12. Chapter 12 There Can Only Be One Answer
JULIANA
Iwonder if addiction is the alpha male's version of love. I was wrong about him not prioritizing me. He stayed hidden in the bedroom the entire time I chatted with Reem, waiting for her to leave so he could come into my room.
"You weren't in the bedroom when the maids were unpacking my things," I say with certainty.
"Why do you think there were three assigned to the task? I wanted it finished as quickly as possible."
"You thought Reem would leave with them."
"She did not," he says in disgruntled admonition.
The more irritated he gets, the more secure I feel in his affection. Does that make me contrary?
"Are you the reason Moza told Reem she wanted to talk to her?" I sidle into the bedroom and shrug out of my sheer duster.
I am not nearly as insouciant about undressing in front of him as he is with me, but knowing the lengths he went to in order for us to have time alone buoys my confidence.
"If I had not done something, you would have kept her with you until lunch," Gabriel accuses.
That's a yes then. "Reem's not in trouble, is she?"
"No. Moza is discussing your preferences for food and the like as well as apprising her of approved entertainment protocols while I am otherwise occupied."
"Approved entertainments?" I pause after undoing the hidden button holding the wrap style bodice of my jumpsuit together.
"You are not accustomed to the level of security necessary now that you are a part of my world. You might think to request to do something that would have an unacceptable level of risk without proper security."
Finding that much more palatable than Gabriel believing he has the right to dictate what I can do when I'm not with him, I unhook the waistband of my jumpsuit.
Just to be sure, I ask, "So, you are not trying to curtail what I can do, only making sure I take enough security with me?"
"There are activities she has been instructed to steer you away from."
I stop again, this time with one arm out of my jumpsuit. "Such as?"
"Rockhounding."
"What?" I go to put my arm back into my top.
But Gabriel is there to stop me. "It is not safe for you to go on your own into the desert."
"According to you, I won't be alone. I'll have a bevy of bodyguards."
"You lose yourself to your surroundings when you are hunting for your precious crystals. I trust your safety under those circumstances to no one but myself."
"But your guards are trained. They won't let anyone get close to me."
Gabriel tugs the sleeve down my other arm past my resistance. "Zahriya has become nearly as popular a tourist destination as Dubai in recent years. Some of them are avid rockhounds."
Meaning what? He's worried a tourist is going to come across me and stage a confrontation over which of us saw a likely find first?
"So? I'd probably enjoy talking to them." Maybe.
Strangers are not my favorite thing. But strangers that are rockhounds? That's different. I love hearing about other rock hunters finds.
"No." He pushes my jumpsuit down my hips.
"What do you mean no?"
"There is a look you get on your face when you are searching for your flawed crystals. It is too similar to the one you get when you are naked with me. No one else gets to see that look."
"What are you talking about? I don't look like I want sex when I'm hunting rocks."
"You would know this how?"
"One of my fellow rockhounds would have mentioned it by now."
My jumpsuit falls to the floor and Gabriel cups my backside, pulling me close with a groan as his tumescent flesh presses between us. "That they did not does not mean it was not there."
I lean forward, inhaling his earthy scent. The now familiar mix of pine, juniper and the honeyed leather scent of saffron teases my senses along with something that is only him. Gabriel.
A scent unique to this man that triggers ancient feminine instincts to not merely share my body with his, but to mate. To claim and be claimed.
Pressing my hands against his hard pecs, I tilt my head back and go up on my tiptoes. "Kiss me, my sheikh."
With an animalistic sound that goes straight to my core, he lifts my body with his hold on my bottom and slams his lips onto mine. Mouth ravaging mine with pure, raw passion, he is showing none of the control that defines his usual princely demeanor.
I kiss him back, my tongue sliding against his, my lips devouring.
How have I gone twenty-four years without this kind of intensity? Without this overwhelming pleasure? If Lonny's kisses had done to me what Gabriel's do, I wouldn't have been a virgin when Gabriel and I made love for the first time. That's for sure.
Rubbing my palms over his hair-roughened chest, I revel in the freedom to touch as no other woman has the right to do.
Without breaking the kiss, Gabriel shifts his hold so his forearm creates a perch for my backside and his other hand grips my nape possessively. I'm surrounded by his heat and muscular presence completely.
There is nothing and no one else but Gabriel in this moment.
Spreading my legs, I lock them around his torso and loop one arm around his neck for stability before continuing to explore the ridges of his muscular body with my other hand. His back is smooth and firm, the column of his neck perfect and strong, his jaw angular and defined.
My hand slides into his silky hair and I grip it, a sound I've never made before coming from deep in my throat. Heat builds in my core, my arousal soaking my panties and perfuming the air around us.
I should be embarrassed by my blatant sexual hunger.
I'm not.
Rocking my hips and pressing my feminine flesh against him as tightly as I can, I chase the friction my clitoris needs. But I can't quite get it. A whine of frustration travels from my mouth to his.
I don't realize we're moving until the world shifts and I'm on my back on the bed, Gabriel's body pressing mine down into the mattress. He's big and heavy between my thighs, but his weight traps me in a familiar way and I can't shift the way I need to get the stimulation I crave.
Moaning in protest, I yank on his hair, giving vent to my displeasure without breaking my mouth from his.
The dark chuckle he feeds into our kiss says my complaint is duly noted…and ignored.
His mouth and body master mine, ratcheting my desire higher and higher without any chance at relief until the need to move is screaming inside me.
Finally, I jerk my head to the side and gasp, "Please, Gabriel! Stop teasing me."
"I am kissing you, juwayhira, not teasing." Deprived of my lips, he goes for my neck.
And I arch my head back for him, offering my flesh for his love marks.
The past five days, I've spent way too much looking at myself naked in the mirror, reveling in the purple marks he left on my neck and breasts, marking me as his.
Touching them made my clit pulse and I pleasured myself over and over again, never once assuaging the ache of need, despite my self-administered climaxes.
Now, he's here with me and I need him inside me. I need the full body orgasms I've only ever experienced in his arms.
"You're tormenting me." The words are right, but instead of being accusatory, my tone is filled with sensual want.
Gabriel lifts his head, his dark hair framing a handsome face stark with primal hunger. "Your pleasure is mine to command."
Oh man. That's what he said the other night.
"You're bossy in the bedroom." This time, there's definite accusation in my voice.
Shifting to kneel between my legs, removing even the limited stimulation of his body pressed to mine, he laughs darkly. "I am a sheikh. I am bossy everywhere."
There's no point in even trying to deny such an obviously correct claim, but what really blows my mind is that I like that about him. I might even love it.
Molding my breasts with his hands, he focuses his overwhelming will on me. "You must trust me to give you all that you need."
"I do." And that's scary for a woman who trusts so few people and not even all the ones closest to me.
But my heart is all in.
It has been since the beginning, I think. Gabriel's heat melted the iron bars around my heart and I have to trust him to protect the now defenseless organ.
Gabriel traces one of the love bites on the upper swell of my breast, sending an atavistic shiver of sensual submission through me. "The only way I could make myself leave you five days ago was because I knew I had marked you as mine."
"That's very primitive." And there's no watering down how I feel about that.
I definitely love it.
"When it comes to you, I have heretofore unknown primal instincts. I have never felt possessive of a lover like I do you. I resent other men even looking at you, when in the past, I have felt only shallow pride at having a beautiful woman on my arm other men envy."
If he didn't sound so bewildered, not to mention bothered by his admission, I'd want to smack him.
I'm still not going to let it pass. "I don't want to hear about your other women. Ever."
"Other women implies that any of them are in the same category as you and I assure you, none of them were. I never considered a future with another woman. Perhaps that explains it," he muses.
I glare up at him. Doesn't he have a clue what his words are doing to me?
My desire isn't abating, but my insecurities are escalating. Maybe he needs a taste of what's happening inside my head and heart right now. He said he's possessive. Well, so am I. Who knew?
Me. I knew.
I broke up with Lonny as soon as he started flirting with another rockhound.
He never asked her out. We had not promised exclusivity.
But the first time I saw him smiling at her like he smiled at me, talking to her the way he talked to me—like she was someone he wanted to know better—I broke things off with him.
"I guess you're in a category all your own too. I never took time off to visit Juan in California. I never let Lonny touch my boobs." Each word is calculated to trigger Gabriel's possessive tendencies.
What I don't expect is the tsunami of sensual torment that follows.