Page 25 of The Geek and the Sheikh

“You make it sound like a walk in the park."

She hummed absently as she reentered the hallway. "Parks are nice."

He chuckled. "So, are you going to tell me what happened at the hotel between you and Allison?”

“I spilled my hot chocolate on her.”

Laughter burst from Jameel. Given the mischievous gleam in her eyes and her pleased smile, she obviously thought it was the highlight of their encounter.

“I like your laugh. It sounds better in person,” she commented.

“Thank you. I like your voice better in person,” he responded.

“Well, I’m not using a voice distorter now.”

“I know. You don’t know how much that drove me crazy at first,” he confessed, walking toward her.

She turned toward him, just a step away from the closed door behind her, and she tilted her head. “I thought you’d like the Greta Garbo voice.”

He reached up and slid his hand along her cheek, lifting her chin until they were staring at each other. He marveled at the clarity in her eyes. They were like a crystal-clear spring—cool, refreshing, and so very, very inviting.

“I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for the past six years,” he murmured, closing the distance between them.

She leaned away from him as she laughed. “You’ve sure kissed a lot of other women while you were waiting for me. I think you should have to work for it a bit longer,” she cheekily scoffed.

“Hey! It isn’t likeyouhaven’t kissed anyone in the past six years,” he defended.

She released an unladylike snort, took a step back, and gripped the door.

“I’ll take this room. Goodnight,” she said, closing the door in his face.

Jameel dropped his hand until it rested against the varnished oak door. It was like the spring he was imagining seconds earlier had doused him in a cold shower. A frown of confusion creased his brow.

“It isn’t, is it? You’ve kissed other men, right?” he said, curling his fist against the door at the thought.

Her muffled response to his question caused him to step back in stunned surprise. Had she just said what he thought she said? He shook his head.

There is no way I heard her correctly—no way at all. Not with as beautiful as she is!

“There isnowayyou’ve never been kissed,” he breathed.

* * *

Jameel was nothing like she expected.

“That’s not true. He is… and he isn’t,” she murmured.

Junebug knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. It was way too early for her and her mind was buzzing. She kicked off her shoes, unpacked her laptop, and pulled out a change of clothes. She would find the laundry room later, but for now, she would get a shower and change into the oversized t-shirt that she liked to wear as a nightgown. She had forgotten that she had packed the one that her sister had given her.

Midnight had picked the shirt up from the Bronx Zoo. It swallowed her, hiding her D-cup-size breasts, and hung down to her knees. The cotton was super soft, and she loved the decoration on the front of it: an image of the characters from the animated movie Madagascar.

She walked across the bedroom to the bathroom and turned the light on. The spacious bathroom consisted of a large, tiled walk-in shower, double-vanity sinks, and old English oak cabinets. The room was beautiful and luxurious, but seemed devoid of personality. There was very little color.

She placed her nightshirt on the counter and touched the fluffy white towel. The house was… a house, not a home. So far, every room she had explored spoke of an old English country home where no one lived. She understood why. This was one of Idella’s safe houses. Everything was designed to appear normal while giving nothing away about the person who owned it. It was just bland to her.

A sudden wave of homesickness hit her. She sniffed and wiped away a stray tear that had slid down her cheek. Her own home—hers and Midnight's—was a spacious, concealed vault under the Brooklyn Bridge. It had been the first place where she actually felt at home. The only place.

The vault had been used during Prohibition as a speakeasy. Midnight had discovered it during her explorations of the subway system. While renovations had been on-going for the other vaults, this one had been craftily hidden. It had taken Junebug a while to find the original blueprints. Washington Roebling and his father had created them in the 1870’s. The vaults had been designed into the original structure of the Brooklyn bridge to help pay for the cost of building the bridge, and it had been the ideal place to house a certain fine liquid when it was banned in the 1920’s.

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