She didn’t often have these feelings, and if she’d had a choice in the matter she wouldn’t have picked him as the ideal target for them, but it wasn’t as if she had any say in it. They were her feelings.
In contrast, Khaled didn’t seem to think she had any—or was it just that he was so used to women falling into his lap?
She guessed he kissed women as if he was lost in the desert and the woman in question was water every day of the week.
It wasn’t the same for her.
Before Khaled had taken her unawares on the bathroom vanity yesterday she actually hadn’t kissed anyone since New Year’s Eve—although that was something she’d be keeping to herself. He didn’t need to know that her private life was the equivalent of a mill pond. She’d be holding on to her out-every-night-showgirl status, thank you very much.
Then the lift doors opened and she stepped out into what had to be the most glamorous lobby, fitted out in black and white marble and granite.
‘Wow...’ she breathed.
Movement-activated sensors shed low light through the hall ahead of them. It all looked very welcoming and expensive and intimate.
‘Will I be staying here?’
He closed the doors behind them and his hand caught hers. Not a snatch, but a tangling of his clever fingers with hers.
Gigi’s arm tingled. Her breath caught as he turned her around and she found herself looking up into beautiful dark eyes so thickly lashed it was a wonder he didn’t need splints to keep the lids up. This inconsequential thought flew away with all the other butterfly thoughts about what she was doing here and why she felt so nervous.
She would never be too sure if she stepped towards him or he to her, only suddenly there was no space between them at all and she was in his arms.
This was her answer, she thought fleetingly, This was him being nice to her.
Very nice to her.
The need swelled up in her like a symphony as she lifted on her toes and wound her arms around his neck and held on.
She didn’t know why, but when he kissed her she always felt as if she was on the deck of a ship. Everything was heaving up and down in the most delightful manner and she would lose her footing if she let go.
He re-angled the kiss, going deeper, moving against her, backing her against the wall. She moaned softly and kissed him back, her heart beating like a drum. She instinctively moved her hips, pressing her pelvis into his groin, feeling the length of him so impossibly hard against her.
At first all Gigi allowed in was a feeling of relief that finally the torturous suspension of this powerful feeling between them was over.
But then she discovered she couldn’t shut down her thoughts, even though her body was going crazy with wanting him.
What was she doing here? Did she really think she could just give in to her feelings and forget about the consequences? She didn’t even know what was in Khaled’s mind. Would he think she was making up to him just for what he could do for her?
Stop thinking! she shouted at her busy little brain.
No. She couldn’t give in to this physical longing, because that was all it was, when her motives must appear extremely ambiguous to him.
She broke the kiss.
It was the hardest thing to do in that moment.
‘I don’t want to be accused of using sex for leverage,’ she panted.
‘Ch’to?’ His eyes were heavy-lidded and he was breathing hard.
‘All the girls think I slept with you to further my career.’
‘This is not a problem for me,’ he responded, and his mouth moved over hers again, making it impossible to do anything but absorb the sensation, the fierce push of his lean, hard body against hers.
Still her mind kept beating, like the sea against a tethered boat. No...yes...oh, help. It was so unbearably exciting, and so unfair. He was being no help at all with her moral quandary! He branded her with that mouth of his and for a few incredibly exciting seconds she gave way.
It was even better than before because she just let herself feel. Her thighs literally felt as if a landslide was going on. She could barely hold herself up. But he was there, hard and powerful, doing all the supporting work a girl could need.
No, there was nothing to stop them...nothing but her conscience. Nosy, interfering thing that it was.
‘Khaled?’
She wedged her elbows in between them to give herself some wiggle room.
‘This can’t happen,’ she told him, even as she melted with pleasure over each hot, knicker-elastic-snapping kiss he laid down her neck.
If the other girls could see me now.