The Chatsfield Collection Books 1-8. Annie West

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СКАЧАТЬ her cheeks, but determination firmed her chin. “Fine. Get me one of the hotel robes from closet.”

      “I assure you, I saw everything last night.” He did not know why he was teasing her, but couldn’t seem to help himself.

      “It’s not the same.”

      “No. You are right. We do not have the luxury of time to do anything about our nudity and the inevitable reaction to it this morning.” He indicated his semierect sex with a small wave of his hand.

      “Sayed!”

      “What? You will not pretend you did not enjoy our lovemaking.”

      “Stop talking about it!”

      “But why?” he asked in genuine confusion. “I do not mind telling you, it was amazing.”

      Yanking the sheet with her, she jumped up from the bed and wrapped herself in it before he got much more than a glimpse of honey skin and a couple of well-placed love bites he had very fond memories of giving her.

      His breath expelled in a telling but unstoppable whoosh. “You are quite beautiful.”

      The rose of her cheeks turned crimson and she scooted around him to storm across the room to the closet. Aaliyah pulled one of the aforementioned robes off its hanger and then stalked into the bathroom, attitude in every line of her body.

      He watched her lovely form until it disappeared behind the firmly closed and―yes, he’d heard the snick―locked door.

      His pang at the knowledge no woman in his life would react like she did was as inexplicable as it was undeniable.

      A knock sounded on the door to the suite. Sayed donned the other robe from the closet, surprised when he realized that not only was it a man’s robe with the dark blue hotel crest on the left breast, but it was his size.

      Had the hotel anticipated him visiting his fiancée in the suite? The brand-new box of condoms in the bedside table would indicate a resounding yes.

      Sayed let Yusuf in. “Leave my clothes in the other room and the agreement on the desk over there. She’s agreed to sign it.”

      Subtle tension released from Yusuf’s shoulders. “That is good.”

      “She did not balk at all.”

      “It would appear Miss Amari is a woman of principle.”

      “As I told you.”

      Yusuf disappeared into the other room as Sayed found himself gathering Aaliyah’s clothing.

      Considering her blushing reticence this morning, he did not think she would like to see their clothes strewn around the sitting room. They’d so clearly been yanked off their bodies in passion and with little finesse.

      Yusuf cursed in the other room, a word usually reserved for serious screwups, which Sayed never indulged in.

      The other man came storming back into the room. “Tell me the condoms are in the bathroom trash.”

      “What?” Sayed was used to the intrusiveness of constant security, but this was pushing the bounds of propriety. Yes, the condoms were in the bathroom trash bin.

      That was something that Yusuf should take for granted. Sayed was not an idiot. “You forget yourself, Yusuf.”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ