by Leslie North
He laughed, a deep, throaty sound that only increased that pulsating need. “Ah, darling, this is more than right. This is perfect. You’re perfect.”
His words caused her whole body to flush with heat. But then she realized what he’d just said, the words like a bucket of cold water splashing onto her heated, out of control libido. “No!” she gasped and started pushing away from him in earnest now.
Najid held her still and looked down at her, stunned that something so amazing could be turned off quickly. “What just happened, Ana?” he growled out, lifting her higher.
Her green eyes were wide, frantic. “We can’t do this!”
Understanding that this wasn’t a game, she was genuinely upset about something, he set her down on her feet but kept her trapped by placing an arm on either side of her head. “What can’t we do?”
She tried to slip underneath his arm but he had her effectively trapped. She sighed when she realized he was bigger, stronger and more adept. But she wouldn’t look up into his eyes. “You can’t be near me. I’m bad luck to men.”
He didn’t respond. With a simple touch of his rough fingertip against the bare skin on her arm, he encouraged her to continue.
With an exasperated sigh, she crossed her arms over her stomach, unaware that it pushed her breasts higher, making his erection throb more painfully.
“I’ve already explained,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I bring bad mojo to the men I date.” When he only stared at her, she nodded her head for emphasis.
“Bad mojo?”
She shifted as if impatient with the man, when in reality, she just wanted to either get away from him or throw herself back into his arms and continue what they’d been doing. “I told you about the men I’ve dated. Well, a few of them. But you just have to trust me. Every guy I’ve ever dated has had bad luck come to him. I can’t allow that to happen to you.”
“So you’re just not going to date men?”
She shrugged as if it weren’t a problem. “Up until a few minutes ago, it hadn’t been an issue.”
His tone softened as he realized she was saying that it wasn’t an issue until he entered her life. “Why is that?” he asked gently, his hand coming up to slide down her ear, teasing the sensitive skin, bringing it to life.
His touch made her body tingle. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head into his touch, wanting more. Just a tiny bit more, she told herself. She was being selfish, knowing that she couldn’t continue with him, but wanting to feel this, needing to know what it might be like. “Because in the past, I generally preferred math formulas and solving math problems than dating men.”
He smiled slightly. “And you think if we start seeing each other, you’ll find out I’m gay.”
Her eyes popped open and she laughed nervously. Looking at his chest, her eyes almost crossed with the horrible possibility. “That would be a shame,” she said in almost a whisper.
“I’m glad you agree,” he replied.
She sighed as she shook her head, turning serious again. “With my track record, I might just cause your government to topple.”
Najid threw back his head with laughter and it took him a few moments to get his amusement back under control. When he looked down at her, he saw the chagrin on her adorable features and pulled her closer. “Have you had enough to eat?”
“Yes. Definitely,” she told him, knowing she wouldn’t be able to eat another bite. Not with him close by and her body still humming with that crazy, intense need.
“Let’s go,” he told her and took her hand in his large one.
Ana had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride. “Where are we going?” she demanded.
“You’re going to show me your work.”
She shook her head, needing a way to get away from him. She needed space, time to think. She needed to surround herself with her numbers and ground herself. “Why don’t you just wait for the results?”
He led her down the long hallway, back towards the administrative areas. In the security department, he nudged her through the doorway towards the back where her office was, ignoring her attempts to pull herself away from him. “You’re not getting away from me, Ana. So stop trying.” He ignored the curious glances of the other men who were busy in the security office. They all had different roles, but it was a tight group. Everyone knew the team members and her face flamed when several of them did a double take when she walked through the area slightly ahead of Najid.
She glared up at him when they were once again alone in the brightly lit corridor. “I have to work with those men!” she snapped up at him. “They won’t respect me if they think we’re seeing each other.”
He leaned down lower. “Deal with it.”
She poked him in the chest. “I won’t deal with it, you arrogant giant! You back off!”
He chuckled, enjoying her spunk. “Ana, I don’t think you recognize what is happening here.”
She knew that he was attracted to her, and she knew that she was feeling something that made her feel out of control. She hated the feeling and wanted to get back to her safe, secure world. She desperately needed to surround herself with her numbers, with her formulas but he wasn’t allowing her escape. So she lashed out, trying to anger him. “Oh, I get it! You’re just being a bully!”
He almost laughed again, amazed that she wasn’t afraid of him. At least not in the normal way. He’d been with her for less than two hours and already she was challenging him more than any other woman ever had. “Get used to it, Ana.”
“I’m…”
“Ana!” a different voice broke into their conversation and Ana cringed, her shoulders tightening in dread at that tone. “You’re talking to Sheik Najid del Sabur!”
Ana glanced over at Jual who was standing at the end of the hallway. She straightened up at his words but she was still very angry. She didn’t care that she was talking to her boss’s boss’s boss’s, or whatever…Jual’s brother. “Yes but…”
“No! You’ll show him respect!” Jual snapped back at her.
Ana had seen him using that tone of voice on his other men but she’d never experienced it herself. She nodded her head, but glanced away so he wouldn’t see her resentment. Ana pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t say anything more, but she wasn’t cowed.
“I’ve got this,” Najid called back to his brother. “Ana was going to show me what she’s working on.”
“Not that you’ll understand!” she mumbled and turned to head down the hallway once again.
“Ana!” Jual yelled.
Ana’s shoulders clenched and she thought she might be in big trouble. But the huge man beside her only laughed. “I’ll take care of this, Jual. I have a feeling that I’m going to enjoy diffusing her anger.”
Ana glanced up at the man towering over her, then back at Jual who was still furious with her lack of respect.
Without another word, she turned sharply and walked down the hallway to her office.
“I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. You really won’t understand what I’m working on,” she told him, one hand just inside a darkened doorway.
He looked down into her bright, green eyes and wanted to laugh. She was hoping to beat him. She was adorable and sexy and she really thought she could win. Oh, no, my pretty lady, anticipation racing through his system.
“If I pass your test, you have dinner with me tonight,” he told her.
She immediately shook her head. “No way!”
“Afraid of dinner?” he challenged.
“No. I just…” she paused and looked at the impressive muscles in his chest and arms. “I don’t want to be disappointed.”
“Why do you think that’s going to happen?”
Ana bit her lip in indecision. In the end, she decided to be honest with him. “You’re too good to be true. You’re handsome, buff, charming. Your only weakness, from what I can see, is your arrogance. That’s a big one,” she cautioned when she noticed his smug expression.
“But I suppose in your position, you are allowed a bit of conceit. Unfortunately, the problem comes when that conceit starts to…” she didn’t have a chance to say another word because his mouth covered hers. It was a fast, hard kiss, but it still stunned her speechless. And then it was over. She stared up at him for a long moment, debating if she should beg him to do that again. But the heat in his eyes, the promise that there would be more if she followed through, pulled her back from the brink of insanity.
“What’s in your office, Ana?” he asked gently but with a husky voice.
When she flipped on the bright, overhead lights, she blinked for a moment. But then the numbers and formulas clicked into her mind and she felt safer, more in control. Numbers always did that for her. When she felt confused by life or the politics of any work environment, she only had to switch into math mode and she knew that her world was back in order.
“Cryptography,” Najid commented as his eyes moved over the numbers written out on a white board. “This is what you’re working on?” he asked carefully.
“You understand this?” she asked, stunned and more than a little impressed.
His sharp eyes moved over the board and nodded. For the next three hours, they discussed her work and, for the first time in a long time, she could truly talk about her work with someone who could grasp the complicated formulas and who understood how to apply them to real-world problems.
He was one of the few people who genuinely understood her work and it turned her on just as much as all of those muscles hidden now by the tailored shirt.
Jual stepped into the office at one point, his eyes sharp, taking in the scene.
Ana reassured him that everything was okay with an easy smile. The three of them started discussing tangential applications for her work. They tossed the ideas around and Ana loved the brilliance of some of Najid’s suggestions.
“I could do that!” Ana told both of them when a particularly intriguing idea was suggested.
Jual shook his head. “You don’t have time. You still need to get that formula to Majir.”
Ana bristled at the silent reprimand. “I sent it to him yesterday afternoon. It is now in his court to finalize the code for that particular formula.”
Jual’s eyes narrowed. “He didn’t mention that to me this morning. I got the impression that he was still waiting on you.”
Ana crossed her arms again. “Have I ever missed a deadline, Jual?” she asked him.
Jual laughed and shook his head. “Point taken. Okay, if you want to take a stab at the new idea, go for it. How are you going to start?”
Ana’s expression instantly changed. Najid watched, fascinated by the transformation. One moment, she looked like she was ready to tackle the bigger man, the next, her eyes were barely focused. It was almost as if she’d entered a new world, a place that only she could see and comprehend.
The two of them watched her for several moments, but when she started writing on her clean whiteboard, Jual shook his head again. “I’m outta here,” he told Najid. “Once she gets into this zone, there’s nothing that can stop her until she runs out of steam.”
Najid continued to watch and not even the other man’s words made an impact. He was fascinated. “Go ahead. I’ll just observe for a few more minutes.”
Jual left and Najid continued to survey the woman who, in only a few hours, had gotten past his normal defenses. She was adorable and sexy and feisty. A dangerous combination, he thought.
Walking out of her office, he shook his head as he chuckled once again. His morning had definitely taken a different turn than he’d originally planned. Glancing at his watch, he realized that he’d missed several meetings already. He needed to reschedule some things, both from this morning’s schedule as well as the meetings that were on his schedule for tonight.
There would be no working tonight, he knew. He had other plans.
Chapter 2
Ana moved from the white board to the computer, typing in some numbers and data, checking to see if the formula worked properly. “Yes!” she said, punching the air.
“A success?” Najid asked from the doorway.
Ana spun around, her eyes wide as she took in the man standing there, looking even more amazingly gorgeous than she remembered. Had it only been this morning that she’d met him?
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, noticing the amusement in his eyes.
“Long enough,” he told her and pulled her into his arms. Before she could utter a word of protest, he covered her mouth with his, using her surprise to move his tongue into her mouth, coaxing a response from her.
It took barely half a second before she was kissing him back. Her desire was fast and intense and he groaned when he felt her soft curves pressing up against him. His erection was instantaneous and powerful. Pulling away slightly, he looked at her swollen lips and the soft look in her eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.
Ana pulled out of his arms and pushed some stray wisps of hair back behind her ears with trembling fingers. “You’re interrupting me,” she replied, startled by her reaction to this man. She started to turn towards her white board, wanting to lose herself back in her work and dismiss the man from her mind. Unfortunately, he wasn’t accepting that dismissal. He grabbed her hand, pulled the dry-erase marker from her hands and tugged her out the door. Flipping off the lights, he said, “You’re having dinner with me tonight. Remember?”
She shook her head although he wasn’t looking at her at the moment. “No. I’m not having dinner with you. If you’ll recall, I’m bad luck. You’re ruler of this country and can’t take the risk.”
He tugged her through the security doorway, nodding briefly to Jual who was packing up for the night as well. “I’ll risk it,” he told her.
She knew it was an absolutely ridiculous superstition but it was a very good reason to avoid contact with this man. He terrified her! After this morning in the hallway, she was afraid of her body’s response to his touch, to the way he kissed her. Just one brief touch and she was lost!
“I really need to head home,” she told him, but she didn’t pull her hand out of his. She suspected that it would be a pointless exercise anyway, so why put herself through the trouble? She could use logic and patience to get her point across.
“You owe me dinner tonight. I passed your test.”
He led her into his private suite, exactly where they’d dined earlier today. Was it only twelve hours ago that she’d met the man? Glancing at her watch, she shook her head. More like fifteen hours. It was already seven o’clock in the evening. Where had the day gone?
“What if I don’t want dinner?” she asked.
He pulled the chair out, exactly where she’d sat across from him during breakfast. “Then you can sit here and talk with me while I eat.”
Accepting defeat, and acknowledging her hunger, Ana sat down but huffed a bit, just so that he understood that she wasn’t happy about being wined and dined in such a beautiful setting.
She glared at the tall man who was looking back at her with a patient expression.
“Oh yeah,” she whispered. Fifteen hours ago, this man had thrown her for a loop with his big muscles and tanned, fascinating skin. Don’t mess with him, she reminded herself. She tended to come out the loser in their confrontations.
“What was that for?” he asked as he pushed her chair in for her.
Ana snapped her starched, linen napkin out beside her and laid it carefully on her lap, using the action as an excuse to avoid his eyes. “I was just wondering how the day had slipped by me without any notice.”
He smirked. “Perhaps it was less about my intrusion into your time and more about you losing yourself in formulas and problems,” he offered, nodding to the servants who immediately appeared with the chilled, white wine.
When the servants had poured out the wine and disappeared, leaving behind a light salad for an appetizer, he lifted his glass into the air. “To a successful day,” he offe
red as a toast.
Ana lifted her glass, but she wasn’t exactly sure what he considered a successful day. “How would you qualify that?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
He leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of the wine even though she hadn’t agreed with the toast. “I think that meeting a beautiful woman for the first time, sitting across the table from her for a delicious meal qualifies as a perfect day,” he offered.
She thought about that for a moment. “Okay, so why would it be successful for me?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t consider that a successful day?”
She shrugged one shoulder, still holding her glass in the air. “I’m not sitting across the table from a woman,” she put out there. “In fact, the only thing in my vision is a man who seems to always get his way.”
He smiled slightly. “I don’t always get my way, Ana,” he told her with a smirk.
She leaned back, surprised that the chairs were so comfortable. “You’ve gotten your way all day long.”
He shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. If I’d had my way, you’d be in my bed, completely naked and I’d be exploring every inch of your delectable body.”
Ana stared at him, not sure what to say in the face of such an unvarnished announcement. That total acceptance of his sexual desires was foreign to her. She was used to hiding her wants and desires, assuming she would never get what she truly wanted. Of course, she’d never been faced with the personification of her deepest desires. But with this man sitting across from her….
“You’re fine with just a one night stand?” she asked, trying to be as blasé as he was about their sexual prospects even though her cheeks heated up and her whole body did that annoying trembling thing again.
“Who says we’ll get tired of each other after one night?”
She sipped her wine. “Isn’t that the way you normally operate?”
“Yes,” he replied, being completely honest with her.