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“Come,habibi. Let me walk you to your bedroom.”
Those long lashes fluttered as she looked around herself like a baby fawn. As if she didn’t know where she was. And still, in that state of near comatose bliss, her body leaned into him, gifting him with a trust Nasir didn’t deserve but was selfish enough to revel in anyway. Just watching her climax with that reckless abandon was more sensuous than any carnal act.
After several long beats, she rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth and looked up at him. For a split second, he saw a strange kind of longing for him that he’d once seen in another woman. A woman he’d failed to protect despite her absolute trust in him.
Drowning in the madness that Yana effortlessly weaved over him, it was quite possible he was imagining things he had no right to imagine, much less should, if he had any sense. He’d never meant for his dare to get this far, either.
His body was strumming with unsatisfied desire, Yana was looking at him as if he was the answer to every dark desire she’d ever had, and he simply gave in to the sheer sensuous luxury of the moment.
“You’re good,” she said with a smile that stretched her lips.
He was struck by a tenderness he hadn’t felt in so long, that he’d thought parts of himself had petrified out in that war zone years ago.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, tugging the sides of her sliced open dress together, but she slapped his hands away.
“The last thing I want to do right now,” she said with a sudden sharp clarity to her words, “is walk through the castle like this, let everyone see you’ve dismissed me yet again and advertise my walk of shame.”
Irritation he should have mastered colored his tone as he brusquely said, “We’re two consenting adults. There is no shame here, Yana.”
Her feathery brows came together in a bow. “I thought the same thing a long time ago.”
“Yana—”
“If there’s no shame in this, then why are you so intent on walking me back to my room?”
She was such a mix of calculation and vulnerability, a complex puzzle he’d never stop delighting in. But, he had to remind himself, she wasn’t his to delight in. Come tomorrow morning, in the clarity of daylight, she might even regret this moment of madness and freeze him out.
Wasn’t that the best idea, though, seeing as they could have nothing more than this one night? There was no future for them; he should make that clear to her, as he had no intention of committing to a third woman and having it go wrong again as it inevitably would. And yet, he had no taste for fracturing the satiated smile on her lips just yet. Or was he thinking with his ego again, imagining she wanted some kind of future with him? What if all Yana wanted was to get this madness out of their systems? Would one night be enough for her? With all their misunderstandings—mostly on his part—cleared up now, and with her place in Zara’s life permanent, couldn’t they just be two consenting adults with sizzling chemistry? Or was that him thinking with his painfully hard erection again?
“You have to know—”
She leaned up and claimed his mouth with a possessive hunger that decimated the little honor he had left that he was trying to keep. On and on, the kiss went, with her nipping at him, licking him, then running away and having him give chase.
“Why do we have to leave when we aren’t finished yet?” Leaning back against the chaise, she giggled. Contrary to that light laughter, her gaze swept over him leisurely, full of desire and need and unabashed lust. She scraped a long nail over his Adam’s apple, and down his chest, running down each scar on his chest as if it were a map to some long-lost treasure.
“Unless it’s because you’re an old man and can only ‘do it—’” she used quotes as if anybody could misunderstand her right then “—missionary style on the bed?”
He arrested her fingers when they fluttered near the zip of his trousers. “You’re mad,” he said, bringing her hand to his mouth and placing a kiss at the center of her palm.
She shrugged it off. That thread of irritation flickered again as it dawned on him why she did that. She didn’t want tenderness from him. Only sexual touch was welcomed—an arrangement that should’ve suited him just fine given where his thoughts had been moments ago. And yet, that thorn was under his skin again. Although he was getting used to that, too, that painful, stringent awareness, like new skin on an old wound. Like he’d never be sure of his own desires and thoughts when it came to her.
“I feel drunk. That’s the first time I—”
He stilled.
She peered at him from under her lashes, something calculating flashing across that stunning gaze.
He cupped her cheek, a sudden urgency driving him. “What?”
She leaned into his touch as if his fingers weren’t circling her neck with a possessiveness he could not control. “The first time I felt that kind of pleasure with a partner. Usually, I need my—” that cute little frown appeared between her brows again “—tools.”
Awkwardness dawned at that strange word, and she shrugged. Something wasn’t adding up. Under his continued scrutiny, color stole into her cheeks, dusting them a pretty pink.
“I meant my battery-operated devices.” She rolled her eyes, as if he was being thick on purpose.
And then in a move that was clearly supposed to distract him, which it did successfully, she dragged a finger over the outside of his trousers, tracing the shape of his shaft. His erection leaped under her touch. When he went to arrest her fingers, she kissed his chin.
Eyes wide and soulful and full of longing studied him. “Now who’s intent on shutting this down? Or are we still only dancing to your demands?” She pouted, to hide the very real emotion in her words. “Have you solved the puzzle that you labeled me? Is your fascination with me over now because I’ve thrown myself at you the moment you beckoned?”
