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“I need a night off.”
“Has Zara worn you out?” When she stiffened, he quickly added, “Quite the prickly thing, aren’t you? Anyone would be worn out and begging for adult company when one spends most of their waking hours endlessly running around after a five-year-old.”
He pressed his fingertips gently into one stubborn knot and heard her soft moan. The sound went straight to his groin. Thank God she couldn’t see him because at this point, he must look obscene.
“I have castle fever,” she finally said.
Somehow, he infused humor into his words when all he felt was a tsunami of inappropriate wild urges. “I thought you loved castles.”
“As a fanciful teenager, Nasir. Castles are all well and good, especially when you think a charming prince lives in them but—”
“I’m the devil. Is that it?”
“More like a beast.” Her answer was immediate.
He grabbed the bottom ends of the bikini top by reaching around to the front and almost grazed the underside of her breasts. Breath shallowing, he tied the strings at the bottom, and then took hold of the ones at the top. His fingers lingered on her neck, as he tried to keep the damp tendrils of her hair from getting into the knot. Her shoulders trembled as he touched the jut of her clavicle, marveling at how much passion was contained in such a fragile body.
Shooting to her feet all of a sudden, Yana jerked back. And he saw it then—the pink flush that shimmered under all of that golden-brown skin. And not just her cheeks or neck, but dusting the tops of her breasts. Her throat moved in a hard swallow that rippled down her chest.
“I apologize for hurting you,” he said, transfixed by the sight.
Gears turned in his head, mostly driven by the molten desire in his blood. Truth dawned and held him in thrall—she definitely wanted him.
“I’m not going to break apart because you caused a little pain.”
“But I should not cause it in the first place,” he said, coming back to himself.
Knowing one of the most beautiful women in the world wanted him was a trip all on its own. But it was also a sop to his masculine ego that had taken enough dents with a partner who’d cheated on him as if she was picking a different weekly flavor of her frou-frou coffees.
But knowing that someone like Yana—vulnerable and innocent and full of heart and fragile—wanted him...was a honey-coated thrust to his insides. “Yana, I should like to talk to you about what you said the other day.”
Grabbing a sheer white robe, she tied it at her waist with a fierce tug.
He had the most insane urge to pull those ends with his hands until she fell into him and he could burn the edge out of them both in the best way he knew.
“It’s not necessary. As I’ve proved to you over the last two weeks or so, I’m very much capable of having a polite relationship with you, Nasir. Please, let’s not dig back into the past and play the blame game again.”
“Even if it’s only so I can admit to you that I’ve been inexcusably wrong?” he slipped in.
For a second, just a second, it looked like she would give him a chance to talk. Something almost like longing flashed in her eyes.
But then she was shaking her head, and her messy bun fell apart, and long, wavy dark gold strands of hair framed her face. In that moment she looked very much like a beautiful, naive prize that had been grabbed up by the beast. He was beginning to hate that damned fairy tale.
“A friend of mine will be here to pick me up around five this evening. I’ve already prepped Zara so you don’t have to worry. She knows I’ll be back tomorrow morning by the time her Arabic lessons are done. If you’ll just inform security to let him through the electronic gates—”
“No.”
“What do you mean,no?”
“I mean my security won’t let him in.”
He turned around and started walking away. That was not the end of it, he knew. But he’d had enough of kidding himself that he didn’t want to explore this thing between Yana and him. Enough of his own lies that somehow he’d keep away from her.
Right now he simply wanted her company. Her forgiveness. Her wild laughter. Her eyes on him.
She grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him and thrust her face close to his, all warm, golden skin and exploding temper. “Is old age affecting your brain cells? Because I wasn’t asking for permission.”
He laughed.
