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That was something he could not understand. The shame people felt around their feelings.
It was easy for him to talk about how beautiful she was. To admit that he wanted her. It felt absurd to deny such an obvious thing. He was hard, and he wanted to look his fill. He could hide neither of those things if she chose to see them.
And why should he be ashamed of them? She was a beautiful woman. And he was a man who had long been denied the sight and touch of a beautiful woman. Why would he not enjoy her?
And if she loved Cairo... He did not care for it. But he didn’t see why she should be embarrassed. He gripped her chin and directed her face toward him. “Why?”
“He saved me,” she said. “And has taken care of me ever since. And I’m in love with him. I... He is my friend. But...”
“Are you in love with him, or do you feel bound to him for what he did?”
“I love him,” she said.
“And yet it doesn’t prevent you from feeling attraction to me.”
“I’m human. I said I loved your brother. I didn’t say anything had ever happened between us.”
“So you’re saying you’re hungry for the touch of the one you love, but as he has not put his hands on you... Your overall hunger for touch is greater than your need for him?” He moved his hands down her back, stopping just above the waistband of her bikini bottoms. How badly he wished to cup her luscious derrière. And yet he wished to wait. Until he had more explicit evidence of her desire.
“I just think... It is entirely possible to appreciate the looks of a person while loving another, isn’t it? If it weren’t, then people wouldn’t have affairs.”
“But this would not be an affair. You said yourself. My brother has never touched you.”
“You are to be married.”
“To a woman I don’t love. To a woman I owe nothing to.”
She wiggled in his hold, and he allowed her to extricate herself. He growled.
“Don’t growl at me,” she said.
“I wish to touch you,” he said.
“We aren’t touching. We’re talking. I’m here to help you, and it isn’t fair of me to take advantage of you.”
He laughed, the sound echoing off the walls in the pool. “Take advantage of me? You are tiny. I could force you to do whatever I wished if I were that sort of man. You could not force me to do anything.”
“Maybe not. But you have been in captivity for all these years. And how many women have you even been exposed to? Perhaps you only want me because of proximity. It would be taking advantage of you.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It isn’t. You’re engaged. You’ve made that decision.”
“Unless I imprison her.”
“Her father betrayed you. Not her,” she said, frowning.
He did not want her to frown.
“I know. But just as I am a symbol of hope to the people, whether I am fully within my right mind or not, Ariel will serve as recompense. Though, not in prison, but as my wife. Whether it was her sin or not. We cannot help what we symbolize. I am only sheikh because of who my father is. How is it any different that she is to be sheikha because of who her father is?”
She sank deeper into the water, swimming on her back. Away from him. “I know very well what it’s like to suffer because of who your father is. To be used as a pawn. It isn’t fair.”
He swam to her, closing the distance between them, and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her to him. He groaned as her breasts made contact with his chest. She looked away, but he could see her pulse beating faster at the base of her throat. He lowered his head, and kissed her there.
The press of his mouth against that soft skin electrified him.
On impulse, he licked her neck, dragging his tongue slowly up, capturing the water droplets that lingered there.
