eventually drawn the proper conclusions.
By elimination, only Mohab, as the kingdom’s top secret-service agent, had the skills and resources to invade Najeeb’s privacy, to rearrange his plans, to nudge him wherever he wanted. The next step would have been finding out why.
So Mohab had been forced to let his cousin come back. To let Jala go to him. At nine o’clock this morning. That had been eleven hours ago.
What could be taking her so long?
Kaffa. Enough. Why not just call her instead of having a full-blown obsessive episode?
So he did. And it went straight to voice mail. Time and again.
When another hour passed and she hadn’t called back, he tore out of his penthouse, numb with dread.
By the time he arrived at her house his nerves had snapped, one at a time. What if she was lying unconscious or unable to reach her phone? What if she’d been mugged...or worse? She was so beautiful, and he’d seen how men looked at her. What if someone had followed her home?
He barged inside and was hit at once with the certainty. She was there. Her presence permeated the place.
He ran upstairs, homing in on her. As he approached her bedroom, he heard sounds. To his distraught ears, they sounded like distress. Coming from the bathroom.
He tore inside. And there she was. In the shower cubicle. Facing the door. She saw him as soon as he saw her.
At his explosive entry, she lurched, her steam-obscured face contorting, her lips parting. He assumed she’d gasped or even cried out. He could hear nothing now above the cacophony of his own turmoil and the spray of water. All he knew was that she was here. She was safe.
And he was tearing off his clothes, his only need to prove to himself both facts.
Then he was inside the cubicle, dragging her into his arms, groaning as he felt her warm resilience slamming against his aching flesh, her cry shuddering through him as he drove trembling hands into her soaked tresses, his feverish gaze roaming her water-streaked face. That face, that body, that essence, had taken control of his fantasies from the instant he’d seen her, from the very moment he’d claimed her. And she’d claimed him right back. Throughout these past five months, with each caress, with each passion-filled encounter, he found himself craving her more and more. His hunger for her knew no bounds.
“Mohab...”
He swallowed her gasp, drove his tongue inside her fragrant, delicious depths and she started squirming, building his fire higher. He needed to be inside her, possessing her, pleasuring her. Reassuring himself she was whole and all his.
His hand glided between her smooth thighs, sought her core. His fingers slid between her slick folds, and his head almost burst with the sledgehammer of arousal. Knowing she would love his urgency, that the edge of discomfort his ferocity would cause would amplify her pleasure, he cupped her perfect buttocks and opened her silky thighs around his hips. Capturing her lips again and again in ravaging kisses, he sought her entrance, flexed then sheathed himself in her molten tightness in one long, forceful thrust.
The sharpness of her cry, a testament to the intensity of her enjoyment, heightened his frenzy, her hot gust of passion expanding in his own lungs. Then he withdrew and pistoned back, needing to merge with her, dissolve in her, knowing it would send her berserk. It was unraveling him, too—acute sensations layering with every plunge, ratcheting with each withdrawal. The carnal groans torn from their depths rode him higher and higher. He felt his climax hurtling from his very essence, felt her shuddering uncontrollably, heard the sound of her tortured squeals telling him she’d explode in ecstasy if he gave her the cadence and force she needed.
Unable to prolong this torment a second more, he gave it to her, his full force behind his jackhammering thrusts, until she convulsed in his arms and her shrieks of pleasure snapped his own tension. He all but felt himself detonate in a violent release, the most intense he’d ever felt, his seed burning through his length, jetting into her depths to mingle with her own gushing climax.
At last, the severity of sensations leveled, leaving him so satiated, so depleted, he could barely stand. She collapsed in his arms as she always did. Taking her down to the floor, he soothed her, and she surrendered to his ministrations, letting him fondle and suckle her, pour wonder and worship all over her.
Then he carried her out of the shower and dried them both off. As he bent to take her to bed, she pushed out of his arms, unsteadily waddling away to fetch her bathrobe.
He winced. How insensitive could he be? He’d scared her witless bursting in here, made her limp with satiation for hours and could only think of continuing their intimacies?
He put on his pants as she turned to him, wrapped in the stark white bathrobe, her golden flesh glowing in contrast. The need to ravish her again almost overpowered him.
“What was that all about?”
He saw the hardness in her eyes before he heard it in her tone. Something he’d never been exposed to before.
Suddenly wary, he shrugged. “Wasn’t it self-evident?”
“Not to me. What brought you here in the first place?”
Disturbed by her coldness, especially after the inferno they’d just shared, he told her what he could. At the tail end of his account, he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “And then I found you in there and all I could think was that you’re safe. And I was, as always, starving for you.” He tried a coaxing smile. “Finding you already unwrapped was most opportune.”
“So you thought it was okay to barge in here and just have your way with me?”
The harsh accusation hit him between the eyes. She’d never been angry with him before. And to be so for the first time today, of all days, jarred him.
He found his own voice hardening. “You loved every second. You came so hard you blew my brains out.”
She shrugged, not contesting that truth, those molten-gold eyes growing harder. “The point is, you disregarded my choice. Your overriding tactics have become a pattern.”
“What ‘overriding tactics’?”
“All your manipulation, ending with trying to keep me from seeing Najeeb. You think I’m so oblivious I didn’t notice? Oh, I noticed, all right...every time you nudged and cajoled. Every time you artfully overruled me. You’re almost undetectable, but I’ve had enough time and proximity to decipher your methods.”
So she’d caught on.
Either he’d underestimated her astuteness...or he couldn’t keep a cool enough head around her to maintain the seamless subterfuge he normally employed in his professional life.
Coming clean wasn’t an option, though. He couldn’t let her know why he’d originally approached her, or how he’d kept Najeeb away, or why. He couldn’t risk that she might suspect the genuineness of his current involvement. They already had too much working against their relationship to introduce internal strife. The feud that had long raged between their families was enough of an obstacle on its own. He had to deny any culpability. There was just too much at stake.
“Why would I want to stop you from seeing Najeeb?”
She glared up at him, then turned and walked out.
Unable to believe she’d turned her back on him, he watched her, that fist of foreboding squeezing his insides again.
Mohab finished dressing, then followed her into her bedroom. His mind churning, he approached her where she stood across the room in jeans and a T-shirt, raven hair starting to dry into a waterfall of gloss, looking heartbreakingly perfect.
“I’m sorry I got carried away in there,” he started. “I didn’t think you’d mind...didn’t think at all. I’ve never been so frightened in my life, and I overreacted....”
“I could have said stop. I didn’t.