“Well?”
It was the way he said it. The condescension was too much. She smirked. “Didn’t you brag about not needing people to serve you? Why don’t you serve it yourself? Or are you handy only with macho stuff? Is serving food a lowly female chore?”
He stared at her as if she’d grown another head.
No wonder. He must be shocked that she could still talk. She knew she was. And more, that she could talk to him that way. No doubt people didn’t dare sneeze in his presence.
Mennah squealed, demanding their attention. And again this incredible transformation came over his face. His very vibe changed to a soothing transmission as he turned to Mennah with a smile that tampered with Carmen’s heart and brain function all over again.
“You heard that, ya sagheerati? Your mother thinks she can get away with anything as long as you’re around.” He turned eyes heavy with disturbing things on Carmen. “She forgets there will be times when you won’t be.”
The sheer danger of the sensuality infusing his words kicked into Carmen’s heart and loins. It made her melt. It made her mad. It made her reckless.
She tossed her head, straightened from her swooning position. “You really know nothing about me if you think I’d use Mennah as a shield—or as anything. And I need no shields against you.”
“You don’t?” His stare was all mock-serious interest, giving her more rope. “Are you certain about that?”
Oh God, what was she doing, provoking him this way? She knew she was no match for him, even in her own country. No one was a match for him, anywhere. He was just too powerful, as a diplomat, a tycoon and royalty. She was audaciously speaking her mind counting not on Mennah’s presence but on his restraint, his basic benevolence. Both qualities she’d already strained to the limit.
But there was no stopping her now. After the upheaval of the last hour, her emotions were hurtling at the speed of her chaotic thoughts, without brakes.
“It’s clear you have an ego of planetary proportions,” she taunted. “You must have Atlas-level strength to be able to lug it around. And to think I once contributed to expanding it.”
His gaze scraped down her body, making her feel he’d taken off every scrap of clothes, leaving her exposed, vulnerable. “You think your being the first and only woman to ever end a liaison with me contributed to my cosmic ego?”
Was that an edge of bitterness? Had her desertion meant something to him after all, on a personal level?
No. This intensity must be the outrage of a prince who expected people to prostrate themselves before him, who couldn’t believe that, for whatever reason, she hadn’t, just that once.
She shrugged, all artificial animation and contentiousness draining out of her. “Oh, I’m sure I caused a chink in it. One that could be detected with a microscope.”
“We’re talking galactic scope. Don’t you mean a telescope?”
“Whatever.” She exhaled, ran both hands through her hair. “I’m sure your ego is satisfied, now that you know why I did end it.”
His eyes followed her movements, the way her shirt stretched over her breasts, spiking her arousal as he drawled, “Oh, I’m not satisfied. You’ll have to work to that end. Hard. And long.”
And it detonated in her every cell. The memory of every sensation, every tremor of the ecstasy he’d inundated her with, how hard and how long he’d done it, taking her the way she hadn’t known she’d needed to be taken, giving her far beyond what she’d imagined she could be given or thought she could withstand.
Her legs wobbled, sending her groping for the counter’s support. “If you feel that strongly when only your ego is involved, you take yourself way too seriously. You must try the occasional letdown, maybe even criticism. Very therapeutic.”
In answer, he picked up the serving plate, prowled toward her like a panther measuring the moment he’d pounce, savoring the kill. He looked at Mennah. “Your mother is being very brave, Mennah. Or very foolish. Or she knows exactly what she’s asking for.”
“I’m only asking that you—that you—” The rest struck in her throat. He was nearing her as if he intended to collide into her.
“That I what? Take you up on your challenge?”
She leaned back. At the last moment he slowed, imprinting his body on hers as he reached around her with a hand holding the plate, the other joining it, imprisoning her with an arm on either side as he put the plate on the counter behind her. She once again felt something burning. Her skin this time. Her nerves.
He looked down into her shocked eyes, the gold of his turned to lava. “Wise of you to know when to stop.”
Before she showed him just how unwise she was and answered with something inflammatory, he leaned harder into her, pressing his erection into her midriff.
Before she could process that he was aroused, berate herself for the surge of elation that she affected him still, he pulled back, pulled up the high stool for her, his gaze steady on hers, telling her to sit down and shut up.
As if she could talk now, still feeling his potency digging into her, liquefying her insides. She sat. More like collapsed. Not to obey him or the voice of reason, but because she no longer had solid bones inside her limbs.
She watched with surreal fatalism as he served the filet. Until she noticed he’d taken two thirds himself.
“Relative body mass,” he murmured at her glare. “But I’ll feed Mennah from my share. Let’s see what she can consume.”
He sat down beside her, picked up a knife and fork and sampled a piece of the filet. His eyes rose to hers in surprise.
“It’s even more delicious than it smells.” Before she voiced the crack that catapulted to her tongue, he turned to Mennah.
“And you, ya kanzi, are so clever you knew how good it is, how to ask for more.” He cut a tiny piece over and over, mincing it. “Open up, here comes more…” He carefully forked it into Mennah’s eager mouth.
Carmen tensed, ready to jump if Mennah choked, felt Farooq’s echoing vigilance. Mennah gulped it down easily, asked for more in delighted shrieks. He chuckled, complied at once.
It didn’t even occur to Carmen to eat as she watched father and daughter demolishing his portion. It wasn’t until he turned enquiring eyes on her that she realized she was gaping at them.
At that moment Mennah repeated her sudden sleeping maneuver making him relieve her from his silent interrogation, his eyes captured by Mennah once again. And once again the tenderness there shocked Carmen. It was something that, despite his generous ways with her in the past, she hadn’t suspected he was capable of.