Even inebriated, Liyah realized that if she admitted to how inexperienced she was with alcohol, never mind sex, he would stop. The man had an overdeveloped sense of honor.

But regardless if she was a little tipsy, Liyah knew what she wanted. And it wasn’t for him to stop.

“No.” She turned her head, brushing his strong jaw with her lips, inhaling his spicy masculine scent. “If anyone is taking advantage, it’s me.”

There, she’d managed to sound both sober and in possession of her faculties. And honest. Because it was the truth. She’d never been all that and she knew it, but this amazing man wanted to make love with her.

No matter how much he’d claimed to want Liyah before, he wouldn’t have acted on that desire without this particular unbelievable set of circumstances. He’d said it himself.

Their worlds didn’t overlap. Not even a little.

“Then no one is taking advantage,” he stated very firmly as his hands moved to the fastening on her skirt. “I believe it is time to remove more layers of the lives we choose not to acknowledge tonight.”

“Yes.” She didn’t want any reminders of her job at the Chatsfield or why she’d taken it.

Shockingly, Liyah felt no hesitation about taking off the rest of her clothes. Especially as it appeared Sayed was intent on helping her.

Though she’d never been naked with a man before, wasn’t accustomed to exposing her body to anyone for that matter. Hena had raised Liyah to be extremely modest, even among her female peers at school.

A lifetime’s modesty melted under the heat of his desire and she did her best to help him undress, as well.

When they were both completely nude, no outward sign of their usual roles, he nodded with satisfaction. “Perfect.”

“You are.”

He smiled, the expression somehow rapacious. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She was barely aware of what she was saying.

Her mind so preoccupied with the sight of acres of muscular bronzed flesh, she relied on rote response.

He moved toward her with the grace of a predator. “I hope you are ready for this.”

She did, too.

He stopped in front of her. “I am breaking a three-year fast. Prepare yourself. I plan to feast on you.”

Managing a bare nod, she shuddered at the words, but even more at his expression.

With practiced ease, he swung her up into his arms, the naked skin all along one side of her body pressed to his front.

She gasped.

“Couch sex is for when the comfort of a bed is not available.” He swung them around and started walking to the suite’s bedroom.

She didn’t argue, just leaned forward and started placing tasting kisses against whatever skin she could reach.

Salt and unexpected sweetness burst over her taste buds.

The thought of making love for the first and only time with Sayed in the bed reserved for the woman he had intended to marry resonated with a strange sense of rightness.

While Liyah had no hope of ever being that woman, for tonight she was undeniably his.

He managed to pull back the covers and lay her on the bed without dropping her, or even unduly jostling her.

“You’re pretty good at this,” she said as he released her, impressed.

Sayed straightened, giving her full view of his amazing body, his expression confused in a way she was pretty sure it never was. “I’m sorry?”

“The whole getting-me-into-bed thing,” she explained. “You were smoother than jazz.”

“Smoother than jazz?” he asked with humor. “Really?”

She shrugged, unworried if her metaphor came off as campy. It’s exactly what she meant. “No music is smoother.”

“Perhaps I should be happy you didn’t compare me to custard.” He stood up.

She giggled and covered her mouth at the unfamiliar sound coming from her. “Maybe.”

He shook his head, but his look was indulgent. He moved to join her on the bed.

“I suppose you have loads of experience carrying women to bed.”

He stopped, sitting on the edge of the mattress, and looked down at her. “Actually, not so much.” His dark gaze smoldered. “You are an exception in more than one way.”

“The whole not-bedding-a-lowly-hotel-maid thing?” she teased, her confidence boosted by her certainty that was exactly what Sayed was about to do.

“Among other things.”

“You’re saying you don’t usually carry your conquests to bed?”

“I cannot think of another instance.”

At his admission, heat poured into places she wasn’t used to feeling anything and she found it hard to continue their repartee. “For three years, anyway.”

“Ever.”

“Oh.” That was...it was just...kind of amazing and more than she wanted to dwell on right now, if she wanted to keep her few working synapses continuing to connect in her brain. “I guess it’s just instinct.”

He laughed, the sound arresting and incredibly sexy.

Her chest felt tight. “Sayed...”

He cursed, his humor disappearing in an instant, replaced by that power-driven intensity she was so drawn to.

“What?” she asked, not sure what she’d done.

“Say it again.”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

He put his hands down and leaned forward, pressing the pillow on either side of her head, his face only inches from hers. “My name.”

His name? Her befuddled brain tried to make sense of his request. “Sheikh Say—”

“No,” he said with quiet intensity. “Not my title. My name.”

“Sayed.” If the word held more emotion when she said it, she refused to acknowledge it.

Something flared in his espresso eyes and then his lips were on hers again. Though she’d been sure they’d reached the pinnacle of passionate kisses already, she realized quickly how wrong she’d been.

He shifted to lie beside her and pressed his body against hers, his hardness rubbing along her thigh. Another set of new and wonderful sensations beset her.

Liyah moved restlessly, her legs falling open.

He laid one hand between them, covering her feminine curls and most private flesh. “This is mine.”

She had no thought to deny him. “Yes.”

“Tonight is ours and you will be mine in every way.”

Her answer was a wordless cry as he shifted and put his mouth over one of her nipples.

It was the most incredible feeling she’d ever known―the wet sucking heat, the sizzling jolts of pleasure shooting outward and through her body from that swollen bit of flesh, unbelievable.

Then his finger dipped into that most intimate place and she realized once again she’d been wrong. There was definitely more she could feel, more she could experience.

And more.

One sensation blended into another, her need for his touch growing in exponential proportion to every caress he gave her.

His fingers rolled slickly over a bundle of nerves even more potent than her nipples and she cried out. She knew about her clitoris. She hadn’t grown up in a cave, but she had been raised to never talk about sexual things.

Not with her mother. Not with the other girls at school. Not with anyone. Sex was an entirely taboo subject with Hena Amari and she’d made sure Liyah saw it that way, too.

Liyah had spent her life excelling in school and then her career. She was almost as much a virgin in purely social interaction as sex. Sayed’s intimate touch was the first time Liyah had ever realized exactly where that particular bundle of nerves was.

And he knew how to manipulate it for maximum impact, which he proved with expert caresses. Delight filled her, pushing from the inside outward, making her feel like her skin was too tight for her body.

It built and built, making her wonder how much more intense it could get as her sense of time and even her own person drowned in a pool of bliss.

Then something shattered inside her, the ecstasy exploding in shards of sharp rapture and she screamed. His name.

A long, pleasure-laden wail.

His mouth came off her nipple as he lifted his head, those magical fingers still moving in gentle circles as their gazes met. Satisfaction mixed with untamed hunger in his.

Barely touching her, he continued to cause tremors and contractions throughout her body. “You are so beautiful in your passion, habibti.”

His words and the endearment were as potent as his most intimate caress. Oh, she knew he didn’t mean she really was his love, but Liyah’s heart squeezed, anyway. He could have used aashitii, an endearment appropriate for an extramarital lover, but much less tender.

Tonight Liyah could be his habibti.

Tension still thrumming through her and unable to process the unfamiliar and overwhelming reactions of her body, Liyah’s head rolled side to side on the pillow.

“Sayed.” That was all she could say. Over and over again.

Despite imbibing copious amounts of alcohol and his easy use of habibti, Liyah did not have the courage to call him sweetheart, or lover, in English or Arabic.

And he liked when she said his name. So she did it again and again, her vocabulary shrunken to that single word.

He surged up over her, his big body settling between her legs. Sayed kissed her again, stealing his name right from her lips.

His rigid sex rubbed against her where his fingers had been, sending little shocks along her nerve endings, drawing forth a new kind of passion from her.

It wasn’t just pleasure. It was the need to have him joined to her body in the most intimate way possible.

He broke the kiss, his breathing as heavy as hers. “We need a condom.”

“A condom?” she asked, her mind hazy with drink and passion.

“Yes.” He groaned. “You do not have one.” He cursed, his body filling with a different kind of tension. “Of course you do not. This is not your room. You would not carry such a thing with you in your work uniform.”

She was kind of impressed with how many thoughts he managed to string together. The gist of them finally penetrated her own muzzy focus. They needed a condom and he didn’t have one.

“Look in the drawer beside the bed.”

He stared down at her, his stillness almost scary. “Did Tahira request them?”

“No.” Liyah didn’t even try to stifle the alien need to comfort, reaching up with an appeasing touch. “She was your fiancée. It seemed an expedient item to provide.”

“Presumptuous.”

Liyah just looked at him.

He moved to get what they needed, never quite losing contact with her body. Moments later, he settled back into his intimate position between her legs after putting on a condom from the brand-new box she’d put there herself in anticipation of an engaged couple’s stay at the hotel.

His smile could have melted ice a lot thicker than that around Liyah’s heart. “Perhaps expedient is the right word.”

Her answering smile was as inevitable as what came next.

Sayed shifted so he pressed against the opening to her body. Everything inside Liyah stilled, her world shrunk down to this exact moment, this space, the breaths they shared between them. Nothing outside Sayed had a hope of registering.

Not with him on the brink of joining them in the most intimate way, an experience that if Liyah was honest with herself she’d never actually expected to have. With anyone, much less this prince.

“This is going to be hard and fast.” The words were guttural and low. “I am too excited.”

Despite their detour into the mundane, she was still floating on a cloud of bliss, pretty sure fast and hard would work for her. “It’s all right.”

She wanted―no, craved for―him to experience the same pleasure she had.

He shook his head. “You are too perfect, habibti.”

“Not per—” Her words choked off abruptly as he pressed for entry.

Even though he’d warned her he was going to go fast, he moved inside her body with measured deliberation.

Liyah stretched around him, feeling full and connected like she’d never been to another person. Then a sharp sting shot through her core, making her gasp.

He must have encountered the barrier to her body. Liyah didn’t feel like she was tearing, more like a stabbing pain.

He looked down at her. “It is good?”

She doubted he realized he’d asked the question in Arabic.

“Yes.” It was good, even if it hurt.

“You are so tight.”

She could only nod, gritting her teeth against the searing ache.

He drew back a little.

Despite the pain, she whimpered in protest at his withdrawal. “No.”

His own breathing labored, his jaw was clenched as tight as hers, his arms shaking. And she realized it was using all his control to hold back.

Unfamiliar emotion seeped past the barrier around Liyah’s heart.

“I’m not going anywhere, ya ghazal.” He laughed, the sound sexy and dark. “Believe it.”

Again, his endearment touched her more deeply than he probably meant it to, but Liyah’s mother used to call her a gazelle. She’d claimed Liyah had the gracefulness and beauty of the animal so often used in Arabic poetry.

Sayed’s addition of the possessive my only added to its impact, insuring this experience went far beyond the physical for Liyah.

He pressed forward again, the pain so sharp she couldn’t breathe. She bit back a cry, terrified he would stop. And was infinitely grateful she had when the pain transformed into a whole new level of pleasure.

“That is it,” he gritted out. “You have relaxed.”

“More than,” she managed to gasp out.

“You said you had not been on a sexual fast.”

She just shook her head.

“Say what you like, habibti, but no woman is this tight and tense upon initial penetration when she has been sexually active regularly.”

“I want you.”

“I have no doubts.” He thrust once, twice, three times.

Her body reacted with delight even as residual pain hung at the edges of pleasure.

“I admit I like knowing I am the first in a while.”

She swallowed, trying to agree, unable to get another word out as he continued his slow, sure thrusts.

“Tonight, you are absolutely mine,” he claimed a second time with an almost savage satisfaction.

And once again, she could only nod, the overwhelming ecstasy of the moment crashing over her.

For tonight, she wasn’t just his.

He was hers.

Inside and surrounding her with his big body.

“Ready?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she finally managed. Though she had no idea what she was supposed to be ready for.

Weren’t they already making love?

He pulled back and then surged forward powerfully.

Oh. Yes.

All vestiges of pain drowned in ecstasy as he pistoned inside her body again and again. Here was the speed and intensity he’d warned her about.

Her body tightened under and around him as indescribable pleasure built again.

Her climax took her by surprise, the waves of bliss so intense she couldn’t even cry out this time, her throat strained with a silent scream.

Moments later, Sayed went rigid above her, his shout ringing in the room around them.

And her pleasure was complete.

He collapsed down, but somehow managed to keep most of his weight from crushing her. “I am sorry, ya ghazal.”

“Why?”

“That was too fast.”

“But it felt incredible.” A sudden thought worried her, and because her inhibitions were down, it came right out of her mouth. “Didn’t you think so?”

“Oh, yes, habibti. But if I had lasted longer, it would have been mind-blowing.”

He was still hard inside her.

She smiled up at him. “Show me.”

He did.

* * *

Sayed woke to the pleasure of a warm, silken body against him. He opened his eyes cautiously, the early-morning sun revealing not his suite but another luxurious room.

Tahira’s suite.

Tahira. Memories came crashing back. She’d eloped with a palace aid. And he’d come here to drown his sorrows in ouzo, only to end up experiencing the most intense and pleasurable night of his life.

Thankful he did not get hangovers, he tipped his head to see the top of Aaliyah’s dark head peaking above the sheet. She was curled on her side, the Egyptian cotton sheet pulled up to cover her face, even as her body snuggled trustingly into his.

Which shocked him.

She might be used to sleeping with someone else, but he was not.

Sayed never took lovers to his own bed and had never spent the night in theirs.

Yet he’d slept more soundly last night than he had in months, even with the knowledge of Tahira’s betrayal and its ramifications looming over him.

It must have been the ouzo.

He started to tug his hand back from where it rested against Aaliyah’s stomach and she made a soft sound in her sleep, showing no signs of waking. For some reason he was loath to relinquish contact with her soft skin and he allowed his hand to settle again.

Just for a moment.

He could not make himself regret giving in to his desire for the beautiful Aaliyah Amari.

Nor could he allow himself to service the craving she elicited in him again.

Even if he could remain for the additional week in London he had planned, it would be a bad idea.

Regardless, he had to return to Zeena Sahra immediately.

The lack of a wedding between him and Tahira would have far-reaching political ramifications. Not least of which was the fact no emir had progressed to melech of Zeena Sahra while still a bachelor in the entire history of his country.

He and his father would have to find another suitable matrimonial prospect for Sayed, and very quickly, if they wished to minimize their international embarrassment.

His father.

Damn it.

Sayed should have called the older man the night before. He would have to do so very soon.

Should he wake Aaliyah before he left? It might be more comfortable for both of them to avoid the morning after.

However, it was inevitable, he realized.

Sayed wasn’t about to do the walk of shame down the corridors of the hotel back to his suite in yesterday’s no doubt hopelessly wrinkled suit.

With reluctance he could not deny but nevertheless had to ignore, Sayed removed the arm he had curled loosely around Aaliyah. She mumbled and stretched one leg so it brushed his provocatively but, once again, did not wake.

With more effort than it should have taken to make himself do it, Sayed moved so he was sitting on the side of the bed and reached for the phone.

Calling Yusuf, he instructed his personal bodyguard to bring him fresh clothing.

“Your parents both called yesterday.”

“You handled it with tact and aplomb as usual, I am sure, Yusuf.” The man was Sayed’s personal bodyguard, not assistant, but he handled things too sensitive for Duwad or Abdullah-Hasiba.

Yusuf was the only person who had known where Sayed had ended up the night before. In fact, the bodyguard had suggested it.

“I did.”

“Good.”

Aaliyah groaned, moving beside him.

“You are not alone, Emir?” Yusuf asked.

“No.”

“Do you need me to take care of it?”

The idea of his old friend handling Aaliyah as he had others of Sayed’s bed partners in the past was not acceptable. “No.”

“She needs to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

“She won’t say anything, Yusuf. She’s not that type of woman.” Sayed knew how hopelessly naive he sounded and he hadn’t been that innocently trusting since his brother’s assassination all those years ago.

Still, he was certain he was right.

“Keep her there until I arrive,” Yusuf instructed.

“Did you forget who is emir here?”

Aaliyah’s head came up from under the sheet at that and she stared at him with wide eyes.

“I never forget my duty to you, O’ Emir.” Sarcasm dripped from Yusuf’s tone.

“It is not your duty I’m questioning.” Just the other man’s willingness to follow a direct order.

Not something either of them had high expectations of after all their years of friendship.

“Think with your big head here, Sayed,” Yusuf almost pleaded. “If she is not there when I arrive, I will be forced to turn the matter over to Omar.”

Sayed didn’t bother to remind Yusuf that no name had been mentioned. Even if his bodyguard hadn’t been keenly aware of Sayed’s preoccupation with Aaliyah Amari, discovering the identity of the woman Sayed had spent the night with would not provide much of a challenge for the security team.

Sayed felt his own groan coming on.

“Is that what you want?” Yusuf asked when Sayed didn’t reply to his statement.

No way would Sayed sic his father’s fixer on Aaliyah. “That is not acceptable.”

“As you say.”

Which was not agreement. Not coming from the man who had grown up alongside Sayed and was almost as close as a brother.

Sayed had been trained to lead a country and Yusuf had been trained to protect the royal house of Zeena Sahra. They shared a common goal that had solidified the bond between them from childhood.

“I will see you shortly.”

“As you wish, Emir.”

Grinding his teeth at the additional sarcasm lacing his friend’s tone, Sayed hung up the phone.

He turned to face Aaliyah. She’d scooted to the other side of the king-size bed and was sitting against the headboard, her long, dark hair in just-woken-up disarray, the sheet pulled up over her nudity.

The way it outlined her delectable curves, he did not think the cotton provided the barrier she thought it did.

There was no point putting off what he would rather avoid altogether. “My bodyguard insists you sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

Aaliyah nodded and then winced. Pressing the hand not holding the sheet in a death grip against the side of her head, she let her eyelids slide shut.

“You do not mind?”

“No,” Aaliyah said in a whisper. “Would you mind not yelling, though?”

“You’ve got a hangover?”

Her eyes snapped open, fire sparking in their narrowed green depths. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

He laughed, when he was sure nothing could have made him do so today. Not when he faced one of the biggest political crises of his life.

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The Chatsfield Collection Books 1-8

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