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should have.”

      Genie’s eyes flashed fire as he watched her across the table. So passionate, this woman. So vibrant and alive. She had no problem challenging him, and he found he rather liked that, even while it sometimes irritated him.

      “Arranged marriages, especially between royals, are such a part of my culture that I did not consider how it might affect you. Nor did I feel it necessary to explain my life to you in the beginning, when I hardly knew you.”

      “And now you admit you were wrong?”

      “Yes.” He hadn’t meant to say it tonight, because he hadn’t wanted her to think he was being insincere—and yet he found he needed to do so. He wanted her to understand, wanted to explain what he’d been too young and arrogant to explain that night so long ago.

      “I appreciate that, but it doesn’t change anything, Zafir. Even if I’d been the sort of woman who could accept such an arrangement, I wouldn’t have been able to pursue my work here.”

      “Bah’shar is filled with ruins that need exploring by scholars. You could have done so.”

      She shook her head emphatically. “No, don’t go there. It was impossible. I could never have accepted the kind of arrangement you were offering me.”

      “I know this now,” he said, shoving back from the table and drawing her up from her chair.

      He was growing as tired of talking about the past as she was. It did nothing but wound, and he wanted to think of other things this evening. He had enough pain in his life.

      “Let us concentrate on tonight,” Zafir said, pulling her close. She didn’t resist as he began to sway to imaginary music. “Do you remember this?”

      “Of course,” she said a touch breathlessly.

      They’d often danced together when the mood had hit them, and rarely had there been any music to accompany their steps.

      It amazed him how right it felt to do this, how soothing it was to his senses. He’d been living in a pressure cooker for so long, yet the simplest touch from this woman relieved all the strain.

      She was as light in his arms as she’d ever been. Her hair smelled exotic, like jasmine and spice, and he found himself cupping her head, threading his fingers into her short curls.

      He simply had to have her, or he would die.

      She leaned back to look up at him. Her fingers curled into his lapels. “You should let me go, Zafir. Tell the Sheikh the truth and let me go back to my dig.”

      A dull pain pierced his heart at the thought. “Perhaps I should,” he said. “But I am not going to do so.”

      Chapter Five

      GENIE’S SENSES WERE on high alert as Zafir held her close, their bodies swaying together. The longer she was with him, the less she wanted to be anywhere else. And that was dangerous, so very dangerous.

      His body was warm, hard, and her skin sizzled where his fingers rested against her back. The dress that had been so comfortable before now felt like the roughest cloth against her sensitive skin. She wanted out of it, and yet she did not. To take that step was to go down a path she’d never thought to travel again.

      “I cannot believe you are here,” Zafir said in her ear, his breath tickling her and sending a shiver down her spine. “I had never thought to see you again.”

      That his thoughts so eerily echoed hers only made her ache more.

      “It would have been better that way,” she said.

      “I disagree.” And then he kissed her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to say no if he kept kissing her this way. So sweetly, as if she was a treasure he’d discovered. So tenderly, as if she meant the world to him.

      Yet she knew she didn’t. This was physical and, yes, perhaps even a bit sentimental. She didn’t fool herself that it was anything else. Could she handle that?

      “Do you remember how it was between us? How amazing?” he asked, his breath soft against her mouth.

      “Yes,” she whispered.

      “I want that feeling again, Genie.”

      His mouth fused to hers once more, and she melted away into a mass of nerve-endings that existed only to respond to his touch. Her body was on fire with remembered bliss, with the anticipation of more. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone—and now he was here, the man she’d never really stopped loving, and he wanted her.

      And, God help her, she wanted him too. Just once. Just this once.

      Because she didn’t have the strength to fight herself anymore.

      She slid her arms around his neck, arched into him. He groaned his appreciation, squeezed her closer. One broad hand spread over her buttocks, kneaded her, pulling the cradle of her hips against his erection. He found her most sensitive spot, his body putting pressure against hers in just the right location.

      Genie gasped as sensation shot through her. Zafir slid the jeweled straps from her shoulders, his mouth finding the sensitive area where her shoulder joined her neck. It had always driven her crazy, and no doubt he remembered it.

      Though how he remembered after so long was something she couldn’t fathom at the moment. Not when desire and heat were tingling through her body like this.

      “I need to know,” she gasped, “if there’s anyone else in your life right now.”

      He pulled back to look down at her very solemnly. “There is no one.”

      Genie closed her eyes as relief washed over her. If there had been a woman—a mistress, a fiancée—she could not go through with this no matter how much she ached for him. “Then touch me, Zafir.”

      If he didn’t touch her she would die.

      His voice was as warm and rich as melted honey. “I intend to, habiba. Most thoroughly.”

      When his fingers slid to her zipper, she felt a stab of apprehension. “What if someone sees us?”

      His laugh against the skin of her shoulder vibrated through her body. “No one would dare. We will not be disturbed.”

      He spun her around and pulled her zipper all the way down. Then he slid the dress from her body. She stepped out of it, her heart hammering, her head telling her she was making a mistake, that this was too fast and too dangerous. That she was sinking into the quicksand of her need for this man, when she’d worked so hard to free herself from it the first time.

      Behind her, Zafir groaned softly.

      “You never wore this sort of underwear before,” he said, his fingers sliding along the top edge of her thong.

      Before she’d realized what he was doing, his hot mouth was on her back. His tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of her spine before he placed a kiss on her bare buttocks, and then the curve beneath where her leg began. He turned her with his hands, gazing up at her with such heat and need in his eyes that she shivered anew.

      “I am a king on his knees for you,” he said. “And I hardly know where to begin.”

      “You’ll ruin your trousers.” It was an inane reply, but she couldn’t trust herself to say anything else.

      “I do not care,” he replied, reaching for her. He quickly unsnapped the clasp of her strapless bra, which fell away and exposed her bare breasts to his gaze.

      Her nipples were hard, tight points, begging for his touch. Goosebumps rose on her bare flesh, but not because she was cold. Zafir licked first one tip and then the other, before suckling them into even more sensitive buds than they already were.

      Genie’s head fell back, her hands gripping his shoulders. She felt wanton, hot, restless, and so completely unsatisfied. Not that his mouth wasn’t magical,

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