by Lucy Monroe
Aaliyah drained the last bit of amber liquid from her glass. “Yes?”
“It was not as if I was attracted to Tahira. Marriage to a woman who seemed more like a little sister than a future wife did not appeal.”
“But you never tried to back out of it.”
“Naturally not.”
“And that makes you angry now that she’s taken off for the freedom of a life of obscurity.”
“Are you sure you’ve had three doubles? You’re very lucid in some moments.”
Aaliyah giggled and then hiccupped and then stared at him as if she couldn’t quite believe either sound had come from her mouth.
He found himself smiling when, ten minutes ago, he would have said that would be impossible. Even his fury was banking in favor of the constant burn of desire Aaliyah sparked in him.
She smiled tipsily. “You’re both better off.”
“That is a very naive view of the situation.”
“Maybe.” Aaliyah shrugged. “I was born to an amazing woman who gave up everything she knew of life to keep me, not a queen.”
“My mother is amazing,” he said, feeling strangely affronted.
“I know. I read about her. Melecha Durrah is both a gracious and kind queen. Everyone says so.”
“Not nice?” he teased.
“I would not know. I’ve never met her.”
“She is,” he assured. “More so than either her husband or son.”
“Nice can be overrated.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My mother was too nice. If she’d ever just let herself get angry at the people who hurt her, she would have had a better life.”
“Perhaps she enjoyed the peace of forgiveness.”
“Maybe.” Aaliyah stood, swaying in place. “I think I’ll have another.”
He jumped up and guided her back to the sofa. “After some water, I think.”
“I don’t want water.”
“Yes, you do, you just don’t know it.” He wasn’t sure anything would prevent a hangover at this point, but staying hydrated would help.
“You’re awfully bossy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I’m sure you have.”
He shook his head, filling two glasses with ice from the bar. He snagged a couple liter bottles of water as well as the ouzo before carrying it all back to the sofa.
He put everything on the coffee table before pouring them both a glass of water and topping off his ouzo.
“You weren’t even finished with your first drink,” she commented after taking an obedient sip of water.
“You’re five shots up on me.”
“And you intend to catch up?”
Why not? “Yes.”
“How did you know Princess Tahira had alcohol in her rooms?”
“I know everything about the people I need to.” With one glaring exception.
“Not everything.”
“No, not everything.” Clearly, he hadn’t known about the palace aid. “It would have been politic of you not to point that out.”
Aaliyah shrugged. “I’m a lead chambermaid, not a politician.”
“You don’t act like any maid I’ve ever encountered.”
“Gotten to know many of them, have you?” she asked with a surprisingly bitter suspicion.
“No, actually. That is precisely what makes you so different.”
Her ruffled feathers settled around her. “Well, I don’t usually work housekeeping. I was assistant manager of desk reception in my previous job.”
“Why are you working as a maid now?”
“They wanted my mother, but she died.”
“Your mother is gone, as well?” he asked, pity touching his heart as it rarely did.
“Yes. She was from Zeena Sahra.”
“Did you come to London to be with the rest of your family?” There was a small community of Zeena Sahrans residing in the British city.
“The Amaris don’t recognize me.”
“But that’s impossible.” Family was sacrosanct in Zeena Sahran culture.
“Mom refused to allow someone else in the family to adopt and raise me. The Amaris refuse to recognize a bastard.”
He frowned, inexplicable anger coursing through him. “Do not use such language to describe yourself. It is not seemly.”
“Neither was offering to pay me off if I’d change my last name.”
“They did that?” It boggled his mind.
Aaliyah nodded, an expression of deep vulnerability coming over her features he was fairly certain she was not aware was there. “No matter what Mom hoped, they were never going to accept me into the family. She is buried in the family plot. I won’t be.”
“It is their loss.”
“I keep telling myself that, but you know? Sometimes it’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it.”
“They’re not alone. I am and I don’t like it.” She covered her mouth and stared suspiciously at him, as if he’d drawn the admission out of her rather than her offering it unasked for.
“No one should be abandoned by their family.”
She tried to put on an insouciant expression that fell far short, but he wouldn’t tell her so. He found he enjoyed seeing what he was sure others did not.
The true Aaliyah Amari.
“It happens.” She shrugged and this time her glass tipped enough to spill its nearly full contents down the front of Aaliyah’s inexpensive black suit jacket.
She didn’t even jump, just looked down at the water-soaked jacket. “Oops.”
“You are all wet.”
“I am.” She cocked her head to one side as if studying him and finally said, “You could offer to get a towel.”
“Should I?”
Instead of answering, Aaliyah unbuttoned the front and started shrugging the black fabric off her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, his body tightening in a familiar way.
“Don’t worry, I’m wearing a blouse underneath, but if I don’t get this off, that will be soaked, too.”
Once she removed her jacket, Sayed couldn’t hold back his gasp. She’d been too late. The white cotton was wet and clinging to the skin of her torso and the lace-covered curves of her breasts.
Aaliyah looked down and made a moue of distaste his mother would have been proud of, then she giggled. “Too late.”
“My very thought.”
“I guess I’d better take this off, too.”
His conscience demanded he discourage her from that particular course of action, but he refused to listen, watching in lustful fascination as she removed her uniform tie and then the soggy blouse.
Her lacy bra was surprisingly revealing.
“You like pretty lingerie,” he said with a blatant shock that would have indicated the ouzo had already hit his system to anyone who knew him.
Sayed was not blatant. He was subtle. Especially in delicate situations like this one.
Aaliyah nodded. “Why shouldn’t I? I have to dress conservatively for the job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be as feminine as I like underneath.”
“Your uniform does not mask your womanliness.”
“Are you sure?” she asked very seriously. “I always thought it did.”
Very decisive, he shook his head. “No.”
“This isn’t very modest, is it?” she asked in that way that said her brain was catching up to her actions.
“It is all right,” he heard himself say.
“You would say that. You’re a man.”
“I am.” Despite what many thought, he was indeed a flesh-and-blood male.
“Well, I know what to do.” She nodded with exaggerated movement.
Expecting her to put her damp jacket back on, he sat blinking in lust-ridden surprise as she lifted her hands to fiddle with her hair at the back of her head.
A moment later long, black, silky waves of hair cascaded down over her shoulders and breasts. She arrang
ed it so the wavy strands created a black silk blanket over the tempting mounds of flesh of her breasts.
“There.” She smiled with satisfaction, clearly proud of herself.
“You believe that is more modest?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last word in a way it had not done in more than twenty years.
She looked down, as if trying to figure out why he would ask. “It covers the important bits.”
“It does.” In a way guaranteed to send his libido into overdrive.
She poured herself another glass of water, managing to do so without spilling any of the liquid. Though it was a close thing.
Taking a sip, she gave him a look of expectation.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s your turn.”
“To spill on myself. I do not think so.”
“You don’t have to spill your drink, but you’re supposed to take off your outer robe and stuff.”
“I am?” Had he fallen through the rabbit hole and not realized it?
“It’s only fair.”
That made surprising sense.
He stood up, a little startled at how difficult that simple act had been. “It is called an abaya.”
“I know.”
He let it slide from his shoulders, laying it over the back of the sofa.
“The gold around the collar with burgundy embroidery means you’re a big mucky-muck in Zeena Sahra,” Aaliyah said sagely.
“Yes.”
“So does your egal. I think you should take it off.”
“Why?” He never removed his keffiyah and egal in front of strangers.
The head covering and triple-banded braided cord that bespoke his position as prince were as much a part of him as his close-cropped beard.
“I think you could do with a few hours of not being emir.”
Aaliyah’s words resonating through him, he stared at her. “I think you are right.”
Isn’t that what he’d decided himself not minutes ago?
She nodded, her hair shifting to reveal glimpses of honey-colored flesh he had a near-irresistible urge to taste. The reasons for resisting were melting away with other inhibitions that came with his place of state.
“My current thoughts are definitely not appropriate for an emir,” he admitted.
“So, take it off.”
“Removing my egal won’t take away my role.”
“We’ll pretend it does.”
The idea was very appealing. He gave in and pulled off both the head covering and egal holding it in place.
“Now the suit jacket,” she instructed.
“Are you trying to get me naked?”
“I don’t think so?”
“You don’t sound very sure.” And looked adorably confused by the idea.
CHAPTER FIVE
AALIYAH’S BROWS DREW together in thought. “You’re supposed to be even with me.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Yes, it does.” She nodded, her head only wobbling a little, her expression all too serious.
There was something flawed in her logic, but he couldn’t identify what just then.
Besides, he liked the idea of stripping away another layer of the trappings that separated him from this woman. It was as satisfying as removing the egal and keffiyeh, letting go of his position for just a few hours in the privacy of the hotel suite.
Inexplicably, his fingers shook as he stripped out of his hand-tailored jacket, burgundy silk tie and gray pinstriped dress shirt.
Aaliyah didn’t seem to notice, her eyes eating him up in a very flattering way. After the hours spent building his muscles while honing fighting skills passed down for generations in his family, he had no false modesty.
But the way she looked at him was not simply that of a woman attracted to his fit body; it was more intense than that.
She watched him with a powerful hunger more honest than any expression he’d seen on a lover’s face.
She made a soft sound that went straight to his groin. “Your hair is too short to cover any skin.”
“You do not sound bothered by that fact.”
She shook her head.
“Perhaps you have noticed, but there is already hair on my chest,” he pointed out.
Taking after his ancestors, it wasn’t too plentiful, but enough he did not look like a boy.
“Yes.” She audibly swallowed. “Your nipples are hard.”
“I bet yours are, too.” And lusciously tempting.
“They are,” she breathed out.
He had to swallow a groan. “Drink more water. I’m having another ouzo.” It tasted about a hundred proof and he rarely drank, but she wasn’t outdoing him.
They both slammed their drinks back. Funnily enough, she choke-coughed on her water. His ouzo had gone down smooth as glass.
They sat in silent contemplation for long seconds.
“You wanted me,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “That day in the elevator.”
As if he needed reminding of when that might have been. He didn’t because the desire had not left him since the first moment he’d seen Aaliyah.
“Yes,” he said when it appeared she was waiting for him to reply in some way.
He still did. Intensely. Even painfully.
His sex was harder than any muscle in his body right now—and he had abs of rock that could withstand blow after blow from a sparring partner.
“I’ve never had sex in an elevator,” she admitted like it was a deep, dark—even shameful—secret.
“I haven’t, either.”
“Oh.”
“I am not certain it’s as common an occurrence as romance movies would have us believe.”
“You watch romantic comedies?” she asked.
He shrugged. “My mother enjoys them. My father and I usually defer to her when we have an opportunity to watch a movie as a family.”
“That’s sweet.”
He was unaccustomed to being thought of as sweet and did not want to dwell on it. “Gene Chatsfield would have been very angry if there’d been evidence of sex that day, I believe.”
“He was mad enough,” she said dismissively.
“You don’t sound too worried about that.”
“I’m not.” Her lovely features twisted in a scowl. “I’m leaving the Chatsfield.”
He would have asked why, but Sayed’s mouth went dry as she shifted to put her water glass down on the coffee table. Her hair fell away, exposing one breast. The dark nipple under champagne-colored lace as hard and delicious looking as he’d imagined it to be.
He cleared his throat and poured another glass of ouzo. “Three years is a very long time.”
“Yes?” She blinked at him in more charming confusion.
“Yes.” He tossed back the shot and put the glass down. “Without sex. It is a very long time.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“No?” She was sexually active? That was a good thing, considering the things he was thinking about doing.
“Nope.” She hiccupped, covered her mouth and then laughed. “Sorry about that.”
He shook his head, his focus on her seminudity, not her hiccups. “It is nothing.”
“So, you’re saying you’ve gone without sex for three years?” Her voice was laced with both disbelief and shock.
“I have.” And considering Tahira’s recent actions, he seriously doubted his ex-fiancée could say the same.
Aaliyah gave him a probing look. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Why would I lie?” he asked with more genuine curiosity than offense, though he was unused to having his words questioned.
“Because you’re hoping to talk me into bed?”
“I do not need to go for the sympathy vote to get a woman into my bed.”
“No, you probably don’t.” She looked him over in a manner that was both innocent and lascivious.
He flexed his chest muscles for her and groaned when her beautiful green eyes g
rew dark and bottomless with desire as she inhaled sharply. “You probably have loads of women panting after you.”
“I would not know. I spend very little time with single women these days.” His own honor mocked him in ways he’d never share with another.
“Why?”
“I was a betrothed man.”
“Oh.” She smiled, appearing very happy with some thought she was having. “You really are one of those guys.”
“What guys?”
“The ones who know how to be faithful, even before marriage.”
“I am not perfect, but once Tahira came of age and our engagement was made official, it would have been wrong to continue having lovers.”
“You never considered having sex with her…in three years? She never offered?”
“No.”
“That’s, um…”
“Proper.”
Her full lips turned down in a frown. “Not what I was thinking.”
“Pathetic?” Deluded of him? Sad?
He did not think that anything could cool his ardor, but the prospect that she pitied him proved extremely effective. He did not need pity sex, nor would his pride allow him to accept it, no matter how much he wanted her.
“I’m pretty sure pathetic is never a word anyone would use to describe you. I was going to say maybe you should have taken that as a warning.”
Just like that, the craving was back, his sex pressing against the confinement of his trousers.
“Warning?” he asked, not understanding.
“Presumably, she was just as happy to remain celibate.”
“At least with me, yes.”
“So, neither of you were sexually attracted to each other?”
“It would appear not.”
“You didn’t think that was a problem?”
“Marriages among those in position are not made for the same reasons as in your world.”
“Elitist much?”
He shrugged. He would not deny it. “Our worlds are barely in the same solar system.”
“Wow. It’s really true, in vino veritas. Although that’s ouzo you’re drinking, not wine.”
“I assure you, I do not need spirits to tell the truth.”
“Are you really that arrogant?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Of course. Our worlds are too far apart for us to communicate.” Her voice was laced with unmistakable sarcasm.
