feeling today. I asked you so many times last night if you were sure, but even I wasn’t sure quite how drunk you were. You fell asleep before we got to your apartment. I decided to bring you here and put you in one of the endless guest quarters.”
“I think I…oh I must have made a mistake,” she said, hating herself all the more, especially when she saw the way Zahir stiffened.
“If you feel that way about it,” he said, handing her the water and the Advil, “then I’ll have my servants help you dress. I didn’t feel comfortable doing more than letting you sleep everything off in your dress, but I have some other options for you if you need something more comfortable to wear home. After that, you can go home and I’ll see you back at the office. As I promised beforehand, I want to keep working with you as my assistant. Nothing can ever change that.”
“Even if I give you oral pleasures? God, I had too much sake but that’s not even the excuse because I knew what I was doing. I was being bold and daring and doing something new, and I just messed everything up. You must think I’m the biggest slut out there for doing this to my boss just two weeks in…or, uh, at all.”
Zahir considered her, those gold eyes simmering before her. “No. I doubt you’d ever touch a loathsome toad like Clayton McDermott. What I see is a woman who has chafed under a thick collar and leash for almost a year and who is both trying to be happy and, I hope, is feeling something new with me. I know I feel something powerful with you, something so familiar and attractive but also amazing. I like what we have, and frankly, I’d like to explore it further.”
Swallowing hard, Addison pulled at her cuticles. Maybe now was the time to tell him that she was the kitty from the rooftop, but she was scared to. He’d called her to interview and seemed not to have made the connection, but maybe it would make her look like some weird stalker if she said anything. That was the last thing she wanted. She was finding her footing here in Dubai. She was happy.
That last thing she wanted was to be sent away. Zahir did make her feel things that she’d never felt before. He lit a passion deep in her belly and made her core clench and quiver.
She wanted him, and she wanted to explore so much more with him.
Addison just wasn’t sure he’d still respect her, if she hadn’t already lost that privilege when she’d been lost in the throes of passion last night.
Yeah, big, big “if.”
“How?”
“It’s a weekend and a bank holiday abroad in the States. We won’t even be back in session until Tuesday. That gives me three full days to show you the parts of Dubai you said you hadn’t yet seen. Would you like to see the Al Ain?”
“Is it pretty?”
“Gorgeous, and it has so many interesting places to see. It’s on the outskirts of the city, far from the tourist claptrap or the high-rises and malls. We could do that, too, but I thought you might want to see all the nuances my proud country has to offer.”
“And you’re not…I was so forward, Zahir.”
He set everything on his lap aside and reached up to cup both of her cheeks. His hands were so large that they seemed to swallow her face almost whole. This close, her nose was tickled by the scent of him—both that raw maleness mixed with the spicy aroma of turmeric. That was so very much Zahir, the exotic and the raw power. It was one of the myriad of things drawing her to him, making her weak even now.
“It’s more than fine. I care about you, and you care about me, and maybe this is moving fast.”
You have no idea how fast…
“But let me show you all the sights you haven’t had a chance to see this weekend. I promise you, that we’ll only do what you want. Let my driver take you home, you think about it for a few hours, and at noon I’ll come to pick you up if you would like. Then I’ll show you all of my world.”
“I can think about it?”
“Yes, and I don’t
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