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Chapter Thirteen

L ottie’s hands fell eagerly to the Qasira’s shirt. She wanted to do this so carefully, but Zynara’s obvious need for her was winding her up too. She slowly undid buttons and felt Zynara’s gaze bearing down on her. It fluttered her eyelids and made her shiver.

There was no bra beneath the shirt. Lottie’s eyes flicked up to Zynara’s and got an imperious lift of the Qasira’s eyebrow for her troubles.

“Get on with it.” It was a murmur that was trying very hard to be patient.

Lottie slipped fabric over toned shoulders and stepped behind the Qasira to draw the shirt down her arms. She placed a kiss between her shoulder blades and was thrilled when rich warm skin rippled with muscle beneath her lips. The Qasira drew an audible breath.

Returning to stand before her, Lottie dropped to her knees and felt something deep within her mind click into place as she did. There was another ragged sigh above her.

Lottie wrapped her fingers around Zynara’s ankles and slipped off her shoes, but that was as far as she got before the woman’s patience snapped entirely.

She flung off the rest of her clothes, striping like a porn star for Lottie who sat gaping on her knees.

Washboard fucking abs. Incredible thighs.

A tangle of black hair between her legs beneath boy-shorts that were thrown across the room. Lottie was in heaven.

Her eyes—her soul—was level with paradise.

If Lottie hadn’t been wet before, she very definitely was the instant the Qasira’s fingers twisted themselves in her hair and tugged sharply.

She rested her forehead against the taut skin of Zynara’s belly and breathed her in deep.

The scent of her was better than any drug, more intense than any thrill. It absolutely wasn’t a game anymore.

The grip on her hair tightened.

“May I?” Lottie whispered.

“If you don’t—” Zynara choked. Her chin went up again at her own weakness, but she covered it beautifully by stepping back to the bed, mercilessly tugging Lottie with her.

She wasn’t gentle—she was hungry, wanting, greedy—and that was far more exciting.

Lottie scrabbled to keep up with her. Zynara lifted one leg and put her foot on the bed, opening herself to Lottie.

There was nothing for Lottie to do but fall into her.

God, the Qasira tasted good.

She was spice and power, and Lottie was drunk in moments and not merely on the flavour.

The Qasira’s legs spasmed, her head fell back and she moaned.

Lottie felt it with her tongue. She chased it, lapping at wetness, then pressing forward into the hard bundle of nerves, then again and again.

She sucked, she devoured and she soared .

The fingers in her hair twisted tighter.

The thigh beside her head quivered. Lottie wrapped her arm around it and doubled her efforts.

Zynara cursed in Arabic in a rough voice that drove Lottie on—and then the woman stiffened against her and stole what was left of Lottie’s control.

There were two hands in her hair now—Zynara was holding her face and rocking her hips against Lottie’s mouth.

She was using her, grinding against her and pulling her in.

Lottie opened and let the Qasira do whatever she wanted with her.

She was burning up, and she was loving it.

When at last she knew the moment was right, she wrapped her lips around Zynara’s clit and sucked—and Zynara came with a guttural moan that dragged from deep inside her, and it rang like music through Lottie’s entire being.

Her Qasira was everything.

Lottie didn’t even give her time to breathe.

She kissed her way up Zynara’s quivering body and placed her hands on her skin like she’d been dying to do. She laid the Qasira down on the bed, delighted when a long, lithe leg wrapped around her waist, and crawled over her to kiss her lips.

“That was—” Zynara started.

“Oh, I know.”

There was a beat, a look of outraged incredulity, and then Zynara giggled .

She laughed as if she didn’t have a care in the world, because Lottie had swept every one of them away, and Lottie knew in that instant that she was done for.

Hopelessly and irreparably caught by this extraordinary woman and helpless to worship her for the rest of her days.

If only life was so simple .

She bent her head to Zynara’s breasts and did her utmost to set the Qasira free again.

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows. Somewhere—a thousand miles away—in her blazer over a chair, the Qasira’s phone buzzed.

Neither of them moved.

Lottie lay next to the woman who now ruled her entire world and was transfixed by the softness in her eyes.

“I should get back,” Zynara murmured. They lay on their sides and watched each other, Zynara with a curious openness in her face, wonderment as she traced the curves of Lottie’s hip with one finger.

Lottie was still dressed, though her skirt was up around her waist. Zynara’s fingers had been amazing.

“I need to work. I need to convince the world to change, right as the media is revelling in the destruction of my own efforts.”

She sounded tired.

“Arseholes,” Lottie whispered. “Do you have PR people working on that? I still think you could spin it beautifully to make your brother look bad and the explosion look good.”

Zynara’s eyes slid back into focus. Suddenly, their soft post-sex glow sharpened into lethal intelligence.

“So you said last night. And you were right—the damage was mostly symbolic. A hydrogen explosion makes an impressive flash, but the destruction was contained. The clean up will be simple and we will be back online in no time.” Her eyes narrowed.

“You want to tell me why those thoughts were at the top of your mind last night when I literally still had my fingers inside you? What kind of girl—”

“Maybe the kind of girl you need,” Lottie suggested.

Zynara raised one perfect eyebrow.

Lottie gave a cheeky smile. “Okay then, the kind of girl you want. It’s okay to want me. I’m pretty irresistible.”

Zynara’s other eyebrow joined the first.

“Beautiful, clever—”

“Humble,” Zynara muttered.

“Fucking brilliant in bed.”

“I’m obliged to admit that is correct.”

Lottie punched the air. “Ha! So pleased to be your first second time. You’ll be back for more.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“Thank you.”

There was a beat and then they both grinned at each other, sideways in the afternoon sun, a cool breeze curling over their skin laden with all the fragrances of the Mediterranean. Lottie was very close to feeling content.

The Qasira’s phone buzzed again.

Zynara lifted herself up on one elbow. “So, what kind of girl?” she asked again.

Lottie looked up at her and shrugged. “Just a girl,” she said, and let her expression turn sly again. “Same kind of girl who has totally nearly almost convinced Antonin Petrov to sign with you instead of your brother. That’s 180 billion you’re going to owe me.”

Zynara rolled her eyes and climbed off the bed. She snapped her fingers and Lottie sprang up to follow her, holding out her clothes as the Qasira dressed, straightening her collar, letting her fingers linger on the buttons of her shirt between her breasts.

“You think that’s all you?” Zynara asked.

Lottie knew it was. “Admit it. You need me. We would be a brilliant pair.”

There was another of those assessing little hums from above her and Lottie absolutely died for the way Zynara’s gaze weighed down on her.

A sudden pulse of doof-doof music swelled through the windows. Malik’s superyacht. They both watched through the sheer curtains as it cruised aggressively just offshore. A sudden stench of diesel overpowered the scent of jasmine and Zynara wrinkled her nose.

“I hate that bloody boat,” she murmured.

“I know,” Lottie whispered. She hoped Ace had been able to work her magic. She wanted to be able to offer Zynara something more than just her body.

But the sound seemed to crystallise the old familiar ice inside Zynara and when Lottie looked back her regal Qasira mask was totally back in place.

The woman stepped back. “I have duties,” she said. Her eyes swept over Lottie and her expression softened for one tiny moment before she flattened it down into a studied politeness. “Thank you for—” She stopped. “Just— thank you.”

And then she was gone.

It turned out to be trickier than expected to clear Malik’s boat.

Bili had a plan, but they both wanted to wait for the opportune moment.

Lottie realised they had time. Ace promised the explosives wouldn’t be discovered.

There were ten more days of the Green Futures Alliance summit, and Petrov was incredibly close to signing his country’s energy future over to Zynara.

The moment had to be absolutely perfect.

Lottie spent that night pretending to enjoy the decadent party Malik threw poolside back at his villa near the palace.

She threw back shots with lecherous rich men and wondered what Zynara was doing.

Was she watching the lights of Malik’s gaudy little show from the soft glow of the palace, or way, way up in her eyrie in the Burj Al Saqr?

She spent the following day angling for a moment to spend with the Qasira, but Zynara seemed to be avoiding her.

That made sense. The woman had a lot on her plate.

Malik continued to be a thorn in the side of progress, though his antics became increasingly childish.

He parked his superyacht obnoxiously offshore from the summit and he and his mates whizzed around on jet skis, insisting his party girls join them.

The music got louder, helicopters came and went—he even flew five of the country’s fighter planes overhead, all of them trailing golden smoke and coming round again for showy manoeuvres and ear-splitting barrel rolls.

It was a power play, obviously. An attempt to undermine his sister’s authority and remind the world that he was still next in line to the Ain Zargieri throne, even if his sister was the one who spoke with the Q’sar’s voice.

It was also ridiculously petty, and as the media heaped scorn on his antics, as Bili’s leaks to Al Jazeera and Twitter got more and more pointed, and as it became increasingly clear the ‘accident’ he’d engineered at Zynara’s hydrogen facility hadn’t had the effect he wanted, Malik struggled to keep up his nonchalant vibe.

Lottie actually found herself worried about what he might do next.

But by the end of the third day, it was Zynara who had had enough.

As the superyacht docked at the marina just off Malik’s party house, she stormed aboard like a controlled, very dangerous tornado.

And the moment was suddenly very opportune indeed.

Lottie gave Bili the nod.