by Sophia Lynn
Still, she was herself, and the suit she pulled out was a striking green silk. It was a luxury, but she couldn't resist it on her way out of New York. It was completely appropriate, but the color itself was a deep green only a few shades off from her eyes.
“I have breakfast, if that's any consolation, and after we eat we can... we can...”
Estelle blinked as Amir's sentence trailed off. She glanced down at her outfit, looking over the low practical shoes, the skirt and the creamy white blouse.
“What's the matter? Am I committing some kind of fashion taboo?”
“You... you simply look lovely.”
Estelle looked at him, and she burst out laughing. Shaking her head, she came to sit next to him.
“Wow, I must have looked quite a fright getting off that plane,” she said. “If you're that stunned over what a pizza and a night of sleep can do for me, I must have been fit to frighten children.”
Amir shook his head, and now there was a rueful smile on his face. It made her heart beat a bit faster, but she pushed it away because, after all, he likely smiled at everyone like that.
“I thought you were striking coming off the plane, but you simply look more... more calm, today, perhaps? Still, I think you are being a little ingenuous. No woman who looks as you do can be unaware of it.”
“Honestly? I think you're teasing me,” she said, opening the bag of food he had bought. It gave her something to do so that she wouldn't have to focus on the things he was saying.
“Am I?”
“Yes. I think you're teasing me, because I worked in New York, and I've seen the women here in Dubai. I'm cute enough, but I'm not a model. I'm short, I'm spotty, I move too fast, and I get these enormous lavender circles under my eyes when I'm overworked or not rested, both conditions that I'm sure you'll be seeing a great deal.
“Honestly, Amir, I think my best qualities are that I'll work hard for my bosses and that when I latch on, I don't quit.”
She spread the small beautiful pastries out on their paper wrappers, looking up at Amir with a smile. He wasn't smiling at her, however. Instead, he was watching her, a dark speculation in his eyes. He examined every inch of her, as if judging her worth from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
Estelle fought the urge to squirm, but she met his gaze steadily. Let him look. She was not ashamed of not being beautiful. In this charged moment, as they looked at each other, she could see that his eyes, while dark, were not the black she had immediately assumed that they were. Instead, they were a deep beautiful rich brown, ringed with amber in a way that she had never seen before.
He's the beautiful one, she thought, feeling a sudden want crash through her.
“You really do believe that's true,” he said softly, and at the resonance of his words, something inside her shivered.
“Don't you?” she found herself asking. In another moment, with another man, she would have made a joke or passed it off. Instead, she found herself whispering the question as if it were important, as if everything hinged on his response.
He didn't speak, either to correct her or to agree. Instead, keeping his eyes locked on hers, he bent close, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body, could smell the brisk and slightly smoky scent of his cologne, could see the amber of his eyes even better.
“I...”
Her words stuttered off into silence as his big rough hand came up to cradle her face. Without thinking about it, she nuzzled him. Later, she would hear about how he worked with horses, how he had spent large chunks of his childhood on horseback. Right then, all she was aware of was the fact that his hands were far rougher than she would have expected from an office worker, and how good that truly felt.
With a commanding presence that felt like a physical weight, he tipped her head back so that he could see her face.
“You have no idea how you look,” he said, and his mouth came down on hers.
Estelle had been kissed, of course. She’d had a boyfriend in high school and another one in New York before she got wise and got rid of someone who was only interested in her for her so-called exotic looks.
She had never been kissed like this before, by a man who knew how.
He took his time with her. His mouth rested gently on hers, brushing her lips with his own over and over again. She could feel how soft his skin was and delighted in how sweet and warm his breath felt against hers.
There was something amazingly sensual about the way his thumb stroked over the roundness of her cheek over and over again. She couldn't get enough of him or the heat of his body or the gentle way he was touching her. She never wanted it to end. She would do this forever with this man if he wanted to do it with her. Just this...
Then she felt the soft touch of his tongue against her full lower lip, and she jerked away as if a switch had been thrown. They both sat bolt upright, staring at each other in shock and dismay.
“Oh my god, I shouldn't have done that,” she blurted. “I'm so sorry, I don't—”
“You did nothing wrong,” Amir said, cutting through her protests with calm authority. “The fault was mine. I was the one who thought my advances were welcome. Now that I see that they are not, we will not repeat that.”
She nodded numbly, still shaken to her core. He looked utterly calm, as if she had not simply had one of the most shockingly sensual moments of her life with him. No matter what she felt, however, they could not repeat it. He was her employer, and on top of that, he was her only friend in this new country. She couldn't ruin it.
“All right,” she said, more bravely than she felt. “As long as we're still friends?”
His face had been unnervingly calm before this, but now he smiled, a little surprised. “If you wish to be, nothing would please me more.”
They ate the pastries with something like relief, and less than twenty minutes after that, they were back in Amir's car, heading back to Kalil Enterprises.
This is for the best. I don't have a chance with this man, so it's way, way better to nip this in the bud right now.
*
As they drove, Amir could feel a restlessness inside him he could name altogether too well. Once or twice during the ride, he glanced over at Estelle, who was occupied with looking out over the gorgeous life of Dubai in the daytime. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her lush curves, her beautiful brown skin, the curls that fell so artfully down around her shoulders.
So beautiful.
It was more than beauty, though. There was a careless grace to her, a true freedom to her movements he had always secretly longed for. It was what had driven him to expand Kalil Enterprises' interests into the United States a handful of years ago. Perhaps at the bottom of it, he had always been looking for a woman like Estelle.
Now though, they were friends, and he resolved to keep it that way.
She laughed a little at something out of the window, and his hands tightened on the wheel. It might not be easy, but he would respect her wishes. He had to.
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