them gleam like jewels in the semidarkness. Then tears surged again, dejection replacing agitation in her expression. “Not that that makes me feel any better.” It didn’t? “The paparazzi probably saw far less than your men did.”
It took him a second to understand. She thought his men had witnessed all their intimacies in the gardens.
His outrage felt real even to himself when he growled, “You think I would have almost taken you if my men were all around?”
She blinked, tears receding, if not before two escaped, rolled down the velvet of her cheek. “They weren’t?”
“B’Ellahi…” He caught the drops of precious moisture in his mouth, kissed his way to her trembling lips again. “Of course not. I buzzed for them the moment the paparazzi appeared.” Which was as near the truth as could be.
This time she sagged in his arms, an exhalation wracking her voluptuous frame. “Thank God. I was mortified thinking they must have seen it all, how it must have looked to them even though it felt like magic to me…”
This was what had so upset her so much? The thought that others had witnessed their lovemaking, defiling the moments of magic with base thoughts and sordid projections?
Not knowing what to think anymore, he pressed her harder to his chest. She surrendered to his caresses for a long moment, then she stiffened by degrees, until she pushed out of his arms, sat up facing him in the prim pose of someone about to deliver an unpleasant message to a total stranger. It was her transparent features that betrayed her real emotions. Embarrassment, awkwardness, hesitation.
“We may have shaken them off, but now that you’ve deprived them of prime scandal material, they’ll be more rabid than ever. They’ll be waiting for us back at my place.” She suddenly groaned. “Listen, just drop me off at any hotel. I’ll spend the night there, then they can photograph me alone to their hearts’ content when I return tomorrow after work.”
So, the maneuver hadn’t led where he’d projected, was now backfiring. He had to improvise a course correction.
He took her hands to his lips slowly, made sure he had her trembling in his power again before he said, “I have a better idea. The night is still young and we can stall them until they believe you won’t go back. Have dinner with me.”
Her hand convulsed around the kiss he placed in her palm, her fingers digging in his jaw. He’d kept his eyes on hers all the time, watched as she capitulated under the surge of eagerness for more of him. He still waited until she gasped, nodded her consent. Then he opened the channel to his chauffeur again.
“Seeda. To the airport.”
“The airport?”
At her croak, Shehab smiled at her, slow and hot. “We’re going to have dinner on board my jet.”
Of course. Had she thought—if she could still count thinking among her brain functions anymore—that he’d take her to a restaurant, no matter how lavish, or even a yacht or a mansion, as any ordinary tycoon would have done?
He pulled her into a loose embrace and held her all the way to the airport, his hands cascading caresses all over her until she felt he’d scrambled her nervous transmissions forever.
The limo finally stopped and he got out, came around to open her door for her and almost had to carry her limp form out.
She looked dazedly around, realized they were beneath a giant silver-finished jetliner. The warm moisture of the night after the cool dryness of the limo sprouted goose bumps all over her, adding to her imbalance. She was thankful for his support all the way up the Air Force One–style air-stairs that led from the tarmac to the inside of the jet.
She’d been on private jets before. But none had come close to Shehab’s. Her father had been a mere multimillionaire who’d had two small jets, and his acquaintances had been on par with him. While Bill, who was as big a multi-billionaire as they came, had started out penniless and to this day couldn’t bring himself to spend a penny more than needed to fulfill his needs in terms of function and convenience. It was clear Shehab believed in fulfilling those same needs but spared no expense in pursuit of esthetics and luxury. She said so.
He smiled down at her. “I spend a good deal of my life in the air, and I travel with staff on many occasions. Also, I often don’t have the luxury of commuting into the cities I land in and have to conclude all my conferencing and entertaining onboard.”
“So you have to have a palace in the sky to do it in, huh?”
He raised one eyebrow. “That’s a strange chastisement coming from someone who inhabits the world of high finance.”
“Oh, I certainly don’t inhabit it. According to whichever of my skills is needed on a given day, I range between being the tarot card reader, the resident nag, the cleaning lady and the…uh…guide dog of the world of high finance.”
He tipped his head back and his laughter boomed, sending her heartbeats scattering all over the jet’s lush carpeting.
“Ya Ullah, will I ever even come close to guessing what you’ll say next?” He still chuckled as he led her through many compartments, where his staff hovered in the background, to the spiral staircase leading to the upper deck, all the time casting his enjoyment down on her. “So you consider this jet too pretentious? A waste of money better spent on worthy causes?”
Her lips twisted. “I think any personal item with a telephone number price is ludicrous.”
“Not when it’s a utility that enables me to steadily make hundreds of millions of dollars more, money I assure you I use in many venues that do serve worthy causes.”
Her eyes widened. “I remember now. Many of the global interests you have controlling shares in have varied, not to mention widely effective, aid programs. When I investigated your investment portfolio, I thought to myself, that Aal Ajman guy is trying to build himself a reputation as a philanthropist on par with Bruce Wayne…” She stopped when his laughter boomed again, then mumbled, “It’s a relief you’re invulnerable to the shrapnel that keeps flying out of my mouth.”
“Like Clark Kent, you mean? Very flattering, being likened to two superheroes inside two sentences.”
“I did think earlier you’d fill out one of their costumes very nicely…” She groaned, looked up at him helplessly.
His eyes told her how much he enjoyed her uncensored opinions, then his lips brushed her burning cheek. “I am beyond flattered. I want to be a superhero in your eyes, ya jameelati.”
Only reaching the upper deck stopped her from saying he was. He walked her across an ultrachic foyer and through an automatic door that he opened using a fingerprint recognition module. It whirred shut behind them as he guided her to one of the cream leather couches. She hit the plush surface, looked around the grand lounge drenched in golden lights, earth tones and the serenity of sumptuousness and seclusion. At the far end of the huge space that occupied the full breadth of the jet, a folding screen decorated in Middle Eastern designs of complimenting colors obscured another area behind it.
Shehab bent, brushed her temple with his lips. “This—” he gestured to a door at the other end of the lounge “—is the lavatory. Those buttons access all functions and services. Order refreshments or whatever you wish for until I come
