Sold To The Sheikh: His Indecent Proposal (An Interracial Sheikh Romance Novel) (14 page)

How long they kissed, Mia
never knew. She was so content, wrapped up in Rami’s arms, feeling
his body pressed to hers, that she thought she could have stayed
that way forever. They parted, caught their breath, and before a
word could be said they began to kiss again. Mia felt her feelings
shift from comfort and relief to desire. Her body tingled all over,
heating up as Rami’s hands moved slowly over her curves, in a
lingering, loving caress, as they held one another at the end of
the pier.

“I don’t know if I’m going
too fast,” Rami said, breaking away from Mia’s lips and panting
slightly. “But can we go back to my place? This is a little
public.” Mia laughed breathlessly and nodded, more than willing to
continue in private. Her knees felt weak as she separated from Rami
at her car.

“I’ll follow you,” Mia
said, smiling. Her whole body tingled as she got into her car,
anxious and keen to be alone with Rami as soon as humanly possible.
Even before she had agreed to be the surrogate mother of Rami’s
child, Mia’s sex life had been entirely academic, and since she had
wanted to make sure any child she carried would be Rami’s child, it
had been easy for Mia to agree to remain celibate while they were
trying. But after more than a year with no more physical affection
from the opposite sex beyond a hug or a kiss on the cheek, Mia’s
body was more than ready to leap at the opportunity Rami had
suggested.

Mia was in such a hurry to
get out of her car when they arrived at Rami’s upscale apartment
building that she nearly tripped over the curb. Rami was at her
side in an instant, catching her by the shoulders, pulling her
close and kissing her again before Mia could even fully recover
from the near-fall. He pressed her against the side of the car, his
arms tight around her, his lips claiming hers so thoroughly that
she couldn’t have broken away to speak even if she had wanted to.
She could feel the buzzing hum of anticipation crackling through
every nerve, her whole body exquisitely awake, on the edge of
completion with all of her clothes still on.

Rami led her to his
private elevator and Mia had to prevent herself tapping her foot in
impatience as it made its way silkily through the floors from the
garage level to his penthouse apartment. “Oh God,” she muttered,
still panting slightly from the heady kiss Rami had given her
moments before, “it’s been a really long time for me.” Rami
grinned, looking almost wolfish in his delight.

“Me too,” he said. Mia
rolled her eyes.

“Liar. You’ve been going
after models and sycophants this whole time.” Rami shook his head,
his dark eyes serious.

“First, I stopped because
I wanted to sort of… save myself…for the sperm collections,” he
said, blushing slightly. “Then I felt bad about having sex with
anyone while you had to stay celibate… and then…” he smiled, one of
the most genuine, beautiful smiles Mia had ever seen on his face.
“I couldn’t even think of having sex with anyone but you—and I
thought that I would never get the chance, but the idea of anyone
else was just…” he shrugged, shaking his head.

“So then, let’s take it
slow?” Mia felt suddenly shy, worried that she had somehow lost
whatever kind of skill she might have had in the months she had
been without experience.

“As slow as you want,”
Rami told her, reaching out to take her hand in his as the elevator
came to a stop. They both hurried down the hall towards the door to
his apartment, and Mia almost giggled, giddy at the prospect of
being alone with Rami, of seeing him without all of his expensive
clothes—although, on this one occasion in all the months she’d
known him, he wasn’t in something she recognized to be designer. He
was dressed like any guy off the street, but still looked like
himself: still handsome, still kind, still beautiful and familiar,
even without the tailored clothes and shined shoes.

The door closed behind
them and Rami swung Mia into his arms, kissing her once again. His
hands wandered all over her body, and Mia felt herself becoming
more and more aroused, her skin heating up and her heart beating
faster and faster in her chest. She thought that she might not be
able to remain upright if Rami’s strong arms left her, if his lean,
muscled body moved even slightly; Mia clung to Rami as if for life
itself, losing herself in the kiss, uncaring of how long they stood
there. Rami broke away from her lips and looked into her eyes. “I’m
in love with you, Mia, do you know that?” Mia blinked, stunned and
momentarily too aroused to process what he had said. When his words
filtered through the haze of desire that filled her mind, Mia
smiled, relaxing against him almost bonelessly.

“I think I’m in love with
you, too,” she admitted. Rami kissed her again and Mia made no move
at all to stop him as he began to lead her away from the foyer of
his apartment and towards the bedroom.

* * *

The next morning, Mia woke
up in Rami’s arms, warm and comfortable, her body still tingling
from the pleasure of their lovemaking. She could feel a lingering
soreness deep down between her hips, but the ache was sweet; she
couldn’t imagine any pain she could have enjoyed more. “How are you
this fine morning?” Mia smiled, turning over to face Rami. “I think
this is probably the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in,” she
said, stretching against his body under the sheets. Rami
chuckled.

“It should be, it cost
enough,” Rami told her. He pulled her closer to him and brushed his
lips along her temple. “I’m hoping—if this is not too much too
soon—that you’re going to spend a lot more time in this bed.” Mia
snorted.

“I want to take it slow,”
she said, considering. “I don’t…want to just—start out basically
living here or something like that.”

“But a few nights a week?
Maybe?” Rami looked into her eyes hopefully. Mia
laughed.

“You must have been really
deprived,” she said, poking him in the ribs playfully. “If you’re
this bowled over after last night.” Rami kissed her lightly on the
lips, his hands beginning to wander over her body with more than
just playful intentions.

“Or maybe you’re just that
great in bed,” Rami suggested. “On top of being patient, kind,
conscientious…” Rami kissed softly along the column of her throat,
and Mia felt her desire reawakening under the heat of Rami’s
touches.

“I’m still a little sore,”
she said apologetically. “We’ll have to…go slow this time, if we do
it again.”

Rami smiled against her
lips. “I will go so slow with you,” Rami murmured, covering her
body and claiming her lips. Mia found that it was just as easy to
fall into his rhythm and flow, as it had been the night
before.

TWELVE

“Are you sure you’re okay,
Mia?” Rami spoke from the doorway as Mia sat on the bathroom floor,
slumped over the toilet for the third time that morning.

“Do I look okay?” Her
voice came out harsher than she intended, but she felt so exhausted
that she couldn’t make herself apologize for it. “I feel like
someone dropped a damn boulder on me and told me to swim
upstream.”

“I think you should see
Dr. Farber,” Rami said firmly. Mia groaned, another wave of nausea
washing through her.

“I think I need to see an
exorcist,” she told him, hanging her head over the toilet
bowl.

“Wait, wait,” Rami
cried.

Mia swallowed, turning her
head to look at Rami, hearing the excitement in his voice. “What?
Make it fast, I’m going to puke again in like, a minute.” Rami came
into the bathroom proper, sinking down onto his knees next to
her.

“Think about it for just a
second,” he told her, his voice almost shaking. “You’ve been sick
every morning this week. You’re better in the afternoons. You’re
tired all the time, and yesterday you cried over that Petco
commercial.”

“That commercial is so sad
though!” Mia frowned in irritation, even as the import of Rami’s
words began to sink in. He was right; she was only sick in the
mornings, she was exhausted, and felt as if any little thing might
make her cry.

Mia’s mouth fell open and
she stared at Rami. “I think…I think I have a pregnancy test in my
purse,” she said quickly.

“You carry one around in
your purse?” Rami shook his head in amazement at her. “You really
have been dedicated to giving me a kid.”

“It’s from before,” Mia
said. She hadn’t given any further thought to becoming pregnant
once she and Rami’s relationship had become something that went far
deeper than business. They had decided after their first night
together that they would wait the full two months before talking to
Dr. Farber again about starting IVF once more. Now—if Rami’s
suspicion was correct—they might have a reason to call her sooner
that they’d expected.

Rami stood quickly and
left the bathroom. Mia sat up, put down the seat and flushed the
toilet to dispose of the last of the evidence of her illness.
Either she had completely taken care of the nausea with her
vomiting or the excitement of possibly being pregnant was enough to
suppress the sickness. As she struggled to get up onto her feet,
before sinking down to perch on the edge of Rami’s bathtub, she
realized she no longer felt the dreadful lurch in her
stomach.

Rami returned after a
moment, holding a slim box that bore the logo of one of the most
sensitive pregnancy tests on the market. He opened it and spilled
the contents out onto the countertop, looking at Mia. “Have you
already peed this morning?” Mia tilted her head to the side, giving
him a long look.

“I am not doing this in
front of you,” she said.

“I have seen every inch of
your body,” Rami argued. “And now you’re getting squeamish about
peeing in front of me?”

“Yes! That’s—that’s
completely different!” Mia blushed, looking away.

Rami could see Mia wasn’t
about to change her mind. “Okay, fine, but as soon as you start the
timer, you’re going to let me in, right?” Mia grinned. One thing
had improved immeasurably since they had become boyfriend and
girlfriend, rather than just being a client and a contractor: she
won far more arguments.

“I’ll let you in as soon
as I’m ready,” Mia said, gesturing for him to leave. Rami looked
for a second as though he might resist, then turned on his heel and
left, closing the bathroom door behind him. Mia suspected that he
would be waiting just on the other side, but if he could deal with
hearing her using the toilet, that was fine by her.

Mia had taken so many
pregnancy tests over the course of her partnership with Rami that
she didn’t need to read the directions, but to help steady her
sudden burst of nerves at the prospect of finally being pregnant,
Mia forced herself to read them anyway. She took a deep breath and
picked up the collection cup, moving to the toilet once more.
Instead of hanging over it, she sat down and followed the
instructions on the slip.

She dipped the tip of the
applicator into the cup, holding it there to make sure it was
completely saturated, before replacing the cap and flushing the
rest of the “sample” down the toilet. “Okay, five minutes,” she
called to Rami.

Proving her suspicion,
Rami came through the door less than a second after she announced
the start of the timer. “If that test isn’t positive we are taking
you straight to the hospital to see someone,” he told her
firmly.

“If that test is negative
I will let you take me anywhere that promises to make me stop
puking in the mornings,” Mia agreed. She sat once more on the edge
of the tub while they waited for the minutes to tick down, feeling
somehow more anxious than she had with any of the previous tests.
“It would be kind of funny if it was positive,” she said, smiling
slightly.

“Why would it be funny? It
was kind of the reason we got together.”

“Because, you big dope, we
haven’t even been trying to get pregnant. All that time and money
spent on drugs and treatments and you end up knocking me up from
purely recreational sex.” Rami stared at her for a moment and then
laughed out loud, leaning against the wall.

“When you put it that way,
yes. Very funny.” He shook his head. “All this time and all it
would have taken was convincing you to sleep with me a few times.
Who’d have thought?”

“We don’t know that it’s
positive yet,” Mia said, feeling anxious again. She had been so
sure, so many times over the course of their attempts, that she
would finally be pregnant; now that she was showing actual
symptoms, she couldn’t quite let herself believe it was
possible.

Rami’s phone alarm beeped,
and Mia jumped up from her seat on the edge of the tub, hurrying to
the counter before Rami could get there. She looked down at the
applicator and the answer, printed in black and white on the result
window, nearly made her fall to her knees.
Pregnant
. “Oh. Oh. Oh, my God.” She
turned and reached for Rami, sagging against him in relief.
“We’re—I’m—Oh my God, Rami, I’m pregnant.” Rami’s arms wrapped
around her and he brought her closer to him, holding her tight,
unable to find the words to express his emotions. For a long time,
Mia could do nothing but stand there, letting him support her as a
torrent of shock, joy and relief washed through her.