Free To Touch a Sheikh by Olivia Gates Page B

curiosity, the need to hear her next account, to hang on to her every word, eating through him to the marrow.
    She unfolded her lushness, settling on the settee’s edge. Then she spoke, her voice dark, rich, like a woman confessing her most intimate fantasies to her lover. “I had no intention of returning to Ossaylan. Then there was the Political Dimensions of the Region’s Economic Expansion conference.”
    He remembered that conference as if it were minutes ago.
    His first exposure to her. He hadn’t recovered since.
    â€œI flew back from that conference bent on relocating my business, selling my house and moving back to Ossaylan to live.”
    She fell silent. He stared at her.
    When he could talk again, he rasped, “You’re saying it was seeing me that made you decide to move back?”
    â€œYes,” she simply said. “You were— are the most incredible man I’ve ever met, and I wanted to be where I could get to know you.” She smiled this self-deprecating yet infectious smile, which she seemed to do with her whole body and being. “Not that you’ve made it easy, or sometimes, even possible.”
    And rage ignited in his recesses. At the desire to stop resisting. Worse, his inability to remember why he’d been resisting, why he hadn’t long succumbed.
    He forced calmness into his steps as he walked back to her, looked down at her with what he hoped was his most annihilating contempt. “How disappointing. Can’t you try a bit harder to be subtle about your mission?”
    She blinked. “What mission?”
    â€œThe one your father sent you on. To go all out in a last bid to entrap me in marriage before giving up on me.”
    Maram stared at him, her face a canvas of stupefaction.
    Then she burst out laughing.
    When she could finally catch a breath, she spluttered, “You think I want to marry you?”

Five
    N o woman had ever considered marrying him.
    No matter the wealth and power marriage to him entailed, as he’d once told Shaheen, women feared he’d turn Shahrayar or Othello on them. Their families feared their necks would be next on the block of his crazed wrath.
    Their horror and rejection had appeased him to no end.
    So why would Maram’s incredulous mirth at the idea of marrying him disturb him? Even when he knew she was faking it?
    He knew for a fact that she’d marry him, mayhem and madness and all, in a heartbeat. She was the only woman who’d been ballsy enough to not only consider risking it but to also actively pursue it.
    The clear answer was that her pretense itself was what bothered him. But that wasn’t why.
    He didn’t want her to want to marry him…did he?
    Of course he didn’t. He was tired, sleep-deprived. And she was potent. Enough to make him begin to imagine he… felt things, beyond the physical.
    He shook his head, deriding himself more than her. “Surelyyou don’t expect me to answer your stupefaction and let you lead me through another story with your ‘version of the truth’?”
    She shook her head, too, still chuckling. “You’re a surprise a second, not only a laugh.”
    â€œAlways thrilled to be of disservice.” He gave her a mock bow and turned back to coffee making.
    He felt the caress of her eyes before she rose, headed to his computer. In seconds a spine-tingling sonata by Mozart surged, filling every inch of space with its majestic magic, seeming to annul the wrath of nature. His heart expanded as the timeless melody spread through him, one of his absolute favorites.
    Before questions formed about why she’d chosen that specifically from his playlist, sensations unfurled through him as she joined him in preparing dinner—feelings besides the usual physical red alert from her nearness. Equanimity? Contentment?
    Aih. As if he’d recognize those if they tap-danced on his forehead. Seemed he hadn’t estimated her