She lifted her hand, her left hand this time, to adjust the scarf she’d draped across her throat for warmth. The diamond rings flashed even in the relative darkness. He caught his breath.
In a way this was worse, being distracted by the rings instead of thoughts of making love to her. In all his years of living, he’d never thought much of having a wife. But suddenly he had a woman sitting next to him with his rings on her finger. It wasn’t just any woman, thank God, but there was something even more intense because it was Nichelle, Nicki to him since that afternoon in Paris. She knew him better than most people. This seemed more dangerous somehow.
She threw out an obscene dollar amount. “That’s how much it would cost us to have our own private jet.”
He looked at her, amazed. “How did you know that? Tell me you didn’t just do that calculation in the past few seconds.”
She smirked. “You’re not the only one who’s considered kicking frequent flyer miles to the curb. But even if the cost wasn’t so damn high, I know you love this part of it, too.” She made a vague gesture to the cabin full of people. The 747, the stewardesses ready with a drink or an extra pillow or whatever else he wanted, other whispered conversations around them. “You even love the airport. Freak.”
Wolfe grunted. He pressed the button to recline his seat to the sleeping position. Sometimes it was scary how well Nichelle knew him. “Go the hell to sleep, woman.”
Laughing, she threw a sleep mask at him, left handed, sending the big yellow diamond once again sparkling in the dark.
* * *
Nichelle’s first impression of Morocco was heat. The metal stairs clanked under her ballet flats as she left the airplane with her purse over her shoulder. She was glad she’d taken off her sweater and stuffed it into her rolling suitcase before getting off the plane. At her side, Wolfe made a soft noise, of surprise and pleasure, when the heat hit him.
“I like this place already,” he said with a low sigh.
It was the first time for both of them in Morocco.
They followed the path along the tarmac from the plane to the small airport, passing under the signs in French then Arabic welcoming them to the Marrakech Menara Airport. Other signs in Arabic, French and English pointed them toward arrival and customs. Less than half an hour later, they left the long line with their passports stamped, their carry-on bags rolling along beside them.
“There’s our ride.” Wolfe nodded toward a man, tall and serious looking, with a sign that read Monsieur and Madame Diallo.
“And so it begins,” Nichelle muttered. She felt more than ever the weight of the rings on her finger. Wolfe’s ring seemed much more natural on him. She hadn’t once seen him adjust his platinum band; he simply seemed to accept the fact that it was there.
Her better-than-average French wasn’t at all useful in Miami, so she took particular pleasure in speaking it with the driver. Wolfe was content to lounge in the back of the Mercedes-Benz and let her do most of the talking. He spoke French, too, better than she did, but was busy taking in the sights.
Wolfe rolled the windows down, sighing in sensual appreciation of the hot desert air that poured into the car. He sprawled on the seat, legs spread wide, his left hand—with the all-important wedding band—draped over one muscular thigh. His profile was etched perfectly against the sharp blue of the Moroccan sky. He looked tired. And sexy, her traitorous mind supplied.
At the hotel, a vast and gorgeous white building in the Moorish style that Wolfe instantly said he admired, the driver took their bags from the trunk.
“Monsieur Quraishi will call you this evening after you’ve had a chance to rest,” the driver said. “Your rooms in the hotel and any amenities you wish to enjoy have already been taken care of.” He passed an envelope to Wolfe, then, with a crisp bow, got into his car and drove away.
Wolfe raised an eyebrow. “It almost feels like he’s trying to get our business.”
He tore open the envelope, his eyes moving quickly as he read the letter inside. He passed it to Nichelle. The letter, in formal and beautiful French, invited them to a party at Quraishi’s compound later that evening. He would send a car for them; all they had to do was be dressed and ready promptly at six.
“Our host likes his pleasure before business,” Wolfe said.
“That’ll give us some time to check out the place.” Nichelle tucked the letter in her purse and glanced at Wolfe, noting the tired slump to his shoulders. “And get some rest.”
“Good afternoon, monsieur. Madame.” A dark-suited young man stepped from the automatic doors of the hotel. “Allow me to show you to the front desk.” He took their two small suitcases and made his way briskly back into the hotel and the cool blast of air-conditioning.
“Oh, thank God!” Nichelle sighed when the artificial air poured over her face.
“Come on.” Wolfe walked at her side, looking perfectly cool in his pale slacks and long-sleeved shirt rolled up at the elbows. “You’ve lived in Miami almost all your life. Why are you sweating this heat?”
She gave him a dirty look at the awful pun.
“Bonjour, Madame.” Nichelle stepped past him to speak with the smartly dressed woman behind the desk. “We’d like to check in.”
After she offered their names, a different uniformed young man took their bags and led them to an elevator and a room on the third floor. He opened the door for them, put their bags inside then quickly disappeared before Wolfe could even reach for his wallet for a tip. The air inside the room was deliciously cool. Nichelle sank into the long burgundy couch, barely noticing the decor. It wasn’t stiflingly hot; that was all she cared about.
“This place is incredible,” Wolfe said.
Unlike her, he ignored the comfort of the large couch to prowl around the opulent suite of rooms. Which, she could see from the comfort of the plush couch, was beautiful. The rooms were alive with color. The large cabinet, set up with alcohol of all sorts, was painted in lush shades of green and gold that made her want to get up and touch them. But she was a little too exhausted for that. Now that they were out of the heat, the long day of travel abruptly caught up with her. She closed her eyes and curled into the couch.
“You look comfortable.” There was something in Wolfe’s voice that she was too tired to catch.
She opened one eye to see him looming over her. “It suits my purposes.” She closed her eye and snuggled into the cushions that smelled like amber, smoky and sweet.
“I hope so since there’s only one bed.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “Hmm?”
“You heard me.” He flopped down beside her and gave her feet a gentle shove. “You can have it. Go. I’m too tired to act more chivalrous than this.”
Wolfe kicked off his shoes and lay back to rest his head on the opposite end of the long and wide sofa, his feet stretching out to touch her hip. But Nichelle was too tired to care. She belatedly shoved him back, or at least the part of his foot she could reach, and curled up tighter on the long couch. Within seconds, she was asleep.
* * *
Nichelle woke to the sound of singing. A low, wailing voice. A man. She blinked and sat up, rubbing at her eyes. The sun was still high outside the windows, but its light was a soft gold compared to the brilliant white from when they had just arrived.
“It’s the call to prayer,” Wolfe said softly.
He lay on the opposite end of the couch, his body still where it touched hers.
The ululating voice drifted through the room, beautiful and heartrending, Arabic words she did not understand. Nichelle breathed quietly in appreciation, keeping still to allow the sounds to wash over her, into her.
When it ended, she opened her eyes to see Wolfe quietly watching her. He looked only a little wrinkled from his nap, the white linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, showing off beautiful and hard flesh, a glimpse of a flat brown nipple. Nichelle curled her nails into her palm, overcome by a nearly overwhelming desire to touch him. It would be so eas
y to crawl down to the other end of the couch and finish unbuttoning his shirt, peel the soft linen from his body, bite, kiss and lick every inch of bare flesh.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” His gaze did not leave hers.
She could only nod, swallowing heavily as the sweet and thick need rolled through her veins. The places where their bodies touched, her hip and his foot through the two layers of cloth, shifted and rubbed. Nichelle pressed her thighs together and clamped down on the inside of her cheek. Jesus. The next few days are going to be torture.
“I’ve wanted to come to Marrakesh since I was a kid,” Wolfe said softly.
“Why didn’t you?” Nichelle pushed the arousal away, focusing on the conversation happening in the open instead of the one her body was having with his. She tucked her hip deeper into the couch, trying to put some space between their bodies. But the little relief she gained was quickly lost when Wolfe’s sock-clad foot followed her skin, tucking into her with a slight and suggestive caress. Was he doing this to her on purpose?
But Wolfe was the picture of innocence when he shrugged. “At first, I didn’t have time. I wanted to finish school. Then my parents said it was too dangerous. After that, work became more important to me than seeing the world.” He sat up on the scrolled arm of the couch, his head resting on his upraised arm. “Getting Kingston Consulting up and running took up most of my time.”
The arousal slowly faded away as he spoke. Or at least her awareness of it faded.
“I never thought I’d hear you say work became more important than enjoying life,” she murmured.
They were caught in a delicate cocoon together, lulled into a gentle world made simply of their own voices, the lush beauty of the room, the faint smell of Moroccan amber that billowed up from the couch like fine smoke. It felt like blasphemy to speak above a whisper.
“Yeah. I used to call Garrison a workaholic.” His best friend spent far too many nights alone in his office working on divorce cases that didn’t change the world. Or at least he had, until he met a woman who dragged him from his tower and into a fully lived life. “Sometimes I think I’m just as bad. I only hide it better.”
“I disagree with that,” Nichelle said. “You love chasing women too much to work that hard at anything else.”
“Now that comment I disagree with,” he said. “For your information, I haven’t done any chasing since the day before the family dinner.” His voice was low, rippling with annoyance, most likely at himself.
It took Nichelle a moment to realize what he was talking about. Then she understood what he’d just said. He hadn’t been with a woman in over two months? “Are you serious? Why?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity?” He made it a question, as if he didn’t know why he hadn’t slept with any of the, no doubt, many women who’d thrown themselves at him since that night.
“Maybe that means you’ll have more focus this week.” Not that he’d ever had any trouble giving his complete attention to work.
“Or maybe I’ll just have a nice pair of blue balls, like a proper married man,” he grumbled.
She chuckled, poking him with her toe. “You don’t even know anything about being married.”
“Yes, and I’d like to keep it that way. At least for a little while longer.”
Then they were both quiet, bathing in the sweet silence of the room left behind by the late afternoon call to prayer. She only heard her own breathing, the faint scratch of his socked feet against the couch as he resettled himself, the whisper of traffic from the street below.
“I’m a little hungry,” Wolfe said a little while later.
“Me, too.” She’d been drifting back into sleep in the cool and comfortable silence. She hadn’t eaten much on the plane, instead drinking her way through a half bottle of wine plus several carafes of coffee (that still hadn’t managed to keep her awake). “There’s a restaurant downstairs,” she murmured through her sleep. “Let’s have some appetizers and proper drinks before we head out tonight.”
Wolfe yawned and stretched, his long legs going rigid against her thigh. As he moved, his shirt rode up, exposing the flat plane of his belly, the sprinkling of hair disappearing into his pants. Nichelle licked her lips but, keeping her lashes lowered, did not look away. He was impossibly beautiful. And every time she noticed it, she was shocked she hadn’t realized it before.
“Another brilliant idea.” He grinned and scratched his flat belly. “I’m going to shower and wake myself up.” Wolfe yawned again. “Unless you want to go first.”
She shook her head. “You don’t take long. I’ll wait.”
When he disappeared toward the bathroom, she sighed and leaned into the couch and into the warmth he’d abandoned. This is not going well at all, she thought. But that didn’t stop her body from reveling in the male-scented heat he’d left behind. Her lashes flagged against her cheeks.
“We have about an hour and a half before the limo gets here.”
She opened her eyes to Wolfe, fresh and gorgeous in smoke-gray slacks, a white dress shirt and paisley tie. He smelled of his favorite mint soap and a hint of aftershave. She blinked in time to see him grabbing up the matching suit jacket then walking away. His dress shoes, black and handmade Italian leather, tapped the mosaic tile floor. His backside was a firm curve under the gray cotton.
Nichelle bit her lip and closed her eyes again. Dammit.
She rolled off the couch and got to her feet. A shower. A cold one. And then she’d be ready.
Half an hour later, she was dressed in a softer version of her usual outfit—a black pencil dress with a high pyramid neckline—when she joined Wolfe in the living room. He shrugged on his suit jacket, tugged on the cuffs of his shirt. She noticed his gaze flicker down to her feet, an eyebrow rising at the scarlet, sky-high and curvy-heeled Walter Steiger pumps. A new purchase.
His mouth opened to say something, then he closed it. He took a breath and looked around him, patted his pockets.
“Ready?”
She grabbed her purse with her cell phone and the hotel key. “Absolutely.”
After a quick and light dinner in the hotel restaurant, they agreed to briefly stop by the room to brush their teeth and otherwise freshen up before meeting the limo outside. When they arrived in the lobby, Wolfe put a hand on the edge of the elevator door to allow Nichelle out ahead of him. As she smiled her thanks, she caught the flash of a familiar face from the corner of her eye. She froze.
“What’s wrong?” Wolfe released the door and came closer. He touched her arm.
“Isaac Franklin.” She spat the name like the bad taste it was.
As if he heard her call his name, Isaac Franklin paused in midstep and glanced over his shoulder at her. The smile he had for the man he’d been walking with froze on his face. For a moment, it seemed as if he would keep going, but he straightened his spine and crossed the opulent lobby to approach her and Wolfe. Maybe, Nichelle thought and hoped, he isn’t here for the same reason we are.
“Diallo. Nichelle. I’d like to say I’m surprised to see you here for the Quraishi account, but I’m not.” His words killed her desperate hope before it could have any real life.
Wolfe nodded at the man. They barely knew each other, probably had only been to the same conferences and hotel lobbies where they were competing for the same accounts. Like now.
“It’s a small world, and our business is even smaller,” Wolfe said.
“True.”
Isaac, the man who’d succeeded her at Sterling Solutions, the company she’d left for Wolfe, didn’t like her. And he never bothered to hide that dislike, which was something she appreciated over the hypocrisy of his colleagues. It was more than just professional dislike, she knew, but she never let it bother her. She didn’t care what he or anyone else at Sterling thought.
“We’re late.” Nichelle looped her arm through Wolfe’s, too thrown to think about how touching him would make her feel. Her diamond caught briefly in the fabric of his jac
ket. “We’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
Isaac nodded. “I’m sure you will.”
When she and Wolfe stepped outside the hotel door and into the thick desert heat, the limousine and driver were already waiting. Black suit, white shirt, gleaming shoes. It was a different driver, younger and wearing a slightly flirtatious smile aimed at Nichelle. But he opened the door for them, shut them in the privacy of the dark limousine and rolled up the partition. The lyrics to a Beyoncé song flickered through her mind before she suppressed the images they inspired—her knees, the carpeted floor of the limo, Wolfe’s gaping slacks, his mouth parted in a gasp as her own tasted the most intimate part of him—with a brutal bite of the inside of her cheek. The coppery taste of blood burst in her mouth.
“You okay?” Wolfe touched her hand.
“Yes. I’m good.” She swallowed the metallic taste in her mouth but didn’t bother with a smile. “Do you think we’re wasting our time here?”
“Why, just because you know for sure that we have a little competition?”
She shook her head. Isaac was more than competition. He was the shark in their previously calm waters. She cursed softly.
“Relax,” Wolfe murmured.
He glanced out the window as the car pulled out from the circular drive of the hotel and onto the main street. Mopeds, motorcycles, cars, horse-drawn carts all competed for the same bit of space on the pavement.
The sky was a bright and vicious blue. Clouds floated in the endless sapphire, barely there, as if they, too, were afraid of the sun’s burning heat that gripped Marrakesh, a city that was such an unexpected mix of beauty, noise and spirituality.
“Don’t tell me to relax.” Nichelle twisted her lips at him, only half joking.
Normally, the sight of her old colleagues would only urge her to do better and be better, leaving no doubt that she would metaphorically drag them through that conference room by the hair and dominate them with a press of her high heels on their collective throats. But seeing Isaac had thrown her.
“Just relax,” Wolfe said again. “Tonight is about checking out the competition. We didn’t know before that we had any in town, but now we do.” He turned from the window and glanced down her body in a slow and thorough gaze that he’d never directed at her before. “And you look very ready to stab the competition in the throat with those weapons you call shoes.”
Affair of Pleasure Page 6
