Chapter Ten
Cemal would make a law when he got back to Jordan, a law that everyone had to go around naked. It was a risk, of course. Some people probably would be better off covered. However, if it encouraged Juliana to lay before him as she was now, completely nude and with the bare skin of her back exposed for him, then he’d call it a law entirely worth the risk. They’d finished up their tour of the Star Wars sets and then gone back to their hotel for a delectable five-star meal of roasted lamb and date bread. Now he was massaging her back, showing how much he cared for his kitten with every stroke of his hands.
He knew he loved her; Hell, he’d been craving her for well over a decade.
She wasn’t the same girl he knew, but he wasn’t that swaggering adolescent boy either. But he loved the woman she’d grown into—the luscious curve of her ample breasts, the smooth expanse of pale skin, and the softness of her full hips. She was all woman. He’d forgotten how great it could be to embrace a woman who owned her curves, who was more than the skin and bones of the latest it-girl models he could find in Paris or Milan. Juliana was a real woman who challenged him; that was her greatest strength.
“So,” he said. “I’m wrong about you.”
“Not wrong. It’s just that you know me and think I’m still mostly that sophomore, and I’m not. I’ve lived through a lot, Cemal.”
He leaned lower even as his hands dug deeply into her shoulders. Ah, how his dark-haired beauty smelled of apple blossom. Already his erection was straining against his robes, but Cemal hoped that she wouldn’t notice. Not right now. Soon their bodies would inevitably meet. But for right now he did need to understand her. How would he ever be able to keep her, if he didn’t know all about the woman she’d grown to be? Both Juliana and his mother were right about that one. Of course, when he looked into her sparkling eyes, he still saw that sweet and tempting innocent she’d been. Could she really be that different?
“Your fiancé, right?”
“Yes. He and I didn’t just fall apart. He cheated on me, Cemal. I came home not even a month ago and found him fucking my so-called best friend.”
“I didn’t know.”
She snorted but didn’t look back over her shoulder to face him any longer. “They don’t exactly have a Facebook status for that. Whatever you might have scoped out on me, I’m positive that you didn’t find that information.”
“But why?”
“I guess Phillip is an asshole. Or maybe I’m just foolish. I’m not an idiot. I know that I’m the ugly duckling, and that’s a nice way of putting it. My sister got married right out of college and I’m pushing thirty. Mom stopped setting me up on dates until I did meet Phillip. I think she assumed that I was going to just be an old maid dedicated to computers, you know?”
“At twenty-three?”
“Momma was engaged at nineteen and married her summer before senior year. She had all the best Kappa Sig boys trailing after her. Just get her started. Mom and Katherine are the beautiful ones and I’m…plump,” she said. “I used to think it didn’t matter as much, but then Phillip wasn’t as in love with me as I’d hoped.”
Cemal growled. If he ever met that loser, he’d slug the hell out of him, leave him in the emergency room. No one should ever make his kitten feel like this. Couldn’t she see the revelation she truly was? Couldn’t she see the woman she was made to be?
“Then he was an idiot.”
“I thought he cared,” she said, her voice so quiet he could barely hear it.
Cemal shook his head and then ran his hands down, all the way to her hips. He wound his palms over the curves of her ass, squeezing the mounds of flesh between his fingers and thumb. “This is what a woman should be. If he didn’t want to have all of you and taste your nectar and rejoice in your curves, then he was the fool. Not you.”
“My mother says—”
“Then she’s an even bigger idiot. If your family spends all this time shitting on you, then you don’t have to listen to them either. You’re working at a great company in Silicon Valley. You’re the one they send out to help royalty because Ms. Grant trusts you that much. I think that speaks very highly about your capacity, about your talent.”
“I’m a thirty-year-old washout who still works glorified IT. I don’t have a family of my own and I wasted time on a man who strung me out for years. I just…I love code, but I thought by now I’d be revolutionizing things as well, creating apps of my own. That hasn’t been happening, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
“I’m offering you a way out,” he said.
She turned around then, and he tried not to become distracted by the tantalizing sight of her perky breast, of those dusky rose nipples rising into peaks before him. It made his mouth water. Oh what he’d do to her soon enough.
“But I can’t take that either. If I’m going to fix my career, I’m going to find a way to do that.”
“You could work here.”
“Maybe, but can’t we just date for a while? Nothing has to be rushed.”
“You’d date me from California? Would we Skype through it all?” he asked, the irritation rising in his tone.
“No, but I’m trying to tell you how we can’t just pick up in hot and heavy where we were as kids. We’re not those people and we have to learn about each other. One day, sure, maybe I’ll find a way to be in Jordan and to also be an app developer. Right now, though, I can’t just relocate for you. I thought you’d understand.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t have to like it. I just…the one thing I have wanted all this time was you.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t have a career I wanted.”
Some of the anger seemed to cool from Juliana as she chuckled. “Well, I think king of a far-off, exotic land does sound pretty cool on a resume.”
He grinned back at her and sat taller. “Oh, of course. However, the thing I wanted, the one thing I wanted for myself was you. Maybe if I couldn’t figure out my own passion, I could borrow some of yours. Everything went to hell and beyond when your parents called the school on me, when they complained and I was yanked away.”
“Understatement,” she echoed.
“Yes, but I spent so many years dreaming of you. So, yes, if it makes you more comfortable to take this slow, I can do that. I can fly you out once a month.”
“That’d be expensive!”
“We have the gas, the oil, and the private jet,” he said, shaking his head at her practicality mixed with naiveté.
“Oh, well that is quite the solution. But I can’t be the only thing you live for, Cemal. Whether it was the ghost of me or now us and dating all over again, you have to find something else to drive you. To make me absolutely everything is too high a bar for me to live up to,” she admitted, a delicious rosy glow spreading over her cheeks.
He leaned down and kissed her. “But you want me to put you on a pedestal for the night, don’t you? Can’t I worship my goddess in the way I see fit right now?”
She curved her lips in a sly smile. “I’d never stop you from doing that.”
“Good,” he said, as he leaned down to lap at the soft skin of her right nipple.
His beloved must have put on a body lotion of some type as well before retiring for the night. Her skin tasted not only of her own salty sweat but also of honey—a light, sweet flavor that made his member as hard as granite. Suddenly, it was too much and his robes had to go. Standing up for a moment, hating that he had to break contact for even that long with his beloved, Cemal removed his robes.
He grinned back at her, amused to see the hungry smile on her lips. “You know, I could watch you stare at me all night.”
“Then I’m going to get cold,” she pouted, even as her nipples continued to harden before him.
“It’s still close to one hundred degrees outside. I think you’ll live.”
She shook her head, her long hair cascading over her eyes and face. Then, Juliana pushed her lips out in a pout that absolutely leveled him. “I don’t think I will.”
“Well, maybe I can come back,” he said, crawling back over the foot of bed and enjoying the way he crept slowly over her. It allowed him a chance to take in that sweet, fruity scent that clung to her skin all over again. Leaning down, he lapped his tongue over the hollow of her navel, letting it stray over every curve and bump.
There her skin was all salt and tang, and that gustatory revelation made his erection twitch with need.
She purred and arched her hips against his legs, the soft, silky skin of her thighs grazing up against his member. “You’re ready for me, aren’t you?”
“I’m ready for so much,” he said, as he moved his head back up to stare into the jewels of her eyes. “Are you ready for me, kitten? All of me?”
She gulped and he adored the way her throat bobbed with her anxiety. “I’m ready for anything you can give me, my sheikh.”
Cemal took the invitation offered him. Lining their bodies up, he pushed his length forward and let it trace delicately over the soft, sensual skin of her secret lips. Juliana gasped and that sound was pure music to his ears. The fact that he could make such a gorgeous woman shudder like that was almost a miracle. Even through all their fights, their ups and downs, neither of them could deny how much they affected each other. No matter what Juliana said, she bent so easily to his will and to his attention. Eventually, that would bring her back to him. He knew that.
He was betting on it.
“Please,” she mewled, her voice sweet and desperate.
He couldn’t tease her any longer. Thrusting his hips forward, he pushed his hardness deep inside of her. Cemal hissed at the heat of her. It had been pleasant before but now with no barriers between them, it was pure ecstasy. The sheikh sunk more deeply into her, until his shaft was covered by her honey. She moaned and raked her nails over his back, those talons of hers biting sharply into his skin.
Leaning up, she kissed his neck, even as her nails continued their bruising punishment. Her tongue traveled sensuously over his throat and her arms moved to wrap around his shoulders to give Juliana better leverage. Then she opened her mouth wider and scraped her teeth rapaciously over the sharp line of his jaw. That sensation set his nerves alight, made the mingled pleasure and pain race through his body as he pounded harder into her. There was nothing left now but the feel of her teeth against his chin, the sweet scent of her body lotion, and the hungry pace of their huffing in the darkness.
He thrust again, plumbing her most secret depths.
In, out. In, out.
Their bodies were locked in the same rhythm, both their breathing and their thrusting hips. It was hard to tell where she ended and he began, as if their very souls were touching each other. She stopped scraping against his chin and leaned up farther to kiss him, her tongue tangling deviously with his own. Once she did that, he was lost, the fire in his veins going as high and bright as a three-alarm blaze. He came then, shooting his seed deep inside of her, rejoicing in the feel of truly being intimate with her, of having nothing between them. Cemal continued to pump into her, spurred on by Juliana’s voracious and commanding tongue, until she came as well.
Her legs pulled more tightly around him, and she broke their kiss apart long enough to scream his name.
“God, Cemal, never stop!”
He did as best as he could to accommodate her commands, but he was only human. Eventually, he collapsed to the bed, pulling her down onto his chest with the motion. Craning his neck up, he kissed the top of her head and rubbed at her back.
“I love you, kitten,” he said, not ashamed of his honesty.
“Cemal…I…”
“You don’t have to do anything, and I know you’re not sure of anything yet. That’s okay. It’s my job to make you sure. I just want you to know that I love you, everything about you, and I’ll be here to make you see that, no matter what.”
Juliana was silent after that declaration, but he ignored that deafening hush. He had time, and she would be his. A sheikh never lost anything; of that much, he was certain.