“Like I would a vampire’s, huh? Though one would be preferable to you since you’re a soul sucker. And you’re harder to banish. But I’ll rectify that oversight right now.”
He caught her arm as she strode past, felt awareness fork in his body. He gritted his teeth against the response, kept his breathing shallow so her scent—that of jasmine-scented twilights and pleasure-drenched nights—didn’t trigger full-blown arousal.
“Don’t bother. This delightful visit won’t be repeated.”
She jerked her arm free of his loose grasp. “It won’t even start. You have some nerve coming here, after what you’ve done.”
She was referring to his business clashes with Patrick, which had resulted in major losses to them both. More damage she’d caused.
He misunderstood her on purpose. “I’m not the one who dumped you and married one of your best friends, only to turn her against you.”
“You give Patrick too little credit if you think I influenced his decision to cut all business ties with you.”
“You’d influence the devil himself. And we both know Patrick had too much angel in him. He was the perfect prey for the black widow you turned out to be.”
Her eyes swept him from head to toe in disdain. “Listen, Jalal, cut the cloak-and-dagger melodrama. If you traveled across the world just to accuse me of overdosing my husband, you accomplished that with your opening statement. Don’t be redundant as well as unfeeling and overbearing. You can now go back to your sand-infested, backward region to wallow in your unearned power.”
Heat splashed in his chest. Not because her views insulted him, but because she had them at all. Disappointment only intensified his reaction to her, sent blood roaring to his loins.
His lips twisted with grim humor. “You were always a spitfire, yet you never spoke this brazenly to me.”
“You just never bothered to listen. Not that that was a privilege you reserved for me. Your Exalted Highness didn’t consider anyone worth listening to. But you’re partially right. I was once guilty of embellishing my attitude and opinion of you. I’m not the person I was anymore.”
“You’re exactly the person you always were. But now that you’re an heiress to an empire worth billions, you believe you have the luxury of showing me your true face and the clout to take me on.”
Her eyes grew ridiculing. “That’s not why I don’t have to suppress my abhorrence of you and all you stand for anymore. But since I’m not inclined to explain my reasons, thanks for coming.”
Thanks?
“I’ve been seething for two years that I didn’t let it all out when I last saw you. Thanks for giving me the chance to get it off my chest. Now, since you’ve done what you’ve come to do, and indulged your evidently long-repressed desire to call me names—”
“But that’s not what I’ve come to do.” Before she could lob back something caustic, and without willing himself to, he dragged her to him, slamming her against his now burning body. “And that’s certainly not the desire I’ve long repressed.”
A hot sound of protest escaped her. He bent, caught it in his lips. He snatched in air laden with her breath, let it storm through him, uprooting the restraints he’d long placed on his senses. He let the feel of her invade his control, tear it away. Her taste eddied in his system, hurtling him back to their nights of delirium.
“No matter what you hate about me, you always loved this.” He poured the words into her open-from-shock mouth, his lips gliding over her plump ones, pushing them farther apart, unable to wait to plunge inside her warmth and welcome. “You craved it. My touch, my hunger, my pleasures. Whatever else was pretense, this was real. Still is.”
“It isn’t …” Her words caught in her throat as soon as her lips moved against his. They trembled before they clung to his flesh.
It had always been like this. One touch had been all it took to ignite them, to start the chain reaction to the mindlessness and ecstasy of their overriding need for each other.
“Yes, Lujayn. It still is. This all-consuming need that ignites between us and only the other can satisfy.”
Her breath hitched as it mingled with his, tumbled from her on a ragged moan of arousal, as his tongue sought her concession. She gave it in a blatant seeking of her own, delighting him in her taste, her response. But at the first rub of slick flesh on flesh, a jolt of pleasure electrified both their bodies, made her start, try to escape the deepening intimacy. The move only had her teeth grazing his lips, tearing a groan from his depths, igniting her response again, her body involuntarily arching into his, their lips fusing again, sending his senses roaring for more.
He walked her back to the nearest wall, pressed against her lushness, imprinted her silent demand with his. “Tell me you have lain at night like I have, burning to have me again, take your fill of me. Tell me you have been going insane like I have. Tell me that you remembered all that we shared the moment I showed up, that even as your lips antagonized me, all you really wanted was for me to fill you, ride you, assuage the ache that maddens you.”
He raised his head, looked down at her to get her confirmation. He got it.
She still wanted him. She’d never stopped.
It showed in the burning desire and dismay in her eyes. Whatever she’d been telling herself since she’d left him, her explosive response to him had forced her to face facts.
Holding her eyes, still seeking her affirmation, he scooped her into his arms. She clung to him, gave him more proof of her consent.
His heart almost uprooted itself in his chest with relief and urgency as he almost ran with her filling his arms, her eagerness tugging him deeper into mindlessness. It was only when he lowered her onto a king-size bed that he realized that his feet had propelled him to the master suite.
He came down half on top of her, stopped her roaming hands, stretched her arms above her head, capturing her wrists in one hand. The other slid down her face, her neck, skimmed over her breasts. Then, holding her gaze clouded with feverish desire, he leaned in, capturing her lips at the same moment he snapped open her jacket.
She gasped and turned her head as if suddenly shy, making his kisses trail over the hot velvet of her cheek. At the first suckle of his lips on her earlobe, she arched up, bringing her luxurious breasts rubbing against his chest, shuddering hard at the electrifying contact, intensifying it.
He rose to let her expression guide him to his next action. She stared up at him, her eyes emitting those hypnotic bursts, her breath choppy, her nipples pushing through her bra and blouse.
Satisfaction spread at the explicitness of her response, heightened as a gasp of disappointment escaped her when he sat up. His smile placated her as he shrugged away his jacket. Then, analyzing every iota of expression in her eyes’ eloquent depths, he slowly, so slowly, unbuttoned his shirt.
His deliberateness gave her time and opportunity to take action if she didn’t want this to go further. Gave him the luxury of studying her as she watched him expose his body to her. The body she’d worshipped for four years, laid her indelible brand over every inch. He reveled in each of her nuances as hunger
