Sheikh's Scandal(24)

“No, Emir. That would be you.”

“What are you talking about?” But even as he asked, Sayed’s memory of the night before began to nag at him.

The final time they’d made love had been like waking from a dream. In fact, he was pretty sure that’s how it had started. Bodies moving together in the dark before waking to an unhurried joining and slipping back into slumber.

Sayed’s insides tightened with realization.

It hadn’t been a dream and they hadn’t used a condom.

“Since I doubt very sincerely you have suddenly developed an interest in rough sex, the blood on the sheets can only mean one thing. Miss Amari was a virgin.”

What was Yusuf going on about? “What blood?” Sayed’s annoyance with himself made his tone harsher than it needed to be.

“The smears in a single strategic spot on the bottom sheet of the bed,” Yusuf said, each word an emphasized bullet.

Ignoring for a moment the other reality for this new one, Sayed rushed into the bedroom, his gaze falling on the telltale streaks almost instantly.

How had he missed them this morning? Oh, yes, because he’d been so busy watching Aaliyah. Nothing else in the room had registered.

“She must have started.” That would explain her over-the-top shyness about exposing her body to him this morning.

One of the things Sayed had enjoyed the most about the night before had been Aaliyah’s lack of inhibition.

“Her period?” Yusuf asked giving the bloodstain a jaundiced look.

“What else?”

“What else indeed?”

“Anyway, we used condoms thoughtfully provided by the hotel.” Except that one time, which he had no choice but to disclose.

“How could you be that careless?” Yusuf demanded, not unfairly.

Sayed could barely believe his own lack of control. “I woke from a dream that wasn’t a dream.”

“She was touching you?” Yusuf asked, his expression unreadable.

Another man might be able to refuse to answer such intimate questions, but Sayed had responsibilities that required a level of truthfulness with Yusuf he would never have offered even the close friend he was.

“Yes.”

Yusuf did not comment. He did not need to. It was all written on the bodyguard’s face.

He believed Sayed had been duped in a con as old as time, by a virgin.

* * *

Liyah took longer in the shower than she usually did, blushing as she washed the traces of blood from between her thighs. Even though there was no one else to see it.

She could not believe how abandoned she’d been with Sayed the night before. She’d brazenly initiated intimacy, even going so far as to touch him to wakefulness that last time.

She didn’t regret it. She couldn’t. It had been the most amazing experience of her life.

Even so, she was astonished at how she’d responded to Sayed. Yes, the whiskey she’d drunk had helped lower her inhibitions, but most of it was Sayed the man.

Not the emir.

She sighed. Her first waking moments had brought home very clearly that she no longer shared her bed with Sayed the man, but Sheikh Sayed bin Falah al Zeena, emir of his country.

Realizing she couldn’t hide in the shower forever, she got out and dried off.

Bracing herself for another encounter with the emir, she wrapped her hair in a towel and donned the robe again. Liyah pulled the door open and came face-to-face with two men, not one.

Sayed’s face wore a wary expression she didn’t understand.

The other man was Yusuf, the same personal bodyguard that had been on the elevator with Sayed. And he was scowling. At her.

“I’m sorry I took so long.” Embarrassment crawled up her insides. She hadn’t meant to keep the emir from his shower. “You did insist I bathe first.”

“Aaliyah, do you need Yusuf to get supplies for you?” Sayed asked.

“Supplies?” Had she skipped a page in the book?

“For your monthly.”

Make that a whole CHAPTER. Why would he offer such a thing? “No.”

“Do not be embarrassed, Miss Amari,” Yusuf assured her. “It is no trouble to procure what you need.”

“I’m not even due for two more weeks,” she blurted out, extremely uncomfortable.

She didn’t know if Sayed’s other lovers were just really open, or what, but Liyah found it very disconcerting talking about such a personal matter with him, much less in front of a virtual stranger. And she really didn’t understand why it was coming up now.

Sayed made a sound that had her turning her attention to him. “You were a virgin,” he accused, like it was a major crime.

Liyah stumbled back from his inexplicable but palpable anger. She ran into the jamb, her gaze skittering back to Yusuf only to find his scowl had grown darker.

“Why does it matter?” She could understand if he’d been disappointed in the sex, but his reactions last night made that unlikely. “I didn’t lie about anything.”

“You implied you were sexually active.”

“When?” And again, why would it matter?

“When I told you about my fast. You said you hadn’t been on one.”

“You can’t fast from something you’ve never had,” she said with some exasperation.