“Because when it comes to you, Cleo, I find that nothing goes according to plan.” He indicated his bound wrists. “Including this.”
And then he decided he was done with this game. That it was time to finish this, once and for all. He gave the ties that bound him a quick jerk, and was free.
CHAPTER TEN
CLEO HARDLY HAD time to register that Khaled was moving when he simply pulled her to him, then rolled so she was beneath him. By the time she understood what was happening, Khaled had balanced his weight on his elbows and was holding her head in his hands, his fingers spearing deep into her hair.
“You promised,” she whispered.
“I am a terrible man, Cleo,” he told her, his gaze so dark she trembled. “A selfish monster from the very beginning. And nothing I ever think I ought to do with you seems to work. Wasn’t that the point of this exercise?”
She was shaking. “You were only pretending. You could have broken free at any time!”
“Perhaps, then, you should ask yourself why I didn’t choose to do exactly that.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, didn’t pause at all, he simply leaned forward and kissed her.
And it was unlike anything that had come before.
That searing, intoxicating current of passion was there, as it was always there, simmering deep within and informing everything, but this time, Khaled’s kiss was sweet. Shattering. Something like sacred.
His mouth moved over hers like a revelation. Like some kind of quiet song that Cleo felt inside her, each exquisite note washing over her like the purest light. Quiet and bright.
Perfect.
Cleo clung to him, transported. Feeling strangely hushed and torn wide open at the same time. Her heart felt too big for her chest, and she felt all the confusion she’d been trying to keep locked away inside her spill over and trickle from her eyes.
And this time, she didn’t care.
He was fully naked and deliciously hard against her belly, and yet he did nothing but kiss her in that same slow, thorough way, as if there was nothing on earth but this. This kiss. This sweet heat. The sheer joy of their mouths meeting, touching, taking them both somewhere that was only, ever, gloriously theirs.
It didn’t occur to Cleo to do anything but kiss him back, losing herself utterly. Kissing him until time ceased to have meaning. Lazy and long, as if this kiss was the only thing that could ever matter.
As if Khaled were the only thing in the world, and who cared how fantastically dizzy she was, how wonderfully weak beneath him, their bodies moving as one, tasting, touching, together—
And she was so far gone that she didn’t understand when he pulled away. Or why he lifted his head and froze for a long moment, then swore.
She started to ask him, but then she heard it. The overexcited clanging of what could only be the doorbell downstairs.
“Do you know anyone who would drop by at nearly midnight?” Khaled asked her, a rueful look in his eyes, gone nearly silver.
Cleo blinked. “Aside from my many lovers?”
The smile he turned on her then was as astonishing—and as beautiful—as it was brief. But she hoarded it to her anyway, dazzled.
“Aside from your soon-to-be late minions, yes.”
“No. I’ve never encouraged drop-by visits, to be honest.” She smiled back at him. “Also, I only know one person in the entire city of New Orleans, and she has her own key.”
The doorbell rang again. Khaled’s thumbs moved, stroking down her cheeks, and his eyes went dark as she watched. It fell through her like a change in temperature. Like a sudden shadow across the sun.
“Then that will be for me.”
Cleo didn’t understand the heaviness in his voice, much less the look on his face as he moved, rolling from her and to his feet in a single lethally smooth motion that mocked even further her attempt to physically restrain him. Had she honestly believed she was holding him against his will? That she could?
He stalked from the room, as unaffected by his lack of clothes as ever, and Cleo trailed him, watching all of that smooth ruthlessness in action as he moved down the stairs like liquid and then pulled on his boxer briefs and trousers with the same swiftness as he’d removed them. Then he went to the door.
“Who is it?” he asked through the heavy wood, sounding surly and dark, and there was absolutely no reason in the world that such a particularly cranky male tone should wrap around Cleo like smoke. She almost laughed at the instant bloom of heat between her legs, the tug on her heart.