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“Your T-shirt is practically transparent.”
Yana’s belly did a slow, tantalizing roll. Her mouth dried up as if she’d spent hours in a desert. Which she had once for an underwear ad. But this was a delicious burn that seemed to taper off and arrow straight down to her pelvis. She tugged at the T-shirt she’d put on last night, far too exhausted to unpack properly. No bra and a thong with most of her legs bared.
In contrast to her disheveled state, Nasir was dressed in dark jeans and a white T-shirt that made his olive skin gleam. His wet hair was piled high on top, with gray streaking his temples.
But neither the casual clothes nor the gray in his hair or the fact that he looked like he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night diminished the sexual appeal of the man one bit. It was too much. Her own skin felt too tight to contain the pleasure and anticipation sparking through her.
It wasn’t just the magnetism of his good looks, though. This morning the strain around his mouth had lessened. He looked dreamy, carefree, even, approachable. And that it was because of her presence, even if only indirectly, made delight dance inside.
God, she was such a pushover, and the realization prodded her to brazen it out.
With one wriggle of her shoulders, she dislodged the throw he’d so gently wrapped around her, wishing she could shrug off the warmth of his body just as easily. Nakedness was nothing new to her. Her body, for so long, had been just a tool, another costume, that she put on to please the world. She wasn’t going to feel shy or modest about it now.
She cocked a hip and straightened her shoulders in a move she could do in her sleep. “My transparent sleepwear is not my problem.” The throw settled like a warm wrap around her cold feet. “Since you’re the one who barged in here.”
He grinned, and she had a sense of a passionate, almost violent, energy being contained in his body. “Right! The closed door means the dogs and I are forbidden to enter.”
“You’ve got it wrong. Unlike you, the dogsarewelcome. Even in my bed, Nasir,” she retorted, incapable of keeping her mouth shut.
Palm pressed to his chest, he let out an exaggerated sigh that said it was his loss.
It was such a dramatic, outrageous gesture for him to make that she laughed out loud. A pang of nostalgia ran through her. He’d been like this once—playful, witty, as ready to mock himself as he’d mocked her.
And even this felt like madness, to laugh with him like this, to see him try so hard for Zara’s sake, to see his eyes travel overherwith that devouring intensity. The near chant in her head that he was just one of millions of men who derived pleasure at the symmetry of her face, at a body she’d achieved through hours and hours in the gym and nearly starving herself at the beginning of her career, didn’t help one bit. It was impossible to see Nasir as just any man, even in her head.
“Anyway, I can’t just take your room, Nasir—”
A new voice piped up, interrupting her. “No, she can’t. It’s bad enough that we have to see her making pretty eyes at you all over again. Didn’t you learn a lesson with your wife, Nasir? Yana will only teach Zara more awful things about you.”
Yana froze, recognizing that voice. Around her, a deafening silence fell. She felt Zara’s little body tucking up against her bare leg and picked her up. Even the dogs seemed to know instinctively that they needed to be wary of Nasir’s mother.
It took all she had to bite back a hysterical laugh because she didn’t want to scare Zara. Already, she was stiff in Yana’s arms. When she saw Ahmed fluttering behind Amina, Yana walked Zara over to him. “How about a picnic as soon as we get ready, Zuzu?”
Her head tucked into the crook of Yana’s shoulder and neck, Zara gave her a doubting look. “Pwomise?”
“Yes, baby. It’s a lovely day and we’ll spend the entirety of it outside. Once you finish breakfast, grab your boots and your scrapbook, yeah? You live right in the middle of a forest. So we have to look for fairies, okay?”
“Fairies!” Zara beamed. “Don’t be late, Yana Auntie,” Zara said, leaning across into Ahmed’s arms. No one could miss the worried frown wreathing her forehead when she cast a glance at her grandmother.
Another thought struck Yana and she rounded on Nasir as soon as Zara was out of earshot. “You’ve got Zara stuck here, miles away from civilization, with onlyyour motherfor company? She hated Jacqueline even more than she hates me, Nasir. Is it wise to expose Zara to her brand of cutting honesty?”
“I’d never hurt Zara by showing my dislike for her mother,” Amina spoke up.
“And yet, here you are, pouring vitriol in my face the first morning I’m here.” Yana’s voice shook. “Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you can’t see that Zara can sense your feelings?”
Refusing to give Amina another chance to attack her, Yana closed the massive doors to the bedroom right in her face and pressed her back to it. Now she knew what Nasir had meant when he’d said they’d have chaperones galore.
If it was possible that there was a person who hated her more than Nasir did, it was his mother. The woman who blamed Yana’s mother, probably justly so, for destroying her marriage. The woman who loathed Yana for beingthat woman’sdaughter and the one who’d made up a fake kiss from her son.
To trap him just like her mother had trapped his father.
Yana grabbed her bag from the closet and turned to Nasir. “Please book a hotel suite for Zara and me.”
“No.”
“I’m not staying here withher.”
“Yana, listen to me.”
