didn’t like it. “I’d wager that you haven’t had much experience in that area, have you?”
Arianna’s spine stiffened. “I’m not a virgin.”
He chuckled softly. “I didn’t assume that you were. But…”
“I’ve had sex!”
He moved closer, his hand gently cupping her cheek. “How many times? How many partners?”
She pressed her lips together, ignoring his amused expression. “Okay, so not many.”
“How many?”
She didn’t want to admit it, but maybe if she told him, he would understand why sex just wasn’t a casual thing for her. “Well, just one partner.”
“And how long did your relationship with this one partner last?” he asked, his voice softening.
“Six months,” she stated, hoping that he wouldn’t ask the next question.
He did.
“How long were you sexually active with this man?” he asked, taking her hands, lacing their fingers together.
Darn it! “One night,” she told him honestly. “But in my defense, that is exactly why I don’t want to create tension between us. It would be better to just…remain friends.”
“We’re not friends, Arianna.”
Her eyes widened with that assertion. “I think you’re a very nice man!” Other than that time he’d laughed after kissing her. She realized that she needed to let that go, he’d kissed her many times over the past two weeks and he’d never laughed. Not once.
“And you’re a beautiful woman. Men and women can’t be friends. It just isn’t possible.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It is if the two people in question want to remain friends.”
He tugged at her hands. “I want to be friends, Arianna.” She sighed with relief, but that relief was short lived. “And I want to be your lover. What do I have to do to convince you that we can be both?”
She shivered again, wishing that he wasn’t holding her hands so he wouldn’t know how much his words were affecting her. “Friends. Just friends, Rhys. But I need to leave. I need to go home.”
“No. You don’t need to leave. You’re leaving because you think you’re protecting me. But…” he lowered his head again, this time kissing her lips. When he lifted his head, her lips burned with his touch.
“But?” she prompted, her stomach tightening with all of the possible ways he might end that sentence.
“But…if we end up as lovers, then I want more from you.”
“What ‘more’?” she asked, still nervous and not really sure how this conversation had derailed so dramatically.
He smiled slightly. “More. More of everything.”
She wasn’t letting him get away such an ambiguous answer. If there was one thing she’d learned as a business manager, it was to get all of the terms of an agreement stated clearly up front. “I want it defined. I’m not sure how much ‘more’ I can give you, seeing as how we live thousands of miles apart.”
He shrugged and her eyes were drawn back to those impossibly broad shoulders.
“Maybe we should fix that issue as well.”
A knock on the door stopped her from asking him to clarify that statement. A fraction of a second after the knock, the door opened and a man’s head popped into the room. “I apologize for the interruption, Your Highness, but everything is in place.”
“Thank you,” Rhys replied, and turned back to Arianna. His eyes skimmed over her tailored slacks and cream blouse. “You’ll need to change. We’re heading back out to another rig site today.”
“I am not,” she told him, taking several steps back and crossing her arms over her stomach. “See? I can be just as stubborn as you.”
He laughed, shaking his head before looking down at her. “Think so?” he asked.
She held her breath, no longer sure that she should be playing this game. With Hayden, Katia, and Natalie? Yeah, she could win as often as they did. The four of them were like sisters and, in a battle of stubbornness, each of them knew one another’s’ strengths and weaknesses. But Rhys?
Arianna suspected that the man might not have any weaknesses.
Was she backing down? Was she going to do the sensible thing?
Nope! “Yeah. I think so.”
He laughed again, but this time, he only took her hand and tugged her towards her suitcase. “Admit it, you want to know what’s going on as much as I do. And if you leave, you’ll never have the answers.”
Arianna stared up at him and, like so many times before, she wondered if he was talking about the mystery or the tension between them.
With a spark of triumph, he released her hands. “I’ll have someone come and unpack your clothes, but in the meantime, change into a pair of jeans. Something sturdy. Also, wear the softer boots I bought you. I don’t want you hurt and the rig site we’re visiting today is a bigger mess than I’d thought.”
He stood there for a long moment, just staring down at her.
She turned and looked at him, waiting. When he continued to watch, she sighed. “You’re not going to give me any privacy to change, are you?”
He shrug
ged. “Why not just get used to me seeing you naked?” He leaned down to challenge her. “I know I’ll enjoy it.” He saw the flare of heat in her eyes and smiled. “You might enjoy it as well. Admit it.”
With a huff, she closed her eyes, and turned away from the obnoxious man. Grabbing a pair of well-worn jeans, she stomped into the bathroom. “Ugh!” she growled, ignoring his husky laugh as she slammed the door.
Once in the bathroom, she looked at her image in the mirror, startled by the person staring right back at her. Who was this woman with the flushed cheeks and the eyes that seemed to have an inner fire? Surely it wasn’t her! A year ago, she’d been a timid human resources worker, laboring in a windowless office in the bowels of Chenko Industries. The day she’d been tasked with bringing out business manager resumes to Hayden’s garden nursery had been the best day of her life. In twenty-four hours, she’d gone from working in a closet-sized, dowdy office to working in a sunshine filled dining room converted into her office. In the springtime, she opened the windows to let the fresh air inside. And during almost every lunch break, she sat in the sunshine and talked with her friend and boss. Hayden was a delight and loved plants. She also loved being pregnant, thriving under the loving care of a man Arianna would have bet big money had never shown any compassion to a single human being. A year ago, word around the office was that Viktor Chenko didn’t have a heart.
Now, he was so besotted with his wife, it was almost funny to watch them together. Or, it would be funny if Arianna wasn’t so jealous of the happiness that couple shared with each other. It was beautiful to watch.
In addition, she had met Natalie and her adorable son Alejandro, Natalie was even teaching her Spanish. And Katia…the woman was vivacious, endearing, and generous to a fault. Arianna had gone from a life of working twelve and fourteen hours a day with no time for anything else, to being surrounded by friends, loving her job, and…well, living! She’d learned to live over the last year!
Until news of her father’s disappearance derailed her.
Could she find what Natalie and Hayden had discovered?
Her mind flashed to Rhys. But that wasn’t to be. She’d found her father. Why was she even hesitating about getting back to her own life? To real life?
That thought raised a disturbing question.
Arianna stared down at the glossy marble floor. Was she acting like a fool?
The knock on the door broke through her rambling thoughts. “Arianna? Are you okay?”
Quickly, she pulled her jeans on and zipped them up. Gathering her hair on top of her head, she secured it with a band, added a touch more lipstick, then nodded her approval. “Just go with it,” she told her image in the mirror.
Pulling the door open, she stepped back when she found Rhys still waiting for her, laid back in one of the chairs. “I’m ready,” she announced.
He stood up slowly, his eyes moving over her legs. “Yes, you are,” he told her. Was that appreciation in his voice? Or was he still playing her? But to what end?
Confusion had her glancing away, reaching for her purse. “Where are we going today?” she asked. Deciding that the only way to find out what was going on, both with Rhys as well as what happened with her father, was to play along for a bit longer. She’d call her friends again tonight, maybe get a conference call going so she could talk to all of them once more and, hopefully, get their impressions on what was happening. Surely, between the four of them, they could figure out a solid plan of action.
With that in mind, she followed Rhys out of the palace. There were double the number of guards today and all of them were more heavily armed than last week. It was both intimidating and comforting, she thought as she ducked into the back seat of the SUV.
“You never mentioned where we’re going today,” she said as soon as he was sitting next to her. She tried to shift away from him, but he only put a hand on her knee, silently telling her that he wouldn’t allow her to shift away.
“We shouldn’t sit like this,” she commented, trying to make her voice sound firm and not breathy. But the heat of him, the way her whole body was tingling with awareness…making her voice sound firm was pretty difficult.
“Why not?”
“Because we are trying to remain friends, right?
“Wrong. You are trying to remain friends. I don’t believe men and women can be friends. And I want you as a lover, Arianna.” He slid his hand between her knees and she gasped. “If you were completely honest with yourself, you’d admit that you want more than just a simple friendship as well.”
He was right, but she couldn’t find what she wanted with this man.
She suddenly realized that, not only was the SUV flying down the highway, but there was a helicopter hovering overhead. “Is the extra security because of last week’s attack?” she asked, then thought about how stupid the question was. “Sorry, that was pointless, of course the extra security was because of last week. Why would I even ask such a…”
His hand on her knee tightened and she stopped speaking, realizing that he was trying to reassure her. Unfortunately, his gesture backfired, making her hyperaware of him as a man and his hand resting so casually on her knee. His tanned fingers against her denim clad knee seemed…intimate somehow.
She looked out the side window closest to her, not really seeing the landscape as it swept by outside the vehicle. Not that there was a whole lot to see. The desert was an amazing place, but there were long stretches of sameness. A building off in the distance caught her attention and she leaned forward. “What’s that?” she asked.
He glanced to where she was pointing. “That’s a glass factory.”
“Huh!” she said, staring at the large building with several cars parked around it. It wasn’t just a big box though. There were colorful sculptures surrounding the building and on top. “How do they protect the sculptures from the sand?”
“The building is filled with artists that rotate throughout the year. They each produce a sculpture for the entrance, or several smaller ones, that are then sold or were consigned by a developer. The outdoor sculptures were originally untreated but, you’re right, the constant sand blasting damaged them and, over time, they were broken. This is just one of several factories in which we’re experimenting with ways to preserve glass structures, make them more durable.” He winked down at her. “If there’s one thing that we have a great deal of, it is oil and sand. Oil will eventually disappear or will no longer be a commodity that can be sold. I’m encouraging my people to diversify, to find other ways in which to make their living so that, when solar or other renewable resources replace oil, they are still able to make a living.”
She leaned back against the soft leather. “That’s amazing,” she gushed. “And from what I can see, the sculptures are beautiful.”
“They are. I have several pieces in the palace, some are out in courtyards. I will show them to you tonight. I commissioned them specifically for the various places in the palace in the hopes that they would be displayed well enough to garner attention from others.”
She looked at him again. “You’re acting as a patron of the arts, in a way.”
“Exactly.”
“Just like in medieval times.”
He laughed softly. “In many ways, my country functions under a medieval mindset. They perceive me almost as a deity. I’ve tried to contradict that perception, showing them that I’m just a man, but they are set in their ways, preferring to think of me as more powerful than an ordinary person.”
“Why do they do that?”
He shrugged slightly. “Because many of them were in desperate circumstances forty or fifty years ago. When my father took control of the country, he turned things around. In their minds, he was more of a god-like figure. They needed to believe in something, so they believed in him.”
“But their religion…?”
“Their religion helps a great deal, but it only reinforces what they believe, it doesn’t detract from it.”
�
��So you’re…”
“Only human, Arianna. Just a man. But I understand the psychology behind what they are thinking and why they do certain things.”
She thought about that while he spoke on the phone for several minutes. By the time he finished his phone call, they arrived at the rig site, the guards spreading out in what looked to be an unorganized grouping, but she suspected that it was a very strategic placement of guards. The show of force was impressive, causing the workers to turn and stare in awe.
Once again, as Rhys came into view, cheers rang out. The workers clapped and jumped, once again celebrating his survival from the attack last week.
Always the politician, Rhys lifted his hand in the air, accepting their jubilation but not reveling in it. He turned and extended his hand to her and Arianna realized what he was doing. By showing her respect, he was demanding that others show her respect.
After their conversation in the SUV, she now understood his actions and why he did them. So instead of being stubborn and showing him that she could exit the vehicle on her own, she laid her hand in his, ignoring the trembling that his touch caused, and allowed him to help her out.
The cheers seemed to increase when she looked around, all of the workers excited to see her. But why? What benefit could she possible present to these workers?
“They like you,” he said, whispering softly into her ear. At the same time, his fingers tightened around hers and she warmed to his touch, feeling a connection that she hadn’t felt yesterday and definitely not the day before.
“I don’t understand why,” she murmured as she walked beside him. “My claim to fame is that I didn’t get shot last week.”
Rhys looked down at her, startled by that declaration. She honestly had no idea how courageous she’d acted the other day. He glanced over at his lead guard, the man who had stayed behind to defend her and shared a look of amazement.
Turning back to her, he squeezed her hand. “You did a great deal more than that, Arianna. And everyone knows it today.”
She blinked, startled by his comment. “How in the world do they know what happened last week?”
One Night With the Sheik (Friends Forever Book 4) Page 13
