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“You fainted, Yana,” he said, gritting his teeth again. “And didn’t respond for three and a half minutes.”
Even the obvious fright in his tone had no effect on her.
“It’s been a horrible few weeks. No, months. Seeing you just made it worse. I told you but you didn’t listen.”
When she wobbled, Nasir caught her at the waist. She fell into him with a soft thud, a quiet, enraged growl escaping her mouth. He felt her anger, her grief, her resignation, as if they were his own. Felt the force of her aversion to him.
“I hate you,” she whispered, almost to herself. “I hate that you’re the one who found me when I’m at my lowest.”
Nasir let them wash over him, hoping the venom and rage in her words would dilute his own awareness. Her face close to his, her warm breath feathered over his jaw. Then there was the prick of her fingernails into his forearm. The wildcat was doing that on purpose and yet, the sensation only made his arousal sharper.
This was how it would be every minute between them—she cursing at him and he...would be in a constant state of arousal. It was funny, really, how they’d come full circle. She loathed him now and he couldn’t be near her without his body betraying him like a damned teenager.
For a man who’d seen that heaven and hell could exist side by side on this very earth, maybe this was just punishment for his cruelty toward her. When she’d been nineteen and had needed firm handling and kind words and not his blistering wrath. When she’d been his bride’s maid of honor at their wedding, Jacki’s nurse at her bedside, a grief-stricken best friend with his child sobbing in her arms.
For a second he indulged the idea of telling her what her nearness did to him. Of shocking her as she constantly did him.
Would she be disgusted by his near-constant desire for her? Would she call him a roaring hypocrite as he deserved? Or would she simply count him as one among the scores of lecherous men that hit on her?
Slowly, feeling as if he’d run a marathon with no victory at the end, he tugged the neckline of her jacket higher.
“Can you please stop manhandling me? I’m all sweaty and gross. And why the hell did you cut open my top?”
“You were hyperventilating even before you fainted.” He’d thanked the dim lighting of the lounge as the leather of her corset top had splayed open under the sharpness of his penknife. He didn’t need more pictures of her naked perfection in his head. “That damned thing was so tight it’s a miracle you could breathe.”
Earlier she’d been too cold. Now her skin was warm as he held her up. The indent of her tiny waist, the slight flare of her hips, the jut of her hip bone, the smooth warmth of her skin...everything about her was fragile in his fingers.
“Let me go,” she demanded.
“You’ll kiss the floor the second I do,” he said, holding himself rigid and stiff. Even with the aroma of cigar and the leather of the nightclub clinging to her, she smelled good.
It had been too long since he’d held a woman like this. Since he’d had sex. Since he’d worked out the pent-up frustrations of his body instead of engaging his mind.
Learning of Jacqueline’s affairs had put him off relationships. Swiping left or right or whatever the hell side he was supposed to, casual dating or sex with strangers...he hadn’t been fond of it in his twenties. At forty-two, the very idea of taking some strange woman to his bed made him want to hurl. And yet, every inch of his body was buzzing with an electric hum now.
Ironic that the one woman who made him react this way at the most innocent of contacts was someone he could never have. Even for a casual fling.
“Escort me to a cab, then.”
“No.”
“Have Ahmed drive me home, then.”
“No. And for God’s sake, stop arguing with me just for the heck of it.”
“Or what?” she said, thrusting her face into his with a belligerence that got his blood pumping.
“Don’t push me, Yana. We’ll go to my hotel suite, where you’ll eat, sleep for however many hours your body needs and then, in the morning, we’ll finish our discussion.”
“I don’t want to spend another minute around you.” She stepped back from him, palms raised. “If I have a heart attack next, it will all be your fault, Nasir.”
He’d had enough. “You can screech and scream like a banshee for all I care. I’m not letting you out of my sight anytime soon.”
Without batting an eyelid, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, fireman style. God, she weighed so little that he didn’t even breathe hard, though it had been a while since his job demanded something so physical.
To his eternal surprise, she fell quiet. And he knew it was because she was on the last reserves of her energy. The chocolate bar would only prop her up for a while. Her quiet resignation rid him of any guilt that he was railroading her when she was feeling this weak.
She needed looking after as much as his five-year-old did, at least for a little while. Resolve renewed, he forged through the screaming throes of the nightclub.
