Page 8 of The Sheikh's Fake Fiancée

The warm tingles that moved slowly through her body were enough. Tabari was enough. If he was good enough for Aisha, a sheikha, he was more than good enough for Zania.

“Where have you been?” he groaned against her mouth. “I was going insane waiting for you!”

“I wasn’t sure I should come,” she admitted in a cracked whisper. “Aisha—“

“Means nothing to me,” he interjected hoarsely.

She blinked up at him. “You don’t mean that.”

“But I do.Youare the only one I want.” His hand tightened on her waist. “Now kiss me.”

She whimpered when he forced his tongue into her mouth. Was this what—who—she really wanted? His hands moved to her hips, his fingertips digging into her flesh before she drew and back and said, “We can’t do this!”

“Can’t do what?”

The voice that spoke wasn’t Tabari’s. She sucked in a breath, her senses rushing back to the present as her eyes sprang open. Moonlight flooded into the yacht’s cabin, where she’d been sleeping in the huge bed beside Kain. Her nostrils flared. His smoky amber and Cyprus scent was recognizable anywhere. His large hands that had settled on her hips were gentle and oddly comforting, yet commanding all at the same time.

“Never mind,” she said hoarsely, shaking off sleep along with her dream. “I was…dreaming.”

“Oh?” his voice stroked her senses. “Who was it that made you so upset?”

She stiffened, all too aware of his body so close to hers. What was it about him that made her so self-aware while his very presence seemed to suck the oxygen from the room, making her want to pant? “Who said I was upset?”

“I could hear it in your voice.” One of his hands moved to cover her heart. “Feel it coming from your soul.”

She did her best to keep her heartbeat regulated, not jumpy and erratic. Tabari hadnevernoticed personal things like that about her! She drew in a steadying breath. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t about you.”

“Tabari, then?” he growled.

“What if it was?”

“We arrive at my country tomorrow morning. You need to exorcise that man from your memory and focus on us.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

Moving as fast as a tiger lunging at prey, he was suddenly on top of her, his chest bare and his loose pants low slung as his dark eyes glittered dangerously in the moonlight. “How about I show you?”

There was no time to think…to react. His mouth plunged onto hers and he kissed her as though this was their last second on Earth. For one moment she succumbed to the electric current pulsing between them, to their undeniable chemistry, and she moaned against his lips. It wasn’t until he thrust his tongue into her mouth that she stiffened, panic clawing in her gut as the recent and too raw memories assailed her.

His head reared back, his breath hissing. “I frightened you.”

No, not you. It was never you.

But she couldn’t say those words, couldn’t admit how her one and only lover—her one and only time with a man—had been so devastating.

He stared down at her, waiting for a reply. But what could she say?

I’m scared shitless of being hurt by a man again. I’ve already discovered I’m not the passionate woman I always imagined I’d be.

His arousal pressed against her belly and she bit her lip to stop from crying out. But whether it was from stark terror or sheer need, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

Kain inhaled sharply. “Talk to me, Zania,” he said thickly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I-I…nothing. Nothing is wrong.”

He jerked back from her as though struck. “If this engagement between us is to appear real we can’t have lies between us.”

Her whole body throbbed, made strangely empty the moment he moved off her and lay on his back to stare up at the canopy above them. “If I can’t even touch you without you shrinking from me, how can we play our roles of a loving, engaged couple?”

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