Once they were away from the royal quarters, he opened the first door he found and pulled her into the chamber’s darkness, lifting her off the ground, already kissing her.
Her gasp filled him as her lips opened beneath his. Tasting the tart sweetness of berry sauce on her tongue, he groaned, plunging deeper, seeking more of her taste, demanding her surrender. For long minutes, she gave it to him as he pressed her against the door, opening her thighs around his hips and grinding at her core through their clothes, simulating the possession he was going insane for.
“Jala, habibati...”
She suddenly lurched and pushed at him.
Putting her back on her feet, he twisted a hand in the luxury of her hair, able to see her now that his sight had adapted to the faint lights coming from the windows. “Let me love you, ya jalati. Stop pushing me away. Let me close again. I know you want me as much as I want you.”
Her breasts still heaved against his chest, her body arched involuntarily into his even when her words rejected him. “I don’t care what I want. This isn’t what I agreed to.”
“Then agree to this now. To giving us another chance.”
“No. I don’t want another chance. I want to play my part until we’re sure your uncle will sign the treaties, then I want to leave. This is what I want to do. What I need to do.”
The desperation in her voice struck him in his vitals, made him stagger away.
And because he had admitted to himself that he loved her, only wanted her to be happy whatever the cost to him, he couldn’t pursue his seduction anymore. Not if, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, it distressed her that much. It might kill him to let her go, but he’d rather die than hurt her.
His shoulders slumped with defeat. “My uncle is sending you a set from the royal treasury. It’s his way of saying the peace treaty is as good as signed.”
After a long moment of staring at him, she whispered, “That’s great. I mean, that you think he’d sign, not about the jewels.”
He waved her qualification away. He knew she cared nothing about material things, and not because she had plenty of them. She made no use of her status in any way, not for herself. She used all her privileges to serve the world.
“I have the drafts of the treaties ready, and after Kamal approves them, I’ll present my uncle with them. My package for Saraya is very generous, but as you believe, he wouldn’t have felt secure enough or irreversibly connected to Judar without a union of blood. Which he now believes he’ll have, thanks to your cooperation. I don’t expect he’ll pose any further threat to peace.”
Her eyes wavered. This had clearly come out of left field for her. She’d expected him to continue his pursuit, his seduction. And here he was telling her there was no longer any reason for her to play along at all.
He exhaled roughly. “I had my chance with you, and I blew it. Or maybe there was never a chance to be had with you, then or now. I will take part in all the wedding preparations, so both my uncle and Kamal believe everything is in order and on schedule. I’ll push for an early signing of the treaties, which, now that my uncle is so amenable, I expect will be soon. Once he signs, I’ll reveal the truth and absorb whatever fallout ensues, away from you. Until then, I’ll give Kamal some convincing reason for leaving the palace. I’ll go in the morning, so you don’t have to put up with seeing me again.”
Nine
Something tore Mohab from the tentacles of fitful sleep.
The heart that no exertion or danger managed to send thundering, thundered now, past the comfort zone and into distress.
It only ever beat that way for Jala.
Jala. Had something happened to...?
He shot up in bed, alarm swamping him.
“Sorry I startled you.”
Mohab felt as if he’d been hit by lightning.
Jala. Here. On his bed.
Leaning across him, body draped in white silk, silvered by the moon’s cool illumination, hair raining in sheets of solid darkness across the thighs twisted in his sheets, she looked like a night goddess, his every fantasy made flesh.
This had been the dream he’d been having. That she’d come to him. He’d felt her entering his room and...
He was still asleep!
But he felt awake. She felt real. But she couldn’t be real. She’d said no. Such an impassioned, desperate no.
So had he gone over the deep end? He’d been building up to a breakdown for years now. Was this it? He’d start wish-fulfilling wide-awake? Having delusions?
“I couldn’t stay away anymore. I couldn’t let you leave without telling you I still want you. Now more than ever.”
He was hearing those words. She was saying them. He knew because even he couldn’t imagine the way she made them sound, wouldn’t be that ambitious, that delusional as to make them such a throb of passion, such a scald of longing.
She was here. And she had said those words. Not the ones he needed, but still far more than he deserved.
I still want you. Now more than ever.
On their thousandth rotation inside of a single second, he reached out a hand to her face, still half expecting to find nothing but emptiness, for her image to dissipate.
His fingers touched the hot velvet of her cheek.
Groaning at the confirmation, he swung around to his bedside lamp. He had to see her better than the crescent moon through his open windows allowed.
With the chamber flooded in golden light, he turned to her and saw that the lace and satin nightgown and matching robe were cream, not white, the color offsetting the rich gold of her polished flesh.
Then he saw her eyes. Unlocked for him at last, letting him see inside her, see the full measure of her hunger.
Already hard beyond pain, heart trembling with disbelief still, he reached back to her, careful not to make any sudden moves, still afraid this dream might come to an end as every tortured one had in the past six years.
When he was an inch from touching her again, she did something that stopped his heart. What she’d done that night he’d first taken her to his penthouse.
She melted back on the bed, as if she couldn’t support herself anymore, threw her arms above her head, arched in surrender, a sultry moan spilling from deep rose lips.
“I want you, Mohab.”
Surging with her demand, he came over her, straddled her hips, cupping her face in trembling hands. “Aih, want me, ya habibati, atawassal elaiki—I beg you. I’m yours to want.”
“Mohab...kiss my lips, give me yours...”
She reached up and grabbed his hair. This was why he’d let it grow, because she’d once told him she wanted it longer to pull him by, to tether him closer to her on their wild rides. Now she dragged his head with it, surging up to crash her mouth against his. Her tongue delved inside him, tangling in abandon with his.