by Leslie North
“Yes.” She raised her head as if sniffing the wind might give her some idea of the distance. “Close enough to walk?”
Heat spread through his chest. “A block.”
Holly grinned up at him. “ I think we should walk, then. Get away from all these people.”
There was no one but his driver and security vehicle, but Malik felt the same urge to disappear. He signaled the driver and they headed down the block, Holly’s hand held tightly in his.
Every step was a countdown to the moment he’d have to let her go. He tried to delay as long as possible, but at this time of night there weren’t many open shops to linger in front of, and she wore high heels. There was no way he could keep her out here indefinitely.
Malik blinked, and they were there, in front of the big glass entryway of the hotel. The barely contained need in his chest roared, and he put a hand on the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss.
Holly sighed against his lips, opening her mouth to let him explore her with his tongue, and Malik tipped over the edge from a single goodnight kiss to something entirely deeper and hotter and not fit for public consumption.
He pulled back to catch his breath. The SUV pulled up to the curb next to them. He was the crown prince—he could make them wait—but an insistent pressure came down over his shoulders and sank into his spine. Malik opened his mouth to tell her goodnight.
“I don’t want the evening to be over,” he said instead.
Holly took a fistful of his shirt in her hand. “I thought you’d never admit it.”
Then she was back in his arms, and Malik paid no attention to anyone else as he guided her through the lobby. “Elevator?” he said urgently.
“Third floor.”
One push of a button and the doors slid open. Holly pushed him into the space, backing him up against the wall, and he fumbled for the third-floor button as they went. The doors shut.
And she was on him.
Her kisses were desperate, biting, long, and every hair on his body stood up. Her hands were on his neck, on his collar, running over his shoulders. Malik ran his fingertips over the zipper at the back of her dress. Wait, wait…
When the elevator doors opened, Holly pressed a key into his hand, twined her fingers through his, and pulled him through the hall. Four doors down and to the right and she was up on tiptoe, working hot kisses along the line of his jaw while he opened the door.
He saw her in flashes, like an old film reel. There was the dress, dropping to the floor. There was the lingerie he’d chosen. There were her nipples, already peaked and ready for him.
Holly’s moans echoed in his ears as he tested one, then the other, between his lips. He found himself on the bed with her, shirtless, pants-less, all of him aching for her.
But Malik was a gentleman. He took a breath. He took a pause. He took her legs in his hands and spread them wide, bending to tease and lick and stroke at her slick core until he became aware of her saying his name over and over in a breathless, hitching gasp.
Then his name was gone, subsumed in a cry that came along with a tensing arch of her body and a new burst of sweetness into his mouth. Holly came hard, her fingers in his hair, and the moment she finished, he felt her pulling him up to her mouth.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, maneuvering so that he was lined up with her slit, and Malik was lost. He was lost in the sensation of her fingernails digging into his back, lost in the begging of her hips, and lost in the whisper of his own name in his ear.
He took her in one powerful stroke.
It pressed the air from her lungs, and she sucked it back in, raising her hips to do battle with him. Holly met his rhythm, matched it, and he buried his face into her shoulder and pumped hard. Everything else in the universe fell away. Holly was the only thing left. The scent of her, warm and sweet, etched itself into his mind. This—this was what he wanted forever.
But the spring that had twisted up inside of him demanded release. He couldn’t stay in the pleasure forever because it verged on painful. He’d never felt anything like it. How was she so tight, so wet, so on fire with energy beneath him?
At the last moment he twisted, bringing her on top of him. Her weight came down over his hips and she drove into him with her fingers curling into his chest.
Malik gave himself over to his own release. He didn’t have any choice. It covered him in an instant, blinding him to everything but the feel of her body against his and her rolling hips beneath his hands.
Everything.
She was everything.
He held on for dear life until it was over and she tipped away from him, landing softly on the pillow and wriggling back against his body. The deep rhythm of her breath carried him off to sleep.
7
Holly slept next to Malik, her breathing even and soft, and he drifted between sleep and wakefulness in the early morning light cutting in through a crack in the heavy curtain.
More sleep or no? It had been so lovely sleeping next to her, but finally Malik crept from the bed and went to brush his teeth. Even the opposite side of the suite felt too far away from Holly in this moment. He slipped back under the covers and lay down next to her. There. That was right.
Malik’s muscles ached in the most pleasant possible way. They’d done the work of holding him away from her for most of the evening. Sure, they’d held hands, and he’d guided her into and out of the opera house with a palm on the small of her back, but that hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been what he really wanted.
What he’d really wanted was exactly what had happened once the door to her hotel room closed behind them.
She had been more perfect than he had imagined. His palms still sparked with the sensation of touching her skin, his lips still sensitive and bruised from how hard they’d kissed in the elevator. What was it about the opera that had set all this in motion?
The opera. He chuckled to himself. The opera hadn’t set anything in motion. Holly had done that. She’d been a woman in a white pantsuit amidst a sea of little black dresses, and she’d stood out to him like a red bloom in a sea of sand.
She stirred, tossing one arm above her head. The sleek knot of blonde hair at the base of her neck had been loosened by sex and sleep. “What’re you laughing at?” she said into the pillow, voice warm and tired.
“Nonsense from my own thoughts.”
She turned over and grinned at him, cheek pink from where it had pressed against the pillow. “Is it interesting nonsense, at least?”
“I was thinking that the opera was quite the aphrodisiac,” he admitted. “But then I realized that you were the intriguing, sexy component of the evening.”
Holly pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The opera was pretty sexy. And watching you drink champagne turns me on.”
He laughed out loud. “Watching me drink champagne?”
“Yes. Your lips do this thing…” She wrinkled her nose, laughing. “I don’t have to apologize for my quirks.”
“I like your quirks.”
“Hold that thought.” Holly hopped out of the bed and scampered to the bathroom.
Malik turned onto his back. He liked her. It was more than just physical attraction, though her body had worked its way thoroughly into his thoughts and dreams. The memories of last night would never fade. Warmth wrapped a hand around his heart. The sound of the water running in the bathroom struck him as impossibly intimate. Impossible, because up until the moment he met Holly, he could not have imagined the sound of a sink in a nice hotel to be anything other than ordinary.
The door opened, and he closed his eyes, taking in the sound of her feet padding across the carpet. The bed dipped, and then her warm weight was above him, straddling him. He smiled, running his hands over her waist. “I’m never going to leave this hotel room.”
“Well, I am,” Holly said, a laugh in her voice. “I have work.”
“Then why are you on top of me, torturing me with this body of yours?”
“It’s not time f
or work yet. Still so early.” He felt her lips against his collarbone, soft and searching, and if he hadn’t been hard for her before, he certainly was now. Holly wriggled her hips so that his cock was caught between the hot V of her legs, and she lowered her face to his, kissing him slow and deep.
His heart would beat right out of his chest. This was something entirely different from the frenzied passion of last night. Adrenaline cascaded through his veins, tempered with a deep, pulsing tenderness that shocked him to his core. Not because he didn’t have feelings—of course he cared deeply for his family and friends and country—but because it seemed to take over every inch of his skin and fill every breath in his lungs.
Malik was still busy tasting her—Holly was sweet, so sweet, despite the head-on way she approached everything—and with another shock he realized that he was seeing her with her guard down. It’s not time for work yet meant she could be another version of herself. The woman who went naked to and from the bed and simply climbed on when she wanted more of him. The woman who kissed his body like she had been presented with something priceless. The woman who made small sounds in the back of her throat that drove him wild.
He slipped a hand between their bodies and between their legs. She was slick already, and one stroke from his fingers made her crush her mouth to his with a low moan.
“I thought you’d never touch me,” she whispered.
“I’ve been touching you all this time.” He opened his eyes and met hers. Holly’s face was open and hungry, her cheeks flushed.
“Not like this.” She swayed her hips side to side, guiding his fingers, and he pressed two of them into her opening, working her clit with his thumb.
“Mmmm.” The sound was one of deep satisfaction, and he circled her clit harder, rocking her into an orgasm. Holly came on his fingers with a series of tight breaths and a burst of wetness.
“That’s a good start,” he murmured in her ear. “But I want more.”
“So do I.”
He put his hands on her hips and centered her over his length.
Holly gave him a wicked grin. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?”
“I owe you.” She backed down the bed and lowered her mouth to his cock.
One press of her lips against the crown and Malik was lost.
When she wrapped her lips around him and stroked her tongue along the sensitive underside, he was found.
But it had been all night, and it wasn’t long before he was at risk of giving in to her attentions. And that wasn’t how Malik wanted to end the morning.
“Holly—” he bit out.
She must have heard his want in his voice, because she clambered back on top of him, kissing him hard. “There. Now we’re even.”
He rolled them both over, slid between her legs, and took her in one stroke. Holly arched back against the bed. There—there. He wanted to slow down, wanted to take his time with her in this bubble they’d created away from the development properties and the palace, before he had to climb back into his SUV and return to all the hundreds of things that claimed his attention throughout the day. His kingdom was now the size of this hotel room—no, smaller. It was now the size of this bed. Malik looked into Holly’s green eyes, and the world shrank again to her body beneath his. He felt every breath, and the way she was wrapped around him—
Her phone rang on the bedside table, loud and shrill.
Holly jumped. Irritation chased the warm want from her face. “Who could possibly be calling me right now? And how did the ringer get turned on—” She reached to the side, fumbling for the phone, expression determined. Her face changed again when she saw the display. “It’s a New York number.”
Malik backed off. “You should answer.”
Holly did.
Malik stood up and breathed deep. The phone call was terrible timing, but the look on her face…
“Yes, this is she,” Holly said, reaching for the sheets. She tugged them up around herself and sat up against the pillows. “All right. No, I’m out of the country, but I can be there in the next…” Holly ran a palm over her hair. “The next day. I’ll get there. Is he—”
Malik’s heart pounded.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
Holly tossed the phone onto the bed and looked into his eyes. “My father’s had a stroke,” she said evenly, red spreading across her cheeks and a sheen of tears coming to her eyes. “That was Memorial Hospital in New York. I have to get home.” Every word was calm, even if her voice trembled on the word home. “I have to go now.”
Maybe it was strange, but he had never admired her more than he did in this moment. He had his own memories of receiving bad news, and even now they made his stomach tighten. But thinking about his mother, Faiza, who had died of cancer, wasn’t going to help Holly. Not now.
“Of course. You have to be with your family.”
“I do.” Holly took a deep breath, suddenly looking so alone in the middle of the king-size bed that Malik climbed on next to her and wrapped her in his arms. “I’m his only family, Malik.” He had known this in the abstract from their conversations over dinner, but it hit home that Holly’s father was alone in a hospital room in New York—halfway across the world.
“We’ll get you there,” he promised. “Why don’t you get into the shower, and I’ll make plans?”
Holly blinked at him. “Make plans?”
“You shouldn’t be bothering with a commercial flight. I’ll handle it.”
She pressed her face into the side of his neck. “Thank you.” When she pulled back, her eyes were dry. “I’ll keep working on the proposals. Don’t worry about the deadline—I’ll still be able to make it.”
At first, Malik had no earthly idea what she was talking about. Proposals were the last thing on his mind at a time like this, even if she hadn’t gotten an earth-shattering phone call. Right—property development. He tipped her face up toward his. “Don’t worry about that now. You need to focus on your father.” He kissed her, trying to communicate this in the touch of his lips.
“Yes.” Holly’s voice had gone clipped. “Yes, I do. But thank you.” He could hear the emotion hovering at the edges of her speech, but she only got up and marched toward the bathroom.
Malik couldn’t help but notice that her hands were shaking.
The bathroom door shut with a tight click, and Malik picked up his own phone from the bedside table.
Malik made two phone calls, one after the other, to set things in motion for one of the family’s jets to take Holly directly to New York. Then he placed a call to Clifton Berber.
“Mr. Berber,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s been some news from New York.”
If the other man thought it was strange that the sheikh was calling him at the crack of dawn with news from New York, he didn’t so much as hint at it. “What news?”
Malik told him about Holly’s father, the stroke, the private jet.
“That’s very generous of you,” said Clifton. “It’s probably for the best that I return with her, if you don’t have any objections. We’ll be sure to have the proposals to you well within—”
“Holly said the same,” Malik said. “We’ve spoken.”
They’d done a lot more than speak, and the memories squeezed tight around his heart. But Clifton didn’t seem to notice that it was far too early for Holly to be calling Malik about a family emergency.
“When does the flight leave?” There was a rustling in the background, as if Clifton was moving around.
“As soon as the two of you are ready. The plane will be prepared within the hour.” Something behind Malik’s collarbone twisted and ached. Within the hour, Holly would be stepping onto the plane and flying away from him.
“Thank you.”
He disconnected the call and let his phone hang by his side, fighting the urge to make another set of calls. He could do it right now. He could alert his staff at the palace that he’d be flying to New York City,
that he would be there for an undetermined length of time, that Holly needed him.
“Okay,” Holly said from behind him, and he turned to take a breath of her soap and shampoo. Her damp hair was pulled back from her face, and she looked around the room. “Not too much to pack.” She went to the closet, pulled out a suitcase, and started putting her clothes into it, face stoic.
But he saw her chin tremble, nonetheless.
Malik put a hand on her shoulder. “The jet will be ready and waiting when we get to the airport,” he said softly. “Everything is taken care of. Clifton will be going back with you.”
She nodded. “You took care of it all, didn’t you?”
“The few things I could think of. If there’s anything else…”
“No, I don’t—I don’t think so.”
Holly was quiet on the way to the airport. His throat went tight. The plane hadn’t even been cleared for takeoff and she already seemed a million miles away. Their time together had been so short, so intense… It had lit him up from the inside out. But Malik couldn’t find the right words to describe it. And in the face of what had happened with her father, it didn’t seem like the right time.
The SUV drove straight up to the plane on the runway, and Malik jumped out to help her. The driver moved to load her bags onto the plane. Malik took Holly’s hands in his and looked her in the eye.
“Thank you, Malik,” she said, her voice full of unexpressed emotion. “I—” She shook her head. “Thank you.”
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, then wrapped her in his arms one more time. The driver clattered back down the steps. “Mr. Berber is already aboard, Sheikh Malik.”
Malik released Holly and stood at the foot of the stairs while she climbed up. At the door she paused and looked back, just the once, and gave him a little wave.
He waved back, putting what he hoped was an encouraging smile on his face.
Malik might never see her again.
But he hoped he would.
8
“You just never know when you’re running out of time, Hol.” Holly’s dad sat in his recliner, the footrest up, and looked at her grimly from across the room. “I want to see you happy before I go. And maybe get within shouting distance of holding a grandchild in my arms.”