A Secret Birthright(32)

She went to Ryan’s room, checked on him even though she’d heard his steady breathing over the baby monitor. She found him on his back, which he hadn’t done since the surgery, his arms flung over his head in abandon. She kissed him and he murmured something satisfied, melting her heart with thankfulness.

She went downstairs, roamed the seemingly deserted mansion, her steps as restless as her mind.

She felt Fareed all over, his scent clinging to her lungs, caressing her senses. And it wasn’t because this was his domain. She’d feel him across the world. And she would, for the rest of her life.

And now, it was over. There was no more reason to stay here. She’d take her tiny family and leave Jizaan in the morning.

And he’d never know how she really felt. But that mattered nothing. What mattered was that he never knew who she really was.…

“Do you know what you are?”

Fareed’s hypnotic tones hit her with the force of a quake.

She jerked around, her gaze slamming to the top of the stairs, the side leading to his quarters.

He wasn’t there. Had she imagined hearing him? Were her dread and guilt playing tricks on her?

Then his voice hit her again. “What I thought when I first saw you? A magical being from another realm.”

She almost sagged. He was here. And he hadn’t meant what she’d feared.

“And do you have any idea about the extent of my craving for you? How long it has gone unfulfilled? How much it has cost me to suppress it, to stay away from you?”

Each beat of her heart rocked her as a shadow detached itself from the depth of darkness engulfing the upper floor, taking his form. His body solidified, his influence intensified with every step. Then his face emerged from the shadows and she gasped.

Even from this distance, there was no mistake.

The ultra-efficient surgeon, the indulgent benefactor, the teasing, patient playmate was gone. A man of tempestuous passion had emerged in his place.

Making it worse was seeing him for the first time in what he’d been born to wear, an abaya that looked tailored of Jizaan’s moonless skies themselves.

And she had no right to his passion. She’d lose even the bittersweet torment of his nearness tomorrow. She’d never again feel as alive.

“You sensed me.” His voice reverberated inside her as he descended the stairs. “You knew I was coming to you, came to meet me halfway. You knew that I would no longer wait.”

Something snapped inside her. Her paralysis shattered.

She needed to tell him…something, anything of the truth, if only that of her feelings, her needs. To have something, anything of him. Just this once.

He quickened his descent as she moved toward him, the abaya billowing around him like a shroud of darkest magic. Her feet felt as if they were gaining momentum from his power, his purpose, that force that had entered her life to change the face of her world forever.

Then he stopped. At the platform where the stairs diverged, as if giving her a last chance to retreat.

She stopped, too, three steps beneath him, momentum lost, confessions fled. She looked up at him, overwhelmed. He was even more than she’d ever dreamed.

The obsidian silk abaya draped over his endless shoulders, pleated for miles to his bare feet, falling open over the perfection of his chiseled, raven hair-dusted chest and abdomen. The low-riding drawstring pants of the same color and material hugged his thighs, hiding none of the power of his muscles, or that of his arousal.

He seemed as if he’d stepped out from another time, a force of nature and of the supernatural, poured into solid form. But it was the fever radiating from him, the same one that raged through her, that shook her most—setting free the one confession she could make.

“I don’t want you to wait.”





Eight



Something unbridled flared in Fareed’s eyes.

Gwen’s breathing stopped. She stood mesmerized by the ferocity that ate her up, finished her. Now…now he’d descend the last steps separating them, sweep her up in his arms.…

But what he did stopped her heart. With shock.

She would have never expected that he would…laugh.

But he did. Peal after peal of pure male amusement.

His laughter mortified her even as it inflamed her.

What had she said or done that he found so funny?

Maybe it was her braid, mommy robe and fluffy slippers? And the cartoon character pajamas beneath?

God, of course it was. He must have gotten a good look at her and rethought his intentions. No wonder he was laughing.