Pregnant by the Sheikh(19)

Everything she was explained why she’d hit him that hard. The infallible instincts that had steered him throughout a nightmarish existence, had made him not only survive but triumph over everything and everyone, had recognized her. She had been made to understand him, to withstand him, to appreciate the monster inside him when it sent everyone else cowering.

Rationing his response had ceased to be an option.

He would have taken her, and she would have let him if not for the interruption. Now frustration ate through him. Not that having her would have quenched this blazing need. It would have only left him hungrier for her. He’d never known such ferocious desire existed, or that he of all people could be victim to it. But everything with her had been the most exhilarating thing that had ever happened to him. The attraction that had arced between them had been the most invigorating thing he’d ever experienced.

It was also the most dangerous.

It had messed up his fine-tuned conquering methods, pulverized his impregnable rules. It had reduced him to a reactive, starving man who didn’t follow plans and didn’t have brakes. He’d never once considered the possibility that he wouldn’t get everything he wanted. He’d always gotten his every planned result because he’d never cared what anyone thought of him. People had always been most welcome to hate or despise him as long as they bowed to him. How they bowed had never been a concern. In fact, he’d always preferred to force them to their knees.

But he couldn’t afford—no, couldn’t contemplate—that Jenan would feel any aversion, or even reluctance toward him. He had to have her early eagerness back. He had to have that total trust and admiration lighting up her face again.

He had to have her.

And to think he’d come tonight bent on systematically seducing Khalil Aal Ghamdi’s daughter to obtain his vital heir. But what he’d planned in cold blood had turned into a consuming need. Now instead of gritting his teeth and mating with a woman he’d been certain wouldn’t arouse his most basic urge, he would burn in the raging flames of his desire for Jenan. If their brief time of delirium was anything to go by, he was in for the untold pleasure he’d promised her. More. He was in for the first true pleasure of his life.

If only Antonio hadn’t called when he had. He would have been inside her now, taking her to the first peak of many. But it was a paramount rule of the Black Castle brotherhood, a rule he’d made, to immediately respond to any communication from a brother. With their lethal pasts and perilous presents, no one knew when it might be a matter of life or death.

But Antonio hadn’t been in danger. For some reason he didn’t give a damn about, he’d picked then of all times to recommend a few more hypnotherapy sessions for Numair.

Cursing vehemently, he reached for his phone, then paused. Though Antonio had called him barely half an hour ago, he could now be asleep.

Once their brotherhood’s field surgeon in their years as the slaves of The Organization, Antonio had become Black Castle Enterprise’s resident medical genius, the creator and director of their avant-garde and booming medical R&D business, and a surgeon who was one of the world’s most brilliant and unorthodox. He kept hours as extreme and unpredictable as everything about him. He was also known to sleep at will, to charge his batteries whenever possible for the grueling days he maintained in his lab, the OR and the boardroom. Numair had seen him fall asleep sitting up, in under thirty seconds. It was very possible he’d fallen asleep immediately after his fateful phone call.

But so what? He hoped Antonio was in deep, blissful sleep after months of severe deprivation, or on the verge of orgasm with a woman he’d been panting after for years. He’d love to return the favor.

He almost drove his finger through Antonio’s speed-dial number. By the third ring, Numair was ready to storm out, raid Antonio’s Fifth Avenue penthouse and punch him awake.

Then the line clicked open, and Antonio’s calmly teasing voice came on. “I thought you wanted to kill me when I called earlier.”

“I did,” Numair bit off. “I still do.”

“I interrupted something major, huh?”

“You interrupted the major something. And you weren’t even dying.”

“So this is a courtesy call for our history’s sake, before you come make sure I rectify my oversight?”

Any man would have been worried if he’d inadvertently cost Numair what Antonio had tonight. But having faced death on an almost daily basis together, and defended each other with their lives for over fifteen years, Antonio had reason not to fear Numair’s retaliation. Not that he feared anything. Antonio was the most imperturbable being who’d ever lived. Even more than any of them. Numair wouldn’t be surprised if his nerves were made of actual steel.