range of … particulars.”
“Gee, thanks. Just what every woman wants to hear. An inventory of her expanding assets.”
He leaned, ran a light touch down her left forearm to her ring finger, circled a nonexistent ring before sawing his finger between hers. “Expanding is an inaccurate word. Your assets have … appreciated.” He pushed a button on her seat’s armrest, swiveling it around, picked up her hand, tugged her out of her slouch, bringing her face level with his groin. “See for yourself how appreciated they are by inspecting my expanding assets.”
A second before he had her performing a hands-on assessment, she snatched her hand from his as if he’d been forcing it into an open fire, darting a look around.
He encroached closer, coming between her legs, making her feel dwarfed, dominated. “Don’t worry about accidental audience. We won’t be disturbed for anything less than an impending crash. Do get on with your reconnaissance, put your mind to rest about the efficacy of your weapons.”
She rolled her eyes, tried to resume breathing. “One more transparent double entendre and you win a food processor.”
His lips spread on a grudging smile as his legs did the same to her knees. He leaned down, his arms braced on both sides of her head, one hand weaving into her hair, pinning her head to the seat, tilting her face upward as his descended. “Don’t start a game you don’t intend to play to the end.”
She lurched as his breath lashed her lips, fresh and male and all him, the movement wrenching at her anchored hair, bringing tears stinging her eyes. His pupils flared, almost obliterating the irises, her name rumbling low in his chest. “Carmen …”
He was going to kiss her.
Every sensation of every time his heat and hunger had devoured her, deluged her with pleasure, drained her of will blossomed, a surround-memory replaying the glide of his flesh on hers, the taste of his tongue, of his vigor inciting her greed for more. Her heart stampeded, her lips, her nipples stung, every nerve discharged …
She couldn’t sit there and pant for him to kiss her.
Her fingers landed on her armrest. The seat swiveled away, taking her out of his reach.
She felt him brooding down on her bent head for a breath-depleting moments, before he exhaled, moved away.
He lowered himself in the seat beside her, swiveling it to face hers. “More games, I see.”
She huffed. “I didn’t comment before because your accusation left me speechless. What games, for God’s sake? The only act I ever pulled in my life was when I was out of my mind needing to get away before you found out I was pregnant. It was so transparent you must have laughed your head off every time you remembered it. I wouldn’t know how to play games if I wanted to. If I did, don’t you think I’d be in a better situation now?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What better situation is there? Every woman alive would kill to be in your place.”
This time the laugh that tore from her hurt. “Every woman alive would kill to have her motives, her anguish ridiculed, her character reviled, her life railroaded?”
His gaze hardened, flared before something like amusement flooded its depths, softening the edges, putting out the fire. “Any more R words? Recounting how I routed you out, ran roughshod over you then through a bit of rough-and-tumble got you to reiterate the vows that have roped you to me, ya rohi?”
The endearment, my soul, speared her with its sarcasm. Its impossibility. The rest of his wickedness had a counteractive effect, tickling her. And she couldn’t help it.
She made a face at him, stuck out her tongue. “Show off.”
He threw his head back on a surprised guffaw, his face blazing with enjoyment, turning his beauty from breathtaking to heartbreaking. She found herself smiling back at him in yet another demonstration of unabashed idiocy.
And it was as if they were back to those magical times a year and a half ago, when everything between them had been rich in rapport—to use two more R words—when they just had to say anything and the other would understand, appreciate, the desire to please as strong as the desire to pleasure or be pleasured, the smiles flowing uncensored, unfettered.
But like any illusion, the moment of communion passed. The warmth kindling his face evaporated, the mirth drained to be replaced by the coldness that had turned him into the stranger she’d left a lifetime ago.
He finally drawled, “So you claim you’re not playing games. What’s this about being nauseous then? Are you going to go on a hunger strike in protest of my alleged crimes against you?”
“I am nauseous. If you were flying into the unknown to a strange land where you knew no one, wouldn’t you be?”
His chin rose. “You know me. That’s all you’ll need.”
She shook her head at the irony. “Do I know you, Farooq? In the biblical sense, you mean? Oops, wrong faith here.”
He leveled his gaze on her, his eyes glinting with danger and a resurgence of reluctant humor. “You’d be surprised how alike all faiths are. And besides knowing me, thoroughly, in that sense, you know every other thing that counts.”
“Really? So being the crown prince of Judar now is one of the things that don’t count? I just discovered that—by accident.”
His eyes narrowed. “And the discovery disappoints you?”
She sagged further in her seat. “It staggers me. Staggers me more, to be accurate. You’re not just a prince, you’re the prince. And to think I was going to pieces contemplating what being the wife of a Middle Eastern prince entailed. Now I’m scared witless at what is expected of the crown prince’s wife. If I’m woefully unsuited for the first position, I’m disastrous for the second.”
He looked away, presenting her with the magnificence of his slashed profile. He was silent for a long moment, looking lost in thought.
Then without looking back at her, he drawled in a distant, distracted tone, “You speak Arabic. It was why you were chosen. I never thought to ask if you did. You never spoke it, but when I thought of it later, I realized you understood when my men did, when I reverted to using it in extremes of passion.”
She blinked. What was this jump in logic? And she was “chosen"? For what? But what had her heart shriveling was his indifference as he mentioned his reversion to Arabic during their intimacies. That had always sent her spiraling into mindlessness, knowing it was what had heralded his loss of control, his plunge with her into the depths of ecstasy.
When he didn’t add anything more, continued staring at nothing, she had to say something. “I do speak Arabic. If you mean that’s why I was chosen to organize your conference, it was what made me stand out, made me land such a huge opportunity. Though I’m better in the formal dialect than your colloquial Judarian—”
He cut across her aimless rambling. “You read and write it?”
Her heart dropped a beat at the sub-zero inflection in his voice. “Y-yes. Better than I speak it, actually. Pronunciation has always been a bit tricky. I’m okay I guess, but I could be better—”
