Sheikh's Unlikely Desire (6 page)

“I was fine...” she started.

He shook his head. “Never lie to me.”

In another man, it might have been a request. From Zayn al-Fasi, it was a command.

“It hurt a little,” she admitted. “But please, don't worry. It was... it was barely a sting, and I feel just fine now.”

“Hm. Has it been a while since you've been with a man?”

She made a face. She was about to say that was fairly personal, but then she thought about what they had done and shrugged uncomfortably. “A while,” she said. “Truly. The pain was nothing. Can we please stop talking about that?”

He looked a little troubled, but he shrugged. “As you like.”

She thought that he would rise and go to the bathroom to clean himself, but then he surprised her again. With a single gentle motion that reminded her all over again of his strength, he stood and scooped her up in his arms.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Come and get clean.”

He carried her into a lavish bathroom done up in black marble and chrome, and he didn't put her down until they were in the shower. She was a little startled to see that there was no standard shower head, and then he turned the knob.

“Oh!”

The water sprayed down on them from the grate above, and instead of being a regular shower pattern, it was as if she were standing in a rainstorm, one that was delightfully warm and gentle.

Zayn smiled at her delight, and then he brought up a soft scrubber that felt like pure heaven when he brushed it over her body. When he poured out a measure of the soap, her nose tickled a little. There was just a bare hint of florals in the soap, but overall, it was a woodsy, musky scent, one that was just light enough to be worn normally.

“I'm going to smell like you,” she said with a grin.

“Good. Then people will know who you belong to.”

Leah laughed at that, but there was something serious about Zayn's words as well. She shook it off. They were simply more lovely words from a truly lovely man, and she would be a fool to think that they were real.

To her surprise, he dried her off before he dried himself off, and then he led her back to the bed.

“I... I should perhaps get going,” she temporized, but then she was lying in that enormously soft bed, the length of her body cradled by his.

“Later,” he said firmly. The tickle of his breath against her ear made her sigh with a happiness that she knew all too well was temporary.

“For a little while,” she agreed.

 She would rest for a little. Then she would get up and go home. She would only rest for a little while...

Inside of ten minutes, however, she was asleep, her breathing soft and easy. Sometime in the night, she turned so that her head was buried under Zayn's chin, and her arm was thrown over his body as if they had always slept together.

CHAPTER FOUR

Waking up was strange. Leah was at first certain that she had no idea where she was, and before that knowledge could even catch up with her, she thought that she had never been happier to be right where she was.

“Oh hell...”

Her whispered curse seemed to have gone unnoticed. At the very least, Zayn's arm draped over her hip was still heavy, and his breathing was undisturbed. She didn't say another word, but the swearing continued in her mind.

Oh god, I slept with a client. I slept with Zayn. Oh god, I might have cost myself the case, I'm terrible, I'm never going to recover from this...

At the end of the day, however, Leah was a practical woman. The first thing that she needed to do was damage control, and that meant regrouping.

She inched her way out from under Zayn's arm, feeling a strange stab of sadness when he made a discontented noise, but turned over in his sleep.

What did you expect?
Leah mocked herself savagely.
Did you think that this was something that might last? Did you think you might be staying?

She had never thought she would, and now she tiptoed around the room, picking up her clothes. She flinched a little when she found the dress. It was beautiful, but there would be no doubts about what she was doing when she wore it home at 6 AM.

She had put herself together as well as she might, but she simply couldn't find her underwear. She tracked back and forth as carefully as she could, but for the life of her, she could not locate the little scrap of silk.

Guess I'll have to go without
.
Seems about appropriate.

 Her hand was literally on the doorknob when a voice stopped her.

“And where do you think you're going?”

The words were playful, but there was a note of absolute command to them that made Leah freeze. With her heart beating hard in her chest, she turned around to see Zayn sitting up in the enormous bed. Fresh from a night's sleep, his dark hair had a slight curl to it, and it stuck up in ways that were surprisingly adorable.

However, no amount of bedhead or sleepiness could hide the sheik's wide shoulders, broad chest or powerful arms. He leveled a serious look at her. “Care to tell me what you're doing?”

Despite not having done a single thing wrong, Leah blushed. “I... I was going home,” she said, hating the stutter in her voice. “I thought that I would... get a good start on... Look, you don't expect me to stay, do you?”

He quirked a dark eyebrow at her. “Why shouldn't I?”

“Because I'm your lawyer,” she said, trying to instill a certain amount of surety and confidence in her voice. She was lucky she had never felt this nervous while she was in court; she would have been eaten alive.

“You are small, sweet, a redhead and a fan of Japanese food,” he observed, “and all of those have as little to do with anything. You're my lawyer. Fine. I trust you will do a fine job. That has nothing to do with what we have done here, and with what we are going to do in the future.”

Leah stared at him. “You can't possibly be so blind. Do you not know what I've gone through to get to where I am? Do you know what they say about female lawyers who sleep with their clients? This is not something that can happen. This is not something that can be a part of who we are.”

Zayn stood up from the bed, crossing the space between them with just a few strides. He was a big man, and he towered over her. For some reason, it didn't make her feel intimidated. Instead, it made her feel a renewed surge of longing for him that she pressed down hard.

“What is between us has already started,” he said, his voice a low rumble of thunder. “This is something that cannot be denied. I felt it the moment I saw you at the airport. I know that you felt something the moment that you saw me.”

Leah could feel something in her relent, but she pushed it away hard. She had worked too long and too hard to give in to his words, especially as she knew them for what they really were. A less experienced woman might have been taken in by his sweet words, but she knew better. They were a salve for her ego, a pleasant fantasy, and if she believed them, she would quickly find herself in a world of trouble.

“I did feel something,” she said, her voice soft.

Zayn had been expecting her to push back. Her gentle response surprised him.

“I felt an instant attraction to you,” she said. “My heart... my heart beat faster, and I knew that it was as if I recognized you somehow...”

“We were tuned in to each other,” he supplied. “Our hearts were beating in the same rhythm.”

She nodded. When she took a step back this time, he let her.

“This can't be,” she said. “You said you loved my fire. The thing that you need to remember is that fire isn't just for show. It is something that I put into your service. I swore to do that last night, remember? And if you are distracting me, if you are pulling me away from my duties, I cannot serve you as well as I should. That... that would destroy me.”

Zayn's face had shifted from impatience to sadness. “You are serious. You truly believe that you cannot do your job if we are lovers.”

Leah flinched a little at that intimate word, but she nodded. “You must let me do what I need to do,” she murmured. “You must.”

Zayn nodded, but there was a darkness to his green eyes that hadn't been there before.

“You will do what you need to do,” he agreed, “And I will do what I need to do.”

She thought that he was going to let her go then and there, but instead, he dragged her into his arms. It had been just a few hours since he had brought her to the heights of ecstasy that she had never seen before. If she had been asked if she could light on fire again so quickly, she would have said no.

She would have been wrong.

The moment he pulled her against his body, she could feel herself waken. She could feel her body rise up and long for him, like there was a spirit of pure fire in her, and it needed Zayn like fire needed air.

His mouth slanted down across hers, and the kiss that he pressed to her lips was a pure and open claiming. There was nothing shy or gentle about it. Instead, this was something raw and primal. This kiss said that she belonged to him, and that was the way it would be forever, as if he were marking her.

The last thought made her tear away from him.

“No!” she cried. She knew she sounded as if the heart were being ripped from her chest, but she didn't care. “You will not do this to me! I have come too far and worked too hard...”

“You have worked so hard to deny the woman who cries for passion at the core of you?” demanded Zayn. “You have worked so hard to bury the fire that lives at your heart?”

“I don't care,” she said hotly. “This is not who I am. I am not a woman who can live with being loved and cast aside, don't you see? Are you truly so rich and powerful that you never see the people who grovel at your feet?”

“Grovel-”

She wasn't sure what he would have said after that because her phone rang. The electronic tones were almost obscene in the charged air of their fight, the call of a bird from another country. Leah cursed and dove for her small purse, pulling her phone out with a quick motion. Anyone would have been a welcome distraction from the strange grief of what was happening to her right this moment, but when she saw the name, her eyes widened.

“Grant? It's—”

“It's not even seven, I know. Believe me, I'm not so happy with this myself. Listen, you need to get ready.”

“What do I need to get ready for?”

Grant laughed, and she could hear a ragged note to it as well. Whatever had happened, it had woken him up from a dead sleep. “You stepped on some toes last night, Montgomery. Ice Fields is roused up, and they just came up swinging. They're trying to file for creative rights to their story, and if you want to stop them, you're going to be ready to meet them at eight sharp.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. You need to be at their offices to touch base with them, or I'm pretty sure they're going to roll right out.”

 Leah cursed, making Grant laugh again.

“Are they looking to negotiate?”

“Hard to say. You want my take on it? They want to get a look at you and see how serious you are. Batter up, Montgomery, they came for you and you better be ready.”

“I am,” Leah said grimly. “If they're going to pull this kind of nasty crap now, I have plenty of things I can do. I'll be over there at eight sharp, and I'm not looking to take prisoners.”

“I knew you had it in you. Let me know how it goes.”

She ended the call, turning decisively to Zayn. “Did you hear that?” she asked softly.

“I did,” he said, unable to keep a note of admiration out of his voice. “When you said that you would serve, you meant it.”

“Damn straight I meant it,” Leah said. “I have work to do. For the love of everything that you hold dear, please don't stop me from doing it.”

He studied her, taking her measure from head to foot. She knew that she was wearing ridiculous heels and a silly party dress, but despite that, she could see that he found worth in her, something to respect, a weapon.

“I would never stop you,” he said softly, “but neither will I allow such passion to pass me by. Go get ready for your battle, Leah Montgomery, and I will get ready for mine.”

She wondered what he meant by that last part, but she didn't have time to think about it. If she moved fast, she could run back to her apartment for a quick change and shower, collect some materials that she needed for the day, and be out to the Ice Field offices with plenty of time to spare.

She wanted to touch Zayn again. She wanted to tell him that she would do everything she could to take his parents' story away from Ice Fields. She wanted to tell him that she would treasure the things they had done together.

She did none of those things.

Instead, Leah marched out the door with her head held high, and when she was alone in the elevator, she only felt a little like collapsing.

The staff of the Marseilles was too discreet to give her rumpled clothing a second look, but still she felt more secure when she was safe in her car again.

 I'm me
.
I'm not who I was when I writhed in bed with him, when he made me feel like I did. I am me. I am a lawyer, and I have a fight ahead of me.

If she said those words often enough, perhaps she would even believe them. She nosed her car onto the freeway, and she knew that it was going to be a long day ahead.

CHAPTER FIVE

A little more than an hour later, Leah was showered and dressed in her most severe silk suit. It was a trick she had learned early in her stay in LA, which was a very West Coast town, perhaps
the
West Coast town. Everyone, from network execs to producers to lawyers dressed down a bit, as if to bow to the wilting heat and the laid-back atmosphere.

She might have been a willing LA transplant, but she had done a lot of work on the East Coast, where a single button out of place could raise the ire of a conservative judge. Though she could have worn more casual clothes, Leah had a tendency to choose severe black when she was out dealing with clients... or with those who wanted to harm her clients.

Ice Fields was a smaller production company located well away from some of the bigger names. However, that didn't mean much when small production companies might be backed by enormous names. The moment she pulled her car up to the Ice Fields lot, Leah felt a shiver of distaste run through her. She wasn't sure whether it was because of what she knew about them or whether it was because of something else, but she braced herself.