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Yana’s ice-queen act was rattling things he didn’t want to delve into. It was time to take not quite a sledgehammer to it, because Yana was far more fragile than he had ever thought her, and not just in body. The most shocking thing, however, was this...strange energy between them. He understood now how much of her natural passionate nature went into hating him. And hating, he knew from his own experience from his marriage to Jacqueline, was not apathy.
He relaxed into the lounger while Yana took her own swim. Let the bright afternoon sun soak into his skin.
When was the last time he had taken a moment for himself like this? The last time he had found this pleasurable fizz run through all of him at the mere idea of a conversation with a woman?
In a smooth, single movement, Yana pulled herself out of the pool. Water glistened over golden-brown skin in shimmering drips, licking at toned muscles and lush valleys and hollowed dips that he wanted to chase with his own tongue.
Yana walked past him, as if he was no more than one of the statues littered around the estate.
Nasir wondered what his life might have been like if he hadn’t dictated her life from afar, deciding rights and wrongs for her, and he’d never quite loathed himself more than he did then.
And like a statue brought to life by a sorceress’s hand, he suddenly felt all these things he had shut off long ago, when Fatima, the woman he should’ve protected with his life, had died in his arms.
If she was disconcerted by the fact that he was waiting for her by the pool in the middle of the day when they hadn’t even made eye contact for more than two weeks, Yana didn’t show it by the flicker of an eyelid. Having toweled herself down briskly, she grabbed a tube of sunscreen and began to apply it to her belly and legs liberally.
Nasir saw all of this out of his periphery, and it was as if she had stripped naked in front of him. Just for him.
The shimmery white gel soaked into her skin like magic dust, not that she needed it. Slightly angling her torso, she lifted her bikini top and took her breasts in her bare hands with a brisk efficiency that came from parading in front of strangers with a power only a few could own. Once the bikini top was back in place, she reached around her back, twisting herself like a gymnast.
He stood up and grabbed the tube of sunscreen. “Let me help.”
She didn’t even look up.Ice queen indeed.“I can manage, thank you.”
He was damned if he walked away now. “Right, it makes you uncomfortable if I touch you. Forgive me.”
The slender line of her shoulders stiffened. He’d have missed it if he wasn’t entirely too fascinated by her body language. Tension drew a line down her back and spine, giving him a map to her emotions.
“And why would I be uncomfortable if you touched me casually?”
“I wondered that, too.” He managed a shrug, somehow keeping his lips from twitching. “But it’s a fair assumption based on how you keep jerking away from me.”
She snorted and somehow even that was elegant, too. “My body is a tool. I’ve sold clothes, shoes, hairstyles, cosmetics, jeans and most of all, sex. I’ve had hundreds of photographers and designers and camera boys and tailors maul me about like I was a mannequin.”
Nasir wished he could see her face, the bloom of pink on her cheeks, the little sparks that made her brown eyes glitter when she was aroused. Take her in as she was right now, instead of the icy wraith that had been walking through his castle recently.
But he forced himself to stand there, just a little behind her.
After exactly thirty seconds, she looked up at him. Determination written into every line of that achingly lovely face, she nodded at the plastic tube he was holding. He dropped to his knees by her thigh.
Awareness jolted into him at the aching beauty of her up close. Like an exquisite painting that bestowed some new boon every time he looked upon it.
Chin tilted up defiantly, she presented him with her back. He pushed up the messy tendrils from the nape of her neck, while tugging at the two fragile strings holding the bikini top there with the other. And then the one below.
Her forearms rose to hold the loose top in place, thrusting those perfect breasts into a cleavage that he could unwittingly see perfectly from his vantage point. He didn’t know if he should feel like a voyeur or be glad that his libido was back with vengeance. Shuttling those thoughts aside, he poured the sunscreen liberally into his palms and began to rub it down her back.
Smooth golden skin and toned muscles under his palms—he shouldn’t have felt such sensual, sensory pleasure in the simple action, and yet Nasir could feel himself getting harder by the second. The contact was innocent and nonsexual, and yet heat seem to arc between his fingers and her flesh, something he could tell she tried her best to hide, but failed.
“As long as I have your attention,” she started, and Nasir smiled, because he knew she was trying to distract herself. Was it all simply want on his part and hate on hers? Or was there more?
“If I had known you were looking for my attention, I would’ve insisted that you stay on for dinner after Zara goes to bed.”
She shivered under his hands. “I’m taking the evening off.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
On an upward sweep of his hands, he found tight knots at her shoulders. “For what?”
