Pregnant by the Sheikh(31)

He was standing before her, perfection and beyond in a casual black suit and a shirt one hue darker than his eyes. She’d picked it for him, loving how it made his eyes even more incandescent. He was exuding vitality and virility and that all-out hunger that only seemed to increase in his eyes, in his vibe. It made her feel wanted, cherished, limitless.

He now quirked a dense eyebrow as if to prod her... The eyebrow she’d indulged in tracing with her lips and fingers and nibbling with her teeth...

“Jenan?”

“Huh?” was all she finally said.

“I was asking if I can do this...” He cast a quick glance over her head, then scooped her up into the bedroom of his plane, closing the door and pressing her against it. He bore down on her with his bulk and arousal, sank onto her lips. When he raised his head, she was wound around him, arms and legs. His gaze was satisfaction itself as he viewed her blatant arousal and completed his question. “In front of them, and trust them not to out us to the whole world?”

Landing with a thud from euphoria back to reality, she unclamped him from her limbs and found ground again. “I would usually say el serr fe beir, or ‘the secret is in a well’ with them. But then nothing is usual about you. Or us. You are such a huge deal, they’ve had their jaws on the floor since they’ve seen you in close quarters. They’re bursting at the seams with curiosity about the nature of our relationship and they’ve already asked me the same question in a hundred different ways, and none of my half-truths have satisfied them. I expect they’re going to work on you now in their quest for the truth.”

After taking another brief kiss as if he couldn’t stop himself, he said, “How about we appease them, take them into our confidence?”

She licked his lingering taste off her lips before chewing on her lower one. “I usually trust them with anything, but then I never had any secrets for them to keep. They’re so used to flaunting my news in everyone’s face. I’m sure they’ll want to brag about you, and I don’t want to put them to such a test. Even if they promise to keep our secret and mean it, you, as you very well know, are too much. You would make anyone break their rules and do things that are totally out of character.”

“Anyone, but not you.”

She giggled. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m doing no such thing. You’re following every rule you forged for yourself, taking what you believe is right for you without consideration of society’s restrictions. Everything you’re doing with me is perfectly in character for you. You’re enterprising, direct, fearless and a precise judge of character. You knew at once I’m the one for you, and you didn’t waste time in empty maneuvers, just took what you want and need.”

“When you put it that way, you almost make it sound as if I knew what I was doing.”

“You did. You do.” After another deep, drowning kiss, he raised his head, ran a coveting finger from her cheek down to the cleavage hidden by her demure, floor-length russet dress. “So will we or won’t we?”

“Now that I think of it, with the way they both live online, if we don’t want this shared with a few million of their close friends on social media, you won’t only be unable to haul me and devour me like you just did, you’ll also have to keep your hands to yourself completely.”

A thundercloud of a frown came over his face. “Fifteen hours without touching you at all? That’s not even a possibility. I only look like a superman.”

She poked him playfully, found his usually rock-hard abs the consistency of steel. “Relax, or you might snap something. Consider it a chance to find out if abstinence is as good for the soul as it’s always advertised.”

“Who says I have one?”

She laughed, gave him an exuberant hug. “Since it’s something most people are supposed to have, you probably don’t, since you can’t possibly have something so mundane. Come to think of it, if you don’t have a soul, it must be superfluous, since you’re perfect just the way you are.”

Before he could pounce on her again, she slid through his arms, opened the door and rushed out of the bedroom.

All she wanted was to drag him down on that king-size bed and continue their intimacies. But she half expected her sisters to barge in looking for them. And for answers to their burning curiosities.

In truth, she wished she could tell them, to have it all out in the open. But it was unheard of for a woman from her region to announce that she had a lover. The only accepted relationship was marriage, or the engagement leading to it. Anything else had to be done in secret and never admitted, or it had to look like the accepted cultural format. Her society took hypocrisy so far that it accepted that people who wanted to have a one-night stand or were even paying for sexual favors to resort to katb el ketab, or literally “writing the book of matrimony,” then divorcing as soon as the next day. That was all right with the so-called conservative society. But adults who wanted to be together without social subterfuge? They were punished and persecuted.