Manila, PhilippinesApollo Kian Suarez leaned towards Christine Mae Montelibano and kissed her gently, tenderly tasting her lips until they parted hesitantly, mouths and tongues merging until the need for air forced them to part reluctantly. They were like a newly married couple, missing each other, wanting each other. Apollo Kian Suarez's hands wandered over Christine Mae's skin, tangled in the hair while his mouth traced the curved line between ear and shoulder. Christine sighed and melted noticeably at the gentle touch. Her eyes were still closed, her arms wrapped around Apollo's torso, and long fingers felt over the shirt until they pushed the soft fabric aside and could feel smooth skin over hard muscles. "I won't let you go again." The words slowly sank into his consciousness until their meaning made Apollo shiver. "Christine.." The eyes, shining turquoise in the light of dusk, had opened, finding answers in their darkly glittering counterparts. Christine finally looked down
Kyra Montelibano Suarez POV Kyra pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and stared down at the page in front of her, trying to concentrate. It was January in Quezon City, Philippines, a time of year that was always cold and dark. The library was warm and welcoming, though, as always, and Kyra had been there for over five hours already. She just needed to finish this reading, which was taking longer than she'd expected. As long as no one disturbed her, she could finish up in a few minutes, then go for dinner… "Excuse me." Kyra glanced up to see a man standing beside her table. He was tall, with chocolate brown eyes and a head of messy hair. A UP hoodie and a pair of faded jeans somehow managed to perfectly accentuate his athletic build. Kyra's first thought was that he couldn't possibly be talking to her. He was a handsome, confident guy and she was a shy bookworm who practically lived in the library. Still, a glance around showed that she was the only one in earshot. "Sorry,"
Ali Ahmed POV AJ or, as he was properly called, Ali Ahmed or Ali, had never been this happy. It had been about three weeks since his dinner with Kyra at the Lebanese restaurant. Since then, they'd seen each other almost every day. First, it had been hushed study sessions in the library. Then, after being shushed a few too many times, they'd moved their study sessions to the plush rug on the floor of Ali's dorm room. Ali would make them a cup of instant hot chocolate and they'd sit with their papers spread across the floor, listening to music and chatting while they studied. When one of them needed a break, they would go for a walk through cold and windy plaza, their hands occasionally brushing, their breath forming twin clouds as they walked. There were only two problems. The first was that Ali was keeping secrets — more than a few. All his life, people had talked to him just because he was the son of a Sheikh and because he had more money than he knew what to do with. It was tirin
Kyra Suarez POV A sunny day was just starting to spread across the UP campus, bringing buds to the trees, birds to the skies, and fear of exams to all the students. Kyra couldn't bring herself to be worried, though. She was very happy. Ever since their kiss a few weeks ago, Kyra and AJ had been spending almost every spare minute together. Alongside about a million kisses, each more thrilling than the last, they'd meet up after class for studying and dinner, take afternoon walks, and even have breakfast together some mornings at the dining hall. Kyra kept offering to pay, but AJ always had a thousand reasons why he should be the one to get the bill: his mother would be mad if he didn't, he had a gift certificate, he needed to make change out of a twenty. For the first time in her life, Kyra let someone else take care of her instead of trying to do everything herself. The feeling was new, strange, and somehow exhilarating. The only problem was that AJ seemed to be hiding… something.
Ali Ahmed POV Ali woke up with a sinking feeling in his heart. It took him a moment to realize why. As of today, there is less than a month left in his year at UP. He groaned, rolling onto his side and pulling the pillow over his head. He wasn't ready to go back to Al Jumeirah, Dubai. He was going to be the sheikh soon, and his days would be filled again with meetings and events. His one year of freedom would be over. The worst thing was that his time with Kyra would be coming to an end. Ali would have happily sat through a hundred meetings with her around. Why hadn't he met Kyra earlier in the year? It wasn't fair that they only had a few months together. It wasn't fair that he had to leave her behind when the semester ended. Maybe they could have more than a few months. Maybe if Ali Ahmed admitted who he really was, Kyra would still care about him. Maybe she would still look at him with those beautiful green eyes like he was the most important person in the world. Or maybe she w
Kyra Suarez POV The weeks since Kyra and AJ had confessed, and acted on, their feelings for each other had flown by. Kyra was still spending every possible moment with AJ, but they both seemed distracted. She was worried about the upcoming finals and about how much AJ seemed to be hiding, while AJ often seemed lost in thought about something. Kyra had no idea what because that was one of the things he seemed to be hiding. Kyra loved AJ, she knew that. But she didn't love his secrets. Even worse was the fact that she seemed to be one of his secrets, too. Without meaning to, she'd overheard a few more conversations between AJ and his parents in which he talked about hanging out with groups of people when they were alone together. Kyra worried that he was ashamed of her. And she worried about what would happen when the year ended. Would they at least be able to stay in touch when he went home? She had hoped that, after their night together and that pull she'd felt as they confessed th
Kyra M. Suarez"Mom!"Kyra turned to see her son, still wearing his airplane pajamas, clopping down the hall in a series of hops and jumps. Her heart filled with warmth at the sight of him, as it always did. Omer, five years old but keenly aware of his approaching sixth birthday, had AJ's big brown eyes with Kyra's gold flecks, AJ's messy curls, and Kyra's button nose. He was an adorable child, even now when he was going to make both of them late."Omer," Kyra said gently, crossing to her son and smoothing a hand over his curls. "I thought I told you to get dressed. We need to be out the door in ten minutes.""But Mom," Omer said, sticking out his lip, "I can't find my green T-shirt with the airplane."Kyra took her son by the hand, leading him back towards his bedroom. "How about you wear a different shirt today?" she suggested."I don't like my other shirts," Omer said sadly. "I like the green one." He blinked up at Kyra, showing off his long lashes.Trying to hide a smile, Kyra squ
Ali Ahmed POV"And finally, I agree to the four percent subsidy on dates and nuts," Ali said. When his advisors nodded around the table, he closed the folder in front of him with a snap. "Thank you all. Meeting adjourned."Slowly, his advisors started to trickle out, moving on from discussions about Al Jumeirah agriculture to comparing their dinner plans. Ali followed, glad that the meeting was over. He was dedicated to Al Jumeirah and invested in any initiative to make it a better place, but agricultural meetings tended to be very dull. Today had been no exception.Bidding a few last goodbyes to his advisors, he turned towards his mother's rooms. After her husband had died, Ali's mother, Fatima, had moved to a spacious cottage on the palace grounds, giving the rooms meant for the Sheikh to Ali, despite his arguments against it. He'd worried that she would miss the rooms where she'd lived for most of her life, but he had to admit that she seemed happier in the cottage.The loss of Ali
Omar Farouq trailed kisses from her navel to one breast, then the other, anointing them both with his tongue. “I will make myself vulnerable. I will open myself to you, Aaliyah, and show you all these dark things in me. For you, and my son, I will give whatever you wish. Whatever is needed. Whatever makes us whole.”“And I will do the same,” she said, wiping at her face, though her smile was so wide he thought he could lose himself in it. “I promise you, I will not make up stories in my head and decide they’re real. Never again. I promise you that I will not treat our child the way my parents treated me, never good enough. Always on pins and needles, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I want him happy. So loved it never occurs to him to doubt it.”“How could he be anything else?” Omar Farouq asked.She moved against him, making him suck in a breath. “And I’d like him to be the first, Omar Farouq. Of many.”A family, Omar Farouq thought, letting the notion take hold of him. He had los
Aaliyah didn’t need to be urged out of the SUV when it drove her off the ferry that Angelique had commandeered, then brought her to that little parking area halfway up the lonely mountain. She thanked the driver, then charged up the narrow path cut into the side of the mountain as if she had something to prove.Because she did.And it was probably wiser to get as much of her jagged, furious energy out before she reached the Hermitage.Only because she didn’t think that it would serve anyone if she went in there after him, guns blazing.She already knew where that would lead. And she needed this to be different. She had to find some way to make this different from what had come before.Once she got to the Hermitage’s gates, she worried that it was entirely possible Omar Farouq might have locked her out. If he’d had the slightest suspicion that she would come up here after him.But when she reached the door, a simple push opened it up, and she found herself in that stone court once more
AALIYAH has stayed on that beach for a long time.And when, at last, she turned and started back up the path, she hardly knew how she managed to put one foot in front of the other.She didn’t understand how she was here again. How had she given this same man her heart again only to have him smash it once more?She wandered without paying any attention to where she was going until it occurred to her that everything she’d said to Omar Farouq was true for her, too.Sohar seemed at times a fairy-tale kind of place, but it was all too real. Omar Farouq’s parents had been murdered, for God’s sake. It was just as dangerous for a future queen—or an ex-future queen, to be precise—to wander like this as it was for a king.Or anyway, it was putting an unnecessary target on her back.Aaliyah found it helpful to have something to concentrate on. To figure out where she was, which was easy enough in a place she hardly knew because all she needed to do was look up to see the palace standing there at
“I’m not suggesting otherwise.” She moved closer, there in his arms, to press her fingertips on his chest. “They sound like truly wonderful people. I’m sorrier than you know that I never got the chance to meet them. That Troy never will. But that’s not my point. I spent a lot of time these last year’s thinking about the many ways I could get revenge on my parents for turning their backs on me when I needed them the most. Sometimes it was all I thought about. And do you know what I finally understood tonight?”“I do not want—”“Revenge is a poison, Omar Farouq. It mires you in your worst moments while time marches on without you. It chains you to darkness. I know this. I lived this. And all the while I made up revenge scenarios in my head, my son—our son—was growing up. They tried to make me give him up. And I still spent far too much time in my head, which means I might as well have let them take him.” She let out a soft breath. “Tonight made it all too clear. They don’t have any powe
Every night, they came together and followed the fire that had always been between them, wherever it led. In the aftermath, they would lie together, with their breath coming fast and hard. And it would nearly burst out of him, the need to confide in her.The way it always had.“You can tell me,” she said quietly, watching him far too closely. “Whatever it is.”And there was something in her voice then that made him pause. He barked out a laugh. “Do you think it’s a woman?”She didn’t reply to that, which was a reply in itself, and he raked his hands over his face. He could not quite bring himself to laugh again. “You credit me with far more stamina than any man could have. Or do you not imagine that the demands we make on each other are more than enough for one person in one day?”“I have always thought so,” she replied, and he could see her eyes flash, there in the dark. Omar Farouq did not miss the emphasis on the word always.“I was in my bedchamber when you returned that day,” he
She hadn’t even bothered to change out of the gown she’d worn to the party tonight. Her hair was as he’d rendered it personally, after several hours of tearing each other apart. It hung down to her shoulders and looked as if there had been hands in it.There had been. His, and they ached to get back to it.All this while she stood there, fully exposed. Anyone who happened by could see her, the future Queen of Sohar, wandering around in the dark for no good reason.He made as if to go to her, then stopped before he could. Maybe he shouldn’t reveal himself. She clearly couldn’t see where he’d got to. She was scowling, her hands finding her hips the way they often did when she was out of patience. Then she turned in circles, completely heedless of the fact that she was standing beneath the lantern and therefore in full view of anyone who might care to glance out a window.She was not exactly stealthy.The fact that he should stay hidden and make sure she failed to locate him was clear to
“We received the news from an emissary of your...of the King,” her father said after several moments inched by. He scowled at her. “He insisted that we come and support you.”“And, naturally, since a random king I doubt you’ve ever heard of insisted, you came at once.”“We heard of him when those rude journalists camped out on our doorstep,” her father barked at her. “The neighbors will never look at us the same way.”“The horror,” Aaliyah murmured, with a bit more sarcasm than befitted an almost-queen.“I see that the years haven’t softened you any, Aaliyah,” her mother said with a sigh that made it clear she considered herself the victim here. “That’s a shame.”Aaliyah let out a laugh. “I didn’t want to give Troy away. You wanted nothing to do with me unless I did. I’m not sure what softening would have done to make that scenario any better.”Her father made a low noise as if registering how concerning he found this conversation. But Aaliyah kept her focus on her mother.As ever, An
Especially when she found her aunt sitting on a swing in the rose garden, watching Omar Farouq and Troy kick a soccer ball back and forth on the royal lawn.Her heart squeezed so tight she had to stop walking and fight to breathe. Aaliyah had to remind herself—sternly—of the six hard years she’d struggled through.Almost entirely alone.She found she had to do that a little too much as the days wore on.“Maybe it’s not all bad,” said Corrine on one of their walks through the extensive palace gardens.Back home in Tahoe: They had often tried to put in a bit of a summer garden in what summer there was so high up in the mountains. Unkillable geraniums seemed to be the height of their gardening prowess.It felt a bit like a metaphor that even the gardens here were unutterably lush.“There are worse things, of course,” Aaliyah allowed, trying not to sound disgruntled.When, in fact, she felt disgruntled. She’d woken from strange, dark dreams to find Omar Farouq in the shower. He had bid he
Molten gold, impossible flame, and that maddening, glorious, drugging heat that was only and ever Aaliyah.Each thrust was better than the one before. Each gasp, each touch, a revelation.There was the fury, the rage. There was the hurt, the need.But beneath it was a deep kind of recognition.A truth he was not sure he could name.They tumbled this way and that. She rolled on top and stayed there for a while, riding him with abandon. Then he could take it no longer and flipped her again, coming over her once more. He took her hands and hauled them up over her head so she arched against him, and both of them sighed out the sweetness of it.All of it was sublime. None of it was enough.Maybe he had known all along, back then and in all the years in between that it never could be. That it never would be.That there was only this woman for him.No matter how he’d tried to pretend otherwise.No matter how he’d failed to forget her.Omar Farouq levered himself down, getting his face as clo