by Olivia Gates
But…maybe he didn’t have to go alone.
Fully hard again with anticipation, he dialed her number.
His call was rejected. By the third time, he got the message. The insanity had lifted and her unclouded mind was screaming at her—and probably at him—in outrage for what the gross indiscretion he’d dragged her into might have cost her. She might even think it had cost her everything. She hadn’t looked back, hadn’t seen who’d walked in on them.
He parked in the first off-road shoulder, texted her. It was only Rashid.
It was after he’d resumed driving that it hit him.
Only Rashid? What was wrong with him?
She must now be going ballistic, thinking she’d exposed herself as terminally ditzy and in his power to the man whose opinion mattered more than the rest of the kingdom combined.
Swearing at himself, he parked again, texted again. It’s purely on me in Rashid’s opinion. He thinks you’re good. Very good. His words. Absolutely no harm done.
Hoping this was enough to alleviate her anxiety, he resumed his drive. He would give her time to go home, then show up at her door.
No, he couldn’t. He never repeated himself.
He needed a new strategy. He’d been going about his pursuit all wrong. He’d been too impatient, too hungry, hadn’t been listening to her properly. He now realized the only reason she’d been resisting him was her dread of compromising her position.
In the past, she’d initially held him off to protect her mother’s and her own reputation in Azmahar’s conservative society. He’d gone to great lengths to arrange for their relationship to remain a secret to free her from that fear. Of course, that had served his purposes, too.
But she was now more serious than ever about her image. So if he stopped his impulsive incursions, assured her of privacy and secrecy, he’d bet she’d beat him to that bed. Just as she had in those months of stolen passion.
Rashid, damn it, had been right about this, too. He couldn’t compromise her. For every reason there was.
He needed to locate some restraint. And he’d thought he had nothing but. Seemed that was only because there’d been no temptations.
But seeing this matured Roxanne, discovering this new ability to talk to her, the even more intense sexual affinity…now, that was temptation.
It was merciful he posed as overwhelming a temptation to her.
Now to make it safe for her to give in to it, to him, fully.
* * *
Absolutely no harm done.
Roxanne stared at Haidar’s text message for what must have been the thousandth time in the past week.
There’d been dozens more since. But this was the one she kept scrolling back to. And every time she read it, she wished he were in front of her. So she could break his jaw.
She’d been burning with mortification since that day. She’d seriously considered running out of the royal palace and out of Azmahar. She’d been certain her job had been ruined, that she’d be the laughingstock of the kingdom within hours. Maybe the world, if her viral video prediction to Haidar came to pass.
Haidar had played her like the merciless pro that he was. Softening her with one unexpected reaction after another before slamming her with that sob story, the glimpse into the vulnerability she hadn’t believed existed. As his coup de grâce, he’d trained stirred and shaken eyes on her, and she’d melted in his arms. Literally. Anyone could have walked in on them and seen her wrapped around him and in the throes of orgasm.
Rashid Aal Munsoori had.
And Haidar had dared to say absolutely no harm done!
It didn’t matter that he had been trying to reassure her that the incident wouldn’t cost her her reputation and position. It didn’t matter that she had seen Rashid twice since then, and he’d treated her with utmost respect and decorum, without a trace of knowing in his eyes. It didn’t matter that there did seem to be no harm done whatsoever.
She still wanted to do Haidar some serious harm.
He’d probably encourage her to. And love every second.
Well, she’d get the chance to oblige him in an hour’s time.
She was heading to his house. His turf. And on his terms.
He had managed to make it an official summons, too.
But at least she was one of many. A whole delegation had been summoned to said turf to discuss what she regretfully admitted were relevant and pressing matters.
He had been laying much-needed groundwork in the past week, dealing with so much. And to her surprise, he was working, if indirectly, with both Rashid and Jalal to manage the oil spill. The three of them, each with his specific powers and strategies, and with their considerable connections, had surrounded the problem from all sides and were well on the way to resolving it.
She’d joked to her team this morning that the plan to save Azmahar should have three kings playing musical thrones.
He’d summoned the five men that he referred to as his “cabinet” to discuss some of the other serious economic and diplomatic problems. She was to act as analytical statistician of the meeting with Sheikh Al-Qadi. Her job, really.
Not that that made her feel any less…violent toward Haidar. In fact, it inflamed her more that he was having her walk into his lair under a pretext to which she could have no valid objection.
She exhaled, cursed the heavy, liquid throb of arousal that was her perpetual state now. That he managed to keep her in it by remote control was the height of injustice.
Why couldn’t she feel this way about someone…human?
Resigned that he had her hormonal number, she turned her eyes to the scenery rushing by the window of the limo he’d insisted on sending her.
Suddenly, the terrain changed, from flat desert to a stunning system of dunes that undulated down to an incredible stretch of red-gold shore. It curved into a bay ending in an arm of land that almost touched an oasis of an island. Between the dunes and the shore lay an estate spread with palm and olive trees. Nestled in its heart was a house.
As the car descended on a winding path from the main road, the house came into clearer and clearer detail. It was…amazing. As pliant as a tent that would billow in the warm, dry winds. As fluid as a ship that would sail down the pier that extended from its enfolding terrace, sail away into the sea. It lay like a graceful hybrid among the sublimely landscaped and the divinely natural, adorned with a mile of emerald and aquamarine liquid.
She sat up, heart hammering, mouth drying.
The sheer beauty of it all, enhanced by the perfection of a golden sunset, soaked into her senses, wrenched at every one with a power that left her gasping with its force, its…futility.
So this was Haidar’s home in Azmahar. A home he’d one day share with the woman he’d choose. The family he’d make.
This was also the home he’d asked her to come to last week. In her case, “home” had been only a figure of speech.
She’d always known that. Even when she’d been deluded that he’d felt something genuine for her, Haidar and home had been two words she’d known would never belong together.
They’d always met on impersonal ground, arrived separately, left the same way. How ironic was it that this time, he’d invited her to a personal place for impersonal business?
She blinked back the pointless disappointments as the car passed through electronic, twenty-foot, wrought-iron gates, wound up a cobblestone driveway and approached the architectural work of art from the back. The grounds were so extensive that it took almost ten minutes to come to a stop by the thirty-foot-wide stone steps that led to the entrance patio.
She thanked the driver, got out of the car before he could open the door for her, stiffened her back and resolve as she climbed the stairs. She wasn’t waiting for anyone, starting with Haidar, to receive her or wait o
n her. She was here for business, would conclude it and leave.
She tried not to notice more about the place. She might have achieved that—had she been carried in unconscious. As it was, she absorbed every detail as she reached a wraparound terrace from which every aspect of the magnificent property could be seen.
The double doors of the house were open. No one was around. Seemed Haidar still didn’t believe in having people around.
She stepped into the house, and air squeezed out of her lungs.
Like the exterior, the interior married the unexpected in a seamless blend, old Arabia concepts with innovative themes, producing something unprecedented. Everything had been chosen with an eye for the comfort of both body and soul, blending sweeping lines and spaces with bold wall colors and honey-colored ceilings. Curved windows and doorways coalesced with sand-colored marble floors accentuated by vivid mosaic. Furniture both functional and artistic offset wide-open seascapes. A place of contrasts, from the sublimely relaxing to the vibrant and exotic, an oasis of the best nature and man had been able to produce.
And that was just what she could see of the foyer and sitting area. She didn’t want to know what…other rooms looked like.
“I named this placed Al Saherah.”
His voice hit her dead center in her heart.
Al Saherah. The Bewitching. The Sorceress.
She turned, found him filling an archway leading to another part of the house. All in white, a fallen angel masquerading as one of the good guys. Big, vital, painfully beautiful.
It was he who was saher.
She swallowed the ache the sight of him always struck in her heart. “This place is magical.”
He walked toward her, as majestic and potentially lethal as the feline he’d been named for. “But I’m thinking of adjusting the name to Al Naar Al Saherah. Or Al Saherah Al Nareyah. To describe its flesh-and-blood personification.”
Bewitching Fire. Or the Fiery Sorceress.
Her hand rose involuntarily to her hair. When had he learned to talk like that? Wasn’t it enough that he drove anyone with double-X chromosomes insane with lust just by existing? He’d picked up the deadly power of verbal seduction, too? Talk about overkill.
Declining to comment on this salvo of mind-messing flirtation, she cleared her throat. “So where is everyone convened?”
“We met in this awesome inside garden that has the most amazing aqueduct system running through it. Let me show you.” He grabbed her hand, tugged her behind him, his grin gleeful like a boy unable to wait to show off a discovery.
She hurried to keep up with him, blinking at his enthusiasm, at the adjectives and intensifiers.
Strange. She’d thought he was too jaded to appreciate material beauty. Or at least that he would be so used to this place, he wouldn’t even see its wonders anymore.
As they passed another sitting area, he turned to her. “I fell for this place at first sight.”
So. He fell for places. Felt for friends. That made sense. After all, this place was unique. And Rashid certainly was one of a kind. But when it came to women, Haidar was indifferent. She’d bet the only reason he wanted her now was the challenge she represented.
She’d better not stimulate his feline tendencies anymore. If she played dead, he’d get bored and go chase some other prey. But—
She stopped so suddenly that she wrenched her hand from the glove of his. He turned to her, eyes questioning.
“You said you met.” Incomprehension rose in his eyes. She whacked his arm as hard as she could. “They’re no longer here, are they?” His admission was a nonchalant shrug. She hit him harder, her hand stinging from the force of the smack. “You tricked me!”
He rubbed his arm, his eyes flaring, his lips filling. “I didn’t. You insisted on coming late.”
“There was no need for me to attend lunch, and I wanted you to have time alone with the others. My presence would have only been needed while you wrapped up the meeting.”
“And we had to conclude it earlier than expected. Businessmen don’t have their time under control. They had to leave.”
“You could have told me not to bother coming.”
“But I wanted you to come.”
His voice, his eyes as he said that…
Images exploded in her mind, sensations in her body. Of every time he’d demanded she come for him, of the last time she had…
She pressed her head between her fists, trying to stop the surge of madness, fury and frustration almost as fierce. “I get that no one walks out on you. Hell, no one is allowed free will around you, and you want to punish me for both transgressions. You headed to my place fresh off the plane with that in mind. So what will it take to satisfy you? Is ruining my career a must?”
“That’s the last thing I want, Roxanne.”
She staggered back two steps for the one he took closer. “Excuse me as I believe the proof of your actions instead.”
His gaze became serious, soothing. “Whatever I did that compromised you, or could have, I didn’t plan any of it.”
She huffed incredulously. “I wonder how that would hold up in front of a judge. ‘I didn’t plan to run the lady over, Your Honor.’”
His lips twisted. “Zain. I deserve that. And I have no defense. Premeditation isn’t better than negligence from the victim’s point of view. But I swear to you, I never meant you harm. And I will never compromise you again.”
She stared at him. “You mean you’ll leave me alone?”
“I mean I’ll be the essence of discretion as I do no such thing.” He reached for her as he spoke.
This time, she didn’t move away. This train would hit her. Why pretend outrunning it was an option?
“Roxanne…” He groaned as he enfolded her into his large body.
As if feeling her surrender, he crushed her to his hardness, making no attempt to temper the carnality of his response, of his intentions.
He wanted sex. Raw and raunchy. Dominant and devastating. No pretense of gentleness or emotion. He’d exploit her body and take his pleasure in every way he pleased, plumb her flesh for all the ecstasy she could withstand.
She wanted all that. She was disintegrating with needing it.
She pushed out of his arms.
* * *
It took all of Haidar’s restraint not to yank Roxanne back and down on any horizontal surface and caress her until he’d aroused her out of resistance.
Not that her reticence was physical. Her arousal cloaked him in echoes of their pleasure-drenched nights, slashed him down to the beast at his core. It had him an inch away from devouring her, riding her hard, shattering her with pleasure, so she’d never again contest his ownership of her flesh, of her every response.
“Roxanne…”
Her raised hand stopped him. What was she…?
Then both hands rose up to her hair, took the pins out. It cascaded in waves of flames down to her shoulders.
Before another neuron could fire a thought, a response in his brain, she was pushing her jacket off her shoulders, then unbuttoning her blouse, revealing the creamy globes of her breasts. Ya Ullah, she was…was…
She was stripping for him.
His lungs burned. His hardness passed the point of pain.
He heard himself choking on “While this might be a delight after I’ve taken you ten times or so, right now it’s agony not being the one undressing you.”
He reached for her again, expecting her to sweep him away, to continue punishing him with her striptease torture. Again she did something that shocked him into another detonation of arousal.
She grabbed him, climbed onto him, wrapped her legs around his buttocks, digging her high heels into his flesh as she bunched her hands in his hair and brought his lips crashing down on hers.
“Roxanne.” His growl was that of a predator at the end of his tether. She pushed against him, making him stagger back and sit down on a couch with her on top. Before he could drag in another breath, she was tearing open his shirt, sinking her teeth into his chest and sucking his flesh.
He bucked beneath her, the pleasure of each nip and suckle acute distress. “Roxanne, let me…”
She slipped from his hold, ended up on her knees between his splayed thighs, her hands as feverish as her lips on the buttons of his jeans.
He watched her, his brain, every inch of him overheating from the sight of her beautiful hands dragging down his pants, dipping into his briefs to greedily surround his erection.
His mind hazed, his body hurtled beyond his control with the first touch of her lips on the oversensitized head.
How he’d missed her touch, her mouth, her breath on him. How he’d hungered for her answering hunger, for her delight in him, in all the liberties he gave her with his body.
But this was spiraling out of control. He had to…needed to slow down, savor it, stop her…
Her hot, moist mouth engulfed almost half of him, the tip hitting the back of her throat.
“Ya Ullah, kaif betsawwi hada?” he raved, mindless now, his hands frenzied in her silken hair. “How do you do that? Make every touch ecstasy?”
She gazed up at him, let him see how she took him, loved it, how her lips and hands milked his hardness. A hot tide surged upward from his loins, outward to his every skin cell. His buttocks and thighs tightened with holding it back. He pulled at her, needing to have this completion within her, with her.
She moaned her refusal to let go, the vibration an electrocuting surge of stimulation from every inch she devoured to his every nerve ending.
He collapsed back, surrendered to her demand, liquid fire flooding from the depths of his loins. He froze in the intensity of the moment, trapped in the excruciating pleasure that had him on the verge of splintering into a million pieces.
Just before he exploded, he tried to wrench himself out. She held on, her lips and hands making insistent sweeps, inciting him to madness. And he lost the struggle.