As the car descended on a winding path from the main road, the house came into clearer and clearer detail. It was…amazing. As pliant as a tent that would billow in the warm, dry winds. As fluid as a ship that would sail down the pier that extended from its enfolding terrace, sail away into the sea. It lay like a graceful hybrid among the sublimely landscaped and the divinely natural, adorned with a mile of emerald and aquamarine liquid.
She sat up, heart hammering, mouth drying.
The sheer beauty of it all, enhanced by the perfection of a golden sunset, soaked into her senses, wrenched at every one with a power that left her gasping with its force, its…futility.
So this was Haidar’s home in Azmahar. A home he’d one day share with the woman he’d choose. The family he’d make.
This was also the home he’d asked her to come to last week. In her case, “home” had been only a figure of speech.
She’d always known that. Even when she’d been deluded that he’d felt something genuine for her, Haidar and home had been two words she’d known would never belong together.
They’d always met on impersonal ground, arrived separately, left the same way. How ironic was it that this time, he’d invited her to a personal place for impersonal business?
She blinked back the pointless disappointments as the car passed through electronic, twenty-foot, wrought-iron gates, wound up a cobblestone driveway and approached the architectural work of art from the back. The grounds were so extensive that it took almost ten minutes to come to a stop by the thirty-foot-wide stone steps that led to the entrance patio.
She thanked the driver, got out of the car before he could open the door for her, stiffened her back and resolve as she climbed the stairs. She wasn’t waiting for anyone, starting with Haidar, to receive her or wait on her. She was here for business, would conclude it and leave.
She tried not to notice more about the place. She might have achieved that—had she been carried in unconscious. As it was, she absorbed every detail as she reached a wraparound terrace from which every aspect of the magnificent property could be seen.
The double doors of the house were open. No one was around. Seemed Haidar still didn’t believe in having people around.
She stepped into the house, and air squeezed out of her lungs.
Like the exterior, the interior married the unexpected in a seamless blend, old Arabia concepts with innovative themes, producing something unprecedented. Everything had been chosen with an eye for the comfort of both body and soul, blending sweeping lines and spaces with bold wall colors and honey-colored ceilings. Curved windows and doorways coalesced with sand-colored marble floors accentuated by vivid mosaic. Furniture both functional and artistic offset wide-open seascapes. A place of contrasts, from the sublimely relaxing to the vibrant and exotic, an oasis of the best nature and man had been able to produce.
And that was just what she could see of the foyer and sitting area. She didn’t want to know what…other rooms looked like.
“I named this placed Al Saherah.”
His voice hit her dead center in her heart.
Al Saherah. The Bewitching. The Sorceress.
She turned, found him filling an archway leading to another part of the house. All in white, a fallen angel masquerading as one of the good guys. Big, vital, painfully beautiful.
It was he who was saher.
She swallowed the ache the sight of him always struck in her heart. “This place is magical.”
He walked toward her, as majestic and potentially lethal as the feline he’d been named for. “But I’m thinking of adjusting the name to Al Naar Al Saherah. Or Al Saherah Al Nareyah. To describe its flesh-and-blood personification.”
Bewitching Fire. Or the Fiery Sorceress.
Her hand rose involuntarily to her hair. When had he learned to talk like that? Wasn’t it enough that he drove anyone with double-X chromosomes insane with lust just by existing? He’d picked up the deadly power of verbal seduction, too? Talk about overkill.
Declining to comment on this salvo of mind-messing flirtation, she cleared her throat. “So where is everyone convened?”
“We met in this awesome inside garden that has the most amazing aqueduct system running through it. Let me show you.” He grabbed her hand, tugged her behind him, his grin gleeful like a boy unable to wait to show off a discovery.
She hurried to keep up with him, blinking at his enthusiasm, at the adjectives and intensifiers.
Strange. She’d thought he was too jaded to appreciate material beauty. Or at least that he would be so used to this place, he wouldn’t even see its wonders anymore.
As they passed another sitting area, he turned to her. “I fell for this place at first sight.”
So. He fell for places. Felt for friends. That made sense. After all, this place was unique. And Rashid certainly was one of a kind. But when it came to women, Haidar was indifferent. She’d bet the only reason he wanted her now was the challenge she represented.
She’d better not stimulate his feline tendencies anymore. If she played dead, he’d get bored and go chase some other prey. But—
She stopped so suddenly that she wrenched her hand from the glove of his. He turned to her, eyes questioning.
“You said you met.” Incomprehension rose in his eyes. She whacked his arm as hard as she could. “They’re no longer here, are they?” His admission was a nonchalant shrug. She hit him harder, her hand stinging from the force of the smack. “You tricked me!”
He rubbed his arm, his eyes flaring, his lips filling. “I didn’t. You insisted on coming late.”
“There was no need for me to attend lunch, and I wanted you to have time alone with the others. My presence would have only been needed while you wrapped up the meeting.”
“And we had to conclude it earlier than expected. Businessmen don’t have their time under control. They had to leave.”
“You could have told me not to bother coming.”
“But I wanted you to come.”
His voice, his eyes as he said that…
Images exploded in her mind, sensations in her body. Of every time he’d demanded she come for him, of the last time she had…
She pressed her head between her fists, trying to stop the surge of madness, fury and frustration almost as fierce. “I get that no one walks out on you. Hell, no one is allowed free will around you, and you want to punish me for both transgressions. You headed to my place fresh off the plane with that in mind. So what will it take to satisfy you? Is ruining my career a must?”
“That’s the last thing I want, Roxanne.”
She staggered back two steps for the one he took closer. “Excuse me as I believe the proof of your actions instead.”
His gaze became serious, soothing. “Whatever I did that compromised you, or could have, I didn’t plan any of it.”
She huffed incredulously. “I wonder how that would hold up in front of a judge. ‘I didn’t plan to run the lady over, Your Honor.’”
His lips twisted. “Zain. I deserve that. And I have no defense. Premeditation isn’t better than negligence from the victim’s point of view. But I swear to you, I never meant you harm. And I will never compromise you again.”
She stared at him. “You mean you’ll leave me alone?”
“I mean I’ll be the essence of discretion as I do no such thing.” He reached for her as he spoke.
This time, she didn’t move away. This train would hit her. Why pretend outrunning it was an option?
“Roxanne…” He groaned as he enfolded her into his large body.
As if feeling her surrender, he crushed her to his hardness, making no attempt to temper the carnality of his response, of his intentions.
He wanted sex. Raw and raunchy. Dominant and devastating. No pretense of gentleness or emotion. He’d exploit her body and take his pleasure in every way he pleased, plumb her flesh for all the ecstasy she could withstand.
She wanted all that. She was disintegrating with needing it.
She pushed out of his arms.
* * *
It took all of Haidar’s restraint not to yank Roxanne back and down on any horizontal surface and caress her until he’d aroused her out of resistance.
Not that her reticence was physical. Her arousal cloaked him in echoes of their pleasure-drenched nights, slashed him down to the beast at his core. It had him an inch away from devouring her, riding her hard, shattering her with pleasure, so she’d never again contest his ownership of her flesh, of her every response.
“Roxanne…”
Her raised hand stopped him. What was she…?
Then both hands rose up to her hair, took the pins out. It cascaded in waves of flames down to her shoulders.
Before another neuron could fire a thought, a response in his brain, she was pushing her jacket off her shoulders, then unbuttoning her blouse, revealing the creamy globes of her breasts. Ya Ullah, she was…was…
She was stripping for him.
His lungs burned. His hardness passed the point of pain.
He heard himself choking on “While this might be a delight after I’ve taken you ten times or so, right now it’s agony not being the one undressing you.”
He reached for her again, expecting her to sweep him away, to continue punishing him with her striptease torture. Again she did something that shocked him into another detonation of arousal.