The Sheikh's Reluctant Queen. Оливия Гейтс

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      Yet how could he deny her, after he’d promised her himself?

      He would give her one last chance to make sure. If being with him in ultimate intimacy was as necessary to her as it was to him, and not a reaction to tonight’s turmoil, he’d have to succumb.

      Laylah stared at the bathroom door, worry preying on her.

      When the door finally opened, it felt like it had been ten hours instead of just ten minutes. The scent of the musky soap she’d used earlier preceded Rashid. Bonded to his own scent, it smelled different, intoxicating. The flames that hadn’t dimmed in his absence roared higher.

      What if her absence had doused his? What would she do?

      But… what was she doing, asking him to do… this?

      Her fantasies had never taken her so far. They’d been so tentative that the most they’d dared contemplate was a kiss. Now… this.

      Did she even have any idea what this would be like? What it would lead to? Or wouldn’t lead to? Was this how she wanted to have him? Because she’d thrown herself at him until he couldn’t resist anymore?

      He came to stand over her again. Clean-shaven, head and skin still gleaming with wetness, his beauty twisted a spear of longing through her gut. She leaned limply against the wall, her legs tucked beneath her, hands folded over her heart, as if to stop it from beating its way out of her chest.

      He finally murmured, “Your beauty is incomparable.” She gaped at him. “But this must have been the first thing you learned about yourself, princess.”

      She’d learned no such thing. Not that she was about to debate it. If he thought so, even if it turned out he only needed glasses, she wouldn’t jar him from his illusion.

      “I could see your potential from the time you were six. I knew your beauty would become so overpowering, men would fight over you and kings would fall at your feet. I was right. The list of the royals who have begged for your hand is as tall as you are.”

      She cast a deprecating glance down her body. While not short, she was the shortest in her family at five foot six. “Not really tall, with a sum total of seven such ‘royals.’ And none was after my ‘overpowering beauty’ but rather my ‘overwhelming connections.’“

      “If that was true, then the only explanation is that they’re not into women. What heterosexual male would not want you?”

      “Uh… off the top of my head, I know of eighty-eight such males.”

      He shook his head. “Your relatives don’t count.”

      But she hadn’t counted as a desirable female to any man that she knew of. Whatever her personal assets, they’d always been nullified by her family’s. Men had either wanted her, or hadn’t wanted her, based on those. Not that she’d ever cared. Not when Rashid was the only man she’d ever wanted.

      His gaze, sliding from the feet tucked beneath her to her face, felt like a full-body caress. “It almost… hurts to look at you.”

      Her smile wavered. “I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”

      “It’s the truth.” He was suddenly on his knees, facing her on the mattress. “You’re an impossibility. I don’t believe in perfection, but here you are, against everything I believe. And against anything I can believe, you say you want me.”

      Her heart kicked so hard it brought her up on her knees, too, looking fervently up at him. “I do want you. I always have.”

      The brooding look gripping his face deepened. “You said I defined perfection to you. So now I ask—how? What is it about me that you ever found perfect, let alone now?”

      A drop of water streaked down his chest and caught in the groove of his scar, making her tongue ache to lick it off.

      She dragged her gaze up to his. “It would be easier to count the things I don’t find perfect about you. Like how you were always so distant, as if in a world of your own. But then, that’s not an imperfection, just a frustration.” Giving in to the need, her fingertips swept a trembling path down his scar. “The thing is, you might not be perfect per se. But you are perfect to me.”

      A large hand covered hers, pressed it to his six pack of steel. “I had time to reconsider in the shower.”

      Oh, no! He’d say he’d lost his head under her temptation, reprimand her for being inappropriate again and end this. Then in the morning she’d leave and never find her way back to him again.

      But she’d taken this as far as she could. Anything he decided now, she had to abide by.

      She waited for his verdict, her teeth starting to chatter.

      His eyebrows furrowed as he documented her reaction. “Whatever I said before, you must not think it’s too late to change your mind. You’re free to reconsider.”

      The letdown felt like the two-floors’-worth fall from this mezzanine onto the stone ground below.

      She gritted her teeth on a sob that almost escaped, forced steadiness in her voice. “If you want to take back everything you said, you feel free. You don’t have to let me down easy.”

      His eyes narrowed. “You mean you still feel the same way?”

      Her shoulders slumped. “It’s not important what I feel.”

      “It’s all-important. But what you feel now could be PTS.”

      “Post-traumatic stress? From the attack, you mean?”

      “It’s common to need to reaffirm life through uncharacteristic, uninhibited acts after surviving a life-threatening experience.”

      “And you’re an expert in that, right?” His gaze dropped, his whole face becoming inanimate. Beyond trying to analyze his reaction, she had to resolve this. “Since I detailed my lifelong crush on you, you know this isn’t spur of the moment on my part. If you want to give me a way out of looking like a pathetic fool by pretending it was the stress talking, go ahead, be chivalrous to the end.”

      Without raising his eyes, he murmured, “The last thing I am is chivalrous.”

      She sagged back on her heels. “Then it’s even worse. You succumbed to an ‘uncharacteristic and uninhibited act’ because you’re stressed and had a hormonal surge due to a woman throwing herself at you and pawing you all over. Now that the urge has subsided, you want to end this on a not-too-sour note.”

      His eyes rose then, bored into hers again. “Does it look like my ‘hormonal surge’ has subsided?” His gaze lowered, dragging hers with it and… Whoa. His clean sweatpants showed that… nothing had subsided. Not in the least. “And women have thrown themselves at me and pawed me before, and none has caused even a hormonal blip.”

      Her heart thundered. “You mean you still want… want…”

      Desire surged in his voice and gaze again. “Everything. But I needed to be sure I wouldn’t be taking advantage of your vulnerability.”

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