LITMIR.BIZ

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took the key out and handed it to him. When he wouldn’t take it, she placed it on his lap and took off her seat belt. “Which part of ‘I’m taking care of you tonight’ didn’t you get?”

      His gaze bathed her in such calm contemplation it had blood fizzing in her ears. “This comes from being one of the two prized female Aal Shalaans, right?”

      “Uh… what does?”

      “The expectation that men will do your bidding. You’re used to saying ‘jump’ only for your male kin to ask ‘how high?’“

      One thing for sure, she’d jump if only he said to. She’d stay in the air until he said down, too.

      No need to tell him that just yet. For now, she’d let him believe she was an old hand at getting her way. If he believed she was more effective than she really was, it made it more likely she’d sway him, too. Good press was everything, after all.

      She smiled. “Invite me in, Rashid.”

      “That’s an ill-advised demand, princess.”

      “Will you stop with this ‘princess’ business? You’d better, if you don’t want me to ‘sheikh’ you.”

      “‘Sheikh’ away. Boundaries are essential.”

      She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Can we take our boundaries inside? I’m dying for a cup of tea. I promise to make you one.”

      “I don’t drink tea.”

      He didn’t, huh? She might just discover he didn’t eat food, either, his sustenance being evil souls. And he’d already gorged on four for dinner.

      “You must have other beverages in your place.”

      “Tap water.”

      Her lips twisted. “You won’t put me off, you know.”

      “I’m stating facts.”

      “Next you’ll say you have nothing to eat but dried dates.”

      His shrug should have been immortalized on video as the template for nonchalance. “It’s not far from the truth.”

      Water and dates, huh? The sustenance of desert nomads. It actually fit that he, having lived years in survival mode through hardships and deprivation the likes of which she couldn’t imagine, would be programmed to exist on the bare necessities. Even now that he was a billionaire, he hadn’t gone soft or become dependent upon modern comforts and conveniences. He might drive a car only his kind of money could buy, but he reverted to his adversity-thriving true self in a heartbeat.

       We remain who we are, no matter where we are.

      And who he was, was the best thing she’d ever known.

      She grinned into his brooding eyes. “Water and dates work for me.”

      “Fine. You can come in.” Not much of an invitation, but she’d take it. She was sizzling with eagerness to. At least, she was before he doused it. “Until your escort arrives.”

      Before she could object, he was out of the car in yet another impossibly effortless move.

      Her exit wasn’t as graceful, nor was her progress to catch up with him at the door of what looked like a deserted warehouse below an equally empty, old, industrial-looking brick building.

      As he pointed a remote at the huge steel door, she nodded at the deserted area. “See this? There’s no one around like there always is in our region. No malicious eyes to monitor my visit or wagging tongues to weave it into a scandal. Why are you worried?”

      “Why aren’t you?”

      “Because I can’t worry about anything with you around. Because I feel safer with you than I ever did in my life. Why else?”

      Another episode of inertness descended on him. She was quickly learning that indicated astonishment. Even shock.

      His next words reinforced that belief, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “You believe I pose no danger of any sort?”

      “Definitely not to me.” The words were out before she realized he might mean a different kind of danger… the sexual kind.

      If only. With this avenging archangel, she was safer in that arena than she was in her currently all-female environment. A depressing thought if any ever was.

      He pressed the remote and the door opened with the whirr of a perfectly oiled machine, belying its weather-beaten appearance.

      Before he turned away, he belatedly commented on her wholehearted assertion. “Interesting.”

      You can say that again, she thought, watching the receding streetlights paint shadows across his back as he forged deeper into the darkness, a sorcerer becoming one with his lair.

      He left the lights off. On purpose, she was sure, to rattle her. Punishing her for behaving so “inappropriately”?

      Too bad for him it wouldn’t work. Not only did she have no fear of darkness, it was true she’d fear nothing with him by her side. Maybe they did lack some knowledge of one another that closer interaction would have fostered, but she did know the essential him. His essence had touched hers so profoundly that he starred in her very first memory.

      Deciding to call him out on his efforts to intimidate her, she said, “Let there be light, Rashid. Only so neither of us breaks a toe against a cabinet or something.”

      At her mockery, there was light. Not a sudden burst, but a dawning of golden, sourceless illumination so gradual her vision didn’t have to adjust to take in her surroundings. A vast, 50-foot-ceilinged warehouse-to-loft conversion. There was one word for it: Spartan. She now truly knew what the word meant. It was this: a warrior’s dwelling. Sparse, utilitarian, austere. It was also more. A piece of ancient Azmahar, before oil and technology had transformed its distinctive heritage into yet another twenty-first-century Westernized hybrid. Every line and surface, and what little furniture there was, was steeped in Azmahar’s history, bearing the stamp of its authenticity in a muted palette of desert-inspired tones.

      “Of course.” She realized she’d said that out loud when he turned to her. “Now that I’ve seen this place, I realize nothing else—and nothing less—could have suited you. Or… contained you.”

      “Contained me?” His gaze swept the place before he leveled that bone-melting stare back on her. “Quite the bottle, isn’t it?”

      A laugh burst out of her. “You do fit the genie profile. Especially with the way you materialized out of thin air tonight.”

      Shrugging out of his coat, he moved deeper into the huge space. “I’m sure that satisfies your sense of dramatic license far more than the mundane explanation.”

      Removing her coat as well and following him farther into the room, she faced him as he stopped before a fireplace and held out her arms for the logs he’d picked up. “I’ll do that. You sit down.”

      “So it’s not ‘jump’ this time, but ‘sit,’ eh? What next? Roll over? Beg?”

      A chuckle bubbled out as she tried to imagine him doing any of that. But the funny actions only turned to licentious images in her head. Oh, the images.

      Trapping a moan, she grinned. “Maybe. And maybe I’ll ask you to jump to that mezzanine. I bet you can jump tall buildings in a single bound. But even superheroes need to put their feet up once in a while. As you’re going to do tonight.”

      Without a shadow of a smile in return, he handed her the logs and left her to start a fire. He sank down on top of a woolen kelim woven in Azmahar’s national colors and motifs. Leaning on one of two huge complementing cushions, he proceeded to watch her like a black panther would contemplate a contrary gazelle.

      His gaze made her more distressed with each breath; its touch unleashing impulses she’d believed would be forever banked

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