for modesty now. He had seen it all before and more. But she was different now. She was a mother, and pregnancy had left its inevitable marks on her body. Would he notice? Would he care? He had no right to care and she had no need to wonder—yet still …
Then his eyes found hers again and he simply said, ‘I feel it too. Hot.’ And she knew he wasn’t talking about the weather.
He took a step closer, and then another, so she had to raise her face to look up at him.
‘You should go,’ he said.
‘I should,’ she agreed, because it was right, and because to stay would be reckless. The last thing she needed was to be trapped outside on a storm-tossed terrace with a man she had never stopped lusting after, even when she had tried to hate him so very much. Even when she knew she should.
But her feet didn’t move, even when the wind pushed at her back, slapping the wet gown against her legs, urging her to get out while she still had time.
‘You should go,’ he repeated, his voice gravel-rough against her skin. ‘Except …’
She tilted her head up at him, her senses buzzing, every nerve in her body buzzing. ‘Except what?’
‘Except, I don’t want you to.’
She swallowed and closed her eyes, one part of her wishing she’d already left so she’d never have heard him utter those words. The other part of her, that wanton part of her that belonged to him for ever, rejoicing that he had.
‘I want you,’ he said, and she started and opened her eyes as she felt his hands lift her jaw and cradle her face.
Suddenly it was much too late to run, even if she could have recalled a fraction of all the good reasons why she should.
When she looked up at him it was to see him gazing down at her with such a look of longing that it charged her soul, for it had been so long since someone had looked at her that way, and that person had been Bahir. Nobody had ever looked at her the way Bahir had.
But that was before …
‘This is a mistake,’ she said, some remaining shred of logic warning her as his hand drifted towards her face.
‘Does this,’ he said as his fingers traced across her skin and she forgot how to breathe, ‘feel like a mistake?’ And she sighed into his touch, for electricity accompanied his fingers, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake, just like his touch had that moment on the plane when he had reached out to her brow and left her sizzling with the contact.
Maybe not right now, she thought, in answer to his question. But tomorrow or next week or even next month she would realise this was all kinds of mistake.
And then his hand curved around her neck, gentling her closer to his waiting mouth. Some mistakes, she rationalised, were meant to be made.
The wind pounded at her back, and she let it push her closer to him, meeting his lips with her own and sighing into his mouth with that first, precious touch.
It was like coming home, only better, because it was to a home she’d never expected to find again. A home she’d thought lost for ever.
‘Bahir,’ she whispered on his lips, recognising the taste and scent and texture of him, welcoming him.
For one hitched, exquisite moment the tenuous meeting of their mouths was enough, but only for a moment. Until he groaned and pulled her against him, his mouth opening to hers, sucking her into his kiss.
She went willingly, just as her hands went to the hard wall of his chest, drinking in his hard-packed body with her fingers, pressing her nails into his flesh as if proving he was real, as if proving this was really happening.
He was real, her fingers told her, joyously, deliciously, delectably real.
And so very hot.
His breath, his mouth, his lips on her throat, the flesh under her hands—all of him so hot. Yet when his hand cupped her breast it was she who felt like she would combust with his fingers kneading her flesh, his thumb stroking her hard, straining nipple.
Then his mouth replaced his hand, drawing her breast into his mouth, laving her nipple through the thin gown, and silk had never felt so good against her skin.
A burst of sea spray shattered over them. The clouds parted to a watery moon and she clung to his head in order to stay upright and not collapse under the impact of his sensual onslaught.
But when his hands slid down her back and cupped her behind, his fingers perilously close to the apex of her thighs and the heated, pulsing core of her existence, she knew her knees would not last much longer. ‘Bahir!’ she cried, but he had already anticipated her need, knowing what she asked and what she needed instinctively, as he always had.
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her long and hard, until she was dizzy and his own breathing ragged when he pulled himself away enough to speak.
‘One night,’ he said, his voice thick with want. ‘Just this night. That’s all I ask.’
She knew what he was telling her—that he hadn’t changed his mind, that he didn’t want her as a permanent fixture in his life and that he would never want her love—but he was offering her this night. Or, at least, what was left of it.
Would she take it?
If she were stronger—if she was more like her younger sister, Aisha, who had tamed her own potent sheikh—she’d tell him what he could do with his one night. But she wasn’t that strong. And the choice was so unfair.
She could have this one night with him, and sacrifice her principles and her pride, or she could have none. But her pride and her principles would never make her heartbeat trip with just one glance or one gentle touch. They could not take her to paradise and back and all the wondrous places in between. And what were pride and principles when compared to paradise?
One excruciatingly short night of paradise. A few short hours before they had to rise and return to the airport and continue their flight.
Was it worth it?
Oh yes.
And tomorrow she would tell him about their son—and it wouldn’t matter if he never wanted to see her again, because she would have this one stolen night to remember.
She looked up into his eyes and could see the impatience there, the urgency and the crippling, demanding need that so echoed her own.
‘Just one night,’ she agreed, and felt herself swept up into his arms as if she were weightless.
He carried her to his suite at the opposite end of the terrace from hers, and laid her reverentially on a bed that looked just as storm-tossed as the one she had left. The covers were piled in disarray on the floor, the pillows thumped to within an inch of their existence. It thrilled her that she might be responsible for at least some of the heat that had kept him from sleep.
He stood at the side of the bed, his eyes never leaving her as he purposefully unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it to the floor, his damp, golden skin glowing in the thin moonlight. She held her breath as his trousers soon joined it, then even the scrap of silk he called underwear was gone, and he was gloriously naked before her, his erection swaying proud and free.
Her mouth went dry as he knelt with one knee alongside her on the bed, every drop and bead of moisture her body contained heading south, where it pooled and pulsed with aching, burning need.
‘You’re beautiful,’ she told him. Not that it was any surprise, she was merely stating a fact. For she had always thought him beautiful, dressed or undressed, but never more so than like this, when his full potent masculinity was proudly on display.
He touched one hand to the hem of her nightgown at her ankle and smiled, his eyes glinting in the pale moonlight. ‘And you,’ he began, ‘are overdressed.’