The Inherited Bride (8 page)

She couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat as she pulled her camera from her purse and clicked off a dozen pictures of the posters, the lights, the curve of the architecture. She would always remember how she’d felt as she’d stood and looked at this theater. Every time she saw the photos she would remember. Adham’s warmth. His unexpected understanding. The pain in her chest.

She looked at the screen on the camera, at the pictures she’d taken. He positioned himself behind her, studying the photos. His fingers bruised the tender hollow of her neck as he brushed her hair back. “You see beauty in so many places. So many things,” he said, his voice husky.

Her heart thundered heavily in her chest. “Sometimes people miss beauty because it’s buried in everyday objects. But none of this exploration is everyday to me.”

He laughed softly, his breath hot against her cheek. “There is certainly nothing everyday about you.”

She turned to face him then, and she caught the barest hint of warmth in his expression before the hardened mask returned and he stepped away, his body tensing.

“We should go in, or we’ll miss our showing,” he said, moving away from her and opening the door to the theater, allowing her to go in first.

It didn’t escape her notice when he paid for her ticket. That made it feel even more like a date. He bought her popcorn too—greasy and over-salted, and one of the best things she’d ever tasted.

She was excited about the film—until the lights went down and she suddenly realized how close and intimate it seemed to be seated next to Adham, so close, in the dark.

She shifted and her arm grazed his. Her heart jumped into her throat. She sneaked a glance at Adham out of the corner of her eye. He sat, rock-solid, his expression betraying nothing, the planes and angles of his face stoic. His features were sharper, more defined in the flickering light of the movie screen, his scars deeper, more exaggerated.

Thinking of someone harming him, of him being forced into a life or death situation, made her feel physically ill. She felt sorry for the woman who loved him. He said he didn’t want to get married, but her brother hadn’t wanted to get married again, and all it had taken was the right woman. The right woman would find Adham, but
her
life would be a misery of worry. She could picture Adham’s wife, curled up in bed alone, wondering if that night was the night her husband would never return.

Isabella’s heart lurched into her throat. When the picture in her mind had sharpened, the woman she’d seen sitting in bed in the dark, her knees drawn up to her chest, had been
her.

She blinked and turned her focus back to the movie, back to the story unfolding in front of them, and for a while she was carried away by the beautiful classic romance.

But when the hero finally kissed the heroine she was reminded of what it had felt like when Adham’s lips had moved over hers, his tongue sliding against hers, the friction making her nipples tighten and her breasts ache. Like they were doing right at that moment.

She took a piece of popcorn from the tub and his fingers brushed hers. A short gasp escaped her lips, and she shot him another quick look to make sure he hadn’t heard. If he had, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

Why did he have to appeal to her so much? Why couldn’t her chaperon be short, fat and completely horrible? Why did he have to be this enigma of a man who called to everything feminine inside her?

Adham had opened up a new world of fantasies and desires—made her ache for things she’d never wanted before.

It was pointless and cruel. She didn’t even have the hope of a brief romance with him, let alone a happily ever after.

She looked at his hands, curled around the shared armrest that sat between them. She examined those scars again. She doubted a brief, light romance with a man like him would even be possible. He was the sort of man who would give nothing or everything. There wouldn’t be much in between. And she … she would only be able to give everything. And she would want everything in return. An impossible situation even without the ring on her finger.

His hand brushed hers again and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Attraction, she was discovering, was
about a lot more than butterflies in your stomach. It could be all-consuming, a need as elemental and necessary as food or drink. It was quickly becoming that way for her.

Curiosity. That was all it was. It had to be. After all, she’d never really felt drawn to a man like this before. All of the men she’d met at galas and balls and parties had been … insipid. Especially when she compared them to Adham.

Maybe if she were to meet another man like Adham she would feel the same way. Maybe she simply had a type. Except there wasn’t another man to equal him. She was certain of that.

When the credits finally rolled on the movie she let out a gust of breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. She needed distance, or she was afraid she might crawl out of her skin.

Adham’s swift exhalation of breath shocked her. It was almost as though he’d been experiencing the same thing she had. As if he were held in the thrall of this attraction, just as she was.

Once again realism compelled her to ask why on earth a man of Adham’s experience would be interested in a virgin princess who didn’t even know proper kissing tech nique.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” he asked as they exited the theater, his voice clipped, his manner detached.

“Yes. I did.” Hopefully he didn’t want a summary, because all she would be able to give him was a recap of how many times his arm had accidentally brushed hers.

“I’m glad.” He didn’t sound glad. He sounded detached. Bored. That irritated her. She felt edgy and … and turned on. And he was
bored.

She couldn’t stand next to him anymore—not feeling as if every nerve ending was on fire, as if the light touch of the breeze was going to tip her over the edge into the dark depths of arousal. Discomfiting to a woman who had scarcely experienced arousal in her life—at least not in such a personal sense.

She walked ahead of him, her steps quick and staccato, her heels clacking loudly on the pavement. He was infuriating. Yes, it would really be pointless for him to feel the same way, because neither of them could act on it, but it would have gone a long way toward satisfying her if she knew that he was at least half as uncomfortable as she was.

He kept pace behind her, obviously unconcerned with her pique, which just made her feel more irritated. No wonder women in romantic movies acted so strange sometimes. Men were infuriating. No two ways about it.

“Isabella.” His deep voice startled her, and she wobbled on her high heel, her ankle rolling as she pitched to the side.

A strong hand clamped tightly around her arm and kept her from crashing to the cement. She found herself drawn tightly against his firm, muscled chest, his heart pounding heavily beneath her cheek.

“Be careful,” he bit out, still holding her.

“It’s the shoes,” she said, unable to catch her breath, her hands shaking from the adrenaline surge of her near fall—and from his hold on her arm.

“And the fact that you were stomping off like an indignant teenager.”

She drew herself back so that she could look at him, conscious that the action pushed her breasts against him. “I was not acting like an indignant teenager.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I was not!” She looked at his face, at his maddeningly flat, controlled expression. “Does anything
ever
get to you?”

“No.”

“Well, it does to me. It seems like I feel everything and you feel nothing.” She had only intended to reference the way she felt about shopping and blue doors, but she knew that it hadn’t sounded that way. Knew that she had meant much more than that. She wanted to call the words back as soon as she’d spoken them. She’d all but broadcasted her attraction to him, and he was just staring at her, controlled as always.

“You don’t think I feel anything, Isabella?” he said, his voice soft, as tightly reined as the rest of him.

He drew his finger over the line of her jaw, his dark eyes intent on hers, and then she felt it—the first crack in his façade. A slight tremor in his hand, unveiled heat in his eyes. Her heart-rate ratcheted up several beats per minute.

“I feel. Things I have no business feeling. I want things that are not mine to covet.”

He moved slightly, drawing her back away from the glaring streetlight and turning her, pressing her against the side of one of the buildings. The chill from the brick seeped through her sweater. But Adham was still holding her, and his heat was more than enough to keep her warm, to make her feel as if she might be incinerated where she stood, reduced to a pile of ash at his feet.

“What do you think I felt watching you flaunt all that sexy lingerie? Watching you tease me?”

She opened her mouth to protest at his words.

“Yes, Isabella, you
were
teasing me.”

“Yes,” she said, her throat almost too tight to allow the word passage.

“And tonight? Sitting with you in the dark? You think I felt nothing? With your soft body so close to mine? Your sweet scent enticing me?” His tone was rough now, his hold on her tightening.

And her body was responding.

“You … you’re always controlled.”

“Not always.” He pressed into her, the hardness of his erection evident against her thigh. “Not always.”

And then he was kissing her, his mouth rough at first, demanding, as it had been the first time they’d kissed. She whimpered, wiggled so that she could put her arms around his neck and hold him closer, angling her head so that she could part her lips and kiss him back.

Then something happened. His hold gentled, his lips softened, and the slide of his tongue against hers slowed, became almost leisurely, as though he were savoring the taste of her. The thought sent a sensual shiver through her body, made her moan and arch against him.

He moved his hands down, sliding over her curves, cupping her breasts. She gasped. No man had ever touched her like this before. And he was almost reverent in his exploration of her, as though she were a masterpiece.

“Oh, yes.” She tilted her head back, her breath broken, her words a half-sob.

He rocked against her, his hardness teasing her, tantalizing her, igniting passions she’d never dreamed imaginable. He moved his mouth away from hers, pressing his lips against her neck, biting her gently and then lapping the sting away with his tongue before taking her mouth again.

“Adham.” she sighed against his lips

He abandoned her mouth, breaking contact with her
abruptly. The sudden rush of air against her body was a shock to her system. He pushed himself away from her, using the wall as leverage, his chest rising and falling sharply, his breath visible in the cool night air.

Embarrassment mingled with unquenched desire, making her feel nauseous, making her knees weak. Now, with only the chill of the brick against her back, and none of Adham’s solid warmth, she shivered.

“Adham?” She reached out her hand to touch his forearm, and he jerked back with a harsh intake of breath.

“No.”

“But …”

He took her hand then, held it up beneath the street-lamp until the engagement ring on her finger glittered in the yellow light. “No.”

She snatched her hand back, her head swimming, her body shaking. She had forgotten for a moment—about Hassan, about Adham’s position working for her fiancé, about her own position in life. There had only been Adham. His arms, his lips, the hardness of his body.

But now reality was back with a vengeance.

She was engaged to be married.

But she wanted another man with a ferocity so strong that it made her feel as though her heart was being torn in two.

Adham paced the length of his office, his body raging at him, his blood pounding hard through his system. He was still hard. He wanted her with a need that defied anything he had known before, a desire that rocked all the control he had so carefully built up over the years.

He and Hassan had been thrust into adulthood, into power, in their early teens. Hassan, the oldest by two years, had assumed the throne; Adham had taken control
of the military, of national security. Both of them had been required to put away childish things and embrace manhood, embrace control. Sacrifice, duty and honor.

But this … girl … this virginal princess, with the face of an angel and a body that could make a man lose every last shred of sanity, had cracked it—had made him do something he had sworn he would not.

He’d left the little temptress sitting in the living room, her black hair tumbled wildly over her shoulders, her eyes bright with desire and embarrassment. He didn’t trust himself to be in the same room with her—didn’t trust that he would not press her back into the soft couch, settle between her thighs so that she could feel his hardness against the place he knew ached for him. He wanted to cup those luscious breasts again, then tease her nipples, explore them more thoroughly. He’d felt their aroused peaks against his palms and he longed to see them—the shape of them, the color—to taste them with his tongue, suck them into his mouth.

He swore violently and picked his mobile phone up from the desk, dialing his brother’s number. There was no answer. Little wonder. Hassan was a busy man, and difficult to access at times. At the moment Adham knew he was steeped in diplomatic negotiations, and the delicate process of changing and signing new laws. Just another reason Adham was grateful that the ultimate leadership of his country had not passed to him.

He was a man who needed action, needed to physically see and ensure that Hassan and his people were safe from harm. It was why he had been glad of a military position rather than assuming a diplomatic role.

And now action was needed—with or without Hassan’s blessing. He could not stay with Isabella any longer. Not with his control so dangerously cracked. Even now it had
not returned to him. Even now he longed to take her, fill her, possess her, make her his woman.

The last few days had been hell. She had paraded her sexy little body for him at the department store, had teased him with the thought of her in that brief lingerie.