by Lia Lee
“Good. Thank you for introducing us. Do you mind?”
“Oh not at all, not at all!” said St. James, pulling back. Charlotte looked after him longingly. She had been thinking of Aladdin over the last few hours, but now that he had appeared again, she had no idea what to do.
To his credit, Aladdin seemed capable of discretion. He tugged her into a narrow alcove formed by two gallery walls that were unusually positioned back to back. The space that they were in was further camouflaged by a sculpture at one end, giving them as much privacy as they could reasonably expect to get.
Charlotte was confused, and because she sometimes spoke before she thought, the first words that came out of her mouth surprised her.
“Are you following me?” she demanded.
Aladdin laughed.
“You know, I was ready to ask you the same question. No, I had no idea you were here until that artist started telling me how amazing his publicist was and how I had to meet her. From the way he was talking about you, I was picturing a combination of a mother bear and a fairy godmother. I was...much more pleased to see you.”
Charlotte chuckled.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people in this city, and somehow, after spending last night together, you're the one that I run into at a party that I didn't think I was going to be going to today. You really can't beat that kind of coincidence.”
“So it is a coincidence after all. Well, I had hoped....never mind.”
Charlotte looked up at Aladdin with confusion. He looked slightly abashed, shaking his head.
“What? What could you have hoped?”
“Well, when I replied to your message...”
For a moment, Charlotte had no idea what he was talking about. Then she remembered that he told her to come looking for him if she wanted to have a good time again, and she felt a blush rising up on her cheeks.
She felt the gentle touch of his hand against her cheek as he laughed lightly.
“Now this is a treat,” he mused quietly. “I didn't think the bold woman who confronted me last night even knew how to blush.”
“Can't always be the legend, I guess,” she muttered, glancing up at him.
His beauty struck her like a fist. Surrounded by works of art, a part of her responded to him as if he were a sculpture that caught her eye. The rest of her had far more on the mind than simple admiration.
Before she knew what she was doing, she cupped her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. Perhaps she expected the kiss to be a light thing, something sweet and funny before they dived back in the party. Perhaps she thought that he would simply be so stunned that she could make her escape quickly.
None of that turned out to be true.
What started as a simple, sweet brush of her lips against his, changed into something different when she felt the flicker of his tongue against her lips. He might have been the one who started the slow sensual slide, but she was the one who opened her mouth, pulling his tongue into hers and suckling lightly.
Charlotte whimpered into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and drawing him even closer. It was both a familiar and foreign thing, holding him. She knew what he looked like naked, and she certainly knew that he knew how to bring a woman pleasure. However, as she kissed him, she learned other things that she had missed the night before. She learned that his hair was thick and lush, and that when she tangled her fingers in it and pulled, he groaned into her mouth. She learned that his cologne was a complex thing, with notes of vanilla, dark leather, and musk, but that underneath it was the simple clean smell of his skin.
She could feel his embrace go from sensual to sexual in a matter of heartbeats. His mouth turned hungrier, making her feel as if he were devouring her as much as kissing her. He ran his fingers through the straight fall of her blond hair, alternately kissing her throat and her mouth. She could feel the deep and lovely tremors that ran through his body at her touch, and she exulted in the power that she had over him.
When his hand drifted down to cup one straining breast, she realized how insane this was.
“All right, we can't do this,” she said softly, stepping back away from him. For a moment, she wondered if she saw him looking utterly bereft, but that couldn't be right.
"We've been doing a few things here," Aladdin pointed out. "What exactly do you mean?"
She took a deep breath, striving for a calm. No matter how crazy the situation was—and it was crazy—she couldn't convince her body that it was a good time to stop, that they should move out of the crevice and rejoin a society that was likely on the verge of discovering them.
"We need to take a big step back from the fact that if we continue to do this, there is a good chance that we are simply going to stumble and break thousands of dollars’ worth of priceless art in our mad fumble."
Aladdin snorted.
"Please. There's nothing here that's so expensive that I can't buy it about a dozen times over. Next objection?"
Charlotte couldn't stop herself from grinning at his casual attitude.
"Okay, Richie Rich, how about the fact that I'm technically here on business, and I don't know what you're here for, but it's probably not to make me feel all kinds of good."
"You don't know that," he said, his voice slipping into a softer register. "You don't know that I don't spend all of my time trying to make women feel good."
"No, I don't, but unfortunately, that's not a selling argument right now. What needs to happen is that we need to disentangle ourselves. I am going to sneak out, and you are going to give me a good count to a hundred before you head out yourself. Is that clear?"
Aladdin sighed, nodding mournfully.
"Very," he said. "But may I offer a single counterargument?"
She knew that she shouldn't say yes. She knew that saying yes would be a poor idea, and that it would weaken her resolve to do the thing that she needed to do. However, there was a part of her that was completely indignant that she was saying no to him at all, and that part needed to be appeased in its own way.
"All right. One argument."
The words were barely out of her mouth before he was sweeping her into his arms, crushing her hard against him. She had known that he was strong and fast before, but she hadn't felt this. There was something overpowering about this, something that revealed his need and desire.
She might have been frightened if those weren't the same things that she was feeling herself. When she felt those powerful arms wrap around her body, she gave in.
His mouth claimed hers with a kind of triumph that felt all-consuming, and his hands roamed her body greedily. She felt the fire inside her, banked since their last encounter, roar up, higher and hotter than she had expected.
He was devouring her, and right then, even with people walking just a few yards away, she wouldn't have stopped it for the world. All that mattered was being in his arms. All that mattered was feeling the things that he was doing to her.
She realized she was making soft mewling noises, pressing herself against him in a way that would have left her embarrassed if she didn't need him so much.
Long before she was ready to be done, he pulled away. She found herself fascinated by the look on his face. His eyes were nearly black with desire, and his lips were parted, showing those sharp white teeth in a vicious grin.
"All right. That's my argument."
"That's a very convincing argument," she said, "but unfortunately, I think we need to stick with my plan."
"All right, after you, pretty Charlotte."
She laughed a little at his gallantry. At some point, she was going to stop finding it strange that her one-night stand was far more gentlemanly than most of the dates she had been out with, but not today.
She took a moment to straighten her dress and tidy her hair, and then she ducked out past the shelter of the walls. Somehow, it looked as if no time had passed at all, and the people passing by didn't spare her a second glance.
&n
bsp; Charlotte took a deep breath and strode away from the scene of the crime, never looking back. For the next half hour, she busied herself with St. James and his colleagues. She thought she might have found some promising clients, and she did see a great deal of very beautiful art.
She was so busy that she was almost startled to see Aladdin chatting with a young artist under the shadow of a nearly ten-foot-tall sculpture. The artist was one that Charlotte knew of. She was a tall, willowy redhead dressed in a short dress made of something shiny and silver. Charlotte could tell from the way she tossed her mane of red hair and laughed that she was quite taken with Aladdin.
For his part, Aladdin seemed taken with her, as well, talking with her intently about something that made him stand very close and gesture vividly.
As Charlotte watched, someone passing by brushed against the artist. She ended up pressed against Aladdin's side. The two of them laughed, and neither of them did anything to move back.
For a strange and unsettling moment, Charlotte felt a deep and hot flood of anger wash over her. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to go and stand between the two of them.
The urge was so intense that she nearly started walking toward them, but then when she thought about what she could do or say when she got there, she stopped dead in her tracks.
What could she say, after all?
Aladdin, I thought we had something, even though I didn't bother to tell you my last name.
Charlotte sighed. Maybe the no-strings-attached strategy wasn’t a good one for her after all.
It cost her more than she thought it would to turn away from the pair, but she had to. She had set up the rules, and she wouldn't trouble Aladdin now by going back on them. She might not have been a very sensible woman, but she was one who played fair and square.
Resolutely, she got back to work, but there was a large part of her that was very invested in the idea of getting away from the gallery and heading home.
She comforted herself with the fact that New York was a big town. There were a million things to do every night, and just because they had ended up at the same event twice in just a few days was no indication that it would happen for a third time.
Chances were good that she would never see Aladdin again. That gave her a sharp pang, until she recalled the sight of Aladdin with the tall and lovely redhead on his arm again. Somehow, that made it easier to walk away.
* * *
The artist was charming, and when he learned that she had studied in Dubai, it turned out that they had some of the same nightspots in common.
"You should come out to Abu Dhabi," he said. "With your work in textiles, I would think you would find plenty to see and do. Our culture of woven goods goes back more than two thousand years."
The artist whose name he had already forgotten raised an eyebrow.
"Is that an offer?"
He laughed a little.
"My country will always open its doors to talented artists and ones who have a hunger to succeed. Alas, for my own part, I am no patron of the arts, but I can offer you the name of one of the curators that my family works with, if you like."
She sighed, because they both knew that it was a rejection, though one offered subtly and easily.
"I'll take the name, certainly, and maybe the next time you are in Abu Dhabi, you'll see my work in a gallery."
"I will certainly look forward to it," he said, then gave her the curator’s name and number.
If Aladdin were honest with himself, he had no idea why he didn't take her up on her offer. She was a gorgeous woman, confident and creative, but when he thought about it, nothing felt right. She was too tall, her hair was the wrong color, and she invaded his space in a way he didn't particularly care for.
Aladdin had to laugh at himself a little bit. There was nothing wrong with the woman at all. The only problem was that she wasn't Charlotte.
He had to wander a little before he sighted her across the room. Charlotte was deep in conversation with an older man dressed all in black. It looked like all of her attention was focused on him, her hands dancing like little birds. He noticed her cheeks were rosy.
Had Charlotte found her next friend for the evening? He tried to push down the jealousy that he felt. She had laid out exactly what the rules were, and he was honor-bound to abide by them.
He turned away, deciding abruptly that it was time to go back to the brownstone. Suddenly, art didn't hold all that much appeal anymore.
CHAPTER THREE
Aladdin had no plan for how long he was going to stay in New York or what he was going to do while he was there. At some point, his parents had banked their anger and started sending him the names of some of their Emirati contacts in New York. They were expatriates who were still fiercely loyal to the UAE, and they welcomed him with open arms.
As foreign as New York could be sometimes, the touch of home was pleasant. At the same time, he realized how much New York suited him. There was something about the chill in the air, even in late spring. It could always make him feel alive, and he found the orderly rows of the avenues and boulevards and the crush of people who saw him as nothing more special than the next man on the street to be enchanting.
Despite everything that New York had to offer, however, he soon realized that it was a haunted town for him, and the ghost was short, curvy, and had hair like bright sunshine.
Over the next three weeks, he started seeing her everywhere. They might exchange glances across a busy bar, or perhaps they would be at the same gallery opening. Once they were seated across from one another at a broad banquet table as a part of dinner for a charity drive. Another time, he caught sight of her hailing a cab across the street from him.
By the time that Saturday rolled around, he was frazzled and, above all, confused.
Was she following him? Was he somehow following her? It seemed unlikely in a city that large that they should keep running into one another.
When he mentioned this phenomenon to an older Emirati professor of languages that he was having tea with, the distinguished man chuckled drily. He had been in the United States for longer than Aladdin had been alive, but he retained a great deal of pride in where he was from.
"This city is smaller than you think," he said kindly. "There are simply more people packed into it. Think, though. When you have a spoonful of salt on a spoon, it doesn't matter how many grains of salt are there, a single grain of pepper will still catch your eye."
"I suppose that is true," Aladdin said dubiously. "But the question for me is why this person catches my eye. Why does this person draw my attention?"
"Well, I would think that your little pepper speck means something important to you. She has either done you a great wrong or done you a great right."
Aladdin started to respond, but then he frowned at the old man.
"I did not say that my pepper speck was a woman...."
The old man laughed softly.
"You did not need to," he said kindly. "You should go to her. You should speak with her. After all, the people who will stand out like that to you...well, there are only going to be a few of them in a lifetime. Do not waste time with wondering why. Instead, simply go, and learn, and talk. There is no harm to that."
The old man's words rang in Aladdin's ears, no matter how he tried to turn his mind to something else. At the end, he decided to leave it to fate. If he ran into her again, so be it. If he didn't...
Well, if he didn't run into her again, he didn't know what he would do. Her number was still on his phone, but calling her seemed to be the deepest violation of the rules that she had set forth.
Aladdin hoped he would run into her again, and this time, he wouldn't waste the opportunity.
As fate would have it, he didn't have to wait long.
* * *
Charlotte finally felt as if she could take a break. It had been something of a month from hell, with new clients who needed hand-holding and old clients who should have known better. She had been hop
ping from one spot to another, keeping just ahead of disaster, and through it all, she couldn't stop seeing Aladdin.
She wasn't surprised, in some ways. He looked like a stylish man, and her job took her all over the place, even if it didn't let her stay there long. She might run to as many as five or six hot spots over the course of a normal night. On a very busy night, she might hit as many as ten or twelve. As much as she might have wanted to stop and chat, she couldn't.
If she were honest with herself, it wasn't chatting that she wanted. Her encounters with Aladdin had left her feeling oddly unsure of herself, something that didn't really happen all that often.
Sometimes, she caught herself thinking about him off and on throughout the day, wondering what he was doing, whether he would have liked this book or that meal. She wondered what he did when he wasn't giving his one-night stands an excellent time, or what he liked to do when he was all alone.
Viviana had thought that she was being ridiculous. Her sister had backed off the idea of Aladdin being entirely dangerous, but she still felt that Charlotte had gotten exactly what she needed and now should move on.
"Seriously, you are in one of the most exciting cities in the world. Take advantage of it. Date. Don't date. Go walk some dogs. Learn a new language. Think about something else, or even if you don't, talk about something else, because this is getting pretty damned old."
Charlotte sighed, lying back in her bed. Her outfit for the night was laid out next to her, but the last thing that she wanted was to put it on.
"You're right, you're right," she said, finally admitting defeat. "I don't know if I'm cut out for the one-night stand lifestyle. I don't know if I'm ready to settle down yet, but yeah, I'm not going to go out and look for guys that I only keep for twelve hours. I get that now."
"Good," said Viviana in obvious relief. "I can't get back to New York for a little while, and honestly, I've been worried sick out here."
"Hey, I'm older, aren't I meant to be worrying about you?"
"You can worry about me if I don't get this next project out the door," Viviana said briskly. "Until then, be good, okay?"