LITMIR.BIZ

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after all.

      “She was.” With a look of sadness, Aaliyah looked away as she swallowed the pills.

      When she tried to hand him back the glass, he shook his head. “Drink it all. It will help.”

      “I don’t think I can.”

      “Sip it.”

      She sighed. “It wasn’t the alcohol, was it? You really are this bossy all of the time.”

      “It comes with the job.” He smiled, the urge to laugh again not easy to stifle, but he did not think she would appreciate it.

      She finished the glass of water and put it down.

      “Good. Now, go take your shower.” If he timed it right, Yusuf would arrive while she was in the bathroom.

      Sayed didn’t understand this need he had to protect her, but he had no doubts it would embarrass Aaliyah greatly to face Sayed’s security staff the morning after.

      She seemed discombobulated enough by her one-night lover’s presence.

      She took a tighter grip on the sheet, her expression mutinous. “I’ll wait.”

      “I am not accustomed to having my instructions disregarded,” he told her, lacing his tone heavily with censure.

      “Poor you.” She appeared anything but sympathetic. “I’m sure you will survive it.”

      “You were not this stubbornly shy last night.”

      She glared up at him. “I was drunk.”

      “You told me you were not.”

      “I wanted you to make love to me.”

      “So, you knew enough to make the choice,” he said with some relief.

      “Of course. I’m not a child.”

      He tugged on the sheet. “Are you sure?”

      Affront was written all over her lovely face.

      He shrugged, lifting one brow. “Only, your refusal to get out of the bed seems a bit childish to me. After last night.”

      Color stained her cheeks, but determination firmed her chin. “Fine. Get me one of the hotel robes from closet.”

      “I assure you, I saw everything last night.” He did not know why he was teasing her, but couldn’t seem to help himself.

      “It’s not the same.”

      “No. You are right. We do not have the luxury of time to do anything about our nudity and the inevitable reaction to it this morning.” He indicated his semierect sex with a small wave of his hand.

      “Sayed!”

      “What? You will not pretend you did not enjoy our lovemaking.”

      “Stop talking about it!”

      “But why?” he asked in genuine confusion. “I do not mind telling you, it was amazing.”

      Yanking the sheet with her, she jumped up from the bed and wrapped herself in it before he got much more than a glimpse of honey skin and a couple of well-placed love bites he had very fond memories of giving her.

      His breath expelled in a telling but unstoppable whoosh. “You are quite beautiful.”

      The rose of her cheeks turned crimson and she scooted around him to storm across the room to the closet. Aaliyah pulled one of the aforementioned robes off its hanger and then stalked into the bathroom, attitude in every line of her body.

      He watched her lovely form until it disappeared behind the firmly closed and―yes, he’d heard the snick―locked door.

      His pang at the knowledge no woman in his life would react like she did was as inexplicable as it was undeniable.

      A knock sounded on the door to the suite. Sayed donned the other robe from the closet, surprised when he realized that not only was it a man’s robe with the dark blue hotel crest on the left breast, but it was his size.

      Had the hotel anticipated him visiting his fiancée in the suite? The brand-new box of condoms in the bedside table would indicate a resounding yes.

      Sayed let Yusuf in. “Leave my clothes in the other room and the agreement on the desk over there. She’s agreed to sign it.”

      Subtle tension released from Yusuf’s shoulders. “That is good.”

      “She did not balk at all.”

      “It would appear Miss Amari is a woman of principle.”

      “As I told you.”

      Yusuf disappeared into the other room as Sayed found himself gathering Aaliyah’s clothing.

      Considering her blushing reticence this morning, he did not think she would like to see their clothes strewn around the sitting room. They’d so clearly been yanked off their bodies in passion and with little finesse.

      Yusuf cursed in the other room, a word usually reserved for serious screwups, which Sayed never indulged in.

      The other man came storming back into the room. “Tell me the condoms are in the bathroom trash.”

      “What?” Sayed was used to the intrusiveness of constant security, but this was pushing the bounds of propriety. Yes, the condoms were in the bathroom trash bin.

      That was something that Yusuf should take for granted. Sayed was not an idiot. “You forget yourself, Yusuf.”

      “No, Emir. That would be you.”

      “What are you talking about?” But even as he asked, Sayed’s memory of the night before began to nag at him.

      The final time they’d made love had been like waking from a dream. In fact, he was pretty sure that’s how it had started. Bodies moving together in the dark before waking to an unhurried joining and slipping back into slumber.

      Sayed’s insides tightened with realization.

      It hadn’t been a dream and they hadn’t used a condom.

      “Since I doubt very sincerely you have suddenly developed an interest in rough sex, the blood on the sheets can only mean one thing. Miss Amari was a virgin.”

      What was Yusuf going on about? “What blood?” Sayed’s annoyance with himself made his tone harsher than it needed to be.

      “The smears in a single strategic spot on the bottom sheet of the bed,” Yusuf said, each word an emphasized bullet.

      Ignoring for a moment the other reality for this new one, Sayed rushed into the bedroom, his gaze falling on the telltale streaks almost instantly.

      How had he missed them this morning? Oh, yes, because he’d been so busy watching Aaliyah. Nothing else in the room had registered.

      “She must have started.” That would explain her over-the-top shyness about exposing her body to him this morning.

      One of the things Sayed had enjoyed the most about the night before had been Aaliyah’s lack of inhibition.

      “Her period?” Yusuf asked giving the bloodstain a jaundiced look.

      “What else?”

      “What else indeed?”

      “Anyway, we used condoms thoughtfully provided by the hotel.” Except that one time, which he had no choice but to disclose.

      “How could you be that careless?” Yusuf demanded, not unfairly.

      Sayed could barely believe his own lack of control. “I woke from a dream that wasn’t a dream.”

      “She was touching you?” Yusuf asked, his expression unreadable.

      Another man might be able to refuse to answer such intimate questions, but Sayed had responsibilities

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