Uncurling himself from the velvet armchair, Zafir cut a direct path toward her, his gaze traveling over her with a thoroughness that instantly put her on edge. Flaring with shock, Farrah’s gaze volleyed between them.
“Leave us, Farrah.” He threw the command without turning his thoroughly disconcerting gaze from Lauren.
“I have nothing to say to you that Farrah can’t—”
“I have,” he said, stopping a few inches from her. Farrah had already gathered her things and quietly exited the room.
His hair still wet, he smelled so good that her stomach did a funny flip.
In a light brown V-neck T-shirt and tight blue jeans, he looked sexy and approachable. Like delicious dark chocolate that she wanted to sink her teeth into. The shirt exposed the strong column of his throat, hugged the hard contours of his chest and muscled abdomen.
Her throat dry, Lauren tucked her hands at her sides and tugged her gaze up.
His tawny gaze glinted with incinerating warmth, a hint of mockery in the grooves around his mouth. It swept over her with invasive familiarity, lingering far too long over the opening in her robe.
Her pulse went haywire, a new kind of oxygen deprivation drying her mouth now.
She tugged at the sash holding it together, the soft silk burning against her overheated skin. His hand shot out to her cheek in a quick movement, too fast for her hazy senses to grasp. Every cell in her being pushed her into leaning into his touch and she resisted it. Just.
When he touched her, his movements were gentle, tracing the circles she sported under her eyes. “You look awful.” He said this in a tone that spoke of regret. As if it hadn’t been in his power to not hurt her. As if he hadn’t made that choice himself.
She stepped back. “Thanks for noticing, Your Highness, and for deigning to see me,” she drawled. “I should curtsy, but seeing that you had me locked up here for two days, I’m not in the mood. Instruct your staff to release me. I want to leave, at once.”
A frown twisted his brows and then smoothed down. Her hands instantly went to her midriff and that incisive gaze followed. She pretended to secure the knot of her robe, her fingers shaking. Heat flushed her from within when he moved closer again, triggering every nerve into a hyper-aware state, stealing rational thought.
“Stop that,” she said softly, suddenly wishing the dark stranger from that afternoon back. She wanted to be angry with him, she was, yet her body seemed disjointed from her mind.
He raised his hands like shields, a butter-won’t-melt expression on his face. “Stop what?”
“Looking at me like that,” she croaked.
“It gives me pleasure to look at you.”
She rolled her eyes, hoping that he couldn’t hear the thudding of her heart. “I fell for that line six weeks ago. Fool me once—”
His finger on her lips cut her off. She trembled all over, the simple contact breathing a firestorm of need all over. “Choosing that gown and the jewelry was the most pleasure I’ve had in six weeks.”
He had picked the gown himself? Her heart, if possible, skipped a beat, his words falling over her like sparkly, magic dust, ensnaring her senses into a web of intoxicated desire. How else could she explain the gooey mass in the center of her stomach?
“If you had worn it and accepted my invitation for dinner, I would have been even more pleased.”
“I...me...my pleasure, self-absorbed much, Zafir?” she mocked him. Something uncoiled in his gaze but her bitter words were the only things she had to fight him with. “Your gifts don’t mean anything to me except that you think you can buy your way out of anything. You locked me up here. Dinner with you is the last thing I want.”
“I wanted to make sure Farrah could take proper care of you. What is bothering you?” he said, steel creeping into his words.
“You’re kidding, right? Should I fall at your feet because you moved me here, because you threw some gifts at me? Three days ago, you accused me of conspiring against you and now...” She vibrated with anger and hurt, barely getting words out. “You talk to me as if nothing happened. I’ve had quite enough of you and this...place.”
“I would like to apologize for that. I knew that you weren’t capable of scheming like that.”
“And you came to this realization after getting concrete proof from David and not a second before?”
His mouth hardened and Lauren realized she hated this version of him. Every time he spoke or thought of Behraat, he became someone she didn’t know, someone she didn’t want to know. “I needed that video, Lauren. I have to be ruthless from time to time. Consider it one of the hazards of being the ruler.”
“More like the effect of being drunk on your own power.”
Instead of the anger she had expected, his mouth curved into a smile. His gaze moved to her mouth and she felt his perusal like a tingle. “Surrounded by my people, I’ve forgotten how outspoken you are.” He pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “It was the first thing I noticed about you.”
Whatever she had been about to say flitted away. Pure sensation skittered over her skin. He cupped her jaw and pulled her close, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing her skin. “I brought Huma to the ER, you took one look at her, and demanded if I was the one who had given her those bruises. The way you looked at me with fire burning in your eyes...” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
“You reminded me of a lioness I once saw in the zoo...ferocious and breathtaking.” His tone became molten, honeyed on those last words, a fire burning in his eyes.
“I have never in my life become so hard just by looking at a woman, ya habeebti.”
Wet warmth pooled at her core and she clutched her thighs together.
Torture, that’s what it was. And worse than being locked up. Because when he accused her of nefarious intentions, she could fight him, and despise him.
But when he spoke like that, with desire, with honesty, with nothing but that warmth, she stood no chance.
She tried to let her body go slack, but she had no control over her own muscles. All she wanted was to drop the robe and let him ease the ache between her legs. God, and he would...with those clever fingers, he would unravel so easily and efficiently...until there was only her and him and that fire between them.
“Stop touching me,” she finally managed, sounding breathless and shivery.
Forcing her back until the back of her legs hit the bed, he crowded her. His thumb moved over her lower lip, the heat from his body swathing her. “You love it when I touch you. In fact, while we were together, we couldn’t get enough of each other.”
“I used to.” She somehow pulled her sanity together finally. “Now all I want is to put several thousand miles between us.”
His gaze became hard, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I thought you would have cooled off by now.” He spread his hands around, and the lack of economy in that movement betrayed his rising temper that his even tone hid. “Seeing that you assumed I was dead and I’m clearly not, I thought you would get over your shock and be happy to see me.”
“And that we would take up where we left off six weeks ago?” she yelled the words, masking the lump in her throat. The incredible arrogance in his assumption left her shaking, dousing her desire with the efficiency of an ice-cold bath. “I’m never going to get over it, Zafir.
“If I weren’t a...sentimental fool who jumped on a plane, we wouldn’t have seen each other again...ever. You made a deliberate choice to walk out of my life that night. Don’t act as though you care now.”
Her legs quaked beneath her when she meant to move away from him. She felt light-headed.
His