Zafir was lounging on the velvet-lined couch, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.
She pulled the tall twin doors that weighed a ton with a vicious tug, intending to slam them but holding on to her frustration took more than she had.
Her heart beating noticeably faster at his mere presence, she studied him greedily. The setting sun behind him cast an orange glow that lovingly caressed the angles and planes of his face. His long legs sprawled out carelessly in front of him drawing her attention to the sinewy strength of his thighs. A white dress shirt, with gold cuff links and unbuttoned halfway emphasized that raw masculinity of his arms. The leanly muscled expanse of bronzed chest underneath sent tingles to places she’d rather not think about in his presence.
The more she saw Zafir in his natural element, the more she couldn’t believe that he’d been attracted to her in the first place.
She wasn’t plain-looking, she admitted that much. But he...he was magnificently masculine, starkly sensual, like the harshly beautiful elements of the very desert had come together to mold him. Even in that dormant state, a pulse of energy radiated from him.
“Are you quite done with your perusal, habeebti?”
Husky, low, his voice touched her skin like a charge of electricity. To occupy her hands, she unwound the silk scarf she had wrapped around her neck.
“I’ve been rendered mute that you remember my existence.”
Her hands not quite steady, she poured herself a glass of water.
The water slid down her throat coolly. She pressed the glass to her face and groaned, hoping he would put down the heat in her cheeks to the weather.
His gaze flew open and traveled over her with a thorough possessiveness that wound her up even tighter. Hands clasped behind his head, the action pulling his shirt tighter across his chest, the dark shadow of his skin was a visual feast.
“Farrah was right, you did miss me. If I had known you were so hungry for the sight of me, I would have come sooner.”
Her mouth fell open and she just stared, unable to even mumble a token retort. Even seething with the knowledge that he was turning her life upside down, she was starved for the sight of him.
She walked around the couch to the opposite side, needing the distance between them. Extremely conscious, she tugged the flimsy edge of her sheer yellow cotton blouse.
Which was absolutely the wrong thing to do, because his smoldering gaze moved slowly over her mouth to her throat and her chest.
He tilted forward suddenly with a contained violence. She jerked back instantly and the back of her knees hit the couch. “What are you walking around in?”
She remained resolutely mute.
“No snarky response?” he goaded, and she had a feeling he was looking for a fight. Or something else, a voice whispered, stretching her nerves unbearably tight. For all his smooth tone, there was an edge of something darker at play.
“I...was too hot,” she replied softly, striving to rid her voice of that mutinous tone. “The guards, they barely look at me, much as they’re equally fascinated and disgusted by what I represent within these palace walls.”
He leveled a look of pure disbelief at her. But she would behave like an adult if it killed her, she decided. “All of Behraat is fascinated with you right now, and plotting about how best to use you to damage me.”
“Am I in danger then?”
Hard and unrelenting, his gaze held hers. “Yes. But the only kind that would actually get to you is from me.”
“Even my love for this baby won’t make it tolerable to be confined to these palace walls for the rest of my life, Zafir. I need—”
“I don’t have any other role for you.” Which is why I walked out, his unsaid explanation fluttered in the silence between them.
There it was, the answer to the question that had plagued her since he had locked her up.
“I’m not asking for one.” Throat thick with something she couldn’t even name, she looked at her hands. “I wasn’t supposed to be in Behraat, I wasn’t supposed to know your real identity and I definitely wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, was I?”
“No, you were not.” The statement was matter-of-fact, no bitterness, no regret, no blame. She wished she had his flair for that acceptance.
“I had control over this attraction when you devoured me with those big eyes on that night in the ER. Or that minute the next morning when I kissed you at the end of your shift. Or the next night when I returned to your apartment after I dropped off Huma and you opened the door and invited me in. Or when I, even knowing what awaited me, came back to you again and again. Not now.”
“Easy for you to accept it, because nothing changes in your life.”