The Sheikh's Marriage Bargain - Leslie North Page 0,30

warm enough for you?”

“Warm enough for what, exactly?” Laila said. The heat of his breath on her neck could keep her warm through a violent snowstorm.

“Warm enough to take all these clothes off.”

“Hmm.” She swayed back against him, then pulled away so she could take the dress off. She did a slow turn in only her bra, catching the fire in Zayid’s eyes when he looked at her. “It’s not so bad so far.”

He took off her bra and tugged her panties down and off. “How about now?”

Laila pouted. “I’m not sure if I can get warm without you close by.” She scampered into the bedroom, jumping directly onto the bed and diving beneath the covers. “It’s too cold in here,” she called to Zayid.

When he stepped into the bedroom, he was naked.

Laila still couldn’t get over how taut his body was in the warm light of the bedroom. His abs were so defined they had shadows at the ridges. His legs strong and lean. His full lips in a determined set. She watched as he came to her, every movement a testament to how strong he was. Like he could sling all these tents over one shoulder and carry them back to the palace on foot.

Zayid took the blankets from her, exposing her inch by tantalizing inch to the desert air. His eyes traced every path down her body, and he climbed up over her, balancing on his elbows.

“You have scars,” he said simply, tracing one of them with a fingertip. “I’ve never asked about them.”

She heard the question underneath his statement and closed her eyes, stretching her hands above her head. “Ask away.”

His lips came down gently over a small scar, nearly invisible, near her temple. “How did you get this one?”

The memory flickered back into Laila’s mind. “In college, we snuck into the cheerleaders’ training gym because they had the biggest trampoline any of us had ever seen. I went so high.” It still took her breath away, how high she’d launched into the air. “And I landed on the floor. My head connected with some equipment first.”

“Mmm.” His breath moved down, and then he kissed a longer scar near her elbow. “And this?”

“My dad built me a treehouse. I wanted to hang a sign, but I was too impatient to wait for him to help me. I fell out trying to hold the sign and the hammer at the same time.”

He kissed and kissed until he reached a scar on her chin. Laila’s body was alight, aflame, under Zayid’s kisses. All the water in the world wasn’t enough to put this desire out. “This?”

“I won a bike race against the fastest boy in the neighborhood.”

“And you got a scar from it?”

“I got the scar during the victory lap, when a car rolled through a stop sign.” Zayid sucked in a breath. “It could have been a lot worse.”

He turned her over, starting again at her neck and working down to her shoulder. “What about this one?”

“A sledding dare.”

Zayid groaned softly. “I don’t want to know the full details.” And then he planted another trail of kisses down her spine and over the curve of her bottom and around to her left hip. “This is the last one I see.”

Her muscles trembled underneath his touch, and her hips pressed against the white sheet. All those kisses had made her ache for him. Scar on her hip. Scar on her hip…

“Bike accident,” she said finally. “Same accident.”

“Look at you.” Zayid stroked down her spine and went lower, dipping his fingers between her legs. “You like to be kissed, I see.”

“Who wouldn’t? How—” His fingers worked between her legs, teasing at her entrance and then pushing in. She spread wider for him. “How could anybody resist you?”

Her own resistance was crumbling into dust, less than nothing. The words she’d meant to say to him all night—I wish you’d have consulted me about this trip—fell away as Zayid turned her over again, his mouth meeting hers. The night dropped over them, alone in the desert, and Laila arched into his kiss instead.

14

Back at the palace a few days later, Laila flipped through the papers on the desk in Zayid’s guest room. She’d been using it as a catchall for any ideas she had when she wasn’t in the pottery studio. Where was that sketch? She turned over another sheet of paper, unearthing a small calendar.

It was a palm-sized thing, and Laila’s mind caught on something as she picked it up.