I didn’t want to be a one-night stand. She had no idea how she could talk telepathically to Tariq, but it felt easy. Right. I’ve never in my life done anything like that and I don’t want you to think…
Do you think that I do not know that? I was with you last night. In your mind. Deep in your body. I know you belong only to me as I belong only to you.
Her eyes went wide with shock. What was he saying? He couldn’t be whispering into her mind so intimately what the impression in his own mind was saying. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, her heart pounding fast. An impossibility given the fact that he was so confident, so clearly experienced. She’d seen his picture in tabloids, in magazines. He’d been written up in the society pages of the newspapers. She was misreading what he was saying to her.
There is only you. There has never been another nor will there be. There is only you.
His voice wrapped her up like a gift, soft and caressing, holding her close. Intimately. She felt the brush of his mind in hers. So gentle. She wanted to believe she would be his only, that everything he said to her meant something. She really wasn’t a woman who could hook up with a man and go unscathed. She knew that about herself even in high school. When all her other friends were enjoying one another and relationships, she had felt an aversion to letting men touch her. She thought it was a trust issue, but she’d all but flung herself at Tariq and hadn’t even been careful. Or smart. She’d gone against her very own code.
I’m not on birth control, Tariq. I swear I wasn’t trying to get pregnant and trap you. I just didn’t think about it, but that’s no excuse. I want you to know, if something happens, I won’t hold you accountable.
Of course I am accountable; it would be my child, too. Do not worry so much over this. I would have known if you could get pregnant.
What does that mean? How could you know something like that?
You are getting cold. Get out of the tub and dry off. I want to show you the carousel horses you will be working on if you take the job.
She realized she was getting cold, so much so that she was shivering and the water was uncomfortable. If she could feel his emotions, she knew he could feel hers, but she couldn’t feel him physically, so how could he feel her? A hand reached past her, and she had to muffle a small scream as Tariq reached into the rapidly cooling water and pulled the plug.
“I’m naked,” she announced, making it a scandalized accusation. She felt breathless, not as shocked as she should have been, nor should she have been so glad to see him. She covered her breasts with her hands and turned to look up at him over her shoulder. That was a huge mistake. She was barely able to talk herself out of wanting him when he was away from her and she’d had a little time to think about how crazy she’d acted, but up close, the moment she saw him, the moment his scent filled her lungs, hunger, sharp and terrible, became a brutal need.
Her sex clenched. Went hot. The blood in her veins coursed through her in a rush of heat. Her breasts felt swollen and achy, the need for his mouth, his touch, hitting so fast and hard, tears swam in her eyes. “What did you do to me?” She murmured the question, dazed by her lack of control and the unfamiliar hunger beating at her.
Her hunger or his? She couldn’t tell, she was so far under his spell. She could hear his heart beating. The sound was in her head. Thundering in her ears. Her heart followed that steady, rhythmic beat, and then to her horror, the pulse began strong and insistent between her legs. She wanted to put her hand there. Press her fingers deep to feel the beat. To assuage the need that threatened to overwhelm her. “What did you do to me?” she whispered again.
He crouched beside the tub, his fingers under her chin, lifting her face to his. The pad of his thumb slid over her skin, tracing her jaw and sending shivers down her spine with every stroke. “What is it, sielamet? Tell me why you have tears in your eyes and I feel your distress beating at me.”
He drew her up out of the water, lifting her right over the edge of the tub so that she was standing naked and dripping in the circle of his arms. He seemed uncaring that she was up against his immaculate suit. The one that had to have cost thousands of dollars. Before she could move or protest, he took her arms and wrapped them around his waist, pressing her head against his chest at the same time, her ear right over his heart.
The moment his arms enclosed her, she felt safe and sheltered. She felt secure and a part of him. She closed her eyes on the burn of tears and let him make her feel safe when she hadn’t for what seemed a very long time.
“I know, for you, this has happened fast between us, Charlotte,” he said, his hand moving through her hair, fingers sliding through the wet silk, spreading the strands out and combing them as he did so. “That does not make it any less real.”
It was too real. Too good to be true.
“Have you ever felt this way for anyone else? Because I haven’t, Charlotte. Just you. The moment I saw you, I felt different. I saw the world differently. I have searched for you, hoping you were out there somewhere, but not believing I would find you. You’re the reason I own the clubs.”
She tilted her head to look up at him. He felt solid and very warm. Strangely, she felt warm, no longer covered in water drops from her bath. Even the shivering had stopped. He was magic. The way he made her feel was magic. “Kiss me again, Tariq. I want to know if I dreamt about you kissing me or if it was real.”
He didn’t hesitate. He bent his head to hers, his lips skimming hers in a barely there caress, but she felt that touch all the way to her toes. Her heart clenched and then her sex did. Her fists bunched in his perfect suit jacket. Held him tighter. Held him closer. Tried to become part of him. That close.
His mouth moved again over hers. Gentle. Coaxing. Not at all like his possessive kisses of the night before, but even so, he owned her with them. Just with his mouth, without all the rest of him, or what or who he was, and that was terrifying beyond anything she’d ever known, even the dangers of Fridrick and the three men stalking her. This was a threat to her heart. To her soul. If she lost him, if it wasn’t real, she’d never get over him. Never. She knew that. She also knew it was already too late.
“What did you do to me?” she asked him a third time. He had stolen some part of her, and he’d managed to wind himself around her heart and steal into her soul so she couldn’t tell what part of it was hers and what now belonged to him.