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In a fine temper, fueled even more by their banter at my expense, I screamed, beating my fists against his back.
“You are a vile human being! I’ll have you arrested for this. I’ll have you deported!” I kept battering Aris, but he hardly twitched.
“I’ll just leave you to it.” Yasmin winked then ducked back behind the door.
Aris’s palm stroked over my buttocks, a long and thorough caress that brought my head up and made my knees knock.
A sound of almost sinister pleasure thickened his deep voice. “I like the skirt. It has a great hobbling effect.”
He began walking in the opposite direction of the door that led to the nightclub.
“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
He said nothing, just strode along a hallway banked by closed doors with me flipped over one shoulder.
Then we were in an elevator, and my heart rose to my throat.
He isn’t letting me go.
After a fast ride that turned my already upside-down stomach inside-out, we exited to a quiet, hushed interior.
Mercifully, he lowered me to my unsteady feet, and I had to stop my head from spinning. I had to reach out for his forearm, feeling the tensed sinew beneath the fabric and my fingers.
“Where are we?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“This is my place.”
I sought his eyes. “You live . . . here?”
One quick scan of the open area revealed an extensive and expensively appointed living area equipped with the finest of everything.
My knees were still rubbery, anger a righteous reaction to being so thoroughly mistreated.
He cocked his head at me. “Why? Did you think I was nothing more than common gutter stock?”
I shook my head.
“You know I own The Lykos, Roya. Of course I can afford this. Might not be as loaded as your family but I’m not fucking destitute.”
“Obviously.” I yanked back when his hand lifted, perhaps to caress me as he had when we danced or to wrap around my throat again.
He aborted the motion and balled his fist at his side.
Moving away—again demonstrating that predatory grace—he flicked on a few more lights. A cozy sitting arrangement came into view, plump cushions adorning tasteful furniture. A far wall opened to vistas of the Gulf through large, seamless windows.
A kitchen was to the right.
More rooms on the left side down a hallway.
I swallowed over the stone in my throat, watching as he discarded his jacket and glanced at me. He didn’t gaze away while he loosened his tie then thumbed open cufflinks to roll his shirtsleeves to his forearms.
Leaning back on a long low console across from me, Aris became a real-life tempting statue. A man honed of hardness, evident in every line of his mouthwatering body.
I wanted a drink of him . . .
Snapping myself from such ludicrous thoughts, I made sure my gaze didn’t stray between his thighs.
“What do you want from me?” I asked with as much acidity as I could muster while inopportune arousal threatened to overwhelm me.
“Haven’t decided yet.” A wicked eyebrow rose.
Unlike me, he made no qualms about letting his eyes touch on every feature of my face then slowly sweep over my less-than-demurely dressed body.
What I wouldn’t give for a hijab right then.
I schooled my face to show nothing, not even bland interest. Just like all the times I’d been presented as just one more in a long line of the Sheikh’s female progeny.
My hand curled though.
I wanted my damn blade back.
Aris lit a cigarette and remained where he was, lounging there almost idly and blowing rings into the air.
His throat was thick with muscle.
I wondered what it would be like to taste him on my tongue like he inhaled the smoke, letting a puff billow out before the tip of his tongue touched his upper lip only to draw back.
His mere presence had a dangerous, drugging quality.
“So you like getting your kicks off at nightclubs, da?”
I hadn’t told him I knew Russian. Greek and English too. He hadn’t asked.
We’d exchanged a few barbed words and one scarily sexy dance. That was the sum total of our interaction.
