by Kristi Gold
“Are you sure you’ve accepted it?”
It was as if she could see straight to his soul. “I have no choice. My father never spoke of her. But then, he rarely spoke to me. Perhaps I reminded him too much of her.”
“At least you actually knew your real father.”
“Not necessarily.” The words spilled out of his stupid mouth before he’d had time to reel them back in.
She shifted slightly toward him and laid a palm on his arm. “Are you saying the king wasn’t your biological father?”
He saw no reason to conceal his concerns now that he’d taken her into his confidence. “I only know I do not resemble him or my brothers. My hair is lighter and so are my eyes.”
“That’s not definitive proof, Adan,” she said. “Maybe you look like your mother.”
“I’ve seen a few photographs, and I see nothing of me in her. She had almost jet-black hair and extremely dark eyes, like Rafiq.”
“If that’s the case, then why would you think someone else fathered you?”
“Because my mother was reportedly very unhappy, and I suspect she could have turned to another man for comfort. Rafiq’s former wife, Rima, did that very thing due to her own discontent with the marriage.”
“Are you certain you’re not speculating because of Rafiq’s situation?”
He had valid reasons for his suspicions, namely his father’s two-decade affair with the governess. Yet he had no intention of skewing Piper’s opinion of Elena by revealing the truth yet. “My parents’ marriage was arranged, as tradition ordained it. Marriage contracts are basically business arrangements, and in theory advantageous for both families. Unfortunately, when human emotions enter into the mix, the intent behind the agreement becomes muddled.”
She frowned. “You mean emotions as in love?”
“Yes. The motivating force behind many of the world’s ills.”
“And the cure for many more.”
She didn’t sound pleased with his assessment. She had sounded somewhat wistful. “Spoken like a true romantic.”
“Spoken like a diehard cynic,” she said. “But your cynical days could soon be over now that you have a baby. There is no greater love than that which exists between parent and child, provided the parent is open to that love.”
That sounded somewhat like an indictment to his character. “I have already established that bond with my son. But I have never welcomed romantic love for lack of a good example.” And for fear of the inability to live up to unreasonable expectations.
She inclined her head and studied him. “Love isn’t something you always have to work at, Your Highness. Sometimes it happens when you least expect it.”
Piper sounded as if she spoke of her own experiences. “Have you ever been in love?” he asked.
“Not to this point.” She glanced away briefly before bringing her attention back to him. “Do arranged marriages still exist in the royal family?”
Happily for him, the answer was no. “That requirement changed after Rafiq inherited the crown. Otherwise he would not have been able to marry a divorced woman. All the better. It was an illogical and worthless tradition, in my opinion.”
She offered him a sunny smile that seemed somehow forced. “Well, I guess we really bucked tradition by arranging to have a fake marriage.”
At the moment he’d like to have a fake honeymoon, yet he still had reservations. Piper had accommodated the king’s wishes by joining in the ruse, and she’d selflessly helped care for his son. He never wanted her to believe he would take advantage of the situation. “Quite frankly, all this talk of family dysfunction is making me weary.” He stood and offered his hand. “Would you care to go for a swim?”
“Yes, I most definitely would,” she said as she allowed him to help her up. “But are you sure you’re up to it? You look tired, and I suspect that has to do with Sam.”
“He was awake quite a bit last night and I had the devil of a time getting him back to sleep after the two o’clock feeding. Yet I grew accustomed to little sleep while training for my military duties.”
“Why didn’t you wake me? I would have taken a shift.”
“Because my child is my responsibility, not yours.” He immediately regretted the somewhat callous remark and set out to make amends. “I definitely appreciate all that you’ve done, but I do not want to take advantage of your generosity.”
She attempted a smile that failed to reach her blue eyes. “I really don’t mind, Adan. What are fake mothers for?”
He could always count on her to use humor to cover her hurt. Hurt that he had caused. “We’ll worry about Samuel’s care when we return in two days.”
Her mouth momentarily dropped open. “Two days? I thought you said this was an afternoon outing.”
He endeavored to appear guileless. “Did I?”
She doomed him to hell with a look. “You did.”
“My apologies. As it turns out, we have been instructed by the king to remain absent from the palace for two days to avoid the media frenzy. I do think it’s best we return tomorrow before sundown. I do not want to be away from Samuel two nights.”
“But my grandfather ordered me to see that the engineers finalize the—”
“Bid, and that has been handled by Rafiq. He has accepted, and the contract will be couriered to your grandfather tomorrow. He has also arranged for the engineers to be transported to the States in the morning.”
She threaded her lip between her teeth as she took several moments before speaking. “Then I guess everything has been handled.”
“Yes, which frees you to relax and see to your own pleasure. Nonetheless, if you insist on returning early, we shall.”
This time her smile arrived fully formed. “Where should I change to get this two-day party started?”
He caught her hands and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Never change, Piper McAdams. I like you exactly the way you are.”
She wrested away, much to his disappointment. “I meant ‘change’ as in clothes. I need to put on my swimsuit.”
He preferred she’d go without any clothes. “You may use the bath downstairs. You’ll find it between my study and the guest room, immediately past the kitchen. Or if you prefer, use the one upstairs adjacent to my bedroom. It’s much larger.”
“Where are you going to change?”
“I hadn’t planned on wearing anything at all.” He couldn’t contain his laughter when he noticed her shocked expression. “I’m not serious, so do not look so concerned. My swim trunks are upstairs.”
She began backing toward the entry. “I’ll use the downstairs bath while you go upstairs. And I’d better not find you naked in that pool when I come back.”
The word naked put specific parts of his anatomy on high alert. “At one time that might have been the case, but I have turned over a new leaf.”
She paused at the doors and eyed him suspiciously. “A leaf from the player tree?”
He supposed he deserved that. “Believe what you will, but there have not been that many women in my life. None since I ended my relationship with Talia.”
“Ah, yes. The celibacy clause. How’s that working out for you?”
Not very well at the moment. Not when he knew in a matter of moments he would see her with very little covering her body. Or so he hoped. “I will let you know by day’s end.”
* * *
As soon as she returned to the pool, Piper found Adan staring out over the horizon. She couldn’t see his face or eyes, but she sensed his mind was on something else—or someone else, namely his child. Her mind immediately sank into the gutter when she shamelessly studied all the details from his bare, well-defined back to his impressive butt concealed by a pair of navy swim trunks.
She approached him slowly, overwhelmed by t
he urge to run her hands over the patently male terrain. Instead, she secured the towel knotted between her breasts. “I’m fairly sure that mountain won’t move no matter how long you stare at it.”
He turned to her, his expression surprisingly somber. “If only I had that power.”
Once she moved past the initial shock of seeing his gorgeous bare chest, she found her voice. “Are you worried about Sam?”
“I’m worried that my position will prevent me from being a good father to him. I’m also concerned that perhaps I would be wrong to ask Talia to give up all claims on him.”
“No offense, Adan, but I don’t see Talia as the motherly type.”
“Perhaps so, but isn’t any mother better than no mother at all?”
“Not really,” she said without thought. “My so-called mother never cared about her daughters. Her own needs took precedence over ours. Luckily for us, my grandmother willingly stepped in and gave us all the love we could ask for, and more. Otherwise I don’t know how we would have turned out.”
He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “You have turned out very well. And now if you would kindly remove that towel, we’ll spend the afternoon basking in the Bajul sun.”
That would be the logical next step—revealing her black bikini that left little to the imagination. A step that required some advance preparation. “Before I do that, you need to know I’m not tall and skinny like Talia. I’m short and I haven’t been blessed with a lean build and—”
He flipped the knot with one smooth move and the towel immediately fell to the ground. Then he gave her a lingering once-over before raising his gaze back to her eyes. “You have been blessed with a beautiful body, Piper. You have the curves this man desires.”
He desired her curves? Incredible. “Your physique is the thing fantasies are made of. But the question is, how well do you swim? I have to warn you, I’m pretty darned good at it.”
And without giving her any warning, he strode to the far end of the pool and executed a perfect dive. He emerged a few moments later, slicked back his hair and smiled. “Now it’s your turn to prove your expertise.”
If only she could stop gaping at his dimples and get her feet to move. Finally she willed herself to follow his lead by moving to the same spot he had and doing a little diving of her own. After her eyes adjusted, she sought Adan out where he now stood in the shallow end. She remained underwater until she swam immediately in front of him and came up for air. “How’s that?”
“Perfect,” he said as he put his arms around her. “As are you.”
She laughed even though she could barely concentrate while being up close and personal. “Not hardly, Your Majesty. I can be stubborn and I do have a little bit of a temper at times. I’m also a picky eater and I speed when I drive—”
He cut off her laundry list of faults with a kiss. A kiss so hot it rivaled the sun beating down on her shoulders. A down-and-dirty, tongue-dueling kiss that had Piper heating up in unseen places on her person. When he streamed his palms along her rib cage and grazed the side of her breast, she thought she might melt. When he returned his hands to her shoulders, she thought she might groan in protest.
He studied her eyes with an intensity that stole what was left of her breath. “Before this continues, I need to say something.”
She needed him to get on with it. “I’m listening.”
“I want to make love to you, more than anything I have wished for in some time. But you are under no obligation to honor that request.”
Was he kidding? “If I remember correctly, I went to your hotel room in Chicago with that one goal in mind. Of course, where I wanted to end my celibacy, you were determined to hang on to yours.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “Not since the day I met you, actually. You are different from any woman I have ever known.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“A very good thing.”
“Then let’s put an end to doing without right here and now.”
He gave her an unmistakable bad-boy grin. “Take off your suit.”
“You go first,” she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“All right.” He quickly removed the trunks and tossed them aside, where they hit the cement deck with a splat. “Your turn.”
After drawing in a deep breath, she reached back and released the clasp, then untied the bow at her neck. Once she had that accomplished, she threw the top behind her, her bare breasts no longer concealed by the water. “Better?”
“Yes, but you’re not finished yet.”
Time to go for broke. Piper shimmied her bottoms down her legs and kicked them away. Right then she didn’t care if they were carried away by the pool pump’s current and ended up in another country. “Are you satisfied now?”
“Not quite, but I will be,” he said as he pulled her close, took her hand and guided it down his belly and beyond.
When Adan pressed her palm against his erection, Piper blew out a staggered breath. “I do believe I’ve located an impressive sea creature down below.”
“Actually, it’s an eel.”
“Electric?”
“Highly charged.” He brought her hand back to his chest. “But should you investigate further, I fear I will not be able to make it to the bed.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed the cute cleft in his chin. “What’s wrong with a little water play?”
“If you’re referring to water foreplay, then I am all for that.” He wrapped one arm around her waist, then lowered his mouth to her breast while slipping his hand between her thighs simultaneously.
Piper gripped his shoulders and grounded herself against the heady sensations. She felt as if her legs might liquefy with every pass of his tongue over her nipple, every stroke of his fingertip in a place that needed his attention the most.
As badly as she wanted the sensations to go on forever, the climax came in record time. She inadvertently dug her nails into his flesh and unsuccessfully stopped the odd sound bubbling up from her throat.
Once the waves subsided, Piper closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m so sorry that happened so fast,” she murmured without looking at him.
He tipped her chin up with a fingertip. “You have no need to apologize. It has been a while for you, by your own admission.”
“Try never.”
As she predicted, he was obviously stunned by the truth. “You’ve never had an orgasm?”
She managed a shrug. “Not with anyone else in the room.”
“You clearly have encountered nothing but fools.”
Fool, singular. “I’ve only been intimately involved with one man, and he basically treated me like a fast-food drive-through. In and out as quickly as possible.”
Adan released a low, grainy laugh. “I am glad to know you find some humor in the situation. I personally find it appalling when a man has no concern for his lover’s pleasure.”
She draped her arms around his neck and wriggled her hips. “That goes both ways, and I do believe you are greatly in need of some pleasure. Why bother with a bed when we have a perfectly good pool deck and a comfy-looking chaise at our disposal?”
He kissed her lightly. “True, but we have no condoms.”
“I see where that would be a problem.”
“A very serious problem. I have already received one unexpected surprise with my son. I do not intend to have another.”
Piper wasn’t certain if he meant another surprise pregnancy or simply another child, period. Or he could mean he didn’t care to have a baby with her. But she refused to let haywire emotions ruin this little temporary piece of paradise, even if it was based on pretense. “Then I suggest you take me to bed, Your Machoness.”
No sooner than the words left her mouth, Adan swept her up into his arms and carried her into the
house. She expected him to make use of the downstairs bedroom, but instead he started up the stairs with ease, as if she weighed no more than a feather. Far from the truth. Yet he had a knack for making her feel beautiful. She figured he’d probably earned pro status in the flattery department years ago.
Piper barely had time to look around before Adan deposited her in the middle of the bed covered in a lightweight beige spread. She did have time to assess all his finer details while he opened the nightstand drawer and retrieved a condom. He was evidently very proud to see her, and she was extremely happy to be there. But when he caught her watching, she grabbed the pillow from beneath her head and placed it over her fiery face.
She felt the mattress bend beside her right before he yanked the pillow away. “You’re not growing shy on me, are you?” he asked.
No, but she was certainly growing hotter by the second. “I’m just feeling a bit exposed.”
He smiled as he skimmed his palm down her belly and back up again. “And I am greatly enjoying the exposure.” Then his expression turned oddly serious. “If you have any reservations whatsoever—”
She pressed a fingertip against his lips. “I want this, Adan. I have for a while now.”
“Then say no more.”
He stretched out and shifted atop her body, then eased inside her. She couldn’t speak if she tried. His weight, his powerful movement, captured all her attention. The play of his muscles beneath her palms, the sound of his voice at her ear describing what he felt at that moment, sent her senses spiraling. His broken breaths, the way he tensed signaled he was barely maintaining control. When she lifted her hips to meet his thrust, he groaned and picked up the pace. Only a matter of time before he couldn’t hold out, she realized. And then he shuddered with the force of his climax before collapsing against her breasts, where she could feel his heart beating rapidly.
Piper wanted to remain this way indefinitely—with a sexy, skilled man in her arms and a sense of pride that she’d taken him to the limit. She felt unusually brave, and incredibly empowered. Never before had it been this way with Keiler Farnsworth. And the fact that the jerk’s name jumped into her brain made her as mad as a hornet. He couldn’t hold a candle to Adan Mehdi. She suspected she’d be hard-pressed to find any man who would.