The Desert Lord's Baby Read Free Page B

in her memory. The voice that echoed in every moment’s silence, haunting her, whispering seduction, rumbling arousal, roaring completion, always charged with emotion. This voice contained as much life as a voice simulation program.
    God, what was he doing here?
    No. She didn’t care what he was doing here. She didn’t care that her insides were crumbling under the avalanche of emotion the sight of him had triggered.
    She had to get rid of him. Fast.
    She had to regain control first, of her coherence, to think of something to say, of her volition, to be able to say it.
    She leaned against the door she didn’t remember closing, feeling as if the least tremor would shatter the tension keeping her upright. She watched his powerful strides take him into the formal living room, felt him shrinking it, converging all light on him like a spotlight in the dark.
    And even through her shock and panic, everything inside her devoured each line of his juggernaut’s body, even bigger and taller than she remembered, the sculpted suit worshipping it from the daunting breadth of shoulders, to the sparseness of waist and hips, to the formidable power of thighs and endless legs.
    Memory was a sadistic master, lashing open festering wounds with images and sensations, of those shoulders dominating her, those hips thrusting her to a frenzy, those thighs and legs encompassing her in the aftermath of madness.
    She tore her gaze and memories away, choking on longing. Then he turned, and everything in her piled up with the brunt of his beauty, the rawness of her still-burning love.
    His heavy-lidded gaze documented her reaction before he raised both eyebrows, a movement rich in nonchalance and imperiousness. “Finished with your latest act, or shall I wait until you’ve delivered the full performance?”
    It wasn’t only his voice that was different. This wasn’t the Farooq she remembered. This wasn’t even the hostile stranger she’d walked out on. That man had been seething with harshness, with emotion. This man was even more forbidding, as he eyed her with the clinical coldness of a scientist dealing with inanimate matter.
    His lips pursed as if he were assessing a defective product. He finally gave a slight shake of his awesome head, lips twisting on his unfavorable verdict. “As an unbiased viewer, I must tell you, your acting abilities are slipping. Exaggeration is not your friend.”
    Before she could even process his dispassionate comment, let alone find words to answer it, he relieved her of his focus, cast his gaze around her space.
    She could see his connoisseur’s mind adding up the worth of every square foot, every piece of furniture, brush stroke and decorative article and felt defensive. Though she’d made this place chic and cheery, it could well be derelict compared to the opulence he was used to. Which was a stupid thing to feel and think.
    She had to make him leave. Now. Before Mennah woke up. Before he saw the childproofing she’d begun installing.
    He finally returned those empty eyes to hers as he walked back toward her. She watched him cross the distance between them with the fatalism of someone about to be hit by a train.
    “It cost a bundle, this place,” he murmured. “I would have wondered how you afforded it. If I didn’t already know.”
    She almost blurted out “What do you mean by that?”
    She didn’t. She couldn’t locate her voice. Her heart had long invaded her throat. She could barely breathe enough to keep from passing out. And his indifference and disparagement were encasing her in frost, hurrying her descent. Everything was taking on a surreal tinge. She began to hope this was a scenario out of her Farooq-starved imagination.
    Then he was within touching distance. And she had to prove to herself he was—or wasn’t—really here.
    She reached out a trembling hand, half expecting her fingertips to encounter a mirage. Instead they feathered over black-silk-covered flesh, the layered sensations