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Her white shirt had turned see-through the minute the water had hit, clearly showing her white lace bra and the puckered tips of her berry-brown nipples. Her breasts were still beautifully round, firm and high. And he knew that they would fill his palms like succulent fruits.
He groaned softly when his wayward body persisted in responding, despite the stinging cold spray, and he valiantly resisted the urge to wrap his hand around himself and seek all too transitory relief. There was only one way to relief now. Past or no past, history be damned, one thing was clear: he would have Jamilah back in his bed until he’d sated himself—until he’d sated them both. Because their desire was mutual, explosive and unfinished. And there was no way he could survive a month here without taking her. He’d go crazy.
All concerns for Jamilah’s emotional welfare and the state of his soul were dissolving in a wave of heat. He took some reassurance from the way she’d stood up to him. He could be in no doubt that she was no longer some shy, timid and idealistic virgin. And you did that to her. He blocked out the voice.
His mind stalled for a moment. Dammit, she had been a virgin. He’d assumed that she’d been at least a little bit experienced. He could still remember his shock when he’d thrust into that slick tightness and felt her momentary hesitation, seen the fleeting pain on her face. And then heard her husky moans and pleas for him to keep going. She’d just been too seductive. He was only human, and he hadn’t been able to stop.
His mouth tightened. But hadn’t she all but told him that she’d had plenty of other lovers, and that the turmoil he’d witnessed that day in Paris had merely been a passing crush on her first lover. He should feel comforted by that thought … yet he didn’t.
With an abrupt move he switched off the shower and stepped out. Towelling himself dry roughly, he made a mental vow that if he was consigning himself to hell for ever by resolving to have Jamilah in his bed, then she was coming with him—all the way.
As he found and dragged on clean clothes he thrust thoughts of Jamilah aside with effort. He had some things to attend to—and one of them was making sure that his ill-advised party guests had indeed been shown the door. For the first time in years living vicariously through those around him, watching them lose all sense of self and envying them their opiate nirvana, hadn’t worked to block out his own reality.
‘I apologised to Hana, and to Hisham.’
Jamilah steeled herself before she turned from where she’d been unpacking her suitcase in one of the guest suites. She hadn’t wanted Salman to know so soon that she’d given in to both Hana’s, and Nadim’s chief aide’s pleas for her to move up to the castle. Taking a deep breath, she finally did turn round—to see Salman in dark trousers and a white shirt, leaning insouciantly against the open door.
‘I know,’ she said stiffly, trying to ignore the response in her body and treacherously wishing she wasn’t wearing her habitual uniform of jeans and a shirt—albeit fresh ones. It had been a long day since that eventful morning, and she was exhausted.
She didn’t need to be reminded of how he’d wound the intractable Hana around his little finger. She’d been all but blushing when she’d told Jamilah of his apparent heartfelt apology.
‘So …’ Salman quirked a brow. ‘You’ve been sent to babysit me? Are you going to ground me for bad behaviour?’
Jamilah heard the edge to his voice and guessed that he didn’t often find himself in the position of having to apologise for his actions. She didn’t feel that he was in any way repentant, despite his apology.
She focused on his eyes, and then wished she could look anywhere else when she was sucked into the dark depths and butterflies erupted in her stomach. Salman had a unique ability to plug into her deepest emotions and stir them around. He’d always had that ability.
That realisation made her voice frigid. ‘They asked me to come and stay here. That’s all. With Nadim and Iseult away there’s a lot to take care of, and clearly you’re not interested in taking responsibility.’
She saw his eyes flash at that, but it was gone in an instant and Jamilah wondered why she should be feeling bad.
Salman’s mouth twisted into a mocking smile. ‘What? And not live up to my reputation as the prodigal bad-boy brother?’
Jamilah’s own lush mouth firmed. ‘Something like that.’ And then, before she could stop herself, she asked curiously, ‘Why did you come home?’
A dangerous glint came into Salman’s eye. ‘I’ll tell you if you have dinner with me tonight.’
He was flirting with her.
Jamilah’s belly tightened in rejection of that even as a rush of heat washed through her body. She firmed her jaw. ‘Just because your odious friends have gone, I am not available to entertain you in their absence.’
She stalked over to the door and started to close it purposefully, uncaring of the fact that Salman was in the way. To her abject relief he stepped back. But just before she could close it he stopped it with a hand and said, ‘I’m going to be here for a few weeks, Jamilah … you won’t be able to avoid me for ever. Especially not now that we’re going to be under the same roof.’
Jamilah snorted indelicately. ‘This castle is big enough for an army. We won’t have to make much of an effort to stay out of each other’s way, Salman. And, believe me, I have no intention of seeking you out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day, I’m tired, and I want to go to bed.’
Much to her chagrin, she still couldn’t close the door. She glared up at Salman and tried not to notice that he’d shaved. His jaw was dark and smooth. His clean and intensely masculine scent teased her nostrils. He was one of the few men she knew who hadn’t ever worn overpowering cologne.
‘This isn’t it, Jamilah, not by a long shot. We have unfinished business.’
Fear caught Jamilah’s insides into a knot. She knew she simply would not be able to survive if Salman decided he wanted to seduce her again just because he was bored, or curious. ‘We finished any business we had a long time ago, Salman, and the sooner you realise that the better. And, quite frankly, I don’t care if this is your home and you’re the acting ruler—just stay out of my way.’
When Salman stood on the balcony of his suite a short while later, he felt a hardness enter his belly. The view of Merkazad at night was spread below him. It was a small city but beautiful, full of soaring floodlit minarets and ancient buildings nestling alongside more modern architecture. When he’d been much younger, before the rebel invasion, he’d loved to watch it at night and dream of all sorts of fantastical tales, and the great wide world beyond … but then, during and after the incarceration, it had become a prison to be escaped at all costs …
He was waiting for the inevitable rise of emotion, for nausea to cripple him as it had done whenever he’d looked at this view before. But emotion wasn’t rising in its usual unassailable wave. Instead he felt suspiciously calm. As if something had shifted and this view was no longer as malevolently threatening as it had been for years.
All he could think about was Jamilah and how beautiful she’d looked just now, with that fall of silky midnight-black hair in a curtain around her shoulders and down her back. His gut clenched. She had looked tired. Faint purple shadows under her huge blue eyes. And that vulnerability had made him want to gather her up into his arms and carry her somewhere far away, into the dark starlit night, and lay her down underneath him. He amended his impulse. He just wanted her. He didn’t want to protect her.
But he had once … He’d been twelve and she’d been just six when she’d broken through the numbness encasing him to provoke a protective instinct. He could remember the moment by their parents’ graves as clearly