Page 78 of Kismet

“There’s nothing you can say that will change what happened in Morocco.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he growled. “Don’t you think I’d change it all if I thought it would spare you the pain? I love you. I’ve loved you almost from the first moment I saw you.”

The words filled the space between them, and she dragged in a deep breath of horror. The bastard. He had no right to say something like that to her. After sending her away in the manner he had, he had no right at all.

“It took you three months to tell me this?” she spat out with a vicious hiss. “You’re a liar.”

“I’m not lying, mon coeur. I love you,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “I would have come the moment I finished burying my father, but Charles insisted you weren’t ready to hear what I had to say.”

Her arms extended, she kept him from getting too close. A shudder rippled through her. Had he reached his father in time to resolve the differences between them? She dismissed the thought. The man didn’t deserve her sympathy. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t have let anyone stop him from coming to her before now. No one dictated to Sheikh Shaheen of the Amazigh. God, how could he lie so easily? To just blithely stroll in here and declare his love for her after the way he’d rejected her. He’d thrown her aside in the worst possible way. She’d given herself freely, but he’d tried to buy her. A vise squeezed her heart, and she almost cried out from the pain. She didn’t believe it. She couldn’t afford to. He’d destroyed her once before—she couldn’t survive losing him a second time.

“I don’t believe you,” she said in a flat voice.

“Then I’m going to prove it to you.”

Harsh determination darkened his features as he grabbed her tattooed wrist and pulled her none too gently out of the salon and into the main hall. Her initial surprise quickly subsided and her fury returned with renewed fervor. This was England, and she wasn’t his to command anymore. She belonged to no man, and she would never again allow any man to do to her what Nassar had done. Resisting his strength, she tried to yank free of his hold.

“What are you going to prove? That you’re just like Nassar? Forcing me to do something I don’t want to do?” Her words brought him to an abrupt halt as he whirled around to face her, his hand releasing her wrist as if he’d been burned.

“Is that what you think?” The stark torment on his face suffocated the anger in her body as he shook his head. “Do you honestly believe I would hurt you?”

Uncertainty slashed through her as she watched the emotions of regret and pain filling his expression. Turning away from him, she shuddered at the deep longing that was taking root inside her. She wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe him because she loved him. And God how she loved him. She wanted nothing more than to turn around and throw herself into his arms and forgive him everything.

“Why did you really come here today?” she asked without facing him. “What was it you hoped to gain by all of this?”

“You. I came for you. I came because wherever you are, that’s where I belong. Wherever you are is home for me.” The sincerity in his voice wrenched at her, and she closed her eyes.

“I can’t do this,” she said softly as she shook her head. “I just can’t. Please, leave.”

Strong hands gripped her shoulders as he pressed himself into her back. The heat of him spread its way through her until an answering warmth flowed through her. Nothing had changed. He could still affect her with a simple touch. And she could feel herself weakening.

“Allegra, look at me.” He turned her around to face him, his hand cupping her chin in a commanding, yet gentle, touch. “If you want me to go, then you’re going to have to tell me to my face that you feel nothing for me.”

Drinking in a deep breath, she shook her head. What he asked of her was impossible. She couldn’t lie about her feelings. As she looked up into his face, an emotion she didn’t want to name warmed his sun-darkened features. Closing her eyes to block out the tenderness she saw on his face, a tear forced its way out from beneath her eyelid. Oh God, she didn’t want him to see how vulnerable he could make her. She didn’t want him to know the power he had over her.

The world shifted abruptly as he swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs. Startled, she looked up at his dark profile. His declaration had shaken her to the core. Could he be telling her the truth? Did he really love her? It didn’t make sense. He’d been in England for almost three months and yet this was the first time he’d tried to contact her. Had he really stayed away because Charles had told him to?

Desperately she stirred her anger, knowing it was one of the few emotions she possessed that would give her the strength not to surrender to him. And she knew surrender was only a heartbeat away. It was there in the warm, spicy maleness of him, the heat of his hand on her skin, and the dangerous edge to his voice. It was so close she found herself relaxing in his arms. Worse still, it was impossible not to feel the strength of him as he cradled her so masterfully, yet gently. Frightened, she renewed her protests.

“What are you doing?” she whispered hoarsely. “We’re not on the desert plains of Morocco anymore.”

“Perhaps not, but you’re the jahīm anasi, and I want to show you what that means.”

“How? By using force to make me admit it?”

“I told you,” he said in a strong, quiet voice. “I will never hurt you, and I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

At the top of the stairs he set her down, and with his hand clasped gently, yet firmly, around her wrist, he led her down the hall. It was the tenderness in his touch that silenced her protests as she followed him like a meek lamb. He opened first one door and then another as if searching for something. When he opened the door to her bedroom, he stood frozen in the doorway for a moment as if assessing the room. Gently pulling her in after him, he turned and locked the door. In a quick move, he bent over and slid the key under the door and out into the hallway. Appalled, she could only stare at him in mute dismay.

His eyes didn’t leave hers as she watched him shrug out of his jacket then undo the tie encircling his throat. There was a raw, animalistic power flowing through him that made her mouth go dry as she watched his long fingers methodically remove the layers of society off his body. The way he undid the buttons at the cuffs of his shirtsleeves stirred something deep inside her as he swiftly removed his shirt. The sight of his sun-darkened flesh produced a familiar tug of emotion deep inside her.

Some small part of her marveled that she wasn’t frightened. After what Nassar had done to her, she’d been certain she would find a man’s touch difficult to bear. She’d been wrong. Perhaps any other man, but not Shaheen. Her body was screaming for his touch. She averted her gaze from him for fear he would see hunger in her eyes. Hunger for him, for his touch.

“Do you despise me so much that you can’t bear to look at me?” His quiet question caught her by surprise, and her gaze jerked back to drink in the beauty of him.

She shook her head, unable to speak as she stared at a hard, muscular chest. The strength of him was still there, but she’d been right earlier, he’d lost weight. She bit her lip as she pondered the reason why. He continued to undress, his hands peeling off the English layers until Sheikh Shaheen of the Amazigh stood before her in all his naked glory.

God, she wanted him to fold her into his arms and love her as he had the night before he sent her away. She wanted that quiet, desperate tenderness that she’d thought was his way of declaring his love. Had she been right then? Had he turned her away because he knew she wouldn’t leave him if he’d declared his love? She swallowed hard as he walked past her to sit down on the bed.