For a stretch, he showed her family photos on his phone. He had a few of his father and brothers. They looked much like she remembered, just older and harsher towering specimens of manhood. But the photos were mostly of his aunt Bahiyah, his half sister, Aliyah, and his cousin, Laylah, the only three females born in their family in five generations straight. Shaheen said they were the only ones worth taking and keeping photos of, the vivacious centerpieces of their all-male family, splashes of beauty and grace and exuberance among the range of darkness and drive of what the ladies called their testosterone-compromised relatives.
Aliyah, who was three years older than Johara and who’d seldom been around in the eight years Johara had lived in the palace, had been thought to be King Atef’s niece. It was only two years ago that it had been revealed that Princess Bahiyah had adopted her and passed her off as hers from her American husband, when she was actually the king’s daughter from an American lover. Instead of causing a scandal, the discovery had aborted the looming wars in the region when Aliyah entered a political marriage with the new king of Judar, Kamal Aal Masood.
Aliyah looked nothing like the sallow, spaced-out girl she remembered. In fact, she looked the epitome of femininity and elegance. And bliss. It was apparent her forced marriage to Kamal had become a love match. Like Shaheen’s impending marriage would no doubt become. For what woman wouldn’t worship him?
She blinked away the mist of dejection and concentrated on Laylah’s photos. The twelve-year old girl she’d been when Johara had last seen her had fulfilled all the promise she’d shown of becoming a spectacular beauty. Johara had never had a chance to really know her, since Laylah’s mother, Queen Sondoss’s sister, had never let her mingle with the help, as Aram had put it.
Shaheen said Laylah was one of three reasons he forgave his stepmother for existing, since she’d married her sister to his uncle, the other two being his half brothers, Haidar and Jalal. He also said that the ladies reveled in giving their male family members—especially Shaheen and his brothers—a view of a life that didn’t have to bend to their wishes. Because of that, along with many other things he could see they shared with Johara, he was certain they would set the palace on fire getting along.
Everything he said alluded to his taking it for granted that her presence in his life would continue beyond tonight. But he must know there was no chance of that.
Yet not only had he already secured her surrender, so he had no reason to say anything more to encourage it, he seemed to believe in what he was saying, to have forgotten the marriage of state he’d announced his intention to enter only four days ago.
She guessed that the marriage was what had been weighing so heavily on him when she’d first seen him. He was loathe to succumb to duty. But it seemed to have slipped his mind since he’d seen her.
She wouldn’t remind him. They’d both remember harsh reality soon enough, live with it for the rest of their lives.
Tonight was theirs.
So here she was, standing in the middle of his extensive, austerely masculine foyer, watching him as he hung his jacket and her wrap with tranquil, precise movements.
Why was he wasting their precious time together?
She might not have known what to expect, but she’d thought he’d escalate the urgency he’d shown so far. She’d had visions of him carrying her to the limo, drowning her in kisses all the way here, pressing her against the door the moment they entered and showing her how eager for her he was.
Had he remembered his commitments and decided to cool things off, let her down easy?
She should spare him the discomfort, should leave. She shouldn’t have come at all, shouldn’t have said yes, shouldn’t have gone to that party…
Something whirred, flashed. She blinked in surprise, her left eye riddled in blue spots.
He’d snapped a photo of her with his phone. Now he walked toward her, big and lithe, gloriously male and impossibly beautiful. But it was his expression that made her sway, sending her heart swinging in her chest like a pendulum.
The lightness of the trek here was gone, sizzling sensuality replacing it, setting his eyes deeper on fire and his charisma to a higher level.
He stopped a foot away, reached for the hands he seemed so enamored with. “You looked so…pensive. And if possible, even more breathtaking. This photo is the stuff of the immortal masterpieces the old masters would have begged to portray.” He took her hands to his lips, giving each finger a knuckle-by-knuckle introduction to the cosseting of his lips, his eyes empty of all but seriousness. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“No.” The denial shot out of her, its fierceness mortifying her as it rang around them. But she had to know. “A-are you?”
He huffed. “The only thoughts I’m having are where to begin worshipping you and how to stop from swallowing you whole.”
So that was why he was holding back. He feared being too aggressive. She was being insecure again.
But who could blame her? All through the years, her love for him had been emotional, spiritual, with slight sensual overtones. She’d never imagined he could actually want her, and when she’d fantasized that he did, even in the freedom of her own imagination, he’d done no more than hold and kiss her. Yet she couldn’t breathe with wanting all he was willing to give her, with needing to experience him to the fullest.
She swayed closer, her heartbeats merging like the wings of a hummingbird with the enormity of what she was feeling, what she was about to reveal. “B-begin anywhere, Shaheen. J-just begin. And don’t stop your self. I don’t want you to stop.”
His eyes flared with her every faltering word. When she fell into embarrassed, panting silence, he entwined her hands in his, brought them to her face, twisting their embrace around so the backs of his hands stroked up and down her flaming cheeks.
“Then I’ll begin here. Your skin. It’s incredible, like every part of you. Lush, thick cream, free of paleness and fragility. It doesn’t flush with your emotions, no matter how strong, only becomes more vital, more vivid. It’s glowing now. Your eyes are gleaming like polished onyxes under spotlights, inundating me with an avalanche of expressions, each intoxicating in its clarity and beauty. And your lips. The way they mold to your every thought, the way they take the shape of your every emotion, the way they tremble to the frequency of each sensation…each tremor shudders through me until I am nothing but uncontainable hunger.”