Married for the Sheikh's Duty(21)

When he tried to rise, she stopped him with her hands on his shoulders. Pulling in a much-needed breath, she stole her fingers under the collar of his shirt, searching for skin.

The tendons in his neck stuck out.

His skin was like rough silk, so warm that it sent a pulse of heat straight to the core of her. How would it feel if he was naked on top of her against her own bare skin, all that fierce power and passion narrowed down to her. A pulse throbbed between her thighs, bringing fresh heat to her cheeks.

The line of his shoulders was hard, tense. He said, “I see that seeing Massi has made you emotional and perhaps nostalgic, but if you provoke me tonight, I—”

Amalia leaned forward until her face was bent over his. Fingers trembling, she pushed a lock of hair that fell forward onto his forehead. Traced the strong, proud planes of his face. The sharp hiss of his breath was the only sound. “Among those women Ms. Young sent you that day, did you pick one?”

Warning glittered in his dark eyes. “That’s the last thing I want to talk about right now.”

Her fingers crept under his collar again, roaming and searching, her body articulating her need before her mind could. “No, I want to know.” She tried to speak past the closing of her throat. “Is there a candidate in your mind, one you decided will suit you perfectly once you dispose of me and my...situation.”

“No,” he said, his fingers pushing through his hair in a restless gesture she’d never seen in him. Their fingers tangled and laced, his grip fierce. “Even for the schedule I have, I cannot just dump you and go to the next woman on the list. Right now all I care about is making sure you... Mirah weds Farid. After that...” His mouth twitched as if they were co-conspirators. “Your blackmail scheme bought me a little time. I am sure even my staunchest opponent in the cabinet and conservatives in Sintar would not expect that I marry soon after one engagement is broken.”

Her breath left her in a soft exhale. As long as he hadn’t given a woman a role in his life, he was hers.

And she would make most of this time with the man she loved, this opportunity at hand. She would not waste her life like her mom had done.

Anticipation and excitement twined together inside her, making her voice husky, uneven. “Zayn, will you make love to me?”





CHAPTER NINE

WILL YOU MAKE love to me?

Even as he stood under the cold shower jets, Zayn couldn’t get those words out of his mind, nor get his X-rated thoughts and body to cool off.

It was the last thing he’d expected Amalia to say tonight. A taunt on his lips, he’d looked up and read the resolve in her eyes.

She wanted him.

All his life, he had surrounded himself with brazen, sophisticated women who wanted sex and mutual pleasure or women like his third PA and the candidates sent over by Ms. Young, who only saw the glitter and power of his position in the world.

Amalia fell into neither camp and yet, to both. From the time he could understand the world he’d been told that he was the prince, the future sheikh, not just Zayn. Never just Zayn.

And yet he felt different, both and neither when held by her alluring gaze, when she glared at him or argued with him even.

With a gritted jaw, he realized she might not be truly innocent, but it was clear that she was inexperienced. A woman he’d begun to understand and admire. A woman he couldn’t blithely seduce and walk away from when the curtain fell on their charade.

Damn it, she had looked crushed when he’d claimed he needed a shower and left the room without acknowledging her question. As if it wasn’t the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life—to walk away from the lush temptation she presented.

He stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry.

Sharing the suite with Amalia for the duration of their stay in Paris seemed to be the worst idea he had ever had. Right in line with choosing to keep her close by parading her as his fiancée.

Knowing that she was in the next room, probably freshly showered like he was...just the passing thought sent a flurry of images through his overheated mind.

Her silky skin would be soft and damp, the towel sticking to those pouty breasts that had finally been displayed in their full glory in that dress tonight. Her long, toned legs would be bare under the towel, would be perfect wrapped around his waist as he...

Gritting his jaw, he wrapped the towel against his hips and walked out into his bedroom. The Paris skyline was a feast outside the French windows but tonight he drew no pleasure from it.

The jar of the door behind him made every muscle curl with heat and want.

He turned to find her leaning against the closed door. Her hands hung limply by her sides. A fine tension seemed to resonate from her but it was her face that arrested him.

Her face was free of even the little makeup she had worn earlier. Hair tied up in that ponytail again, pulled tautly from her forehead. She wore a knee-length robe tightly cinched at her waist.

And just as he guessed, her legs went on and on under the hem, tanned and shapely in the moonlight. Seeing a woman’s bare legs for the first time had never been such an intimate act. A small gold chain hung at her neck where her pulse pounded violently, quite like his heart inside his chest.

“You’re probably used to and expect all sorts of flimsy, sheer stuff—” pink scoured her cheeks here “—but I don’t have any...sex clothes,” she finished, and absurdly, he wanted to laugh.

She didn’t wait for his answer, either. Pushing away from the door, she glanced around the room. On every third breath of his, her gaze focused back on him and then skittered away quite without landing. She halted when she came to the middle of the room, her bare toes pressing into the thick carpet.

“Amalia, I did not—”

“Lisa...the stylist, did ask me if I wanted to look at some lingerie and nightgowns, too, and I was like, dude...the last thing I’m going to do on this trip is have sex and she gave me this strange look, I mean, I didn’t actually say it...anyway, so I only chose a couple of cute pajama sets.”

She undid the sash of her silky robe and shrugged her shoulders to let it slide off.

The robe pooled at her feet and Zayn’s breath slammed into his throat.

Somehow he possessed enough wits still to say, “I would not call that attire cute.”

She scrunched her nose and he had the most overwhelming urge to kiss the stubborn tip of it. He had been seduced before, yes, but it had been a game he had willingly played.

This...whatever it was that Amalia was doing, it disarmed him on more levels than he could fathom. Resolve and innocence played in her every word, every action. Never had a woman beguiled him so thoroughly...

Navy blue silk top with thin straps bared pale skin and fluttered against her breasts. His mouth dry, he watched as her nipples pointed against the silk. He would tongue them and suck them into his mouth; he would make sure she’d never forget about him. The top left a strip of flesh at her midriff bare while her shorts barely covered her toned thighs.

He cleared his throat, his blood rushing sluggishly through every nerve ending now. “I cannot offer you anything beyond the next couple of months.” Hands fisted by his sides, he saw that made no dent in the resolve in her eyes. His will against hers—tonight, Zayn realized, he was going to lose. “It is why I have been trying my best to not indulge in all the fantasies I have of you every night.”

She swallowed and nodded. Every second seemed to stretch between them while his heart pounded. “You’ve had fantasies about me?” An edge of complaint crept into her tone. “All these days, I’ve been wondering, going crazy...”

“I did not think—” his skin felt tightly stretched over his hungry muscles “—it a good idea for you to know the power you could have over me.”

Her face fell. “That’s what this will be, too, between us, Zayn? A power struggle? An agreement?”

“No, but why tonight, Amalia? I will not be a replacement for another man.”

Her head jerked up, and the breath bated in his throat. “I don’t want Massi. I’ve never felt this way about him or any other man.” The flutter of a breeze played with the hem of her top, giving him a peek of silky soft flesh and the cute indentation of her navel. Every silky inch of her—he would learn it, lick it, know it. “You were right. I have to start living my own life now and this...you and I, this is what I want.”

The urge to fasten his mouth at the pulse on her neck and taste the small drop of water clinging there rode him hard. She licked that pillowy lower lip and all the blood in his body fled south. “Yet, your gaze will not land on me.”

Finally, she met his gaze. Resolve laced with naked desire in her eyes razed the last bit of reason from his mind. “Put your hair down,” he demanded in a rough tone, a sense of defeat in his veins making his voice harsh.

Was it defeat just because he was indulging himself? Because the lines between his private and public life were blurring?

He’d been given a respite from the marriage he had to make, so why not take it? Why shouldn’t he, for once in his life, have a meaningful, if brief, relationship with a woman he admired? A woman who incited more than just lust in him?

“What?” she asked, face blazing, long lashes barely revealing her expression.