“Are you saying if you faced me then, screamed bloody betrayal, and I’d told you said side, none of this would have happened?”
“No,” she had to admit. “I trusted you and what we had too little. And if you, the man who never opened up to me during the year of our involvement, suddenly had, I would have thought you were placating me to carry on your bet.”
“So it’s because you believe the bet is no longer on, and only because I no longer talk to Jalal, that you believe me now.”
“No, again. I believe you because we’ve grown up and out of our inability to talk to each other. We’ve been communicating for real during those verbal duels. And you let me see your vulnerability and emotions for the first time. It made me realize I dehumanized you, even when I was claiming to love you. Then I demonized you when I thought you’d never loved me.”
Silence stretched until she thought he wouldn’t talk again.
Suddenly he moved. “I accept your peace offering. Let’s eat.”
Her mouth fell open as he passed her.
Once at the table, in perfect grace and control, he took the chair she’d meant for him, his back to the sea. She’d wanted the lights from the house and grounds to join the pier’s in illuminating him. He propped one forearm on the table and sat relaxed, majestic, sweeping the buffet table where serving plates simmered on gentle flames that danced in the balmy sea breeze.
He panned his gaze back to her with ultimate serenity as she stopped across the table. “You will serve me, won’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips struggling not to spread in delight. “Don’t push your luck.”
His lips twitched, too. His eyes remained unfathomable.
Turning around, she headed to the buffet table, her heart dancing a jig inside her. He was letting her back in.
As she adorned their plates with an assortment of appetizers, he called out, “Do hurry. The aromas are too mouthwatering.”
Her steps back to him were measured, to rein in the urge to plop the plates down, charge him, straddle and devour him.
She came behind him, leaned to place his plate before him, let her breasts brush his back, her hair fall over his shoulder. “All delicious things come to he who doesn’t rush the chef.”
He tilted his head, turning his face partially toward her, his eyes downcast. She felt she might fall over him with the dizziness his scent and heat induced. Which might not be a bad thing…
He reached for his napkin, flapped it open. “Don’t tell me you cooked all this.”
She straightened like a malfunctioning robot, her body buzzing, her legs rubbery after the contact that had backfired, having no effect on him, but managing to flare her arousal.
“Why so shocked? I can handle myself in a kitchen.” She struggled not to fall in a heap in her chair. “But you’re right. I didn’t. I did a lot of the work, but I was mainly following the directions of the one who designed the meal. Cherie is an incredible artist, in cooking and in many other forms of art.”
He only nodded, started to eat with gusto.
After he polished off the appetizers and the two courses of the meal, and she watched him eat while trying to draw him into conversation, he looked up. “Your friend should consider a catering business. I’d be a regular customer.”
She grinned, delighted that she’d pleased him, that he appreciated Cherie and her efforts. Even if he didn’t include her directly in his praise. “She’ll be thrilled you think so. She almost fainted when she saw your kitchen. When she set foot here, really. She still can’t believe that she cooked for a prince. That I even know you.”
His eyes darkened. “She knows how well you…know me?”
“She knows how well I…knew you. And didn’t know you at all. She also knows how much I want to know you, in every way, now.”
Another of those silences that engulfed that wide-open night, magnified every ripple of water, every whistle of wind, every beat of her heart, lengthened.
Suddenly he pushed his chair back, stood up. “That was a lovely meal, Roxanne. My most sincere compliments to the chef. I accept your…amends. Best of luck finding the same success in your endeavors to put Azmahar back on track.”
She gaped at him as he turned around and strode away.
That was it? He was walking away again? This time on good terms instead of terrible ones?
But she couldn’t let him walk away again. She wouldn’t.
She scrambled up. “But I haven’t really made…amends yet.”
He stopped. After another endless moment, he looked over his shoulder. “No, you haven’t, have you?”
Then with one last look of supreme indifference, he turned and strode away like a lion would from the prey he’d just feasted on.
It took only heartbeats for delight and determination to overcome agitation and hesitation. It was as clear as the starlit sky he wanted her to run after him some more.
She had no problem with that. She couldn’t wait to do it. She would run after him, and she would catch him, if it took the rest of her life.
Nine
Haidar didn’t slow down, didn’t look back.
The only way to catch up with him would be to sprint. She didn’t. He wanted to keep the distance between them.
She let him keep it. All the way to his bedroom.
He strode through the open double doors, disappeared inside.
A smile trembled on her lips as she stopped across the threshold. Why not let him wonder for a bit?
But it was she who couldn’t last. She was dying to have him.
She entered the antechamber, swerved into the room…and gaped.
Haidar was reclining at the dark emerald damask couch by the balcony doors, legs stretched out on it, his jacket discarded, his shirt partially undone. And he was reading a book.
He didn’t raise his head from his apparent engrossment as she approached him. He let her come within touching distance before he slowly, and without moving a thing, swept his gaze up to her.
“Anything I can do for you?”
His low, dark rumble spread through her, dried her mouth, melted everything else.
In response, she let her shawl slip. “Everything, actually. And not just for me. To me. With me.”
His gaze singed down her face, following the autumn leaves–colored silk as it slithered to the ground. On the way, he took note of the sensuality and delicacy of her spaghetti-strap dress. On his way up, his gaze lingered on the breasts now swollen and snug against the top. By the time he came back to her eyes, she was shivering with need, as if he’d caressed her within an inch of sanity.
Instead of reaching for her, he closed his book, relaxed back on the couch, still holding her prisoner to his fathomless scrutiny. So she reached for him.
Bracing a knee on the couch, arousal thundering through her, her hands trembled as they roamed the incredible breadth of his chest. He held her eyes as she moaned at the acuteness of sensations that touching him jolted through her. The intimidating bulge in his pants got impossibly bigger. But the moment she started pulling his shirt out, fumbling with its buttons, her forearms were clamped in inescapable sinew-and-bone manacles.
“You’ve made those kinds of…amends before.” His eyes crackled with what felt like the advance bolts of a devastating storm. He pushed her arms away as he sat up and was off the couch in one of those miraculously effortless moves. “I’m not interested in an encore along the same lines.”
She collapsed on the couch, looked up at him as he stood before her, perfect down to his last pore.
He would make a perfect king. Probably the only kind that could save Azmahar now.
He was her perfect man. The only one she’d ever want. Or love. Whatever happened, wherever this led, or didn’t lead, she belonged to him, heart and soul.
Now if he’d only hurry and claim her body, too.
She rose on precarious legs. “Not that I was offering anything along the same lines, but what kind of amends do you have in mind?”
Another stormy silence as his probing invaded her recesses.
Then, distinct, slow, annihilating, he drawled, “Surrender. Full, unconditional. And irretrievable.”
She almost came right there and then.
This man was out to take revenge on her.
Her whole body throbbed like one inflamed nerve. Her core spasmed with the near release he’d driven her to with the force of his intention.
In answer, she pushed her dress straps off her shoulder, reached back to undo its zipper, let the silk sigh to her feet like the shed petals of an alien, emerald flower.
Facing him in only her strapless bra, thong and stilettos, she said a breathless “Done.”
His eyes flared with a fierceness that almost knocked her off her feet. His gaze ravaged a path of almost frightening hunger over her, sending her heart flailing with trepidation, almost had her howling with anticipation. He still made no move.
He needed a more definitive demonstration.
She turned on jellified legs toward the bed in the middle of the room that he’d designed in echoes of her complexion. She climbed on top, spread out in its center and held out her arms to him.
He moved then. Before her heart could stumble over a few beats, he was at the foot of the bed, looking down at her spread out before him.
“You will give me everything this time, Roxanne. Everything you have. Everything you are. Everything you didn’t think you had to give. If you withhold anything, I will take nothing.”