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Hakim felt his feet on dangerous ground. He kept going, regardless. “Definitely.” As though his body was under the control of someone else, he lifted a hand and touched her cheek, drawing her attention sharply to his face. “Sex is not so fun when there are no challenges in the way.”
Phoebe sucked in a breath, but it didn’t feel like it reached her lungs. She was lost in the dark pools of his eyes, her flesh prickled all over with tiny goose bumps as her body seemed weak and warm suddenly. She opened her mouth to say something, but her brain seemed unable to dredge up the words.
“Take you, for instance,” he continued, so close now that his breath was warm as it fanned her temples. “You are young and beautiful, and I find you desirable. The fact that there are reasons I cannot act on that desire makes me want you all the more. Do you understand?”
Phoebe wasn’t sure if she could stand up much longer. Her body was awash with sensations that were completely new and impossible to comprehend. She shook her head, her throat thick with emotion.
Hakim narrowed his eyes. “I have wanted you since that first day you arrived at my palace,” he said honestly. “I have wondered what it would be like to kiss your lips,” he lowered his eyes to her mouth and smiled. “What it would be like to slowly peel your clothing from your body, and see your skin beneath. I have wondered what pleases you most in bed, and what you would do to please me. Would you want me enough to do anything I asked of you? Would you trust me enough to let my body own yours in every way?”
Phoebe’s nipples were hard beneath the caftan she wore. Her cheeks were flushed and her breathing labored. She stared up at Hakim and silently begged him to kiss her.
He dropped his hand to his side with a heavy sigh. “But you are still my ward, technically. I cannot betray Etienne by making love to you. No matter how much I would enjoy the experience.”
The mention of her stepfather was like a bucket of cold water being tossed on her head. She stepped back, her nerves stretched taut with emotion.
“Etienne is dead,” she said coldly, wrapping her arms around her chest in a gesture of self-comfort.
Hakim studied her carefully. “Yes. And in Mehran, we believe it is important to respect the dead as you would if they were still living. I know Etienne was concerned about your tendency to promiscuity, Phoebe. And I can see why.”
“Oh?” She demanded, desire quickly transforming into anger. “Why is that, Sir?”
“Any woman who looks as you do has undoubtedly had her share of male attention.” He thought back to their first meeting. “Even as a girl, you were unknowingly sensual; unintentionally inviting. Etienne was right to worry about shielding you from the opposite sex.”
Hearing Etienne praised angered Phoebe more than anything else in the world. “Shows what you know,” she muttered, turning away from him and beginning their walk down the corridor once more.
He caught her wrist and pulled her around. “What does that mean?”
She inhaled deeply and fixed him with a cold, mutinous stare. “If I’m so ‘promiscuous’, how do you explain the fact that I’ve never been with a man before?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hakim was very rarely surprised, but he found it difficult to speak now. Before him stood one of the most physically perfect women he had ever known, and she was claiming to be a virgin? Surely she was trying to prove a point by being dishonest.
“I don’t believe you,” he said finally. “It is not possible.”
She dropped her gaze, embarrassed suddenly of her openness. “Etienne did a very good job of making me terrified of men.”
“He was strict and I applaud him for it.”
Phoebe felt like she’d been slapped. She forcefully pulled her wrist from his grasp and rubbed it as though she had been scalded.
“He was not strict,” she denied, staring past Hakim at a tapestry on the wall. “He was a monster.”
Hakim swore in Arabic, his face just an angry mask. “Do not ever refer to him as that again. You are not welcome to denigrate a man I loved in my palace, do you understand?”
“Fine, let me go home, where I can speak truthfully about him anytime I want to.”
Hakim’s flesh paled. “You badmouth Etienne as a matter of course?”
She flushed. Actually, she made a habit of not speaking about her stepfather at all. She had her revenge plotted though. She simply needed her money to make it possible. “I only ever speak the truth,” she contradicted. “If you knew the truth about him, Hakim, you would not be so quick to protect his memory.”
The Sheikh pulled himself up to his full size, and stared down at his ward. “I think you should return to your room, Phoebe.”
She dropped her mouth in complete shock. “Are you… are you actually sending me to my room?”
He stared at her grimly. “I want you out of my sight before I do something I’ll regret.”
Her past with Etienne had made her routinely afraid of men. A raised voice was enough to send her running a mile. So why wasn’t she afraid now? Why was it only excitement and anticipation that zipped through her veins? “Are you threatening me?” She taunted, her pupils enormous in the blue of her eyes.
