The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction(78)

                The glitter of happy tears on her lashes filled him with the impulse to cradle her close. Sex? Yes, he wanted to fondle and caress, push into her and know the exquisite clasp of her again and again, but this desire was more than that. He wanted to feel her against him, smell her hair, bring her into his life as much as his home.

                How had she come to mean so much to him when he’d only known her a little over a week last year and not even two full days in the last forty-eight hours?

                She caught his eye, read something in his face that made her bashfully turn away and move to the low wall of the balcony, where she followed the curve of the nearest staircase with her eyes, leaning to study the benches and broad-leafed plants surrounding the pool.

                “This place is incredible. Can you imagine what it was like— When was it built?”

                “Five hundred years ago. And yes. As a teen I stood in this empty wing more than once and fantasized about exactly how incredible it must have been.” He could still manifest the pictures he’d created in his mind: the abundance of naked breasts and bottoms, the mysterious configuration of a woman’s body that he’d only barely understood, yet longed for the authority to command for further study.

                She giggled as though reading his thoughts.

                He moved closer. “But my days of valuing quantity over quality are gone,” he assured her.

                She blushed and retreated toward the stairs. “Are you sure? There are an awful lot of rooms here, looking ready to be filled by women of every shape and size.”

                “Is that why are you’re in here?” he asked, moving to descend beside her, one hand clasping her elbow in case she lost her footing on the worn, slippery steps. “Are you checking up on me? Ensuring I’m not hiding anyone?” Or scoping out a residence for herself? His muscles hardened with tension.

                Culpability flashed in her eyes. “I didn’t realize where I was going when I started snooping. But isn’t this where I’m supposed to be? Why are you here? Isn’t it forbidden? That’s what harem means, doesn’t it?”

                “Most Westerners think the word means brothel.” He liked the slant of her smile. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was flirting with him, but very shyly. Because she had so little experience with it, he supposed. He probably volleyed back a little too hard when he stated arrogantly, “I’m the sheikh. Nothing in this palace is forbidden to me.”

                She blushed, no match for his suggestive tone.

                “These rooms are for the children?” she asked, peering into an alcove with sleeping benches around three sides. It only had a curtain, not a door.

                “The children of wives—yes, plural,” he confirmed at her look, “stayed with their mothers upstairs. Girls moved into their own space as rooms became available. Boys left the harem around six or seven. I moved Tariq when his mother died, since there was only his nanny to keep him from falling in the pool in here.”

                “Then all these little rooms were for servants?” she asked.

                “Concubines and eunuchs,” he explained, thinking with affectionate amusement, so naive.

                “Oh. Of course.” Her cheeks pinkened. Her expression grew more speculative as she peered into the spare accommodations with new eyes, making her way back toward the corner below where they’d come in. “This one’s quite spacious,” she remarked, stepping into the biggest room on the ground floor.

                “Reserved for the sultan’s favorite. You’ll notice that aside from the Number One Wife, she has the shortest distance to walk to be with him.” He pointed to where the stairs ended near the passageway to his chamber. “And all who visited him had to pass the wife’s door.”