“Farah, wait.” She didn’t heed him, her lips at his pulse wringing coherence from his body. He tried again, his voice a gruff groan he didn’t recognize. “We have to stop…”
And again her reaction was nothing he could have predicted. It was as if he’d shot her. She jackknifed away, stumbling as she fumbled to pull up her gown and purse, emotions slashing across her face. Shock, frustration, embarrassment. It was the distress that disturbed him. A distress she must surely be feigning.
Before he could say anything she rasped, “You have someone in there…or somewhere, don’t you? I should have asked…” She stopped, her mortified gaze hardening into a glare. “Wait a minute. I’m less to blame here than you.” She struck his hands off. “What kind of a bastard remembers his commitment to another woman just before…What kind of promiscuous jerk starts a-a situation like this when-when…”
Kettle calling the pot black, anyone? But then, now wasn’t the time to let her know that he knew she was a two-timer herself.
He clamped her shoulders, wouldn’t let her shake him off. “You wait a minute. I have no one waiting for me in there, or anywhere.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Really?”
He barely stopped himself from catching that lip, making a feast of it. “Farah, I’m saying this once. I don’t have, and have never had, any kind of commitment to any woman.”
“Which probably doesn’t say much about you.”
Her scoffed volley was so unexpected it wrung a surprised laugh from him. “It says I’m free to start a ‘situation like this.’” She mumbled something. He frowned. “What did you say?”
She shrugged, her color deepening. “Nothing.”
“Farah.”
“Listen, I should just shut up, preferably forever, and get the hell out of here. Do me a favor and forget you ever saw me.”
“Alf la’nah-a thousand damnations-tell me what you said.”
She grumbled some more. Then she sighed. “I said ‘Of course you’re free to start a situation like this. And to end it. And to hell with your partner, anyway.’ Satisfied now?”
He laughed again. “Enti majnoonah, weh ajeebah…crazy and incredible.” He crowded her against the tree, snatched up her skirt, nudged her thighs apart as he lifted her, brought her down over an erection huge and hard enough for her to straddle. “Does it feel like I want to end this? Anywhere but inside you?”
She gasped as his hardness dug into her core through his taub and her sodden panties. Her hands clutched at some branches to hold on to, her legs going around his hips. “Then-then why…?”
He cupped her buttocks, rasped, “Why did I stop? Why aren’t we already in the throes of the first orgasm of many?”
His words jolted through her, sent her back arching and her hips grinding down on his erection. Moonlight exploded into fireworks. He would climax, would make her climax if he’d only thrust at her, like this, through their clothes…No. Stop.
He disentangled her legs from around his hips, gritted his teeth against the combined force of their frustration, took himself out of range of her scent and hunger.
He stared out into the gardens, still blind. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is too fast.” He inhaled, struggled to come down. “It’s magical and unprecedented, it defies time and timing, but that’s why I can’t risk spoiling it. I can’t rush you into intimacy, no matter how willing you think you are, and cast recriminations or shame or regret on it all.”
He paused, dazed at his fluency. He should only be glad the pretense was coming so unaffectedly to him.
He turned to her, pain leveling, his sight back, found her looking smaller, her face shimmering with uncertainty. Stiff steps took him back to her. “I beg of you, ya ameerati, let’s start again, slowly…slower. Let me see you again…and again.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. She’d actually whooped, jumped up and down. This couldn’t be an act, could it?
But why should he care? It was going his way so easily.
Though maybe he should feel bad, if she wasn’t the unfeeling creature he’d been intending to manipulate?
No. He shouldn’t. Even if she wasn’t acting, only her choices mattered. She’d talked of discovering her real father only in terms of how it had hurt her. She cared nothing for the pain she was causing that father or the damage she was causing his kingdom. She thought of nothing but her own comfort and convenience and, right now, her own pleasure.
Well, he’d make her wait for it. He’d drive her insane wanting it. And when the time was right, he’d take her, ensnare her. Then he’d marry her. Once the marriage was a reality, it wouldn’t matter what she thought. Or wanted.
She didn’t matter. Only Judar did. Only the throne.
Reiterating the resolve, he rasped, “Let me take you home.”
“That would be wonderful…” Her words trailed off and her passion-drugged face fell. “I forgot. I drove here.”
“I’ll have one of my chauffeurs collect your car.” He tugged her to his side, felt a rush as she nestled into him as if she were a missing part. Focus, ya rejjal. This rubbish is what you say to her, not what you think. He inhaled. “But don’t think I’ll leave you on your doorstep. I’ll change you out of this ruined gown, wait for you to shower, tuck you in bed, give you a massage, kiss you good-night…”
She trembled, clung tighter, making him wonder if she was far gone enough to say yes to marriage right now.
No. A no from her would be final, and he had no other leverage but her need. And it had to be great indeed for her to consent to marriage according to his culture. One she couldn’t terminate in any court of law when she wanted out.
He’d show his hand after he’d entangled her. In every way.
When they reached the parking lot, he reluctantly withdrew the hand he’d found inside her bodice hungrily cupping her breast, pushed a button on a wireless device in his pocket. He took another taste of her lips as he reiterated inwardly, any moment now.
Just as Farah was almost climbing him again, the night around them splintered into the bursts of a dozen flashes.
Three
One second, Farah was swathed in Shehab’s power and eagerness, buoyed by the promise of the night ahead and so many days and nights to follow. The next she crashed back to reality, as figures materialized out of the void that had existed beyond her and Shehab, shattering their cocoon of intimacy.