Page 44 of Sheikh's Unexpected Triplet Babies

He received no answer, but then he heard the hiss of the shower, and his heart sank.

There was a smarter version of him somewhere, he thought. A smarter man would have waited for her in the living room, never thinking about what was going on in the shower. But his mind provided him with vivid pictures, richly detailed, of what she was doing in there, how he had once touched her body, making her sigh with pleasure, and how she had touched him.

I'm just looking for an answer, he told himself. I just want to know what the hell she's playing at.

He knew it wasn't true the moment that he thought it, but knowing that didn't stop him from opening the door and stepping into the steamy warmth of the bathroom.

Her hazy and obviously naked form turned behind the shower door’s fogged glass, and the door rolled open to reveal her inquisitive face. Instead of being shocked or indignant, she smiled at him, that same sweet, faintly mischievous smile that he had grown to crave.

"Hi," she said. "You were working a long day today."

"You have no idea," he said, momentarily distracted. "It just never stopped, and..."

He paused, shaking his head. "That wasn't what I came in here to discuss..."

"Good," she said with a laugh.

"I meant that I want to know what you are doing here," he growled. "The last I heard, you were doing well at the townhouse. I was prepared for you to stay there for at least a while."

"Oh, the townhouse is amazing," she said sweetly. "I loved it there. Did you spend a lot of time there when you were a child?"

"When I was... No, not really, it belonged to a relative then who has since passed on... Bedelia, what are you doing here?"

She looked at him as if it were obvious. "I am taking a shower?"

"I can see that," he said, and for some reason, that made her smile.

"Do you really?" she asked, and his heart beat a little faster as she slid the door open wider. Even through the narrow opening, he could see a thin strip of her belly, the roundness and the sweetness of her form calling to him.

"Close the door," he said, and he knew his tone was coming out harsh and strange.

Making a brief moue of disappointment, she did as he said, but she didn't close it entirely.

"I'm doing what you told me I could do," she said with a careless shrug. "You told me that I could go to any property of yours that I wanted to go to, that I could find a place that was comfortable to me while I was pregnant. Was I wrong to take you at your word?"

Her green eyes were so large and deep that he could drown in them. He knew how dangerous that could be, losing himself in this woman. After all, he had done it once already.

"No, of course not, but I hardly expected that you would--"

"Good," she said briskly. "Now, Jahin, I really do have to insist."

"Yes?"

"I'm taking a shower, and the more I stand here with the door open, the more I'm losing hot steam. So you have a choice. Either step outside...or come in here."

The blatant heat of her invitation left him gaping. Was this truly the shy virgin that he had taken in the citadel in Masir? The look she gave him was hot enough to scorch leather, and almost before he could stop himself, he took a step forward.

Jahin wanted her, he wanted her with every fiber of his being, and if he couldn't run his hands over her sleek curves right now, he thought he might die of it.

Then sense returned, and he took a step back.

"Very well," he said, and he walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Jahin felt a little better when there was a solid wooden door between them, but at the same time he knew how very easy it would be to simply open the door again, to strip off every stitch of clothing and join her in the wet warmth of the shower. He could run his hands over her luscious curves, he could taste her soft skin, the very interiors of her mouth...

He shook himself, wondering savagely when he had lost so much willpower. If he had thought that he would be acting like this a year ago, he would have laughed himself sick. He was Sheikh Jahin Abdul Kattan, and to be brought low by a woman was unthinkable.

Yet here he was, and he knew that if it were not for that last shred of strength, he would open the door and go back to do every single thing he had thought of to her sweet body.

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