by Olivia Gates
His perfectly formed hand caressed the space beside him, enticing her to fill it, making her feel it over her back, below her panties, kneading and owning all over again.
She gritted her teeth against the resurgence of lust. “And I should care about your discomfort? The man who’s responsible for dragging me back to this godforsaken region and behind this farce that’s causing me nothing but discomfort?”
“Point taken. But this will take longer than I expected and it would alleviate at least your physical discomfort if you sit for the duration.”
“Actually, this won’t take any longer. I already told you to go to hell. I’m sure you chest-thumping males will find another way to settle your war once you give up on me as a convenient chess piece in your backward power games.”
She thought she was safely out of his range, but when she turned away it was her hand he snagged this time. Her balance was so compromised she needed only a coaxing tug to tumble over him.
Breath burst from her lungs as her body impacted his, even when it did so softly. His effortless power supported most of her weight in midplummet, arranging her to land across his body, one arm cushioning her back, the other gathering her thighs over his lap.
Before she could even recoil, he flattened her breasts to the expanse of his chest, swamping her in the intoxication of his scent and heat. “I’m a breath away from picking up where we left off, Jala. This time, neither of us will be able to stop. So if you don’t want me to make love to you right here on your brother’s couch, distract me.”
She hated him, but herself more, for knowing he’d only spoken the truth. All her pleasure centers were revving, her body readying itself for him. Craving had been seething beneath her skin all this time. She had to end this before he exploited that weakness. More than he already had.
“Would a poke in the eye be distracting enough for you? Or do you prefer something bitten off?”
“I’d take any voluntary touch from you, but—” he released her thighs and scooped her hands into his palms “—I’d prefer not to add to my injuries right now. There’s another thing that would dampen my arousal. Having this out at last. Talk to me.”
“I already said all I had to say, then and now.”
“All right. I’ll do the talking. So Najeeb told you ‘the truth.’” She nodded, hoping to lull him enough so she’d be able to squirm away with as little indignity as possible. He sighed, pressing his chest harder into her. “Truths are overrated, points of view and perspectives at best. So tell me his version, what you sanctioned as the only one there is.”
“I’ll play your aggravating game on one condition.”
“Let you go?” Her glare said that didn’t deserve the oxygen it would take to say yes. He sighed deeper. “I doubt anything you say can be worth not holding you like this.”
A growl rolled in her gut. “I would have preferred to end this with your dignity and appendages intact, but at this point, I’m not against screaming bloody murder to get rid of you. The royal guard won’t care who you are. By the time I pull them off you, you’ll have more than a creaking knee and neck.”
The smile playing across his cruelly sensuous lips became a full-fledged grin, as if she’d just made him a delightful promise. “I had this discussion with your brother a few days ago, about who’d win in such a confrontation—his royal guard or me with my hands tied behind my back.”
And the worst part? She could believe the odds would be in his favor. Damn him.
“But since I can’t risk your brother’s current goodwill if I damage his soldiers, I’ll pass on a demonstration.”
He released her, oh, so slowly, and she felt nerves spooling inside every inch that separated from him. Even withdrawing his touch was as exquisite as bestowing it.
Ya Ullah...why was she so afflicted? Why was he the only man who’d ever accessed her controls and so...uncontrollably? How was her mental and emotional aversion so divorced from her sensual response? Why was it so absolute?
And he knew exactly what he was doing to her; he was playing her responses like a virtuoso. A ruthless expert in manipulating the female body and psyche.
Najeeb had told her Mohab had played many women before her. As, no doubt, he had countless others after her. Probably during. Not ones like the inexperienced and already infatuated young woman she’d been, but cunning, jaded women who’d seen and done it all, even hardened criminals and spies. Yet he’d still taken them in with his overwhelming sexuality and perfectly simulated charm and chivalry. She hadn’t had a chance.
A new wave of mortification poured strength into her limbs as she pushed away from him. He didn’t help her this time, forcing her to dip with all her weight into his unyielding power for support. The way he threw his head back against the back of the couch, his rumble of enjoyment as her fingers sank into his muscles, the way his heavy lids lowered, turning his eyes to burning slits as he watched her struggle up, assailed her with the memory of all the times he’d looked and sounded like that as she’d ridden him to oblivion....
Severing contact, she thought she’d managed to escape his compulsion when he ensnared her again.
Holding her head in the cradle of his hands, striking her immobile with his very gentleness, he exhaled softly. “Just one more.”
Then he took her lips in a kiss that all but extracted her soul.
She took it all, helpless to do anything but let him invade her with pleasure, her body singing in delight, weeping with need. After a series of conquering plunges, he slowed to clinging plucks that had her almost keeling over him again. He finally relinquished her lips with a last groan of regret.
Feeling her legs had turned to jelly, she barely reached the facing armchair before collapsing on it.
“I hope you’ve had your fun.”
At her rasp, his eyes simmered like some supernatural beast’s. “You know I didn’t. You know exactly how I have fun. Hard, protracted, borderline-fatal-with-pleasure fun.”
She managed not to shudder. Yeah. She knew. Every cell in her body seemed to know nothing else. They’d had mega doses of “fun” in the five months they’d been intimate. Whenever she’d thought it couldn’t get better, it had, like a force picking up momentum. Familiarity had only kept shifting the addiction to higher gears. It had been so intense, had felt so pure, it had been a devastating blow when she’d learned the truth.
Exhaling the remembered misery, she made her decision. Letting your enemy find out how much you knew wasn’t wise, but maybe getting it all out would help purge it—and him—from her system once and for all.
“Let’s start with when Najeeb left New York. Or shall we say when you set up the emergencies he’d been called back to Saraya to handle, with his father allegedly sick and unable to deal with them.”
His eyes lost that languid sensuality, but there was no other sign of response.
She went on. “For months everything seemed to thwart him, and he grew suspicious, decided to go to the source of all info—his mother. After making him swear he’d never confront his father, Queen Safaa admitted that King Hassan believed Najeeb would end up marrying me, a daughter of the hated Aal Masoods, and it would cost him his position as his heir, as Saraya’s tribes wouldn’t abide the introduction of Aal Masood blood into the royal family. He even feared the Aal Ghaanems might lose the throne altogether to an uprising.”
Mohab still had no reaction. But then again, why should he react? He already knew all this.
She exhaled. “To stop this calamity, King Hassan had one hope of breaking up our relationship. You. The kingdom’s most lethal secret weapon. I was a homeland security threat of the highest order after all. As someone who was raised to despise the Aal Masoods, the idea that your crown prince might sully your line with the blood of your hated enemies was probably as unthinkable to you.
“Najeeb�
�s mother related how you shared your king’s opinion of me—the then-minor princess who flaunted her region’s values and disgraced her brothers by living a degenerate life in the West. You agreed that I was manipulating the honorable Najeeb, using our shared ordeal to ride him to the status of a future queen. When the king authorized you to get rid of me, he knew how you’d do it. The same way you rid the kingdom of every black widow who tried to compromise the royal family or the integrity of the kingdom.”
His gaze remained unchanged, betraying nothing.
Figured. He’d betrayed nothing through their five-month relationship. Not one action or glance or word had given her a clue that it had all been an act. The reverse had been true. Everything from him had been fierce, consistent, unequivocal, had felt more real than anything she’d ever experienced. Discovering the truth had hit so out of the blue, it had crushed her.
Her world had warped, every emotion and passion she’d felt for him becoming shame, humiliation.
She went on, emptying her voice of any remembered anguish. “You seduced me only to make me ineligible for Najeeb, then asked me to marry you to perfect your act, no doubt to drop me like a used napkin the moment you were sure your crown prince was safe.”
Najeeb had been livid at his father, but more at Mohab, if only for the interference, the duplicity. His outrage had been mitigated by his belief that he’d saved her in time. She had never exposed the depths of her fall and folly to her friend. Only wanting the mess over with, she’d made Najeeb promise he’d never confront Mohab. She’d just wanted to walk away.
Numb and feeling used, she’d stumbled home, had stood in that shower for what might have been hours. Then Mohab had come. His urgency and passion, which her senses still hadn’t been able to recognize as fake, had had her body detonating with a fireball of lust and her mind spiraling in blankness.
Afterward everything had spilled over, razing her with the devastation of fury and mortification.
After Mohab had finally gone, she’d collapsed. Not in any dramatic way, just a gradual descent into depression, her misery deepening with time and repercussions. It had taken her years to climb out.
Now, just as she was finally over her ordeal and firmly on stable footing, the man responsible for it all had come back to destroy the peace she’d struggled so long and hard for.
“So that’s why you decided you didn’t want to marry me after all, and so abruptly.”
His deep statement roused her from her musings.
She gave him the only answer he’d get from her. “It just gave me the reason to bail, as I’d been wanting to, without caring how I did it.”
“That’s why you didn’t confront me, no matter how much I pushed? You weren’t interested in hearing my defense, since you’d already decided to walk out on me?”
At her nod, he shook his head, as if deprecating himself for wanting to hear her discoveries had been the only reason behind her rejection. No doubt out of pride, as that would make her the only woman who had walked away from him. Buying her claim didn’t make things better, but it was something, since she’d rather crawl back to the airport in today’s heat wave rather than give him the triumph of knowing how fully he’d taken her in.
“So craving me was one thing, marrying me was another.”
“Who said I craved you?”
His mock reproving look sent blood surging to her loins. “Let’s not dispute the indisputable, ya jameelati. You did, and I just proved you still do.”
Her insides clenched at his taunt, his calling her his beauty. “I’m just a hot-blooded woman.”
“That’s why you were a virgin when I first took you?”
The way he said took you reverberated in her being.
For there was no other way to describe what he’d done to her that first night. Or any other time after that. He’d shown her what her body and being had always been capable of, but would have lain untapped if not for his unlocking their potential. Her wildest dreams before him hadn’t known to venture into the realms where he’d taken her.
But she’d still woken up in his arms that first time feeling anxious. Though she’d believed him to be progressive, Saraya was even more ultraconservative than Judar, and she’d feared he might despise her for surrendering to him outside the marriage bed. She feared that because it would have meant he wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. And if he did, she would have considered him worth nothing but good riddance, but it would still have wounded her terribly.
But he’d assuaged her fears as soon as he’d opened his eyes. He’d seamlessly played his part, had been euphoric, indulgent, even poetic about how proud he’d been that she’d bestowed her innocence on him, given him the honor of initiating her into intimacy. Then he’d asked her to marry him.
Even though she’d never thought of marriage, except to reject it, she’d found herself saying yes....
“Well?”
His challenge reminded her she hadn’t answered his taunt. “Oh, you’re harping on my being a virgin at the advanced age of twenty-one? A young woman still struggling to leave her stiflingly conservative upbringing behind? You expected me to go to the States and hop into bed with every man I fancied?”
“You’d been there for three years. Enough time to change your outlook and behavior, especially at that age, if you’d wanted to. But you fancied no one. I was your first. In every way. I know.”
“You mean as the infallible intelligence god you are?”
“No. As the man who awakened you.”
Damn him. He saw too much, knew everything.
“And once I awakened, thanks to your expert...rousing...”
“Nothing happened. You didn’t replace me in your bed.”
She gaped at him. How did he...? Did that mean...?
Before she could blow a valve, he went on calmly, “This I know as the incomparable intelligence god that I am.”
* * *
If people could explode, Jala would have, Mohab thought.
He’d tripped the one wire that could set her off. One of two wires. The first was passion, which he was gratified he could still trigger with a touch. The second was privacy.
It had always been her biggest hang-up. She’d been near obsessive about it. Her insistence on never meeting him where anyone might recognize her had at first made him think it was a cunning effort to have his cake and eat Najeeb’s, too. But as his preconceptions had melted, and she’d opened up with details of her life in Judar, he’d understood how hard-won her autonomy had been. After a lifetime of having her breaths counted and steps monitored, she’d sworn...no more.
He watched her rise, every inch aching to have her in his arms again. But that wouldn’t move anything forward. And he was afraid that if she surrendered again, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
“You had me under surveillance?” she seethed.
He sighed. Not his favorite topic, discussing his obsession with her. “I’m not good at letting go.”
“Sure. Do you have a bridge to sell me with that? So what was it, really? You forgot to call off my surveillance detail and reports kept hitting your desk?”
At his raised eyebrow, she took a furious step toward him. “We’re in full-disclosure mode, aren’t we? So how about you not pretend you didn’t have my every move documented before you approached me? It’s evident you formulated a plan to entrap me in the most time-efficient manner based on my character analysis. But after you ended my supposed threat to your crown prince, what purpose did keeping tabs on me serve? Was it to make sure I didn’t go after another of your kingdom’s princes after you made sure Najeeb found me ‘ineligible’ to be his future queen?”
Wincing at the words that had haunted him with shame, he shook his head. “I didn’t tell Najeeb anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Her instantaneous rejection was what he deserved. Not only had he threatened to do just that, Najeeb had cut off all relations with her, proving to her that Mohab had carried out his threat.
But he hadn’t. He’d lived dreading news of her impending marriage to Najeeb. When that had never come to pass, he’d found out why. His uncle had told Najeeb that Mohab had fulfilled his mission in proving that Jala was dissolute, but if Najeeb desired her, he could enjoy her, as Mohab once had.
Even though he’d been hurt and jealous, believed she’d chosen Najeeb over him, he’d also come to admit that she’d had every right to change her mind about marrying him. And he’d been furious that Najeeb had ended what he’d professed to be a strong friendship based on hearsay, or even the truth of their relationship. If that made her dissolute in Najeeb’s eyes, when the man hadn’t staked a prior claim, it made him despicable.
He’d been unable to abide his uncle’s defamation and his cousin’s desertion of her. In a gesture of ultimate contempt, he’d resigned his job and left their and Saraya’s service.
He exhaled. “Ask Najeeb. He’ll tell you I haven’t talked to him since that night. You had every right to leave me, and I’ll be forever ashamed I threatened to slander you for it.”
Her glare wavered only to harden again. “Even if I believe that, you have other transgressions waiting in line. How dare you have me followed?”
Savoring the bewitching sight she made in her fury, he said, “As long as I’m already damned, and I have no hope of having the extenuating circumstances sanctioned, I might as well tell you that I’ve been keeping tabs on you far longer than you think. I started right after I first saw you attending a conference with your oldest brother Farooq in Washington.”
Her eyes rounded. “That was ten years ago!”
“Aih. You were only eighteen and the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. I felt the chemistry that sizzles between us singe me even then, even when you didn’t see me.”
Her disbelief was almost palpable. “It’s not possible I didn’t see you.”
“You do remember what I do for a living, don’t you? If I want to stay out of sight, that’s where I remain.”
