To Tame a Sheikh / His Thirty-Day Fiancée. Оливия Гейтс

why had she chosen now to come back, and the most important question of all—had she come back for him?

      Nothing came out but an agonized, “How could you?”

      She jerked as if the words singed her. She wrenched away, pressed her face into the bed. “You’re angry.”

      “Angry?” He rose on one elbow, gazed down at her trembling profile. “You think I’m angry?”

      “N-no.” The tears he could see glittering in her eyes welled, spilled over to drench her cheek, making a wet track down to lips that trembled. “You’re way more than angry. You’re enraged. And outraged. And y-you have every right to be both.”

      “I’m none of those things. I’m … I’m …” He sat up, raked his hands through his hair, felt close to tearing it out. “I still can’t believe you did this to me.”

      “I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you who I was …”

      “Yes, you should have. But that isn’t what I meant. How could you leave me like that? Didn’t you realize how I’d feel? I felt …” He paused as she hesitantly turned to face him, searched for the words to describe his desperation and desolation after her disappearance. Nothing came to him but one word. It gashed out of him “Bereaved.”

      She lurched as if he’d shot her. Emotion crumpled her face, and more tears poured from her.

      He studied her, paralyzed by the enormity of the distress radiating from her, then he reached for her, even now fearing he’d grab thin air. He groaned his remembered anguish as he pressed her harder into him, lost the ability to breathe as her precious body filled his empty arms, when he’d despaired he’d ever hold her this close again.

      “I never intended for any of that to happen.” She sobbed on his shoulder. “I-I only came to the party to see you, didn’t dream you wouldn’t recognize me. But when you didn’t … when you were …”

      He pulled back to watch her, to fill his eyes with the reality of her, her nearness, threaded his aching fingers into her hair. “Were what? All over you? Out of my mind with wanting you on sight?”

      “I never imagined things could go that far. I thought I’d see you one last time before you got married and I no longer had the right to … to … I should have told you who I am, but I knew if I did, you would pull back, treat me like an old acquaintance, and I couldn’t give up that time with you. If I’d told you, you certainly wouldn’t have made love to me. So I didn’t, and I-I compromised you. And I had to leave before I did anything even worse.”

      Shaheen stared down at her, life flooding back into him.

      This was why she’d left. She’d thought she had to. For his sake. It had been as magical for her as it had been for him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it had killed her as much as it had him when she’d walked away.

      But one thing stopped his elation in its tracks. Her mortification, her self-blame. Setting her straight took precedence over every other consideration.

      He grabbed her hands, covered them in kisses. “You’re wrong, my Gemma, ya joharti, my Johara. You didn’t compromise me—you energized me, stabilized me. You liberated and elated me. And you were wrong about your doubts, too. I might have hesitated when I found out who you were, mostly from surprise, but nothing would have stopped me from taking you. Nothing but you, if you didn’t want me.”

      Her tears stopped abruptly, the remorse dimming her eyes then giving way to the fragility of disbelief, relief and finally the radiance of wonder.

      His heart expanded, his world righting itself. A hand behind her head and another behind her back gathered her to him, fitting her into him, the half he’d felt had been torn away from his flesh.

      “But you wanted me,” he murmured into her mouth, tasting her, plucking at her clinging lips, over and over. “You still want me.”

      She moaned, opened to him, let him into her recesses, the most potent admission of desire. He took it all, gave more, one thing filling his awareness. His Johara was back in his arms. And he planned to keep her there, to never let her go again.

      He told her. “And I’ll never stop wanting you.”

      Johara cried out as Shaheen’s lips came down on hers in full possession. Her world spun in a kaleidoscope of delight, her body in a maelstrom of sensation.

      But she wasn’t here for this.

      No matter that she’d been dying for him, shriveling up from deprivation.

      She dug her shaking fingers into the vital waves of his hair, tried to tug at them, to have him allow her a breath that didn’t pass through both their bodies. Before he dragged her any deeper into pleasure, submerged her into union with him. She failed.

      But as if sensing her struggle, he withdrew his lips from hers lingeringly, rose to look down at her, his eyes a mixture of tenderness and ferocious possession. “What is it, ya joharti? Your heart is flapping so hard I can feel it inside my own chest.”

      “Th-this isn’t why I came here, Shaheen. I just wanted to explain, to say goodbye—”

      “There will be no goodbyes between us, ya galbi. Never.”

      Before she could cry out that there would be, no matter what either of them wanted, he claimed her lips again.

      And she drowned. In him, in her need, in a realm where only he existed and mattered. She let herself sink, promising herself it would be the last time …

      “I’m sorry. I did knock. Repeatedly.”

      Johara jerked as the soft apology came from far, far away, shattering the cocoon enveloping her and Shaheen. She shuddered, felt Shaheen stiffen above her.

      “Get out of here, Aliyah.”

      Silence met his growl, then a distressed intake of breath.

      “I’m really sorry, Shaheen, but this can’t wait.”

      Johara lurched again as Aliyah’s strained words brought the outside world crashing back on her like an avalanche.

      Earlier, Aliyah and Laylah had tried to cajole her into speaking with Shaheen. She’d made her escape then, thinking she’d saved him from making more compromising mistakes because of her. But if she’d feared any suspicion of their relationship would tarnish his image and hurt his marriage plans, she’d done far worse now. She’d just given Aliyah evidence.

      She lay beneath Shaheen, her dress riding up to her waist, her splayed legs accommodating his bulk as his hands cupped her buttocks through her panties and his hardness ground against her. Her dress hung off one shoulder exposing half a breast that had just been engulfed in his mouth.

      Mortification drenched her, all the more so because the arousal coursing through her didn’t even slow down. She wouldn’t have been able to bolt out of the room even if she wasn’t pinned down by Shaheen. She couldn’t move.

      She didn’t need to. Shaheen relinquished his possession of her flesh with utmost tranquility, rearranged her clothes with supreme care. Then he scooped her up from the bed and steadied her on her feet, smoothing her mussed hair, gently massaging her worried features.

      With one last look of reassurance, one last, lingering kiss, he turned to his sister.

      Aliyah looked an apology at Johara. It was clear she did have a paramount reason for being there. One she wasn’t about to divulge in Johara’s presence.

      Seeing this unfortunate development as an opportunity to escape, Johara rushed forward to leave.

      Shaheen’s hand on her arm stopped her.

      “Please, Shaheen,” she choked out, hoping that Aliyah, who’d moved away discreetly, wouldn’t hear. “Let me go. I’ll soon be gone and you won’t see me again, for real this time. I beg you, for as long as I must