He wanted to press her onto her back, to slide between her legs and begin to relieve some of the ache in his lap. Just one kiss and he was already halfway there, pants tight over his arousal, blood pounding, a hand balanced on the ground about to lever her down and follow her with the heat of his body. The slick sound of their kisses seasoned the hayloft.
Ahmed shifted to press his arousal against her. Elle gasped and pulled back, her lips damp from his kisses and faintly bruised. Her gaze dropped to his lap and Ahmed swore her fingers twitched toward him again.
“Elle…” He growled his need, more than ready for her touch.
Chapter 7
Elle was being an idiot. A weak and trembling idiot. But, God, it felt good. Desire poured through her, as heady as the first time she’d ever felt it, melting her from the inside out, the arousal from Ahmed’s kisses gathering hot and undeniable between her thighs. She felt his runaway heartbeat beneath the press of her fingers, his muscular pecs, a firming nipple beneath her little finger. She flicked the masculine bud with her nail and felt his rumbling growl again.
Her thighs fell open, and Ahmed’s fingers slid between them, pressing firmly against her through the cotton of her slacks. She whimpered, a breath from begging him to unzip her. If she didn’t stop, they were going to have sex here. In a hayloft. The thought made her moan again. Or that may have been the steady and expert movement of Ahmed’s fingers on her clit. Even through the layers of cloth from her slacks and her panties, his touch made her quiver.
He said her name again, a choked-off sound she could well imagine him making during orgasm. But no.
No.
Trembling, Elle pulled away from the head-swimming kiss, regret slowly correcting her lapse in judgment. Her mouth tingled like she’d sucked on a deliciously hot pepper, and she immediately wanted more. It would be all too easy to lean into another kiss, open her mouth and her blouse for him, come apart under his sensual kisses and catch aflame in the hidden hayloft. No one else would have to know.
But she would.
She quivered and licked her lips, chasing the remaining taste of him there. Then came completely to her senses. “I…” What the hell could she say after that? She’d only been a heartbeat from begging him to unzip her pants. Elle’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
All the emotion leeched from Ahmed’s face and he jerked back, abruptly increasing the space between them while releasing a long and shuddering breath. “You’re right.” He took another breath. “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have…” He waved vaguely between their bodies.
“It was my fault, too. I—” wanted to touch you. But Elle didn’t finish the sentence. She’d already allowed things to go too far as it was. She shifted against the hay, aware of it poking through her blouse and into her back and the suddenly sensitive flesh of her butt and thighs. “We should get back.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be sunset soon,” Ahmed said. “I know you don’t want to be out with me after dark.” If that was supposed to be a joke, it didn’t quite make it there.
Embarrassment made Elle’s feet clumsy, and she stumbled while trying to stand. She brushed the hay from her slacks and put as much distance as possible between them given the small space. But she could still feel the heat of him against her body, the imprint of his hard chest, his thumping heart.
By annoying contrast, Ahmed rose gracefully to his own feet. “Ready for the next stop?”
She nodded mechanically, desperate to escape the intimacy of the hayloft and the suffocating desire for him to press into her belly and the aching tips of her breasts. “Let’s go.”
When they got back to his car, Ahmed drove them to The Sweet Shoppe, a candy store in the center of town with locally made toffees, chocolates and confections of all sorts; but Elle had already disconnected from the date and just wanted to go home to her couch and the silence of her house. Still, she tried to be a good sport and kept a smile of sorts on her face while Ahmed showed her around the quaint little shop. She bought Shaye a coconut bar and managed not to make any more of a fool of herself with Ahmed before he pulled the car up to her front door.
The Honda barely came to a stop before she wrenched the door open and scrambled to get out.
“Be careful,” Ahmed cautioned. He moved quickly around to her side of the car, probably to help her out, but she was already halfway across the driveway, her house key already in hand.
“I’m fine,” Elle muttered, her heels clicking madly across the concrete in her desperation to get away.
“Elle—” he began, but she cut him off to make quick work of the goodbye.
“I’ll see you around,” she said and unlocked her front door with cold and trembling fingers. “Okay?”
His tall frame made her decently sized front porch feel small and almost claustrophobic, especially with the dissatisfaction that rolled from him in waves. But he didn’t push for the conversation he obviously wanted to have. Instead, he bit out a rough sigh. “Okay.”
Elle didn’t wait for him to walk away. After another brief look at his face, she nodded and quietly closed the door. With her back against the cool wood, she waited through the sound of his fading footsteps on the porch, the chirp of the car’s engine as the Honda started up, the ache of emptiness in her chest.
When this day had started, she thought the only thing she’d feel was annoyance at having to put up with Ahmed’s unwarranted scorn. But this…this tense arousal, the wish that their date had been real, that things could be simpler between them. These feelings surprised her and not in a good way. The last thing she wanted to be was another groupie whose legs flew open at the mere thought of Ahmed Clark’s interest.
“You’re back already?” A tousled Shaye came out of the guest bedroom rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Her long curls tumbled around her shoulders in a messy fall that still managed to be sexy. She wore an oversize T-shirt and yoga pants.
Although she’d mentioned going back to her own place after Elle left with Ahmed, Shaye had apparently changed her mind. It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last, that she made herself at home. Whatever the reason—drunken weekend night or long workday—she was always welcome.
Elle could hear the sound of the television from the guest room and guessed that Shaye had spent the last hour with the TV watching her instead of the other way around. It was only an hour or so past sunset.
“Of course.” Elle dropped her purse onto the coffee table and headed for the kitchen, where she grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. Shaye followed. “It was an afternoon date, remember? And now it’s dark. The date lasted long enough.”
“Well, I was hoping you two would hit it off so much you wouldn’t even realize what time it was,” Shaye said.
Elle turned away to rummage in the cabinet, the excuse of getting a glass the reason to hide her face. “The date went fine. Ahmed Clark is fine.”
“Hell yes, he is.” Shaye was starting to wake up a little bit more, her voice losing most of its sleepy growl. “If I’d known how things would turn out, I would have happily gone on the radio show to get a date with him. Fake or not, I’d make the most of it.” She hovered behind Elle, her presence an interrogating warmth that Elle wasn’t yet willing to face. “You did make the most of it, right?”
Her tone made it clear what she thought Elle should have done. Elle hadn’t had a date in months and Shaye, who stayed as busy in her personal life as she did in her working life, always urged her to go out more. A woman who sold romance for a living needed to sample her own goods to make sure the stock wasn’t stale, Shaye often said. Elle didn’t agree.
“He and I got what we both needed out of it,” she said.
Shaye sighed with disappointment. “I take it you don’t mean mutual orgasms?”
“You take it correctly.” Elle turned from pouring the sparkling water in the glass and took a sip. “He’s not as bad as I thought, but it’s definitely not
like that.”
But Shaye was watching her carefully. “Did something happen, though?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Oh, my God! Something did.” Shaye’s grin was wide and hungry. “Did you make out with him? Did he make you come?”
“Seriously?” Elle stared at her friend, the glass of water hovering near her lips. “How do you go from asking about kisses to someone coming?” But it wasn’t that big of a leap. Not really. With a shiver, she remembered the sure curl of Ahmed’s fingers against the seam of her slacks, the gentle suction of his mouth around her tongue. Those combined pleasures had brought her close to begging him to do whatever he wanted.
Elle shifted her thighs and quickly drank some of the water to dampen her dry throat. “There was absolutely no direct genital contact.”
“That’s not what I asked you, but okay.” Shaye smirked and brushed past her to pull out a tub of gelato from the fridge. “Want some?”
Elle shook her head. “I’m good.”
Normally the sight of the pistachio gelato, one of her favorite flavors, would make Elle grab her own spoon. But she was happy with water for now. Foolish though it was, she wanted to preserve the taste of Ahmed on her lips and the rich flavor of the vanilla ice cream they’d shared in Valerian.
She poured more water in her glass then, after a look over her shoulder to make sure Shaye followed, left the kitchen.
“The date was really good,” she said. “I didn’t know we had connections outside the city, much less in such a small town like Valerian.” She felt a sigh welling up at the memory of how magical the name of the town had sounded on Ahmed’s lips. “It’s a really cute place. I love the country-sweethearts feel of it.”
Shaye came from behind her looking confused and just a little bit crazy with a spoonful of green gelato sticking out of her mouth. “What do you mean ‘country sweethearts’ feel?” she muttered around the long spoon then, frowning when her words came out garbled, she dragged the spoon from her mouth and licked the ice cream off it before continuing. “I sent you to late lunch at La Bohème Sud after a helicopter ride over Atlanta. I’d never send a diehard city girl like you outside I-285, even for a date with someone as hot as Ahmed Clark.” She plopped down beside Elle on the couch.
“Oh…” Elle knew the La Bohème Sud date very well. She was the one who’d arranged the contract with the restaurant and with the helicopter company, too. The restaurant was over-the-top romantic with vintage French decor, decadent food that had been featured on more than one Food Network TV show and also had a fantastic rooftop view of the city. In other words, it was the perfect date place.
Elle had told Shaye more than once that she’d love to go on that exact date with a man interesting enough to enjoy herself with. But the trip to Valerian with Ahmed had been better than that. Unique and romantic. Truly intimate. Even with the friction between her and Ahmed in the beginning.
Shaye wriggled like a maniacal Jessica Rabbit and grinned around the ice cream in her mouth. “He took you someplace else, huh? I mean, our package is damn awesome, but you look like his idea absolutely killed it.”
Elle rolled her eyes at her friend’s enthusiasm. “He… The reporters found out where we were going,” she said and told Shaye about their paparazzi chase through Midtown Atlanta, their rescue by Ahmed’s bodyguard and the drive up to Valerian. “It was a little overwhelming to realize they were basically stalking us.”
Through it all, Ahmed had taken care of her. He made sure the reporters couldn’t follow them, and he even tried to calm her down. With the horde of reporters on her front step chasing their car down the street, Elle had been two breaths away from a panic attack. Or a screaming fit.
Even with Clive egging them on, it was still a mystery to her why the reporters thought their date was so newsworthy. Not that she’d been looking but since the radio spot, she’d seen enough old photos of Ahmed with women he’d dated before. No flock of paparazzi stalked him, and at least a few of those women had been semi-famous.
Elle held the cool glass of water in her too-warm palms. “Anyway, the date was fine. Everything went well. It’s just too bad it wasn’t one of our packages.” She turned her mind to the more comfortable realm of business. “Maybe we can make some contacts in Valerian and arrange some things for later.”
But even as she said the words, something in her rebelled at the thought of sharing something so unexpected and even…pure about her date with Ahmed with other people. Valerian had welcomed her with open arms, just like Mrs. Greenlaw had, and the fire flash of mutual desire she and Ahmed shared while sheltered within the borders of the small town were precious. She mentally tasted the unexpected word. Yes, she thought, precious.
She cleared her throat and tugged at the largest of the three diamonds in her ear. “Never mind about that. Talk to me about the radio ad. Have the phones been ringing off the hook since the show? Did we get any new clients?”
Valentine’s Day, typically their busiest day of the year, was coming up fast.
“Well, it’s funny you say that.” Shaye grinned and put her gelato away, quickly picking up her phone. If there was one thing that made her happy, it was making money. “The radio spot paid for itself in the first hour you were on air with Ahmed, but look at this.” With a few taps on the phone’s screen, she brought up the Facebook page for Romance Perfected. “We’ve had literally over a thousand comments since the date was announced, and our online orders and appointment requests are through the roof.” Shaye’s eyes practically flashed dollar signs. “Take a look at all these prepaid orders…”
Elle settled in for the conversation. She’d rather talk about this than her growing feelings for Ahmed Clark any day.
Chapter 8
The fake date with Elle had felt all too real.
By the end of it, Ahmed had wanted to do more than kiss her. A lot more. The desire had taken him over, and in those moments in the hayloft, he would’ve given anything to bury himself inside her.
For now, the crisp early morning air rushed into his lungs with rhythmic precision. His feet thudded against the paved street, keeping time with his heartbeat as he jogged the road circling the compound.
In reality, it was just a road, nameless and long, that led from the end of his driveway through the mile-and-a-half distance to his mother’s two-story colonial house then continued another half mile to Aisha’s house. A half mile from there sat the ultramodern gray box Devyn had built for herself the year before. Just about five miles in total round-trip, a distance Ahmed ran nearly every day, although he rarely stopped on the way to talk to his sisters or mother.
Up ahead, the graceful eaves of his mother’s house rose against the pale blue of the sky. A slender female figure crouched in the front garden, a hat perched on her head to protect her from the unseasonably hot January sun. His mother. Ahmed waved in her direction but kept running.
“I hope you’re not planning on passing without stopping to talk with your mother,” Anita Clark called out to him as he came within a few feet of the house.
If he could’ve gotten away with it, Ahmed would’ve sprinted all the way back to his house. He had a bad feeling he knew what was on his mother’s mind.
Ahmed’s footsteps slowed, but he jogged in place instead of stopping. “I didn’t want to interrupt your gardening,” he said, which was bull. His mother called him on it, shaking her head and tossing aside the weeds she had gathered in her gloved hands.
“Don’t forget, I’ve known you since before you were born, Ahmed.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense, you know.”
“It will make sense to you when you have your own kids.”
He winced and wanted nothing more than to take off running down the street and not stop until he was inside his own house. But she’d raised him better than that. “You want to come running with me? I don’t want to give up my momentum.”
She looked him over, the sun catching in her pale eyes for a m
oment. Then she took off her hat and drank from her water bottle. “Sure.”
She was already wearing running clothes, capri yoga pants and a tank top under an oversize white shirt with Nikes on her slender feet. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she’d been lying in wait for him.
Although Ahmed’s father had been a fit man, exercising all the way up until he died from his heart attack, it was his mother he’d gotten his athleticism from. She’d been on the basketball team in high school, still played tennis with Mrs. G when she made it back to Valerian for her monthly visits and even taught a water aerobics class at the local YMCA just for fun. His mother stripped off her gloves and the oversize white shirt, draped them both over the porch railing.
“Come on,” she said.
He started slowly so she could warm up. It didn’t take long before they were running at an even and fast pace, his mother effortlessly keeping up with him despite his longer legs.
They ran for a few minutes in silence, a quiet that Ahmed knew would not last.
“So, are the girls right, did you have a date the other day?”
Ahmed blew out a harsh sigh. Yeah, he should have just worked out on the treadmill like he’d initially planned. But Sam was having one of his bad days and Ahmed gave him his space—for now. He planned on using the excuse of his run through the compound to stop by his cousin’s small house behind the pool to check on him.
“It wasn’t a date, not really,” he said, his breath puffing evenly.
“Did you have a good time?” He bit the inside of his cheek and nearly blushed when his mother laughed. “I guess that’s a yes then.”
God. What was it about this woman that turned him into a stumbling kid again? Oh, right. She was his mother.
“So, if you had a good time,” his mother continued, getting even deeper into his personal business, “what made it not a date?”
On-Air Passion Page 8