He smiled down at her, his eyes telling her she delighted him. “Not on my end, but you were about to claw my eyes out. And I would have gladly let you. But I’m not putting it off any longer. Your name, ya ajaml makhloogah fel kone. Bless me with its gift.”
He’d just called her the most beautiful creature in the universe. He probably didn’t realize he had spoken in his native tongue, or he would have tagged it with a translation.
“J…” Her voice vanished on a convulsive swallow as he drew nearer still, as if to inhale her name when she uttered it like the most pleasurable fragrance, like life-sustaining air.
And she realized she couldn’t tell him who she was.
If she did, he’d pull back. There would be embarrassment, consternation followed by distance and decorum. And she couldn’t bear to lose this moment of spontaneity with him.
It would be the last thing she had of him.
“Gemma.”
She almost slapped herself upside the head. Gemma? Did she have to go for a literal translation? How obvious could she get?
But then, she’d started to say her name, and he would have thought it suspicious if she’d gone on to say Dana or Sara or something. Gemma had been the only name that had come to her that started with a J sound.
Before she made it worse, she had to tell him how nice it was to meet him and walk away. Run away. Without looking back. She had the rest of her life to look back on this magical encounter.
He thwarted her feverish plans, pressed her head closer as he sighed his contentment. “Gemma. Perfect, ya joharti.” She lurched at hearing her real name. Before she could have a heart attack, he loosened his embrace, smiled his pleasure. “That’s ‘my jewel’ in my mother tongue. So, my precious Gemma, will you come with me?”
“Where?” she choked.
“As long as you’re with me, does it matter?”
It was clear by now that nothing mattered.
Not to Johara. Not when measured against wringing this opportunity to be with Shaheen of its last possible glance and smile, touch and comeback. Of the sheer unbridled joy of being the object of his interest, the target of his appreciation, the instigator of his desire.
Another breaker of pleasure frothed inside her as she beheld him, a vision made man, sitting across from her in the exclusive restaurant he’d made literally so for their dinner.
They’d been talking nonstop since they’d left McCormick’s penthouse. She’d answered his questions about herself without specifying names or places, and nothing she told him had rung any bells. That still rankled, but her thankfulness for this time out of time his unawareness afforded her with him surpassed any disappointment.
“Do you want to know what the maitre d’ told me after emptying the restaurant?” His eyes glittered at her as his hand covered her upturned palm with hypnotic strokes. “That such heavy-handed tactics wouldn’t work on a lady of such refinement as you.”
She giggled, surrendered her hand to his possession. “A very astute gentleman.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I wish you had told me that before he emptied half of my supposed no-limit credit card.”
She giggled again at his mock woe. Even in her upheaval, the thrill rose. Her fantasies throughout the years had gotten it right. Their connection was there. And he was showering her with the delighted, delighting banter that had always textured and colored her life.
He remained the man she’d loved since she could remember. No, he was better than that man. Much, much better.
She sighed at the bittersweetness of it all. “But seriously, you shouldn’t have gone to any expense. I thought we’d agreed it didn’t matter where we were.”
“I wanted to be alone with you.”
“We could have been alone walking down the pier.”
“That did occur to me, but you’re not dressed for the cold night.” He lowered his gaze as if pondering the pattern he was painting with his fingers on her palm. He raised his eyes a moment later and she gasped. Gentleness and humor were gone, that grim god of the desert back. She shuddered with the fierceness of her response. “You know where I really want to be alone with you, Gemma. In my place. In my bed.”
She squeezed her eyelids shut as emotion tore through her.
She couldn’t handle this. She shouldn’t have sought him out…
His tough rider’s fingers smoothed over her eyes, making her open them, so that there was no escaping his fierceness, his intention. “I want you, Gemma. I never knew wanting like this existed, that I could feel anything of this intensity and purity.”
“Purity?”
“Yes. It’s unclouded, untainted, absolute. I want you, in every way. And you want me in the same way. I know I wouldn’t be feeling like this if you didn’t also. My desire surges from me as much as it stems from you. It flows to you and is reflected back at me exponentially, then back to you in a never-ending cycle. It’s taking on a life of its own, growing too powerful to deny. With every breath its power heightens, sharpens. Will you let me fulfill our desire? Will you let me worship you?”
“Shaheen, please—”
He suddenly pushed his chair back, stood up. Before her heart could stumble on its next beat, he was bending to pluck her from her chair and into his arms. Her head lolled back over his arm with shock as he tightened his hold behind her back, beneath her knees and buried his lips in the neck she exposed to him. “This is all I want to do. Please you. I never want to stop pleasing you.”
Voices yelled inside her head. Tell him who you are. He’ll stop this torment the moment he realizes your identity.
And he’d be furious with her for hiding it. She couldn’t let it end like that. With him feeling deceived. And hating her.
She had to say no. He’d abide by her refusal. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. From the moment he’d caught her eyes and zapped her control across the room, she’d been reacting without volition.
Then she opened her mouth and without any trace of it she whispered, “Yes. Please.”
Three
Johara hadn’t known what to expect when she’d said yes to Shaheen.
It certainly hadn’t been anything that had happened in the two hours since.
After he swept her into his arms and obtained her unconditional capitulation, he put her down, let her walk out of the restaurant and to his limo. He gave his driver an order in Arabic to take the most roundabout way home then sat beside her talking, about everything under the sun. All through the long drive to his penthouse, he didn’t touch her at all, except for resuming his thorough fascination with her hand.