Worrying about her clinic, worrying about her sisters, worrying about the pulse of attraction between her and Azeez…
For the first time in her life, she didn’t want to think of the future, or the consequences of the decisions she made today. She didn’t want to be the responsible one. She wanted to be selfish, she wanted to be carefree.
She wanted to live in the moment. She was in the most beautiful place she had ever seen with the one man who had always ensnared her senses with one look, one touch.
And still did.
Her fingers fluttering, she ran them over her mouth, remembering his kiss, remembering the pleasure she found in her own body, the power that had flown through her when he had shuddered.
The palm trees swayed stiffly in the breeze. Dusk painted the horizon orange, casting a reddish-golden glow over everything around her. And suddenly the evening was awash with possibilities, as though for this night, she could be anything she wanted.
She had wanted to be worthy of Azeez Al Sharif, the magnificent Prince of Dahaar. And she had accepted that she never would be.
But tonight, she would be everything that she wanted to be.
* * *
A few hours later, Nikhat waited in the moonlit courtyard, standing out among the lit-up walkways.
Lamb curry and pilaf, date cakes and sherbet made of the finest grapes—a feast fit for a prince—had been prepared at her command. She didn’t care what the servants inside that bustling kitchen thought of her. Only focused on the little tidbit that she and her sisters were the only outsiders to have ever stepped foot in here.
Her heavy hair hung loose around her face, her lips painted pink, her eyes lined with kohl. And she was dressed in a caftan made of the brightest red, made of the sheerest silk, that she had begged Naima to lend her. A cashmere shawl lay around her shoulders to shield her from the cold.
She couldn’t believe her own daring in inviting the prince to dinner so boldly. But she was past caring about her reputation, past suffering through punishments without actually committing the deed.
She refused to even indulge the prospect that he was somewhere laughing that she dared summon him.
She had waited maybe ten or fifteen minutes, when her skin prickled with awareness, when it felt as if even the air around her had come to a standstill.
Leaning against a pillar at the arched entrance, Azeez was watching her. Dressed in those same loose white pants and a white tunic, he looked like a dark shadow come to life, the expression in his coal-black eyes just as inscrutable.
He scanned her slowly from her feet in cream-colored sandals, upward to where she had cinched the caftan just below her breasts with a wide, jeweled belt, to the V-shaped neckline, threaded with intricate threadwork that was just a little shy of daring, to her mouth, her nose, her eyes and then her hair. Everywhere his gaze moved, she felt touched, she felt branded, she felt possessed.
Black fire blazed into life in those eyes that didn’t miss anything. He took a step toward her, to touching distance. “You look different.” Another devouring, lingering glance. “You dressed up.” He cast a look behind her and took in the elaborate lengths she had gone to. “Are you celebrating something?”
“Thank you for bringing my sisters here. I…”
“I understand perfectly.” He smiled, a flash of raw emotion tingeing it. He looked different, as if there was simmering energy inside him. It lit a fire along her nerves, every cell in her wanting more. “Thank you for being here, Nikhat, today and three days ago and these past weeks. I don’t begrudge you your success or your happiness or whatever it is that you desire.”
“You mean that.”
He laughed at the obvious doubt in her tone. “I do.”
His smile bared his teeth, lit up his face, and the beauty of it stole her breath. His eyes, his mouth, they had been made for laughter. And seeing him like that, it was easy to believe his goodwill. “Was your little jaunt into the desert successful then?”
“Yes.” A fire erupted in his eyes. With that single word, for the first time since she had come back, she believed that the true Azeez was coming back.
She covered the little distance that separated them. Their bodies grazed, their knees bumped and a tightness rendered his features stark. And she recognized the tension in his face for what it was, reveled in the spiral of hunger that ignited in her muscles.
Giving in, she touched him.
It was the lightest of contacts—the pad of her thumb rubbing against his cheek, the heat of his body a beckoning caress. The stubble scraped her palm, the scent of his skin and soap combined tugging at her senses.
His hand moved around her nape, and with sure but infinitesimal strength, he pressed. And every particle of her being gathered behind that small patch of her skin. “You’re playing with fire, Nikhat.” His hand moved to her hip, his fingers branding her skin through the silk. Another thread of her control unraveled.