by Ella Brooke
“I think you said—or didn’t say—everything you had to fifteen years ago. I was that stupid sophomore and you were the amazingly hot senior, and I fell for every line you gave me. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sheikh now or always were. I think you hurt me too much.”
“If you don’t think anything I can say will change your mind, then you don’t have anything to actually risk,” he said, offering her a devilish smile that made her gulp.
No, I have to keep this professional, damn it.
Except that wasn’t possible. Whether by fate or design, or something else, she’d been thrown back into the path of the man she’d loved. There was no way she could park her heart or shove her deepest desires away. It wasn’t how she was made. Sighing, she got to her feet and left her laptop on the floor. Holding out her hand, she shook Cemal’s.
“If you have a great explanation for everything, then please do show me.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
***
She was far lovelier than he ever could have imagined. As a teenager, she was beautiful with her womanly curves (even then) and her lush, dark hair. But now she had the gravitas of womanhood behind her and the sensuality of her maturity adding to her allure. His Snow White was everything she dreamed she could be, everything he’d longed for in the long, lonely years since he’d come home from the United States.
How his heart ached to see her again with how pinched her expression was, how hateful her glare.
“So,” he said, talking easily around the music pouring through the restaurant. He’d picked a traditional Jordanian eatery, one that showcased different live bands as well as other in-person entertainment. He wanted desperately to give her a taste of the culture that he’d had to hide from her the first time around. “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”
She snorted and took a big gulp of the wine she’d ordered. This was a restaurant that was geared to American tourists (albeit wealthier ones) and catered to their taste. It was one of the few places in the capital city to find alcohol outside of the palace. After all, Cemal was the furthest thing from adherent. Still, the wine seemed to loosen her, to drain some of the anger from her, so he was glad he’d chosen this place.
“You seem so mature now. When I knew you, it was motorcycle, leather jacket, sassing off to teachers, and smoking anything you could find.”
“We all have our rebellious phases. I still have my tastes and predilections,” he said. “I merely channel them around my duty to my country. When I was a teenager, I wanted nothing of Jordan. I wanted to live my life as I saw fit. Now, I’ve accepted my role in life.”
“So you’re rebel-without-a-cause act is all gone?” she asked, waving at the sommelier for another glass.
“No, like I said, I have ways to exorcise my other demons.”
He reached out and placed his hand on her thigh, squeezing it delicately to let her see the depth of his attraction to her. “Like I said, I’m just wild in more contained bursts.”
“Do I want to know who you really are, Robbie?” she asked, her voice singsong.
He leaned forward, pausing to love the way she smelled of vanilla and strawberries. God, how he loved Americans and their adoration for body washes, but she smelled the best because she mingled that fruitiness with her own scent, something totally feminine and seductive. Something that made his member hard already as he’d missed and craved that very scent for fifteen years.
“I can show you so many things, Snow White. You have no idea what I can give to you.”
“But you hurt me,” she said. “I got in trouble when my parents caught me smoking pot with you. God, if they’d even suspected how close we came that day to…well, you know!” she said, guzzling down her second glass of red wine.
She signaled for the waiter a third time, and he worried if he should cut her off. But he was trying to show Juliana that in some things he trusted her judgment. If she felt she needed some wine to get through the evening, then he was hardly one to judge.
“Yes, I remember.”
That night her parents caught them in her basement, enjoying some drinks and some pot, they’d gotten close to finally making love. She’d been riding him—dry humping him with aplomb—when her parents walked in. Then she’d been out of his life after that. And he’d been whisked back to Jordan to suffer from his father’s incessant lectures and his mother’s creative punishments. It was the biggest case of blue balls in the history of the world because he’d dreamed of her relentlessly since, wanted her back.
But he’d known by the time he’d been properly groomed to be sheikh and then forced to take the role over that she’d had to have moved on.
Now she was here, and a cursory look through her Facebook (he was no technological fool) showed him that she was currently single.
“You could have fought harder to stay!” she said, her voice rising.
“I tried. My father couldn’t be reasoned with. Were your parents thrilled with your actions, Juliana?”
“No,” she said, leaning into him, and he loved feeling the warmth of her body against him. His erection was straining against the fabric of his robes, and he was glad that he’d worn the more subtle and traditional attire of his people. “My father threatened to send me to Catholic boarding school. Then Mom had me spend the summer working at her dad’s ranch out in Montana. I never had more sunburn in my life.”
“Yet,” he said, kissing the soft hollow of her throat, “you are still the pale goddess I always loved.”
She mewled against him and then pushed away. “But it hurt.”
“It hurt me as well, you have to believe me. I was seventeen and I couldn’t stop what happened any more than you could. I’d give anything if I could have changed it. But you’re here now.”
“I’m not just your possession, Cemal,” she said, her sea-green eyes severe and harsh as she appraised him. “You’re so commanding, but I’m not falling for that.”
He chuckled and squeezed her thigh. “Perhaps you’re game to try. Maybe you can’t resist me. You came out with me tonight.”
“I was hungry,” she said, finishing her third glass and then hiccupping a little. “I needed somewhere to go. I’m not that girl anymore, and I’m…I’m independent. So much has changed,” she said, and her eyes clouded with such sorrow that he wanted to ask her what happened.
He would have, except the traditional dancers came through. The two women were young, perhaps no more than twenty, with their long, dark hair pulled in plaits down their back. Both of them wore small bra-like bandoliers sewn with coins and short, flowing skirts. The lavender and pink colors of their outfits contrasted with their dark skin. Normally, he’d have been eager to invite them to the palace. Hell, he’d often used the restaurant as a way to take out both food and something more. Now, however, they did nothing for him. No. The only woman he wanted was the one laughing and standing up as the dancers reached for her arm.
That was his Snow White, his first love, and the woman he had to win back no matter the cost.
As he watched, his length straining against his robe and his blood pounding through his veins, Juliana waved her arms as the women instructed, moving them in a serpentine manner that belied her own grace. She’d always been so down on herself at school dances, so afraid she was never adequate enough, but Juliana had never seen in herself what he did—that grace, that effortless beauty.
The women weren’t content to merely teach her the basic arm motions. Oh no, now the girl in lavender had her hands on Juliana’s hips and was forcing her to wriggle them in an enticing sinus rhythm. Licking his lips, he watched as she shook her hips. Dear Allah how he wished she was still in her outfit from last night. Still, he watched her body move with the most deliberate and seductive motions, committing it to memory. Then she left the company of her two teachers as those women moved farther into the crowd. He assumed she’d sit down again, but she didn’t.
Instead, she strode toward him with all the deliberate
purpose of a lioness on the hunt. She smirked at him, and, at first, circled him, her hands playing over his shoulder. Then she grazed her fingers over his neck, tracing patterns against his skin.
“What do you have in mind, Snow White?” he asked.
She shocked him utterly by sitting down on him, grinding against him. He moaned a little, not caring what the crowd saw. He was their king, could do anything he wanted. Right now, he wanted to let his eyes roll back in his head and enjoy the warmth of her womanhood as it ground through a few thin layers of clothing against his own hardness. His heart beat quickly in his chest and every nerve ending felt as if it was rippling with electricity. Juliana leaned down to kiss him, and he wanted to, but he saw the glazed look in her eyes.
She was too out of it, a bit too intoxicated to take advantage of.
Hell, it was likely that Juliana would be kicking herself in the morning for being this unguarded.
Sighing and hating that he had to be noble when it was never his style, Cemal kissed her cheek. “I think it’s time to get you home, princess. You seem like you might just need to sleep it off.”
“With you?”
“Maybe not tonight,” he said woefully before calling for the check.
Chapter Five
Juliana curled up next to Cemal the entire limo ride back to the palace. Her head was spinning, and she realized it was a terrible idea to work past lunch and only have a piece of date bread for breakfast. She’d had more wine than she’d realized, and although she desperately wanted to make love to Cemal, to do more than a dance, she also found herself more exhausted and fuzzy headed than she realized.
For right now, at least, having him hold her in his arms and kiss the crown of her head felt amazing. It felt like the tenderness between them had never died, and that the connection they’d forged years ago was still vibrant between them, a living spark that had never completely died out. Still, it hurt when he got out of the limo and started to his corner of the palace. Yasmeena took her, letting her Juliana lean on her shoulder, as both women walked slowly (oh so slowly) to the harem quarters. As an honored guest, Juliana had her own separate bedroom within the wing—one that led into a private bathroom as well.
As she sat on the lip of the massive Jacuzzi tub, Juliana watched the older woman poor a bubble bath. The servant even added hints of rich Arabian spices and rose petals to give the water a truly luxurious feeling.
“Now, do you need help? You won’t fall if I give you a few minutes of privacy, will you?” Yasmeena asked, concern furrowing her brows.
“No! I’ll be fine!” she said, waving her hands about her, feeling almost as if she were a helicopter about to take off.
Yasmeena shook her head. “I’ll be close outside. You merely have to yell if you have a problem.”
“Aww, you can go on ahead. There’s no way you want to be taking care of a drunk chick right now,” she said, smiling reassuringly back at the older woman. “I’ll be fine.”
The servant hesitated a moment longer before hurrying out of the door. Juliana stood and swayed a bit on her feet as she took off her jeans and her tank top. It didn’t surprise her in the least that her jeans were slightly wet. God had she been worked up as she’d danced for Cemal. She’d have given anything if they could have gone further tonight, but he’d always been so sensitive to her needs. The reason they’d never slept together in high school was because he’d been patient, waiting for her to be ready.
Maybe she wasn’t quite ready yet, not with her problems with Phillip still spinning in her mind. And, okay, maybe she was just a bit tipsy, she admitted to herself as she slid into the heavenly warm bubbles. Still, they were together again and he’d shown her something real. He was as bent, broken, and frustrated by parental edicts as she was.
God, it was all so confusing but she did still want him. The sensitive bundle of nerves between her legs had been throbbing ever since she’d straddled him. Her pearl begged for attention.
Slipping one hand under the surface of the water as she reached with the other for her nipples, Juliana resolved that she’d have to take care of her need for tonight. Leaning her head against the porcelain of the tub, she imagined that her fingers were his, that it was Cemal’s broad, callused fingers that were threading their way through her folds. That it was his scent—that spicy, devilish aroma—filling her nose.
Her fingers stroked the softness of her most secret lips and it felt as if her blood had turned to lava, like magma was running under the surface of her skin, promising to erupt for her at any moment. Then her right hand parted the petals of her flower and she found her center, that special rosebud that, honestly, hadn’t been worshipped in a long time.
Maybe that should have been her sign, that she couldn’t even remember the last time she and Phillip had had sex.
She’d always been so busy with her career, and she’d assumed that he’d been busy with his.
No, not here. Now she was going to pleasure herself, make herself feel all the ecstasy that had been denied to her for so long. The fingers of her left hand stroked and played with her nipple, raising it into a peak, making it pebble with desire. In her imagination, it was Cemal doing this. Someday it would be his tongue laving against her skin. More than that, it would be his thumb pressed against her pearl, rubbing it in semicircles until the hot, racing magma ran through her veins, making her burn in the most delicious way possible.
She plunged two of her fingers deep into her channel even as she increased the pressure of her thumb. She came then, erupting as readily as Mt. St. Helens, the pure power of her ecstasy overtaking her. Slipping under the water, she made sure to keep her nose above water, but the rest of her was limp and boneless, utterly content from her orgasm.
And yet…
She knew it would be better if Cemal had done it to her, and she’d feel empty until he did.
***
“My mouth tastes like the bottom of a New York City cab,” she groaned, shoving a pillow over her head as Yasmeena came into her room. “I can’t go program like this.”
“I think you’ll be alright,” the older woman said as she dropped two Alka-Seltzer tablets into her cup.
Even the light fizzing of the medicine sounded like a bubbling spring to her addled, super sensitive ears. Juliana shoved the pillow more tightly over her face. “No, I don’t want to.”
The pillow was pulled away and she howled as the light assaulted her senses and made it feel as if a team of Irish step dancers had set up shop in her head.
“You drink this and I’ll have some croissants and eggs sent up here soon.”
“You’re such a mom,” she said.
“No, I am not,” Yasmeena said, her tone a bit more subdued than before.
Juliana sipped her concoction for a moment and then sighed. Setting her hand on the older woman’s hand, she added. “You’d have been a good one, even if you are too bossy.”
“I live to serve and right now the order from Cemal is that you sober up.”
Juliana’s mind sifted flashbacks of last night and she almost dropped her mug in shock. At first, the memories of any time after the midafternoon yesterday were fuzzy. Now? Now, her mind was racing through so much. The dancing she’d learned and, oh God! She’d given Cemal a lap dance, hadn’t she?
And then the Jacuzzi after, the way she’d come just thinking about him.
“I made a fool of myself.”
“From the look on the master’s face when he came home last night, I do not think that Cemal was upset,” Yasmeena intoned.
“I had way too much wine. I did things I haven’t done in years,” Juliana said. Then she blanched, thinking of the lap dance. “I’ve done things I’ve never done!”
“Again, I think that the sheikh didn’t mind.”
“He should have! I had to have made him a laughingstock of the city.”
Yasmeena laughed. “He has done many, many things in his time. Trust me. There has been every type of rumor and story about C
emal over the years.”
“Oh,” she said, ignoring the ache in her chest.
How foolish of her. He was royalty, the heir to one of the largest oil fortunes in the world. He could have any woman he wanted, any person on Earth in his bed. She couldn’t have expected him to wait for her. After all, she’d had lovers in college and a fiancé. Still, that news made her feel bad, as if she couldn’t hope to compete with all the women he’d known. Wait, what was she thinking?
She was sober now and, damn it, all she had to do was focus on her mission. Juliana was here to fix the security system and get home. She’d impress Ms. Grant with her efficient skills, get her promotion, and remain sober for the rest of her stay in Jordan. That was the mission.
She wouldn’t stray from that.
Really she wouldn’t.
***
It was half past two and she was stuck on a nonsensical snarl of code when Cemal put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her traitorous heart had already sped up, even when all she’d done was catch the hint of saffron in the air. Nervous, she kept her head down and focused on the screen before her.
“How is it coming?” he asked.
“I know what’s wrong, but I’m not quite sure yet how to rewrite it. My usual patches aren’t being the charm they’re supposed to be. Otherwise, peachy,” she said, her voice high and tinny.
Please just go away. I don’t want to relive last night. God, you must think I’m an idiot.
“You can look at me. It’s okay.”
Sighing, she tried not to look him in those mesmerizing, amber eyes, but he pushed her chin up anyway. “You must hate me.”
“Why?” he asked, his eyes betraying no hint of annoyance.
“Because I went total slut on you last night. I was exhausted and stressed and had too much wine. Now I’m just feeling completely stupid.”
