Page 17 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child

CHAPTER FIVE

MALAKWASAT the end of his patience.

Until now, he hadn’t actually known whether or not he was the sort of man who had patience in the first place. Much less if he could handle his patience being tested. Repeatedly. There had simply never been the opportunity to experiment, because for all that he’d been the largely ignored second son of the Khalian king, he had still always been a prince in his own right. Who would dare try his patience?

Since he’d arrived back in Khalia with Shona in tow, however, Malak had found numerous opportunities to experiment with his own ability to practice patience, for the first time in his life. And had subsequently discovered that there was not one part of self-restraint that he enjoyed.

Tonight was yet another night in this kingdom his forefathers had built out of the desert, now his to rule. He should have been deeply concerned about his people. Or his upcoming coronation, the formal ceremony to cement the transfer of power that had already occurred. He should have been worrying about the future in this land of his that could not rely on its oil exports forever.

And yet all he had on his mind, it seemed, was Shona.

Shona five years ago, when she’d walked into that hotel bar and stolen his breath. Shona in that gold dress that he could remember with shocking clarity—and especially when he’d taken it off her, inch by delectable inch. Shona beneath him in that wide bed in that hotel suite in New Orleans, her legs wrapped around his back.

Shona in a thousand carnal images from long ago.

But the real Shona was here, in front of him, every night.

And Malak found he didn’t have it in him to wait any longer to get his hands on her. It had already been long enough.

It had been forever.

“What are you doing?” she asked again, with far more alarm in her tone.

He had stood, finally. Because he’d had enough of this foolhardy protest of hers—this absurd stubborn streak she seemed capable of indulging forever. He’d had no intention of letting it go on as long as it had, but part of him had wondered if she would really continue to push it. Part of him had wanted to see how long she could possibly maintain her commitment to something so obviously destined to fail.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have doubted her. Because there was something about that belligerent chin of hers, forever tipped up as if to dare him to do something about it there and then. There was something about the way she looked at him, her brown eyes lit with challenge when most women—most people—in his life averted their gaze from his automatically, in deference to his exalted position.

He rather thought that if he let her, Shona would stand there forever, glaring at him for eternity.

At the end of the day, Malak was the one who couldn’t take it.

He advanced on her now, aware that every part of him seemed to shift into a new kind of alertness when she backed away.

She had already taught him so much. That he was not a patient man, in any respect. That he disliked waiting for anything and was not a particular fan of rebellions, either. And he realized as he stalked toward her that it turned out he liked the chase, too.

Something he had never had occasion to discover before now.

Malak had never been given the opportunity to chase a woman. They were too busy flinging themselves at him and begging for the scraps of his attention.

But not Shona.

Never Shona.

She backed away, all the way across the room, and kept right on going onto the balcony that curved around this part of his private rooms, out into the soft desert night. He followed her, his movements unhurried. Easy.

Almost lazy, when he felt anything but.

Inside him, his heart was a drum. And there was something stirring in his blood, running through his veins, making him feel...lit up. Exhilarated, almost. In his chest and his greedy body alike.

“I have let this go on long enough,” he told her, making no attempt to hide the satisfaction in his voice as she backed herself up against the stone balustrade and finally came to a stop. “And I must tell you, I admire your commitment. I do.”

“I appreciate your admiration,” Shona replied, and he took a little too much pleasure in that breathlessness he could hear in her voice. The wild sort of panic he could see on her face. “But I would appreciate it more from a distance.”

“I have given you your distance.” She had nowhere to go, and so he slowed his pace. But he didn’t stop. He moved closer and closer, until he was caging her there, with nothing behind her but the great, gleaming canopy of his city. His kingdom. “I have allowed you your disrespect. No one else would dare behave the way you have, but I have permitted it. You may thank me for my magnanimity, if you wish.”

He was fascinated by the way her chest rose and fell. Even in the tunic she wore like swaddling clothes, he could see how his proximity affected her. But he tested the theory, leaning ever closer, so she had to lean back and grip the stone beneath her to keep from toppling off into nothing.

Not that he would let her fall. But she didn’t need to know that. A little fear and uncertainty would do her good.