ZaYa FF - Sweet Liar[Completed - Page 44] - Page 24

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Chapter 22

It was almost six o'clock when they arrived at the nursing home. Aaliya was wearing her red Valentino suit and Manolo Blahnik high heels and carrying a red Chanel bag. Now that she knew how much her clothing cost, she was almost afraid to wear it and she dreaded getting into one of those filthy New York cabs. So she asked Zain if he was maybe, hopefully, going to hire a private car again, but he told her that no, he wasn't.

Because of his answer, she was not prepared for the long black limousine that pulled up in front of the town house. Her mouth was still hanging open in astonishment when the uniformed chauffeur got out and she saw that he was Zain's cousin, Rizwan.

"Good evening, Miss Haider," Rizwan said politely, tipping his cap to her.

"Get the blinis?" Zain asked, his arm around Aaliya's waist so tight you would have thought Rizwan was a pirate trying to kidnap her.

"Yes, sir!" Rizwan said smartly, clicking his heels together, then preceded them down the stairs and opened the back door for them.

"You're sure you know how to drive this thing?" Zain asked his cousin, obviously doubting his ability to do so. "Faraaz will kill both of us if you so much as scratch it."

"Who's Frank?" Samantha asked as they got inside.

"My oldest brother."

Once inside the car, Aaliya tried her best to sit very still and behave herself, for she was sure that women who wore designer clothes were used to stretch limos and didn't crawl all over them exploring, but Zain laughed at her. "Go on. Faraz won't mind."

She opened little doors, looked in cabinets, and turned the TV on and off, then Zain sent a fax to Colorado and received one from his grandfather that said, "Zain, my boy, when are we going to meet your Aaliya?"

Wide-eyed, Aaliya looked at Zain for an explanation as to what his family knew about her, but Zain just shrugged in reply.

After a while she settled back in the seat and thoughtfully looked at Rizwan so skillfully driving the car. She felt that she was beginning to know Zain and to understand a little about the way his family functioned. "If he's doing this for you, what are you going to do for him?"

"Looking over his portfolio."

"His investment portfolio? Why would he want you to do that for him?" She wanted to know more about Zain, for she was finding out that he was good at giving away very little about himself.

"Because none of the Qureshis knows anything about math." Begrudgingly, he said, "They're okay with words but not with numbers."

"You still haven't answered my question: Why does he want you to look at his portfolio?"

"Because I'm good at it, that's why," he answered, and aaliya knew that that wasn't really an answer at all.

When they arrived at the nursing home, Zain wouldn't allow her to get out, but made her sit in the car for ten minutes. "I want every one of them to see us," he said, looking out the dark tinted windows through which no one could see at the faces that were peering out at them from the windows of the home.

After a long while, Rizwan opened the door for them and Aaliya, moving as regally as she felt alighting from such a car, walked ahead of the two men. Zain was wearing his beautiful Italian suit, and Rizwan, in his chauffeur's uniform, his arms laden, looked like a bored rich girl's dream-come-true. By the time they reached the desk, every mobile person in the nursing home had crowded into the hall to see them. Four women and two men were attached to stands with bottles hanging from them, and one woman was in a wheeled bed pushed by two other women.

With Aaliya's arm tucked firmly in his, Zain stopped in front of the plastic-laminated counter and looked at the shapeless nurse behind it. She was obviously the person in charge; she looked so "incharge" that the words may as well have been written across her forehead.

"We're here to see Her Royal-" Zain began, then when he saw Aaliya's shocked face, he patted her arm. "I'm sorry, my dear, I know I keep forgetting that she doesn't want anyone to know the truth. What name is she using now?"

Aaliya blinked at him.

"Abby?" Zain asked. "Is that the name Her Royal- Oops! I was about to do it again. The princess will never forgive me if I reveal her secret." Leaning across the counter, he gave the ugly nurse a look of such lasciviousness that Aaliya wanted to hit him. "But I'm sure that you already know all about... ah, Abby,don't you?"

The woman blushed like a girl, but it lost something in effect since all the blood rushing to her face made the hairs on her chin stand upright. "O' course. We know about the... the princess."

"And you're taking good care of her, aren't you? Not that you need to curtsy, she hates all that fuss. When one has a childhood of nurses and nannies curtsying to one, it makes one come to hate such formalities. You understand, don't you? But-"

"Whatever happened to the sapphire bracelet she gave her last nurse?" Aaliya asked. Two could play this game. "Remember that nurse who was so nice to her?" Leaning over the counter, she smiled at the nurse in conspiracy, as though what she was saying was just between the two of them, but when AaliyA spoke she was loud enough to be heard to the far end of the corridor. "Her generosity is going to be the death of this family. If she tries to give any of her jewelry to the staff, would you please report it to us?"

"W-why, yes, of course I will," the nurse answered.

"Now, may we see her?" Zain asked. "Undisturbed?"

"Yes, certainly. Right away. Move it!" she snapped at a man in a wheelchair.

With all the expertise of an experienced doorman, the nurse opened the door to Masuma's/Abby's room and closed it behind them.

Abby, half asleep in her bed, looked up and had a moment's trouble focusing. "I... I didn't expect to see you two again."

Aaliya had the box of pictures in her arms - in fact, she had transferred them into the hatbox that had contained Masuma's dress - and walked briskly forward. "I've come to ask a favor of you. You're the only person in the world who I can find who knew my grandmother, and I wondered if you would mind going through some old photos with me."

"Photos?"

"Of my family. I know it's a terrible imposition, but I thought you might be able to tell me something, I'm not sure what, but maybe my grandmother might have told you something about herself."

"Why do you want to know about her?"

"Because I love her," Aaliya said simply. "And I think she would have loved me if she'd met me. Jubilee said we're very much alike."

"Met him, have you?" Abby was starting to come fully awake.

Stepping forward, Zain put the big picnic basket down on the edge of the bed. "She gets her nose into everything. This morning she was yelling out the window at Ornette, Jubilee's grandson, and-"

"Ornette is Jubilee's great-grandson," Abby said, then made a little face that said she wished she'd kept her mouth shut. To cover herself, she said, "What do you have in there, young man?"

"Sidecars," he said, removing a tall stainless-steel flask from the basket. "And caviar blinis."

For a moment Abby looked as though she were going to cry with a combination of happiness and regret - for she well knew that aaliya should not be there. "You two are fools, you know that?" she said softly, her remark addressed to Zain.

"Yes, ma'am, I know that very well, but Aaliya is, as far as anyone can tell, just like her grandmother."

Sassy is what Jubilee calls her, and she wanted to show you her photographs, so we're here. She had an idea that if her grandmother were still alive Masuma might like to see what she'd missed, might like to see her son and her daughter-in-law, see her grandchild growing up, and she might like to see her husband as he grew older. Think Masuma would have liked to have seen that?"

"Yes," Abby said softly. "She would have."

"Oh heavens!" Aaliya said. "You'd think this was a funeral. We're having a party! Zain, pour the drinks and roll those pancakes. And..." She hesitated. "I don't know what to call you. If Masuma were alive, what do you think she'd like me to call her?"

"Nana," Abby said instantly. "I think she said that was what she wanted her granddaughter to call her."

"Would you mind very much if I called you Nana?"

"I wouldn't mind at all. Now, where is my drink? I haven't had a sidecar in years."

Aaliya climbed on the bed beside Abby, pulled the box of photos across her knees, and opened it, while Zain rather awkwardly rolled thin pancakes around red caviar and sour cream, then served them to the two women with crystal glasses of the cognac mixture.

Within thirty minutes all awkwardness between the three of them was gone. After the first drink, Abby got very sloppy at saying that Masuma would like so and so. Instead, she was saying things like, "I remember that. We kept the lawn mower in that old shed. Did Zubair ever tear that thing down?"

Zain teased Aaliya mercilessly about pictures of her when she was a child, laughing at one where she was obviously furious and hadn't wanted her picture taken. Abby defended Aaliya, saying she had been the sweetest baby alive.

Refilling Abby's glass, Zain said in the most mournful tones imaginable that, for all he knew, Aaliya was still the sweetest baby alive.

"Zain!" Aaliya snapped."

But Abby took Aaliya's side. "You mean, a big, strapping hunk like you hasn't persuaded this dear little thing to go to bed with you yet?"

The words, as well as the sentiment, were so very funny coming out of the mouth of an eighty-four-year-old woman that Aaliya and Zain laughed uproariously.

"Why does every generation think it's invented sex?" Abby asked in mock exasperation.

"Why don't you tell us about sex in your generation?" Zain said encouragingly. "At least, that way, I'd be able to experience somebody's fantasies."

"You'll get no lessons from me, Zain Abdullah. You'll have to find out on your own."

The evening got more funny when Aaliya showed pictures of herself, as promised, nude on a rug. Both Abby and Aaliya giggled at Zain's heartfelt groans at Aaliya's "pinup" pictures.

When Rizwan entered the room, Aaliya knew that the party was over and so did Abby. For a long moment, they clung to each other, Aaliya's strong, healthy young body holding the frail, weakening body of her grandmother.

"Don't come back," Abby whispered. "I'm not sure it's safe."

Pulling away from her, Aaliya acted as though she hadn't heard her. "I'd love to return. Thank you so much for the invitation. Are you ready, Zain?" She left the room without looking back, not seeing Zain kiss Abby's cheek, then slip a piece of paper with his phone number and the private numbers of some of his family members on it into Abby's hand before leaving the room.

On the drive back to the East Side and zain's town house, Aaliya was quiet.

"Enjoy yourself?" Zain asked.

"Mmm," was all she answered.

"Are you okay?"

"Certainly. I couldn't be better. It was great spending the evening with my grandmother. I'm just a little tired, that's all. I think I'll go to bed early tonight."

Zain didn't say any more on the ride home and at the house, she went inside while he stayed outside talking to Rizwan. When he entered the house, Aaliya was nowhere to be seen so he assumed she'd gone to bed. For himself, he was a little too wound up to go to sleep, so he fixed himself a sandwich and a beer, took it into the library, and turned on the TV.

Aaliya walked in so quietly that he didn't know she was near him until he looked up and saw her standing there, wrapped in his bathrobe, her face shiny clean, looking about twelve years old. He could see that she had something she wanted to say to him. Instantly he turned off the television and looked up at her.

Tentatively, Aaliya sat on the edge of the couch a few feet from him.

"Zain," she said hesitantly, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I want to ask you something."

"Sure."

Holding tightly onto her hands to still them, she said, "I look at this house and everything in it and I know it was expensive and I know that you paid for my new clothes and you told my grandmother that your grandfather was a man of some wealth and that you could support a person." After that pauseless sentence, she took a breath, trying to stop her heart from racing, for she was filled with embarrassment at asking for something else from a man who had already given her more than... more than was necessary.

She looked up at him. "Zain, do you have any money? I mean, enough that you could spare some?" Her eyes were pleading and apologetic at the same time.

"Yes," Zain said after a moment, but not wanting to elaborate on the answer. He liked thinking that she knew nothing about his finances, because women had dated him for his money. A couple of them had gone so far as to say that they loved him when they meant they loved his money.


"I want to ask a personal favor of you. Will you lend me some money? A few thousand? Ten at most, I think. I'll pay you back whenever I can."

He tried to keep from frowning. "Whatever I have is yours. May I ask what you want the money for?"

"I want to buy some furniture."

"For your apartment?" The words came out sharper than he'd meant them to as he thought of having asked Juhaina to redecorate Aaliya's apartment.

"No, of course not!" Aaliya snapped, annoyed that he thought she was such a frivolous, ungrateful person as to ask him, who had given her so much, for something she didn't need. "It's not for me, it's for my grandmother. I want to make that dreadful room of hers beautiful. I want to buy some pictures for the walls - nice pictures - a chair and a few accessories, but I want them to be of good quality, very good quality. My grandmother used to wear Lanvin and real diamonds and real pearls." Aaliya paused for a moment then said very softly, "Maybe we could rent the furniture. She won't need it for very long."

Putting his hands on her shoulders, Zain kissed her hard, a kiss that told her he was proud of her. "We'll buy whatever you want. Tomorrow we'll go shopping at a few antiques stores where they know my sister."

"Zain," she whispered, not meeting his eyes. "I'm so afraid. I don't want to see another person I love die."

Putting his fingers under her chin, he tipped her face up and looked at her in silent question, as though asking her what she needed. Then, as though he knew the answer, he opened his arms to her, not in desire but in warmth and comfort - and perhaps in love.

Without a thought, she moved onto his lap, her body as close to his as possible as she drew her knees into her chest, his big arms wrapping about her, making her feel safe, letting her feel the very aliveness of him. She could feel his heart beating under her cheek, and when she pressed even closer to him, she thought she could feel the blood coursing through his veins.


"Hold me, Zain," she whispered. "Hold me tightly. Let me feel your strength, your... health." Her voice was ragged with emotion.

He held her as tightly as he could without breaking her bones, spreading his hands to cover her head and as much of her back as possible. In his mind's eye, he saw what she must have seen: her grandfather slowly wasting away, gradually moving toward death, then her father eaten by the same illness, dying in her arms exactly as her grandfather had. Now she'd found her last blood link on earth, and Zain well remembered the dry, nearly lifeless skin of the woman, the grayish pallor of her. Death was hovering over Masuma, already pulling at her, trying to take her from earth - and from Aaliya.

In spite of how tightly Zain was holding her, aaliya began to tremble.

"Aalu!" he said sharply in alarm, but his tone had no effect on her as her trembling increased, so he pulled his hand away from her head and held it in front of her face. "Look at my hand! Do you hear me? Look at it!"

Slowly, she lifted her head. She was trembling so violently now that her teeth were almost chattering. She had no idea what Zain was doing as she obediently looked at his hand.

"Strong. Healthy," he said, holding his hand inches from her face. "Alive and well. See it?"

His hand was strong, glowing with the health of youth and exercise and just plain love of living. To Zain's utter consternation, she pulled his hand to her face, held his palm to her lips, and breathed deeply, as though reassuring herself that he was indeed alive and was going to stay that way. Moving her head slightly, she put his warm, callused palm to her cheek, closed her eyes, and rested her head against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart while Zain held her as tightly as he dared.

Holding her as he stroked her back, he wished he could help her, wished that he could take some of her pain away, wished he could stop what they both knew was going to happen. But he could do nothing. No amount of money, no amount of love can stop a person from dying.


"* * * * *
Even after Aaliya fell asleep in his arms, Zain continued holding her, allowing her to relax against him, wanting to feel her warm little body next to his.

Sometimes, when he thought about how much he loved her, it was almost a physical ache inside him. He was to the point where he could hardly stand to be away from her, as though he were afraid he'd miss one of her smiles or even one of her frowns. It would have been impossible to describe the pleasure he received from watching her blossom, seeing her change from the little rabbit he'd first met to the woman who could yell out the window at someone like Ornette. He liked to see the joy she gave to other people such as when she kissed Jubilee or when she befriended Nafeesa or when she climbed onto the bed with Masuma and hugged her.

Yet she terrified him with this continued pursuit of the people who had been involved with Masuma and with her need to know what happened so long ago. Right now Zain wished he'd never heard of Doc, had never heard of Ghulam Haider. But if he hadn't, he reminded himself, he wouldn't have met Aaliya.

In her sleep she relaxed against him, her trust of him complete and absolute. It was this trust that was beginning to drive him insane. For the life of him, Zain couldn't figure out why she wouldn't go to bed with him. He'd asked every question he could think of, investigating her past under a microscope, doing what he could to find answers, to make her talk to him. From the way she reacted when he touched her, he'd have thought she was raped when she was a child or some other traumatic thing had happened to her so that now she couldn't bear a man to touch her.

But Aaliya allowed Zain to touch her. Brother! did she allow him to touch her! Hand holding, snuggling, kissing, cuddling together on the couch, she seemed to want to touch him every minute of every day. He was sure that if it were up to her she could perfectly well sleep in the same bed with him every night and not even be tempted to go any further than sleeping in each other's arms.

He had fantasies - awake or asleep he had fantasies about making love to her - but his major fantasy was about persuading her that sex wasn't so bad. He thought about kissing her until she was limp, then gradually going further, but Aaliya always seemed to read his mind; when sex was his intent, she pushed him away.

Now he was finding that his patience was nearly at an end, for he was beginning to feel that his love for her wasn't going to be returned. From talking to her father and from what Aaliya had told him Zain knew that her ex-husband was very different from him, and maybe that's what she needed: a different kind of man. Maybe she could only respond to men like her ex and not men like Zain. Maybe she needed some CPA-type guy: structured, formal, tidy... boring.

Maybe, he thought, and his gut twisted at the idea, maybe she thought of him as a "friend." Sometimes women had stupid notions that a sexually healthy man and woman could be platonic friends without the "complications" of sex. Maybe that's what Aaliya thought about him, thought that they could remain living together in this house as roommates.

Both of these theories had many holes in them, such as why she was so damned jealous of any other woman he so much as glanced at and why she looked at him as though he were a combination of Apollo, Conan the Barbarian, and Merlin. It was an easy guess that a tenant didn't usually look at her landlord with eyes that made him seem as though he could do anything, accomplish anything, become anything.

So why the hell wouldn't she go to bed with him?

At midnight, he picked her up and took her into the bedroom, carrying her as she clung to him as though she were a nine-year-old and he her father. When he put her on the bed, she smiled at him in her sleep. Now what was he supposed to do? Put her jammies on her?

"Aaliya," he said, "I'd like to be one of those altruistic, storybook heroes who can undress the heroine without jumping on her bones, but I can't. You'll have to undress your yourself and put on your own nightgown. I want to make love to you too much to be able to even look at your bare body and still be able to control myself. I just might turn into that rapist you've always thought I was."

By the end of this speech, her eyes were wide open as she looked up at him standing over her. "Zain, thank-"

But he'd shut the door sharply before she could say the words he'd come to hate.

<font size="3">Note : Mature Content Ahead.. I'll Highlight that Content but sorry if i miss something.. Read it at ur own risk lol .. </font>


Chapter 23

In the morning, Aaliya sensed that Zain was different the moment she walked into the breakfast room where he was seated and looking at the newspaper. He didn't put down his paper and smile at her as he usually did, didn't wink at her as he often did. Instead, he kept the paper in front of him, reaching out for his coffee cup without looking up. When she said good morning, he still didn't look at her.

For a moment she thought he might be angry at her because she'd once again imposed on him, but he'd been so very nice to her last night. Of course zain was always nice, always kind... always the most wonderful human being on the face of the earth, she thought.

Moving to stand behind him, she put her hand on his shoulder. "Zain, about last night-" she began, then to her astonishment, he moved away from her touch. He did not want her to touch him!

Aaliya was so stunned by his movement that she had to leave the room. When she returned later, dressed for the day, she hoped she had her facial expression under control. With all the years she'd spent living with her ex-husband, acting, pretending every moment, shouldn't she be good at acting by now?

He was still sitting at the table, still hidden behind the newspaper. "Zain, about last night," she said, this time without touching him. "I didn't mean to impose on you. I didn't mean to ask more of you than you've already given, and, about the money for the furniture, you don't have to lend it to me and-"

"Aaliya," he said firmly, "I don't want to hear it. Money is the least of my problems and as soon as I get dressed, we'll go buy Masuma some furniture. We need to get out of the house anyway because my sister is going to be here today and I don't want to be in her way."

With that he left the room, without so much as turning to look at her.

It was a strained day. Usually they talked so much that they tended to talk over the top of each other, but today, there seemed to be nothing to say. Zain did just as he'd promised and took her to Newell's where she saw floor after floor of heavenly antiques, and he took her to the Antiques Mart where they went to shop after shop, but she wasn't having very much fun. Doing her best to think of Masuma and not herself, she bought a couple of pretty bed jackets, a bottle of perfume, and even some earrings, but she could think of little else except that Zain was angry with her.

The worst part of the day was when Zain jumped away from her if she got too close to him, as though he couldn't stand for her to touch him. By the afternoon, Aaliya was weary with it all, weary with what was happening now, weary with her memory of the past, for her ex-husband had done the same thing to her. In the beginning of their marriage they had held hands and kissed and had enjoyed touching, but after the first few months he couldn't seem to bear her touching him. Now it was turning out to be the same with Zain. But it was a great deal more understandable with Zeeshan, because she'd been to bed with him. Go to bed with Aaliya Ghulam Haider, she thought, and be turned off sex with her forever.

By late afternoon she was so nervous that when she accidentally touched Zain's hand, she jumped. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to touch you. I know you don't want me to touch you. I didn't mean-"

Turning toward her, Zain said, "Oh, Aalu, you don't understand at all, do you?" Pulling her into an empty corridor of the Antiques Mart, he drew her into his arms and kissed her sweetly, longingly, her body pinned between the wall and his big, warm torso.

When he drew his lips away from hers, she put her head on his shoulder, her heart beating wildly. "I thought you hated me. I thought-"

He didn't want to hear what she thought, nor did he want to talk about what was bothering him, he didn't want to have to put it into words. "I'm taking you to Banu's and leaving you there because I have to go out tonight and you can't return to the house."

All she could do was nod, so glad that he was again looking at her.

In the taxi he was silent and she wished he'd tell her what was bothering him, but no matter what questions she asked, she couldn't get him to talk. At Banu's apartment building, he practically dropped her at the curb, waiting only to see that she got inside under the care of the doorman.

"You look as though you could use a drink," Banu said as soon as Aaliya was inside her apartment, which was small and neat and furnished with comfortable, modern furniture. "You and Zain have a fight?"

"I... I think so," she began as she took a seat on Banu's couch. "But, actually, no, we didn't." Looking at Banu,her face showed her distress

"I don't know what's wrong, but Zain's angry at me and I don't know why."

"Sex," Banu said quickly. "With men at this early stage of courtship it's always sex. They think of nothing else."

Taking the gin and tonic Blair held out to her, Aaliya grimaced. "It couldn't be sex because there isn't any."

For a moment Banu didn't understand what Aaliya was saying, then she laughed. "Poor Zain. I'll bet this is a surprise to him. Since he was a teenager I doubt if any female he's wanted has taken longer than twenty-four hours to fall into bed with him - and that includes high school."

"If he fell into bed with me, he'd never want to see me again," Aaliya said heavily.

Banu had been trained as a physician, but right now her experience as a woman was of more use to her, and she could see that something was wrong with Aaliya. Viewed from a distance, it was odd that Aaliya and Zain weren't spending every minute of every day in bed together, since she'd never seen two people more enraptured with each other. Seeing the two of them together was enough to nauseate a healthy individual. They laughed uproariously at each other's slightest witticisms, got nervous when one left the other alone in a room, making weak excuses to follow. They looked at each other with eyes so big and drippy they'd make a cocker spaniel's eyes seem cruel.

As far as Banu could tell, since Aaliya had moved into Zain's house, the two of them hadn't been more than a few feet apart from each other, except for the day Aaliya had gone out with Rizwan and Zain had followed them and been hit over the head with a rock by a passing stranger - a story which Banu didn't believe for a second.

Last night Rizwan had come by her apartment and told her about driving Zain and Aaliya to see Aaliya's grandmother. Rizwan had had a good laugh about how besotted his cousin was and said he looked as though he'd walk across fire if Aaliya wanted him to - or if he thought it would impress her. "I hope to hell I never fall as hard as Zain's fallen," Rizwan had said. "I think Zain would have gone after me with a shotgun if I'd so much as touched the hem of her skirt, which I wouldn't mind doing given the legs under that skirt. I do rather envy him his nights."

Now Banu was hearing that aaliya and Zain had never gone to bed together. It was rather like finding out that Romeo and Juliet had been faking their love for each other.

"Where did zain go tonight?" Banu asked.

"To find out more about my grandmother," Aaliya answered and explained a bit about the note. "He doesn't want me to go with him because I'm not suitable for a bar. Youknow what he said about me? He said that I have an old mind in a young body. He thinks I'm... that I'm the motherly sort, the little church girl. I'll bet Vanessa went to bars with him."

"What do you know about Vanessa?"

"What do you know about Vanessa?"

Banu laughed. "Did you know that Vanessa slept with other men while she was going out with Zain and that Zain knew about it and didn't care?"

A bit stunned by that news, Aaliya blinked a couple of times. "Since Zain is the most jealous man in the world, that's a little difficult to believe. He's jealous of Rizwan and this city and everything that I like that isn't him. Sometimes I think he's even jealous of computers."

"Well, he wasn't jealous with Vanessa. She was a showpiece and she was there when Zain wanted her and left him alone when he didn't want to be bothered. But then, it's my opinion that Vanessa would have done anything Zain wanted, because she liked his money more than she liked him."

"Is Zain wealthy?"

"Yes." Banu was pretending that her attention was on her drink, but actually, she was watching Aaliya intently.

"But Rizwan said all the Abdullahs were poor."

"Compared to the Qureshis, they are. Zain inherited around ten million on his twenty-first birthday, and by now, with his skills at investing, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd tripled the amount."

With a big sigh, Aaliya finished her drink. "I was beginning to think that was the case."

Banu laughed at her tone because she sounded as though she'd been told Zain had some great, unchangeable flaw. "Zain's money isn't a tragedy, you know. It gives him a lot of freedom."

"Freedom to have any woman in the world," she said heavily. Banu nearly laughed again. Zain wasn't the only victim of the green-eyed monster. "I think Zain is... is..."

"You don't have to tell anybody what you think of Zain; it's in your eyes for everyone to see."

"I wish it were on my body," she muttered, then looked up at Banu sharply. "You know what I'd like to do?"

"What?"

"Look like a s**t."

"What!?" Banu nearly choked on her drink.

"I think maybe I have some talent as an actress. I put on a dress my grandmother had worn in the twenties and I sort of, well, turned into her. Actually, I was an altogether different person. I sang an old blues song for Zain and I think he was a little shocked, and, truthfully,maybe I was too. Anyway, I wish I could put on a minuscule outfit and high heels and go to this bar and pick up Zain. I couldn't do that as myself, but maybe if I were another person, dressed as another person, I would have some courage. I'm not sure what I'd do with him once I'd picked him up, but-"

"I have every confidence that my oversexed cousin will help you figure out something to do with him. You know, I might have a few pieces of clothing that could be just what you're looking for. How does red lycra sound?"

"Like a leotard."

"This is much smaller than a leotard. In fact, I've seen finger bandages larger than the skirt I have in mind."

"It sounds perfect. Could I see it?"

"Sure. I'll get a magnifying glass and we'll start searching in my closet."

Laughing together, the women headed for Banu's bedroom.

* * * * *
"Would you look at that?" Nelson said, cigarette smoke curling about his head.

Zain didn't turn to look at what had to be the fiftieth girl this creep had declared to be the most sensational creature on earth. Taking a drink of his third beer, zain leaned toward the skinny little man. "You planning to tell me what you know in this century or not?"

He was sounding belligerent now because he was feeling belligerent. For two hours he'd been here in this sleazy bar trying to buy, sweet talk, bully, whatever he could think to do, information from this old alky. So far, he'd had no luck, and he was beginning to think that the anonymous note-writer at Jubilee's had been lying when he'd hinted that Nelson knew anything.

"She's buying a pack of cigarettes now," Nelson said, his eyes to the right.

Pulling another fifty from his pocket, Zain slipped it across the table. "That's the last of it. You don't tell me anything after this, I'm leaving."

"Keep your shirt on, muscle-boy. Can't you spend a little time with a guy who's down on his luck?"

Nelson was one of those people who had been born down on his luck. No doubt he'd found something wrong in his childhood, his mother spoke too sharply to him or some such, and now he used it as an excuse to wallow in grief and spend his life in bars cadging drinks. He was little, thin, dirty, and weasly looking, and he felt the world owed him a life.

"I guess you got better things to do than sit here with the likes of me." His voice was a self-pitying whine. "Maybe you got somebody at home waiting for you." The implication was that Nelson didn't have anyone and that's why he was so unhappy and had to drink and make those marks shooting whatever it was into the inside of his arm.

"Yeah, I got somebody," Zain said, and thought of Aaliya, of the pure cleanliness of her, and right now he very much wanted to be at home with her. Juhaina should be finished with her apartment by now, and Zain wanted to show it to Aalu, to see her face when she saw it. Maybe, when she saw the rooms, she'd be so happy that she'd turn to him, throw her arms around him, he'd kiss her, then-

Nelson was snapping his fingers in front of Zain's face. "You leavin' me, boy? My God, but I think she's comin' this way. You gotta see her. Real Classy. And a body like I've never seen before."

At one time Zain might have been interested in seeing this woman, at least in looking, if in nothing else, but he wasn't interested in anything that patronized this dive.

"One of you boys have a light?" came a deep, sultry voice from Zain's left. With a grimace, he picked up a book of matches from the ashtray, struck one, and turned to light the woman's cigarette.

What he saw made him freeze. Aaliya, sweet, perfect, innocent little Aaliya, was dressed in a red-sequined tank top that was cut so low in the front that he could see nearly all of her breasts, and she wore a tight red skirt that, as far as he could tell, covered nothing whatsoever. All eight or so feet of her legs were showing beneath the "skirt."

When she bent forward, he could see the deep, exquisite cleavage made by her large, round, beautiful breasts - the same cleavage that all the bums in this place could see. Aaliya put her hand over zain's to hold the tip of the cigarette to the match flame. Lighting it, she stood, her hips thrust out, and looked down at him, fluttering her lashes a bit. "Mind if I sit down?"

Too intent on gawking at her to pay attention to the flame, Zain dropped the match when it burned down to his fingertips.

"Sit by me, baby," Nelson said eagerly. "You're new in here, aren't you? Who you work for?"

Holding the cigarette between her two fingers, her elbow resting on her hip, Aaliya looked down at Zain. "You going to invite me to sit down or not?"

"I'm going to kill you," he said under his breath, but he moved over on the seat so she could sit by him.

When she was seated she tried to take a draw on the cigarette, but since she'd never smoked in her life, she gave a couple of very unseductresslike coughs.

Angrily, Zain took the cigarette from her. "Just what do you think you're playing at?" He started to stub the cigarette out in the ashtray, but on second thought, he put it to his lips and took a very deep draw, a draw that burned the cigarette half halfway down to his lips.

"Zain, I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't," he said tightly, letting out the smoke slowly. "I quit two years ago, but then there's a lot you don't know about me. A few more weeks around you and I may take up drinking."

"Ditto," she said, looking him in the eyes.

"Zain," Nelson said, "looks like you two know each other. You wanta introduce me or you gonna keep her all night? You can't keep her all night, can you?"

"You hear that, Aaliya? Nelson thinks you're a prostitute."

Leaning toward Zain, she let her lips come near his. "And what do you think I am?" she practically purred.

"All show," he said, drinking the last of his beer. "Let's get out of here."

Aaliya was not going to leave yet. If she went home with him now, nothing would have changed. For whatever reason he was angry at her, he was still angry. Signaling the waitress to come to the table, she ordered a double shot of tequila gold. "And a quartered lime and a Dos Equis if you have it, and do you have some salsa and chips?"

Before Zain could say another word, a man came to the table and asked Aaliya to dance with him. "I'd love to," she said, starting to get up, but Zain put his hand on her shoulder, holding her on the seat. "I guess not," Aaliya said to the man apologetically.

When her drinks came, she turned to Nelson. "So what do you know about my grandmother? I assume you are Nelson, aren't you?" Well aware of Zain's eyes on her, aaliya knew that he realized she had to have looked inside his wallet to have seen the note.

"Not as much as I'd like to know about you, baby," Nelson answered in what was meant to be a provocative manner.

Zain was still looking at Aaliya, waiting for her to turn to him, but she didn't. Instead, with all the ostentation, all the sexiness she could manage, she made a fist of her left hand, slowly licked the web of it, poured salt on the wet place, sensually licked the salt away, then lustily tossed back the tequila in one shot, after which she juicily bit into a lime wedge.

"Lord help us," Nelson whispered, but Zain didn't say a word, just kept looking at her profile.

Picking up a chip, she reached out to the bowl of salsa.

"Careful of that!" Nelson warned. "Paddy's stuff is lava."

Aaliya scooped a lot of the salsa on the chip and ate it while Nelson watched in awe. "In Santa Fe we'd feed this to the babies," she drawled as she drank some of the dark brown Mexican beer. "Let me give you some advice, Nelson. If someone in Santa Fe warns you that something is hot, be careful, but if a New Yorker says it's hot, laugh."

"That's enough," Zain said, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her out of the bench. Leading her onto the dance floor, he surrounded her in his arms and began a slow dance. "What are you trying to do? Out-macho the guys? If that's your goal, you've done it."

Rubbing her hips against his, a very serious look on her rather heavily made up face, Aaliya said, "Do you think Nelson is the type of person who really cares about the South American rain forests?"

"What's wrong with you? And who gave you that getup you have on?"

"Don't you like it?"

"Not on you."

"Want to take it off?"

Holding her at arm's length, he looked into her eyes "How much have you had to drink?"

"Not much." She put her head back down on his shoulder. "Zain, why have you been angry at me today?"

Her words made him soften, or maybe it was the feel of her in his arms, with her hips moving with his, her breasts rubbing against his chest, or maybe it was the sight of her in this outfit that wouldn't have adequately covered a three-year-old, but he couldn't remember why he'd been angry at her. "Ahhh, sweetheart."

She seemed to melt into him further. "You haven't called me anything but Aaliya all day. No Aalu or anything else."

"You're killing me, you know that? You're driving me insane. I think we ought to talk about where we stand with each other."

"Isn't that what the female is supposed to say? Then you're supposed to say that you don't want to commit, then I say-"

"Why don't you shut up?" He was becoming involved in the slow undulations of the dance now, his hands moving up and down her back, fingers edging down over her buttocks. For all that either of them were aware of the other people in the bar, they may as well have been alone.

"Do you have any idea how much I want you?"

"I feel some of it right now."

"Don't laugh at me, Aaliya."

"Oh, Zain, I'm sorry, it's just that..."

"What?" he said rather sharply. "What is it? Tell me!"

Pulling away from him, she went back to the table, downed the last of her beer, and turned to leave. It had been a mistake dressing up like a tart and trying to entice Zain, because under the sexy clothes, she was still plain ol' Aaliya Ghulam Haider, not a femme fatale. She may have been able to turn herself into a chanteuse while wearing Masuma's clothes, but even Banu's micromini couldn't make her unafraid of sex, unafraid of ruining everything she had with Zain.

As she turned away from the table, Nelson shoved a piece of paper at her that contained a name and a telephone number. "Call Walden," he said. "He can tell you lots about Masuma."

Taking the paper, shoving it into her bra - where it itched - she nodded and turned away.

Zain caught her elbow. "You're not going without me." He didn't say another word as he pulled her outside.

But Zain had other ways of communicating besides words. One minute they were standing on the curb waiting for a taxi and the next Zain had pulled her into the alley beside the bar, his arms going about her as he hungrily began kissing her neck. After the first moment of his passion, Aaliya tried to move away from him. When Zain didn't seem to understand that she didn't want him to touch her, she had to use force to push away.

Zain, utterly and absolutely frustrated, as well as confused, leaned back against the brick of the building wall, his hands raised above his head, palms out, as though he were nailed to the wall. "Why?" he asked. "Why, Aalu? What is it that you have against me? Was that husband of yours so great in bed that you want to enshrine him? You can't think of another man besides him?"

At that Aaliya laughed, and Zain, his face full of anger at thinking she was laughing at him, started to move away from the wall, but Aaliya leaned toward him. She'd had too much to drink, first at Banu's apartment and now here, and her slightly inebriated state made her dare to do things that she would not do otherwise.

Almost as though to tease her, his shirt was open halfway to his waist, and now she put her hands inside it, touching his skin. Zain was angry, seriously angry, she knew that, and he didn't respond to her touch, but kept his hands against the wall as he watched her.

"You don't understand, Zain," she said softly.


"Then why don't you explain it to me." There was no softness in his voice.

Since she'd first met him, Aaliya had a nearly uncontrollable desire to touch him. Now, sliding her hands inside his shirt, she felt the sculptured muscle across his chest. Some women looked at the bodybuilders on TV or on a beach and thought they were too muscular, but not AaliyA. When she was in Santa Fe and leading her aerobics classes, there were times when the men in the free-weight side of the room so distracted her that she missed her rhythm. One evening a man named Tim, who had performed in bodybuilding competitions, was squatting five hundred pounds. With two men at either end of the bar, which bowed under the weight of the plates, Tim did a deep knee bend with the full five hundred pounds. After he'd completed his squat, the women in Aaliya's class had burst into laughter, because Aaliya had been so engrossed in Tim that she'd forgotten to lead the exercises. Embarrassed, Aaliya had given her attention back to the women.

Now, she was touching one of those muscled men, one of those godlike creatures who looked as though he could lift buildings with his hands.

"How much do you squat, Zain?" she whispered.

"Six fifty," he answered, having no idea why she should ask something like that now. His friends, the ones who'd been to college, pretended that Zain's power lifting didn't exist. Their attitude was, Zain's got a brain in spite of the fact that he's got some muscle.

"Bench press?" She was running her hands over his chest, around toward his back, feeling his lats, the muscles that made his back so very wide, made it curve.

Zain didn't move from the wall, nor did he make any motion to touch her, for he didn't want to scare her away. If his acquiescence was what she needed to get her to touch him, then he would remain in one position if it killed him. "Four fifty," he answered.

His shirt was old and soft and the buttonholes were loose, and when she touched the buttons, they slipped out of the holes, opening the shirt to his waist. Aaliya's hands slipped lower, down to his stomach, his hard, rippled stomach.

"Dead lift?" she whispered, meaning the lift where he picked up a weight from the floor to his waist.

"Seven hundred. Strength has to do with bone density and the bones of the people in my family are a bit more dense than the average Joe's. Look, Aalu, if you want stats-"

She kept rubbing her hands over his skin. How long had it been since she had really touched a man? For that matter, had she ever really touched one? She had certainly never wanted to touch one as much as she had wanted to touch Zain since the first day she'd looked into his dark eyes, since she'd first felt his lips next to her own. "I want to explain to you."

"Yeah, well, I'm listening." His voice was ragged, as though he were under great strain, but he still had his hands up, away from her. Had anyone seen them, they would have seen what looked to be a man being held at gunpoint by a woman.

"It's me, not you. Don't you understand that? At first I was afraid of you." Her hands were at his waist, moving toward his back, moving over all that muscle that had not an ounce of fat over it. "Well, maybe not afraid, but I didn't want anything to do with another man."

"You've made that abundantly clear. Aalu, you want to say what you have to say? I don't know how much more of this I can stand."

"I don't want to ruin what we have between us." Sliding her hands up his chest to his shoulders, she moved down over the tops of his arms. In another minute she would have the shirt completely off him. His skin felt so very good, so warm, so smooth, so strong, skin that was tightly draped over yards of heavy muscle. She would have liked to put her lips to his skin, to taste it. Was it salty from the sweat of dancing?

"What do we have between us?" His voice was harsh, strained, and he closed his eyes for a moment. All his life girls had been easy for him, but the girl he'd most wanted, Aalu, seemed to be impossible. She made him think appalling thoughts of taking her out on a lonely road and forcing her, but he knew he'd never be able to live with himself afterward - but, more importantly, neither would she.

"All the sweetness," she said. "We have kindness and talk and friendship. We laugh together. Do things together. We-"

Abruptly, Zain moved his hands down from the wall and put them on her shoulders as he looked into her eyes, searching them. "You think all that will end if we go to bed together?"

She liked him when he stood still and allowed her to touch him, but she wasn't drunk enough to not know the truth. "Zain, if you went to bed with me, it would end," shhe said in disgust. "I'm rotten at sex."

For a moment Zain stood still, not at first understanding what she'd just said, then the first bud of enlightenment came to him. "Yeah, I bet you are," he said softly, then slipped her arm through his. "Too bad they don't have a piece of software to teach sex, then you could learn all the right moves and positions." For the first time in a week he felt good because he understood now, knew what her problem was - but, best of all, he knew how to fix the problem. Never in his life, through many years of mathematics, had he looked forward to a solution more than he did now.

Leading her toward the street, he put up his hand for a cab.

Aaliya giggled. "That's a great idea, Zain. Who can we get to write the software program?"

When a taxi stopped, Zain opened the door for her. "I might have some ideas of what could be put in your software."

"Do you, Zain? What research books did you read?"

"I made up my own positions," he said companionably. "My own positions, my own motions, even my own feelings. I've never read one book on sex."

As Aaliya got into the cab, she moved to the far side of the seat. "I have. I've read many, many books on the subject."

"Oh? And who asked you to read these books?"

"Zeeshan. He said they might help me." Turning, she looked at him in the dim light from the streets, but his face was turned away. He was staring straight ahead, as though he didn't want to look at her. "Do you understand now?"

"Yes," he said softly. "I now understand everything."

He didn't say another word to her on the ride back uptown to his town house, and with every click of the cab meter, Aaliya grew more depressed. She shouldn't have told him. What was that saying? Better to allow people to think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Well, she'd opened her mouth and told Zain about her sex life. He'd said she was all show and she was. She could dress the part of a woman of the night, but she didn't know how to act the part.

By the time they reached the house, she was planning what she'd say to Zain , that she'd move out in the morning - that is, if he didn't want her to leave tonight - and she was sorry she'd cost him so much in time and money and inconvenience.

Very calmly Zain paid the driver, unlocked the front door, allowed her to go inside, then locked the door behind them.

"Zain," she began, ready to recite the little speech she'd prepared, but Zain's n didn't give her a chance, for he began to stalk her - stalking being the only way to describe the stealthy, predatory way he moved toward her. "Zain? Are you all right?"

"All this time I thought it was men you didn't like. There were times when I thought the problem was me, that I turned you off, but you never turned away from me when I touched you - unless I seemed to want more."

"Of course not." Backing up, she moved toward the living room. "Zain, you frighten me when you look at me like that."

"Like hell I do. I'm not sure anything frightens you. You aren't afraid of me, not in the normal sense, anyway." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're afraid men won't like you."

Aaliya could feel herself turning red from the tip of her toes to her hairline. Maybe in the red dress he wouldn't notice the color of her skin. "You are the most stupid man," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, trying to make it sound as though she were in control. "Just because I turn down your advances you start to play psychologist and decide that I think men don't like me. Ha!"

"You don't just turn me down, you turn down all men."

"I'd rather be safe than-" She stopped talking because she was now up against the east wall of the living room.

Standing very close in front of her and not allowing her to get around him, Zain leaned closer. "Why did you divorce your husband?"

"I hardly think that's any of your business." When she tried to move away from him, he put one hand on the wall on each side of her head.

"Why, Aalu?"

"It's not-"

"Maybe it's not any of my business, but you're going to tell me anyway."

"Incompatibility," she said quickly, but was not able to meet his eyes.

"You're a bad liar."

"Unlike you. You can lie-"

"Why, Aalu?"

"He..."

"He what?"

"He had another woman!" she flared at him.

"Then he was a fool," zain said softly. "Why would he want another woman when he could have you?"

She looked away from him, but there was gratitude for his words in her eyes. "I've told you, so please move your hands."

"Yes, I'll move my hands," he answered as he grabbed her into his arms and began kissing her. Using all her strength, she tried to get away from him, but he held her to him. "What happened to you, Aalu?"

"Leave me alone, please," she whispered, not looking at him.

"Did you turn to him in the night, but he wanted nothing to do with you?" As he spoke, she still struggled against him. "The bas***d. He was all worn out from someone else, wasn't he?"

Ceasing her struggles, she glared up at him. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Is that what you wanted to hear? He slept with her twice a day, but he never touched me. Me, the sexless one. I'm the cook, the cleaner, the little money-maker, but I'm not-" When she couldn't continue, Zain kissed her. "No, please let me go."

"Why should I let you go?"

"Because I don't want-"

"Don't want to make love with me? Like hell you don't. You've wanted me from the first day we met, but you've acted as though you hated me. I didn't-"

His words were silenced as his hands roamed over her body, over her breasts, down her thighs, her throat, her arms, between her legs. But Aaliya stood still, rigid, unmoving, willing herself not to respond to him.

"How long can you hold out against me, Aalu? If I do this?" Bending his head, he kissed the top of her breasts, and it was no difficult matter to pull the stretchy fabric down over one breast as he gently took the peak in his mouth. "Or this?" Moving his mouth downward, he caressed her breast with his thumb.

"Please..." she whispered, eyes closed, head back against the wall.

"Please what? Tell me what you want. I'll do anything you want, anything."

"Then let me go."

"Anything but that." His lips moved down her body, down to her waist, then back up to her face while his hand moved under her top, his long fingers on the skin of her stomach. "Please, Aalu. Don't hold back."

"I can't."



Kissing her ear, one hand on her breast, the other inching up her thigh, his hand slowly moved up under her skirt. "What do you want? Tell me. Gentle? Sweet?"

Suddenly, he pulled away from her and looked at her face, at her closed eyes, at the expression of control she was wearing, as though she was determined to contain herself.

"No," he said. "You want what I want: Aalu, I need you."

At that he grabbed the front of her panty hose and pulled at the same time that he somehow managed to unfasten his trousers and drop them to the floor. It was at the feel of Zain's hands on her bare flesh that made Sam's years of pent-up desire come to the surface.

One moment she was standing still, unresponsive, self-contained, and the next her hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere on him, tasting his skin, licking, sucking, clawing. For just a moment, he was startled by her, startled by her sheer hunger, then his mouth was on hers, his hands grabbing at her, responding to her with the same need that she was exhibiting.


Abruptly, Aaliya stopped moving as a sense of dj vu overtook her. Looking up at Zain, she half expected him to be Zeeshan and to be wearing that bored look, that half-asleep look, that Zeeshan had always worn when they were in bed together. But he wasn't her ex-husband, this man was Zain, and the expression on his face was of desire and longing and need and... caring, caring that she receive as well as give. He looked like she felt.

Understanding her thoughts, Zain said, "It's me, Zain Abdullah," as he grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back to apply his teeth and lips to her throat. "And I'm a different man."



When he picked her up to set her down on his manhood, Aaliya nearly cried out, but she wrapped her legs about his waist, locked her ankles, and hung on as he pounded into her, her back against the wall. Stroke after deep, deep stroke, she held on, her nails biting into the skin of his back, her mouth sucking on whatever part of him she could reach.

When he finished and gave her one last thrust before limply collapsing against her, his head on her shoulder, she almost screamed in frustration, but she kept her noises to herself and hugged him to her.

Pulling away from her, Zain looked into her face as though searching for an answer. "Sorry, baby, I wanted you too much. The next one is yours."

Although she had absolutely no idea what he meant, she liked it when he kicked his trousers off and carried her up to the bedroom to stand her by the side of the bed. She liked it when he undressed her and kissed her breasts. When he removed his shirt and held her, skin to skin, he kept looking at her, as though he expected something from her.

At last, frustrated because she had no idea what he wanted, she said, "ZAin, I don't know what to do. I don't know how."

"Baby, there is no how. There's no right or wrong, except maybe making your partner feel bad."

"I don't want to displease you. I want-"


Very gently, he kissed her breast. "You like that?" "Yes. Yes, very much." "Tell me if I do something you don't like."
Kissing her all the while, he ran his hands over her thighs, but he still seemed to want answers that she didn't have.
"But I like all of it," she said at last.

Halting, hands on her hips, Zain looked at her in disbelief. "You're afraid you'll do something to me that I won't like?" His incredulousness sounded in his voice. "Okay, try me. Start touching, start kissing. Whatever you want to do to me, you may. I'm yours."

Anyone else might have laughed at his words, but not Aaliya. Years of Zeeshan saying, "Not there. Men don't like to be touched there." Or, "That's not the way to touch a man, don't you know anything? Most women your age know this stuff. Why don't you?" had made her wary. Her ex-husband had made her shy and uncertain from years of trying to remember his rules.

"I... I guess I would like to touch you." When ZAin just stood there staring at her, she said, "Is that all right?"

Zain kissed her softly. "And people doubt if there's a heaven. There is and it's here in this room. I'm yours, baby."

Holding her hand while she remained standing, he stretched out on the bed, but Aaliya couldn't look at him. The front of him was too... too intimate, too private, and his eyes kept watching her. Seeming to read her mind, he turned over, face down, so she could look at him in comfort.

Tentatively reaching out, she ran her hand over his shoulder. There was one dim lamp on in the room, and it made Zain's honey-colored skin glow. With his face turned away from her she could look at him to her heart's content, look at and touch the full, long, nude, muscular length of him.

He was the most perfectly formed man she'd ever imagined. He was movie stars, men in underwear commercials, guys at the gym, the construction worker in the red T-shirt who'd whistled at her but she'd pretended she hadn't heard; he was the men in three-piece suits whose brains were as sexy as their bodies; he was lazy, insolent seventeen-year-old boys whose muscles bulged out of their clothes, rodeo stars, and those smooth-cheeked, eyeglassed men who held their children tenderly. He was all of them.

Running her hands over his body while he lay still, so still he might have been asleep, she began to kiss the back of him. When her lips had kissed him from the nape of his neck to the soles of his feet, she straddled his legs and began rubbing her hair over his skin.

Stretching out on top of him so she could feel her breasts on his skin, she fit her torso into the hills and valleys of his body. Somewhere along the way she stopped thinking about him as a person, even about whether she pleased him or not, and began to think only of herself. Remembering seeing that soft bit of skin where his legs joined his buttocks, that hairless, enticing little patch that she'd once seen in the mirror when he'd walked away from her, she hadn't realized then that she'd wanted to kiss that bit of skin. So now she did kiss it: kissed it, sucked on it, ran her tongue over it while Zain lay absolutely still.

It was some time later when Aaliya lay beside him, her body vibrating, her breath short and shallow. She wanted him, wanted him inside her, but she was afraid to tell him so. Once, after she and her ex-husband were first married, she'd asked, "Could we do that again?" Instantly he had become furious, telling her that she was saying he was a bad lover. "Don't you know anything? Men can't right away. It's physically impossible."

Now, she was timid with Zain, not wanting to insult him or make him angry. "Zain," she said softly, but it was difficult to control her voice. "I was wondering if maybe, we could, well, possibly, do that again - if you can, that is."

With the fury of a storm at sea, Zain roused from his seeming acquiescence to jump on her, his hands on her hips, fingers digging into muscle and skin, as he slammed into her so hard she was sure he'd loosened a couple of back teeth. Aaliya saw stars.

Zain halted instantly, hovering over her, looking as though he was afraid he'd killed her. "Aalu, baby, are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

Aaliya blinked up at him in surprise. "Golly, Zain, I think you can."

"Imp," he said as he stretched out on his back and pulled her on top of him.

In the manuals she'd been given, Aaliya had read about different positions, but missionary was the sum total of her experience. Sitting on Zain, she looked down at him with an expression of, Now what do I do?

Lacing his fingers, Zain put his hands behind his head and gave her a look of, You figure it out.

Aaliya did.

* * * * *
Lying still beside Zain, her skin sweaty, every muscle in her body limp, Aaliya smiled dreamily. "What was that?"

There was a little smugness in Zain's voice when he spoke. "Aalu, my dear, you have just experienced what is commonly known as an orgasm. Like it?"

She chuckled. "Zain, had I known you were capable of producing such an effect, on the first day I met you I would have grabbed you by the neck, pulled you into the house, and had my way with you on the foyer floor."

"Then we would have been in perfect accord, because that's just what I had in mind for you."

"Ahhh, but would you have respected me in the morning?"

"Speaking of respect, we have two alternatives now: One, we can snuggle together and go to sleep or, two, we can fill the tub with hot water, put in some of your smelly stuff wash every nook and cranny of each other's bodies, get out, dry each other off, come back in here and I can give you what I think will probably be your very first lesson in oral sex."

Opening her eyes just a bit, Aaliya gave a jaw-cracking yawn and said, "I'm awfully tired, Zain. Maybe we should sleep." His face fell, making him look like a boy who'd just been told that he wouldn't get to go to the circus after all. Yawning again, she scratched her ribs. "On the other hand, I could use a bath."

He had her in the bathroom before she could say another word.

Itni jaldi update 😲 ...But you said you were 😕
Anyways 😆

Great chps as always 😉
Ahem Ahem second part was just hot...

Continue soon!
Thnx for PM 😃

Are one more thing 😛

I'm first 🥳 🥳 *doing bhangra*

I lvoed it man finally aaliya gave in she was so desperate ...so so weak because of that zeeshan ..finally she has got someone who isn't going to make her feel safe satisfied

love those two part.
ZaYa part was really really hot.
thanks for pm waiting for next part.

nice chapters second one was hot do continue soon plzz glad u are back with a bang on

Thanks 4 update..

Thanks for the update very very very much...

Chapter 24


It was in the bathtub that Zain asked her why she'd waited so long before going to bed with him. He tried to make his question sound as though the answer didn't matter to him, but she wasn't fooled by his tone.

"Zeeshan told me I wasn't any good at sex and that's why he had to go to another woman."

"And you believed him?" Zain sounded as though he thought she were the dumbest person in the world.

"How the hell was I to know that he wasn't telling me the truth?" she fairly shouted at him. "He'd been to bed with lots of women; I'd been to bed with him and only him. What was I supposed to do, get a second opinion? Was I supposed to go to a bar or somewhere, pick up a man, go to bed with him, and find out whether I was actually bad in bed or not? Let me tell you something, Mr. Confidence, when you believe you're not desirable to men, you bloody well aren't desirable."

It was later, after the extraordinary success of Zain's very special lesson, that he asked her more questions about her ex-husband. Now, rather like boxers resting between rounds, Aaliya snuggled her cheek on Zain's bare chest.

"You want to tell me about your ex-husband?" he asked.

"No."

"Um-hmm."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I've never yet met a woman who could resist telling anyone who'd listen what a jerk her ex-boyfriend or ex-husband was."

Lifting her head, Aaliya glared at him, but he pushed her head back down. For a moment her pride and her wish to talk warred with one another. She didn't want to tell him about her marriage or her divorce because they both made her feel like a failure, but at the same time she'd like to tell someone the truth - not the sugar-coated version she'd told her father, but the truth. Spilling her guts won out over pride.

"The first two years my marriage was all right, I guess. We never had any great passionate affair, but we learned to adjust to each other. Zeeshan had a partnership with two other men in a CPA firm, and I worked at ComputerLand.

"Everything was fine, I thought, but one day he came home and told me he was profoundly unhappy. Profoundly. Not very unhappy or extraordinarily unhappy but profoundly unhappy. He went on to say that the reason he was unhappy was because he had always wanted to write the Great American Novel, and he knew he wasn't going to get to because he had to spend all his time earning a living."


She shook her head. "I was shocked. It was the first time I'd heard of this great ambition of his, and I felt guilty because I'd lived with the man for two whole years and had no idea he wanted to do anything except calculate people's taxes. We sat up all that night and talked."

Pausing, she thought about that night. "I think that night was the closest we ever were before or at any time afterward. We made a bargain that night that for one year I was to support the two of us while he devoted his time to writing. Part of the bargain was that he was to take care of the house since I'd be holding down two jobs."

She couldn't seem to keep her anger from rising. "I don't know what happened. It started out all right,but then I'd come home from work and the kitchen would still be a mess from breakfast, so I'd clean it up before going to my evening job at the spa, then the laundry would pile up so I'd wash it on Sunday. By the end of a year I was doing everything - housework, earning the living, everything. But I didn't mind because every Sunday afternoon Zeeshan would read me descriptive passages from the marvelous book he was constantly working on. He'd never tell me the plot, he'd just read me those elegant, isolated paragraphs."

She had to take a breath before going on. "We used to talk about what we were going to buy and where we were going to go when he received his multimillion-dollar advance for the book. Planning our future helped make me feel less tired so that I didn't mind doing housework and earning the living."

As Zain stroked her hair, she realized that the time with Zeeshan was beginning to fade in her mind. "But the agreed-upon year turned into eighteen months, then into two years, and by the end of two years I was so tired I'm not sure I was even alive."

Zain felt her body tense as she continued speaking. "But then one day I was at the store and received a call from my father's neighbor."

Zain didn't say anything, but he had been with Ghulam then. He was the one who had persuaded Ghulam to allow the neighbor to call Aalu."

The neighbor told me my father was dying, and when I heard, I just wanted to go home to Zeeshan and have him hold me." She gave a little snort of derision. "When I heard the news of my father's impending death, I thought I'd reached my breaking point.

"Anyway, when I got home Zeeshan wasn't there. I must have been a little frantic because I began searching through his desk looking for something that might tell me where he'd gone. When that turned up nothing, I went to his bookshelves. Looking back on it, I think Zeeshan must have thought I wouldn't dare look at his books because he hadn't gone to a lot of trouble to hide his conspiracy. The books had markers in them and passages highlighted. One by one I read all the passages he'd read to me during the Sunday afternoons. Not one of them had been written by him, all of them were by other writers."

She took a breath. "By the time I figured out that he hadn't been writing, I wanted to know what he had been doing for those two years, so I looked at his computer. One of the first things he'd asked me to do when I'd set it up for him was to show him how to encode his files so a person had to know a password to read them. It took me only seven words to find his password - the name of a dog he'd had when he was a boy - and I looked to see what he'd been writing."

She took a while before going on, and zain didn't say a word, just waited patiently for her to continue.

"On the screen was a detailed diary of his sexual liaisons with the woman who used to be his secretary. To this day, Zain, I don't understand why he chose her over me. I don't want to sound vain, but I'm better looking than she is and a great deal more intelligent, and I have a sense of humor whereas she has none. I still don't understand it. I tried very, very hard to please Zeeshan. I tried to give him whatever he wanted. Where did I fail?"

"When did he give you the sex manuals to read?"

"Oh, that. I put my foot in my mouth. After we'd been married a few months, we went to see a movie - I don't remember what it was - but afterward I thoughtlessly said that I didn't understand what all the fuss was about, as sex was so boring. Zeeshan said that maybe our sex lives wouldn't be so boring if I just knew a little about sex."

"And how did you do at your jobs? Successful?"

She smiled. "Yes. I was always being promoted at ComputerLand, and at the spa they had me teach the instructors."

"And how was Zeeshan's CPA business?"

"I see what you're getting at. He did all right for a while, but then he lost some clients and I think his partners were planning to get rid of him."

"Sounds to me like you terrified him."

She sighed. "You know, that did occur to me a few times. I learned to tell him only of my setbacks and my frustrations. He'd listen to my account of something that had gone wrong, then lecture me about how I should have done so and so, and afterward he'd be nice to me for days. I kept promotions to myself, but he saw them reflected in my paychecks."

"Maybe this other woman looked up to him, thought he was her big, strong hero."

"Jackrabbits would seem brainy to that woman. I used to spend Friday afternoons trying to help Zeeshan by teaching her how to run the office, how to answer the phone by saying something other than, Yeah, what'd'ya want?' She was stupid plain, thick-waisted, thick-ankled, and never washed her hair. She was rude and tasteless and couldn't comprehend a joke - and she took my husband away from me. When we were getting the divorce, Zeeshan said she was a great deal better in bed than I was. He said that plastic dolls were better in bed than I was."

"And he knew that from experience?"

Aaliya giggled. "Maybe a doll would give him someone pretty to look at now and then. Oh, Zain, I don't understand it. Why would someone want to hear of the failures but not the successes of someone they loved? I knew Zeeshan was frustrated in his job. That's why I agreed to support us and give him a chance at big-time success, but he never even tried writing. I don't think he so much as wrote a single chapter. He used the two years to ski and play tennis and... and..."

"Bang his secretary."

"Yes! If he disliked me, why didn't he just ask me for a divorce, then have an affair? Why did he have to make me so miserable?"

"Maybe he thought it was fair to make you unhappy since you were making him wretched."

"Me? But I did everything for him. I supported him, cooked for him, cleaned for him, ironed his shirts, hand-washed his sweaters-"

"You did all that and still managed to be a success at two jobs? It's a wonder he didn't kill you."

"You're taking his side!" she half shouted as she started to move away from him.

But he pulled her back to him. "Your ex-husband was a stupid, frightened coward, and his lifelong punishment is that he lost you."

She hugged him, kissed his shoulder. "Oh Zain. I tried so hard to be what he wanted me to be."

When Zain spoke, there was a definite whine in his voice. "You don't try very hard with me. You haven't hand-washed anything for me, and I didn't even know you could iron."

She didn't laugh in return but was utterly serious. "As far as I can tell, all you want from me is laughter and sex."

"Found out at last. Meet Zain Abdullah, the personification of shallowness."

Looking up at him, her eyes were filled with what she felt for him. "No, Zain, you're not shallow. Zeeshan was shallow. Shallow and superficial and petty. You... you know how to love."

As he kissed the top of her head, he put his hand on her bare breast. "Especially right now. Wanta play sit on the tent pole'?"

"Not again?" she said, giggling. "I don't know if I'm ready again so soon."

"Want me to talk you into it?"

"Yes, please," she said politely, sounding as though she were asking for a second watercress sandwich. "If you wouldn't mind, that is."

But Zain had his mouth full and couldn't speak.