What are you going to do now, Ember Hallman?
Ilyas gritted his teeth as his secretary bent down and lowered the tray of drinks on the table.
Where the hell were those amazing tits of hers?
Was she still hiding them in fear they'd have him pouncing on her the moment they jiggled under her oversize clothes?
Was this her way of telling him she wanted to forget last night ever happened?
Damn her.
Just seeing the cool look on his secretary's face was pissing him off. He wanted to destroy her composure, devour her until she was a fucking mess. He wanted Ember to want him the way she had wanted him last night, and it was this thought that had him going on the offensive as soon as she offered him a glass of iced coffee.
"Why the cold drink all of a sudden?" Ilyas growled. "You've always said you hated them."
Ember frowned at the sheikh's combative tone. "Are you trying to pick a fight with me?"
"Don't change the subject."
"I wasn't—-"
"Is it because you don't want me to know the truth?"
"What truth are you talking about?" Ember blurted out. "I just made you iced coffee—-"
"Exactly."
Huh?
"You think I don't know why you made me iced coffee?"
Oh my God, where was this conversation even leading?
"Your body needs cooling down around me, doesn't it?"
Understanding dawned, and Ember struggled to keep her face straight. So that was where all of this crazy talk was leading.
Ilyas wanted to slam his head against the wall. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The past sixty seconds had just replayed itself in his mind, and even he knew he had sounded like a fucking lunatic. Had he actually used iced coffee as some fucking piece of evidence that Ember wanted him?
"Oh no."
The note of distress in her tone had Ilyas glaring at his secretary. Damn her. It obviously hadn't escaped her notice that he had just made a fool of himself, and since Ember had never been the type to take the higher fucking road—-
"How could you have figured it out?" Ember dramatically placed a hand over her forehead. "I'm burning so, so hot right now, and it's all because of you."
"Drop it, damn you."
"But I'm being serious," Ember cried out. "It feels like I'm about to spontaneously combust—-" She sent him a look of entreaty, but it only made Ilyas want to throttle her because he knew she was just making fun of him. "What do I do, Your Highness?"
His secretary started fanning herself, and Ilyas' teeth gnashed. "Goddammit, Ember."
"Oh God, I feel like I'm in Hell..." Inspiration struck when she caught sight of her neglected glass of iced coffee. "I feel like I'm about to melt any second, I need to..."
Ember could feel the sheikh's gaze boring through hers as she slurped her drink, and it was all she could do not to laugh.
Ilyas watched moodily as his secretary took huge gulps of her iced coffee like it was a bowl of ramen.
Damn her.
None of the women he had dated in the past would have dared tease him like this. All of them had treated him with respect, and all of them had been the epitome of elegance.
Ember was their exact opposite, but even with her currently showing zero finesse and doing everything to get herself royally strangled—-
Why the hell did his secretary still look so goddamn irresistible in his eyes?
She had always been fucking different, and he used to think that was a good thing. Back home in their kingdom, his people had this belief that redheads possessed fire in their veins, and Ilyas remembered thinking he would need someone like that to work for him. And true enough, when Ember had overcome her nervousness, she turned out to be the only one who could stand up to him, and that was when he had also started thinking of her as his fearless little chick.
Ember was the only one who knew when to soothe his temper and when to challenge him. She was also the only one who could squawk for hours as she nagged him, and she often did so for as long as it took to wear him down and have Ilyas concede defeat, just to shut her up.
Those were the reasons why he had always thought she was special, but what he had never paused to think if it was the same for her.
Was he special to her, too?
The question had Ilyas glaring at his secretary. He damn well better be special to her, too, dammit. Or he was going to fuck her until he was so.
Chapter Seven
Ember nearly gulped when she sensed the sheikh's mood worsen all of a sudden.
Uh oh.
Maybe she had pushed him too far, and it was time to change tactics?
Okay, let's see...
If coffee failed to be a distraction, then she could try talking about his first love.