by Olivia Gates
That made the most sense. She had long ago become reconciled to the fact that a man who’d chosen Mohab’s line of work must be made of a different material than other human beings. To deal with the atrocities he was required to face head-on, he must have long since shut down his basic human emotions. And to fulfill his stealth missions, he must have become an expert at simulating those emotions at will.
But even knowing that, he’d managed to fool her again. He’d anesthetized her judgment and nullified her instincts. She’d actually begun believing his claims and had all but drowned in his passion. His nonexistent passion.
And that was the worst of it all. That after everything that had happened, her senses and responses would forever remain dependent on a mirage. Like Tantalus, she was destined to shrivel up with thirst for an illusion.
What kind of fate was it that always made her his target, his chess piece? Why had fate infected her with this unremitting hunger that nothing had ever eradicated, when he felt none for her, for real, in return? Why, after she’d suppressed it for years until she’d thought she’d been cured, had it taken only his reappearance to drag it out of her depths? And now that the fever had spiked again, how could she subdue it, at least enough to keep on functioning?
A wave of too-familiar dejection crashed over her as she slit her eyes against the brilliant setting sun, suddenly cold to her marrow in the balmy March breeze.
Legs heavy and numb, she started back to the palace. And, in spite of everything, it took her breath all over again.
Anyone looking at it would think it was a historical monument, but she’d attended its inauguration as the new seat of power in Judar just eleven years ago during her late uncle’s rule. It had since become a monument as important as the Taj Mahal, and sure gave that legendary edifice a run for its money. It was still as mind-boggling to her as it had been the first time she’d seen it.
Nestled in an extensively landscaped park and surrounded by silver beaches and emerald waters, it crouched in the middle of the peninsula, its grounds almost covered like a massive starship from beyond the stars. Now in the golden drape of a breathtaking sunset, it felt as if it had been conjured by magic from another realm.
That wasn’t too far from the truth. Thousands of unique talents, all masters of art and architecture, had put this place together. And from what she’d seen of its interior, modern magicians of technology had imbued it with the ultimate in luxury and functionality, too.
Approaching the palace from its shore-facing side took her through street-wide paths paved in earth-colored cobblestones and lined by soaring palm trees and flower beds. She strode through gates, courtyards, pavilions, everything bearing the intricacies and influences of the cultures that had melded together to form Judar. If she’d been in anything approaching a normal frame of mind, she would have savored the magnificence of this place. But now the majesty that surrounded her—and what it signified of her royal connections and their current implications for her life—oppressed her.
Scaling the convex stone steps that converged like a fan from a hundred feet at the bottom to thirty at the top, she gazed up at the massive palace that soared on four levels, echoing every hue of the desert, topped by a complex system of domes covered in mosaics and gold finials.
As she approached the entrance, two footmen in ornate uniforms seemed to materialize out of nowhere to open the twenty-foot mahogany double doors inlaid with gold and silver.
Smiling at them or offering thanks was useless, since they looked firmly ahead, avoiding eye contact. She crossed into the circular columned hall that had to be at least two hundred feet in diameter with a ceiling dome at least half that.
Her gaze swam around the superbly lit sweeping spaces, getting only impressions of neutral color schemes and sumptuous decor and furnishings. Again it felt deserted. Or everyone was giving her space. Which was very welcome. She didn’t want to meet anyone right now, even in passing.
At the end of the hall, she entered an elevator that transported her in seconds to her fourth-floor quarters.
As she entered the expansive three-chambered wing and crossed to the bedroom, the sensory overload of sweet incense and opulence hit her. Yearning for her simple, cozy, two-room American abode twisted inside her like a tornado.
“Oh, you’re here!”
The bright exclamation had her swinging around, almost severing her already compromised balance.
Aliyah. Kamal’s wife and her queen. And a more fitting queen she’d never seen. As a former model, Aliyah was even taller than Jala, but now boasted the lush curves of a woman who’d ripened with the passion of a virile man, and with bearing his son and daughter. Her mahogany hair was in a thick braid over her shoulder, and she was swathed in a floor-length dress the color of her chocolate eyes.
She had Carmen with her. As Farooq’s wife, Carmen was the crown prince’s consort and yet another specimen of feminine gorgeousness, looking like a statuesque Rita Hayworth in her garnet-haired period but with turquoise eyes. Farah, the wife of her second-oldest brother, Shehab, was the only one missing. Shehab called her his Emerald Fairy for her eyes, and in Jala’s opinion he was right all around, and Farah was the most ethereally stunning of the three.
If she’d cared about her looks, Jala would have suffered serious insecurity in the presence of those three visions. As it was, she was delighted her brothers had found women who were as beautiful on the outside as they were on the inside and who adored them. It was always such a pleasure to see them. Even though their relationship consisted mostly of video chatting, since the three couples seldom left Judar due to their growing families and responsibilities.
“We did knock.” Carmen grinned at her apologetically as she beckoned the four women who accompanied her and Aliyah, no doubt their ladies-in-waiting. All were laden with packages. “We assumed you weren’t here when you didn’t answer, and thought to leave you the stuff with a note.”
“We brought you everything we could think of to see what you need and what fits,” Aliyah explained.
Carmen smiled at the women who’d piled the “stuff” in the sitting area, then gestured for them to leave. “Kamal said you need everything since you left New York without packing a thing.”
“Yeah, because he told me your husband was lying in hospital battling the grim reaper.”
Carmen blanched, the very idea of that evidently making her sick to her stomach. “He what?”
“Exactly what I said to him when he revealed that it was only a ruse to get me here.”
“Ya Ullah!” Aliyah groaned, looking mortified. “I’ll brain him for you. If you haven’t already.”
“I only let him live for you and the kids,” Jala mumbled.
Aliyah hugged her, contrite on her husband’s behalf. “I’m so sorry. He’s a colossal pain but...” She sighed, eyes becoming dreamy. “I let him live because he’s so utterly irresistible.”
Jala knew exactly what she meant. She was caught, again, in the web of such an inexorable force. Just not happily so.
“You’re talking to the world’s second foremost expert on Kamal, regrettably my so-called twin and now horrifically my king, too. I am thinking of surrendering my Judarian nationality so I’d deprive him of wielding that kind of power over me.”
“As if anyone can make you do anything you don’t want.” Carmen’s scoff was certainty itself.
Farooq’s wife had once told Jala she thought her the strongest, most courageous and independent person she knew. If only Carmen knew that there was someone who’d always made Jala do whatever he wanted. Was still making her do it....
“Listen, we know you must be dying for an early night, so we won’t keep you.” Carmen linked her arm in Jala’s. “Let’s open everything, and we’ll see what suits you, what you need changed and what we forgot.”
Aliyah followed them. “Wh
en Kamal said we should leave you alone all day, since you had a big day yesterday, I had no idea how big it was. No thanks to him. Giving you the scare, then the surprise of your life in succession.”
“He told you, huh?” Jala huffed. “What am I saying? I think he tells you stuff before he tells it to himself.”
Aliyah’s exquisite face lit up with that expression of a woman secure in her power over her man, of his total love, which she reciprocated to her last breath. “He does think aloud with me. But not this time. I was told after the fact.”
“After he settled the pact to sign me over in marriage to the future king of Jareer, you mean? To stop a war that old goat king of Saraya wouldn’t think twice about instigating?”
Aliyah whooped. “Kamal calls him ‘old goat,’ too. You two really are twins!”
Carmen chuckled. “We heard you met said future king of Jareer last night. With how things are between Judar and Saraya, we never had the pleasure, but we’ve been hearing all sorts of things about him...like he’s materialized right out of Arabian Nights. I’ve even heard women here make blasphemous comments about him—that he’s even more impressive than our men.”
Even loving her brothers as she did, Jala had to agree. Regretfully. She didn’t know if it was better or worse to get more confirmation that he affected all women the same way.
Suddenly she jumped.
Carmen started. “What is it?”
Groaning, Jala got her phone out of her pocket. “Just my phone. It never vibrated that hard.” Or she had surplus electricity coursing through her system. “Just a sec.”
She cast a look at the number as she answered. A blocked one. Probably one of her colleagues that the service provider here was unable to show on caller ID due to the international number.
“I am here.”
She lurched harder this time. Mohab.
Here? Where? In her wing? Outside in the sitting room...?
“In the palace.”
Oh.
“Are you in your quarters?”
She snatched a look at Carmen and Aliyah, who’d turned their backs, giving her privacy. “Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Why?”
“I plan on visiting you.”
“And I plan on not receiving you.”
“Zain. Turn on your laptop.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll have to improvise. Making love to you across cyberspace isn’t ideal, but it might be a good idea to keep my distance until I take the edge off...the first few times.”
Her knees almost buckled. “Why don’t you go ahead on your own? Cyberspace is full of...material you can help yourself to.”
She saw Carmen’s back stiffen. It was imperceptible, but she’d heard her. And no doubt understood.
And that royal bastard continued to pour more dark magic into her inflamed brain. “I’m very fastidious about the...material...I help myself to. I have a specific movie that I have...helped myself to, times beyond count. I’ve long memorized every frame, had remastered it for better image and sound quality so I can help myself to it...into infinity.”
A movie. Of her. As he’d massaged her, pampered her, owned her every inch, brought her to ecstasy over and over again before he’d mounted her and thrust her to oblivion.
It had been one of her deepest scars, knowing that she’d trusted him so much she’d allowed this, that he had that evidence of her stupidity and self-destructiveness, a weapon to wield against her to serve his purposes.
“I would do anything for new material.” His voice dropped an octave into the darkest reaches of temptation. “Anything, Jala.” He let out a ragged breath that all but fried her synapses. “Turn on your laptop and we’ll proceed.”
She ground her teeth, refusing to press her legs together. He wasn’t doing this to her, and over the phone, too, with her sisters-in-law feet away. “So I turn my laptop on and you magically see me from yours?”
“You keep forgetting who I am.”
“You can tap into my computer?” she snapped.
“Of course. But I don’t need to now. I just need to know your chat login. Which I do. Now hurry. The longer you make me wait, the longer before I’m appeased. I’m already half out of my mind with keeping my hands off you last night.”
“You did no such thing!”
Her exclamation made both Aliyah and Carmen fidget. They must now be formulating a very good idea of what was going on.
Ya Ullah...she hated him!
“You know I did.” He did that thing again with his voice that strummed the chords in the core of her being. “You know what I do with my hands when I don’t keep them off you. But I kept something on. Your clothes. I almost had a heart attack needing to peel them off you. Take them off for me now, Jala. I want to see you now, want to imagine my hands on you. Show me yourself, ya jameelati.”
Ya Ullah—even now, he had her spontaneously combusting from a distance. Her body was readying itself, the clothes he’d asked her to remove were suddenly suffocating shackles, abrading aching flesh.
“I have company.”
“Get rid of them.” His command was terse, tense, uncompromising.
“I can’t,” she choked, smiling wanly at the two ladies who’d finished unpacking and were fidgeting, not knowing what to do. “I’m hanging up now.”
“Do that, and I’ll come over.”
“You don’t know where I am!”
“I can pinpoint your location via GPS. I was only asking as a courtesy, so you’d volunteer it willingly.”
“What do you think I can do now, huh?”
“Would you have done what I asked had you been alone?”
Carmen strode by her to usher in the ladies, who brought in more packages, looking relieved to stop pretending to be talking to Aliyah and not hearing everything Jala said.
Jala cast her a brittle smile, trying to sound neutral as she almost choked on her answer. “I would have considered it.”
“Liar.” This was crooned in the darkest, deepest tone he’d ever hit her with. “You would have made a protracted feast of tormenting me.”
That coming from the master of torment. Oh, the irony.
“Zain. If you can’t open your laptop, we’ll use the phone. I’ll show you myself, instead.”
Her legs gave out. She groped for the nearest chair, gesturing weakly at the ladies that she was okay, hoping they’d just leave. They didn’t. They continued to work until she almost screamed she wanted to be alone to deal with this nerve-racking man without having them witness her being seduced out of her mind by him.
Mohab droned on until she felt her brain sizzling. “Remember how you used to revel in exposing me? Taking each shred of clothes off me with fingers that shook with urgency, with teeth that chattered with arousal?”
“Mohab...”
As soon as his name moaned out of her, begging mercy, she could almost see Aliyah’s and Carmen’s ears pricking up. Now they knew for sure who’d been tormenting her all this time.
“But I’ll leave you to your visitors on one condition.”
“What?” she croaked.
“The moment they’re gone, you’ll come to me.”
* * *
To their credit, after Mohab released her from his long-distance torture, Aliyah and Carmen behaved as if they’d heard nothing as they concluded their business, which it turned out they had needed to stay to conclude. Before they disappeared, she thought she saw them exchanging furtive smiles.
Yeah. They were probably putting two and two together. And coming up with a thousand.
She took her time, showering, drying her hair, dressing in fresh clothes. Then she headed to the wing Mohab had been given. Aliyah had backhandedly provided its location.
&n
bsp; At his door, she knocked, then stood back.
The door opened almost instantaneously. Across the threshold, there he was, looking fall-to-your-knees gorgeous—Mohab.
In a black-on-black suit and shirt, his skin simmered and his eyes glowed in the soft ambient light. Only the top section of his hair was held back now; the rest flowed like thick sheets of silk to sigh over his collar.
A wave of fierce hunger rolled over her. She bore its impact without any outward sign, looking up at him across the threshold. He only stepped aside. Knowing there’d be eyes documenting her entry into his chambers, she walked inside.
The wing looked much like the one she occupied, but it smelled different. His scent had already permeated the place. It coated her lungs, tingled on her tongue. His unique brand of virility and vigor, of scorching desert sun and flaying wind, of ruthless terrain and cleansing rain. Of cold-blooded termination and boiling-over passion.
His appreciation sizzled over her as his eyes swept her white-cotton-clad body, sensuality playing on his sculpted lips, humming from him like electricity from a high-voltage cable.
She bore the brunt of his silent, sensual onslaught, then, in utmost tranquillity and premeditation, she swung her arm and socked him in the jaw.
Six
Pain exploded in Jala’s hand.
She’d thrown punches before, but nothing had ever hurt that bad. Figured. Mortal beings’ jaws weren’t made of some indestructible amalgam like Arabian Nights refugee here.
She might have broken her hand. And wrist. And elbow.
But she wouldn’t obey the need to shake the agony out and howl. The unmovable bastard hadn’t even rocked under what she’d thought a very good punch. Only his smile had vanished, his expression becoming that of a predator who’d just encountered an unexpected opponent, exhilarated by the discovery, raring for an all-out tumble.
Then, oh, so slowly, he raised his hand and rubbed his jaw, softly scratching against his beard. It sent a frisson of stimulation through her, as if those fingers had scraped against her most sensitive spots. She managed not to shudder.
