Her knees gave a momentary buckle. With another almost-touch, he eased her back against the balustrade. Only then did he break their eye-lock, let his gaze drift down. His fingers followed, hovering an agonizingly unhurried path over the firm cream of her thigh and leg. Once he reached her bare foot, his fingers paused for a long moment. Then they closed on it.
She gasped a hot, sharp sound, jerked, her toes curling.
Someone in the background gave a lewd hoot. He barely registered it. All he could focus on was her labored breathing, his, drowning out the din drifting from the ballroom. He bit his lip to stem the rising stimulation, savoring the first real touch, marveling at the delicacy in her foot’s every line, the strength in every bone. She really was exquisite down to her toes.
He traced each one down to her neat, unpainted toenails, then gave her leg a coaxing push, bent her knee, brought her foot up until its arch rested on his shoulder. She was shaking now, each tremor flowing to his frame through the contact.
From this position, kneeling in front of her, feeling her flailing in his power, he decided it was time to answer her.
“You want to know what I was thinking?” He marveled at the ragged edge lacing his words. A convincing simulation of stirred sincerity. He wasn’t sure what it was. Excitement? Exhilaration? Arousal? Probably all three. “I was thinking it was you who the word beautiful has been coined for. I was thinking that you must be a different species, that you put me to shame.”
“I do?” she croaked. Then she jerked. “Listen, I-I said some embarrassing stuff…more so than the gems that usually dribble from my big mouth. So…sorry, OK? Just forget them and…” The rest was muffled as she tried to extract her foot from his grip.
He only slid her foot down to his heart level, pressed it there, so lightly he let her know she could escape if she wanted, let her know she couldn’t. “Don’t apologize. Never apologize. You misunderstand me. You put me to shame with your candor. And then, how could I forget what you said? When I never want to? I never met a woman, or anyone for that matter, who was anywhere near this delightfully plainspoken.”
“Delightfully? Don’t you mean painfully? At least, it’s painful for me…or more so for me, this time…”
He’d never seen emotions so visibly invading a skin so perfect before. His gaze clung to the progression of her blush, watched the stain of stimulation spreading, taking on a mystical tint in the moonlight. His own blood rushed to his head, to his loins. He raised her clammy foot, dueled with the urge to kiss it, to suckle her toes. An urge he’d never imagined before. He clamped down on it, settled for fitting her shoe back on, a tremor invading his fingers as he slipped her supple foot into the emerald satin-covered creation. It had to be the control he was exerting, so he wouldn’t obey his instincts’ insistence that he heave up and crush this exquisite female in his arms.
He settled for a whispered lip brush on the inside of her calf, then, with a pang of regret, he let her skirt fall over her creamy flesh, and placed her foot down on the ground. “Why should it pain you, my Cinderella? Doing me such a favor?”
She teetered, grasped her support harder. “Favor?”
He rose slowly, drawing out the moment, the movement, both more potent for his letting her sense his leashed desire without touching her. “A huge one. The moment I laid eyes on you, I wondered how I’d approach you without seeming predatory. Afterward, I wondered if it was wise to tell you how I welcomed the dousing and the chance it gave me to be with you. I went through a list of roundabout ways to tell you what you make me feel without offending you or scaring you off. And here you are, showing me that no maneuvers are needed. Not when what we feel is mutual.”
She shook her head as if to clear it. “It is? But-but I don’t even know how I feel.”
He touched a heavy lock of wet bronze silk, oh so close to her breast. “Why don’t you describe it to me?”
She pressed against the balustrade, to escape his influence, her desire to press into him instead. He knew it. “I-I already told you…you make me feel confused and clumsy…”
“And hot,” he finished, elation rising higher.
“Yeah, that, too…” She stopped, groaned. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this…apart from the fact that I have this mind-to-mouth incontinence disease…when it’s not business stuff…” She paused, seemed to struggle for breath, then burst out again. “This is ridiculous. This has to be the full moon…or the champagne. I’m not this socially handicapped.”
He leaned closer, pressing his advantage. “This is not social. This is you and me. The moon has nothing to do with the magic brewing between us. It’s only shedding a stronger light on it. The champagne, we only bathed in.”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s champagne-fumes intoxication?”
He had to chuckle. He wanted to remain intense and focused, but everything she said stimulated his humor as much as his libido. “Intoxication is right. You’re just looking for a far-fetched reason when you’re right here, a vision from a fairy tale who keeps blurting out the most amazing things.”
“A vision? Sure. The word you’re looking for is a sight.”
And the amazing thing was, he felt she wasn’t fishing, that her comment carried conviction. And consternation.
He insisted, his voice lowering, roughening, praise coming easy, flowing true. “A vision. So much more potent for being real. And you think the same about me.”
She nodded, without hesitation. Then her eyes squeezed and she groaned again. Was it possible this persona, the one who seemed devoid of even an ounce of feminine wiles, was real?
She echoed his skepticism. “But how can any of this be real? What is this, anyway?”
“You know what this is. Something you thought you’d never experience. Something I certainly didn’t believe even existed. Instant attraction. Total and brutal.”
Her eyes filled with concession, with bewilderment, as the music built to climactic heights, as if underscoring his assertion, a manifestation of the charge building between them.
Suddenly her wavering gaze wrenched from his.
He dragged it back with a touch brooking no resistance. She wasn’t dismissing him like she had the fates of two kingdoms.
He closed the remaining inches between them until he was a breath away from imprinting himself all over her. The music rose to a crescendo, then held its breath. He pressed his point home. “Don’t try to escape the truth. Acknowledge it.”
“How can I? W-we don’t even know each other’s names.”
The music came to a dramatic end, as if punctuating her gasped protest. So…she’d introduced the subject of exchanging personal details. Good. It was time he introduced her to the alter ego he’d created in the past month for this purpose.
“That’s easily fixed.” He reached for her right hand, so soft and pliant and sweaty, took it to his lips. “My name is Shehab Aal Ajman.” He pressed a hot kiss in the middle of her palm. “Now all you have to do to meet your condition for sanctioning our attraction is to tell me yours, ya jameelati.”
Her eyes widened as she snatched her hand away, fisted it as if it itched, burned. “Is that Arabic?”
“It is…my beauty.”
“Oh-oh…oh.” Her faltering eyes widened. “You’re him? Sheikh Shehab Aal Ajman? But you can’t be!”
“I assure you, I can.” His lips spread in satisfaction. “So you know of me. How’s that for proof that this is fate at work?”
Realizations piled up in Farah’s mind. But stunned or not, his last statement incited her enough to contradict it.
“Oh, no. Fate’s got nothing to do with it. How could I not know of the venture capitalist who’s been rocking the financial world? In my line of work I know of anyone who’s making or has the potential of making waves. And you’ve been making tsunamis.” She exhaled her still-climbing incredulity. “Excuse me as I struggle with my misconceptions. I had this image in my head, and it seems hilarious now side-by-side with the truth…your truth.”