Unable to resist listening to him speak, captivated as ever by the way his husky accent rippled over her nerves, it was several seconds before she realised that he wasn’t using his own tongue but the English he and Karim had admitted to using when they wanted to be certain that their conversation couldn’t be understood by the staff and passed on to their mother.
She had no idea what they were talking about. It could have been a business contract or some political alliance, but there was something odd about the intensity of their voices and the way they cut so quickly into each other’s sentences that made her think that it was something far more personal.
Not that she would ever be able to ask because that would mean admitting to eavesdropping just because she loved the sound of his voice.
And it wasn’t just the sound of his voice that she loved—it was everything about the man, from his commitment to his work to his willingness to fight bureaucracy for a better deal for his patients to the conscientious way he made certain that she had plenty of opportunities to hone her own operating skills.
Then, of course, there was the way he looked so lean and powerful that she had to catch her breath every time she saw him, and when he looked at her with those dark eyes it was impossible to break their gaze.
‘Talk about wishing for the moon,’ she whispered wryly, knowing that someone as work-orientated and just plain ordinary as her would never stand a chance of attracting someone as devastating as Razak Khan. His mother certainly didn’t think she belonged here with him but if she had even half a chance…
‘Why him?’ she breathed, closing her eyes tight against the threat of tears even as she felt the first seed of despair unfurling inside her. She’d barely noticed the other men she’d studied and worked with over the years. Why did she have to go and fall in love with someone so…so impossible, so unattainable?
She thought she’d managed to stifle the stupid sob that rose up in her throat but she must have made a sound because the next thing she knew he was there in front of her, a dark silhouette against the beaten silver of the moonlit pool behind him.
‘Jasmine?’ he murmured, framing her shoulders with the gentle warmth of his hands and angling his head to peer into her face. ‘Is there something wrong? You are unwell? Unhappy?’
Unhappy? With his gentle hands on her and his voice filled with concern? With his warmth surrounding her, carrying with it the unique mixture of soap and pheromones that her receptors seemed to have been programmed to recognise?
Her body was receiving so much sensory input that she was about to go into meltdown.
‘N-no,’ she stammered uncertainly, wishing she knew how to put all her feelings into words, but she had so little experience with men and none at all with being in love.
He had begun to stroke the bare skin of her shoulders with soothing circles of his fingertips and she shivered in response.
‘You are cold,’ he said. ‘You should go inside, away from the breeze.’ But when she thought he would have ushered her into her room and returned to his own, he accompanied her through the gauzy curtains and turned her to face him again.
Nervously she raised her eyes to his, suddenly aware that her every expression would be visible in the soft light reflected in by the pool, that he would be able to tell how much the sight of his body, naked to the waist and so tantalisingly close to her own, was affecting her.
‘Don’t look away,’ he whispered when she would have tried to hide her emotions from him. He cupped his supple surgeon’s fingers around her face and tilted it up towards his again and she was lost, gazing into those dark eyes that had captivated her the first time she’d seen them and had drawn the snare tighter with every glance over the top of a disposable mask.
‘Razak…I…’ She paused uncertainly to flick the tip of her tongue over her lips, her mouth suddenly dry with nerves the instant that she’d decided to tell him what was in her heart.
Only she never had the chance to say those words.
She’d seen his eyes follow her tongue back into her mouth and with a sudden groan he was pressing his lips to hers and his tongue was exploring the warm welcoming depths.
This was very different from the almost chaste brush of his lips over hers the morning they’d arrived. This was so intense that it was almost frightening, except this was Razak, the man she’d fallen headlong in love with before she’d even realised that it had happened, and she could never be frightened of him.
‘Jasmine,’ he whispered, as he buried his face in the angle between throat and shoulder and again when he found the curve of her breast over the edge of the camisole top of the plain cotton nightdress she’d worn to go to sleep. Then his seeking hands explored its all too brief hem and discovered the skimpy briefs she’d worn for coolness and she nearly went up in flames.
‘Razak!’ she groaned helplessly, overwhelmed by the unexpected collision of sensation and emotion. She had no idea where any of this was going. All she knew was that she didn’t want it to stop…ever.
‘Touch me,’ he demanded raggedly. ‘If you want me as much as I want you, put your hands on me and…Ah-h, Jasmine!’ he groaned when she took him at his word and placed both hands on his chest to discover for the first time what the whorls of dark hair that patterned its width felt like.
Something deep inside her had clenched tight at the realisation that he wanted this as much as she did and the fact that she had his permission to touch and explore sent a wave of delight through her.
‘It’s silky,’ she whispered, as she ran her fingertips over the dark swathe then tunnelled them through the thickness of it until she encountered hard male nipples.
He gave a sharp hiss when she dragged an experimental nail over each and she froze, worried that she might have hurt him, then she saw the almost feral gleam in those dark eyes and realised that it certainly wasn’t pain he was feeling.
‘My turn,’ he decreed in a growl, and before she realised what he was going to do he’d grabbed the lower edge of her nightdress and drawn it over her head. ‘Ah, Jasmine, no,’ he said, catching her hands when she would have covered herself. ‘Don’t hide such perfection,’ he whispered as he cupped each breast in the warmth of his hands. ‘Look at the two of us together, my skin making yours look so pale and creamy. We are like your favourite crème brûlée come to life.’
She could see exactly what he meant, the deep natural tan of his body making hers seem even paler by comparison, especially where he was moulding the soft swell of her breasts with his clever fingers and… ‘Oh,’ she breathed on a sudden gasp of breath when he feathered his thumbs across them and her nipples furled into tight buds.
‘So responsive,’ he murmured, as he lowered his head and made her gasp again as he took first one and then the other into the heat of his mouth. The sensation was so overwhelming that her knees forgot how to hold her weight, but that was no problem when there were Razak’s strong arms to scoop her up and carry her across to the bed.
He laid her down as carefully as though she were a fragile newborn and deliberately spread her hair out across the pillows before straightening up to look at her.
For a moment she wanted to squirm with embarrasssment, knowing how lacking she was in all the things that men usually…
‘Perfect,’ he said, and stopped her thoughts in their well-worn tracks. ‘I tried to imagine how you would look—dreamed of you, too—but…’ He shook his head as his eyes roved over her from head to foot and back again. ‘You are truly as beautiful as your name—a slender, elegant lily,’ he said, and there was such sincerity in his voice that for the first time in her life she actually found herself believing it.
Then she saw his hands reach for the fastening at the waist of his trousers and all thoughts of her own shortcomings were forgotten in her anticipation of seeing his body completely naked for the first time.
She already knew that he was lean and muscular from the way his theatre scrubs fitted his body and that his legs were almost as
darkly furred as the impressive patterns on his chest, but…
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, and felt her eyes widen with a mixture of admiration and trepidation when he turned to face her and she saw the unmistakable evidence of his desire.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen that particular part of the male anatomy before. She had, many times over the years of her medical training, but never one quite so…
‘Ah, my Jazz, you are so good for my ego!’ he said with a chuckle as he joined her on the bed and pulled her back into his arms, sending shivers up and down her spine when he nuzzled her throat and whispered huskily in her ear. ‘And now that I know that the appearance didn’t disappoint you, I will have to make certain that the performance doesn’t either.’
His body seemed warmer than ever as he wrapped her in his arms and she just had time to feel the way the silky pelt on his chest teased her sensitive nipples as he leant over her before his lips met hers again and she was opening her mouth eagerly to welcome the swift invasion of his tongue.
And when kissing alone wasn’t enough, her hands set off on their own journey of exploration, tracing the curve of the back of his head and the strong column of his neck, fingers spreading wide to measure the width of his shoulders and sliding down the length of his back to the lean planes of his hips and the tight curves of his buttocks.
‘No more,’ he groaned, capturing one inquisitive hand and bringing it up to his mouth for a kiss.
Lily froze, wondering what on earth she had done wrong, but she didn’t have long to wonder when he continued with an air almost of embarrassment.
‘It has been a very long time for me, my sweet jasmine flower, and I have wanted you from the first day I met you. If you touch me any more I will not be able to control…to go slow enough to bring you the pleasure you deserve.’
She couldn’t bear it. Her body had recognised its mate and couldn’t wait a second longer for his possession.
‘Razak, please…now!’ she begged, and almost whimpered with relief when he finally positioned himself over her.
Even as he made that first connection, a tiny remnant of self-preservation was telling her that she should warn him of her innocence, but logic told her that this had gone too far for belated fears. She arched eagerly to welcome him and winced when he met the tell-tale barrier.
She hoped desperately that he hadn’t noticed but in the blink of an eye he’d grown rigid in her arms and although she couldn’t understand a single word she had a good idea what he was saying to her as he sprang off the bed and strode across to the window.
Suddenly embarrassed by her nudity, she pulled the corner of the bedspread over herself but her shivers didn’t ease.
‘Razak?’ she said to his bowed back, conscious even in the midst of her disappointment of the hands braced on either side of the window, showcasing the breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips.
What could she say? I’m sorry I’m still a virgin?
‘Why?’ he demanded tautly, without turning to face her, and she began to feel irritated by his attitude.
‘What do you mean, why? Why am I still a virgin at my age or why didn’t I tell you or—?’
‘I was actually going for the more important ones,’ he interrupted, finally turning to face her with one fist firmly planted on each hip so that she had to meet his turbulent gaze; she was suddenly far too embarrassed to allow her eyes to drop any lower. ‘Why have you never wanted to do this before when you are such a passionate woman? Why me? Why now?’
Her anger disappeared in a flash when she realised that she couldn’t give him the only answer he needed. In the heat of passion she’d nearly blurted it out but she just couldn’t do it like this, huddled in the middle of the bed while he confronted her from the other side of the room.
There was one answer that made all the others irrelevant—that she’d fallen in love with him.
That was the reason why she’d never wanted to make love before…because she’d never been in love. And if she confessed that, there would be no need for the Why me? or Why now? questions.
Somewhere in the back of her brain a quotation surfaced from a long-ago history lesson—The best method of defence is attack—and she realised that was now her only option.
‘Whereas for you, an obviously passionate man, the question is why did you stop? Were you afraid I wouldn’t know enough to satisfy you, or perhaps you were afraid I’d expect you to marry me if you destroyed the proof of my innocence?’
The next day Lily’s luck finally ran out.
Well, she really had no idea whether it had been luck that had kept her out of contact with Razak’s disapproving mother or whether he’d been cleverly making certain that the two of them were never in the same place at the same time. Perhaps it was just that she hadn’t been able to sleep a wink last night for replaying every delicious caress only to cringe as she’d remembered the insulting speed with which Razak had leapt from the bed as soon as he’d realised that he’d nearly become her first.
Obviously Razak hadn’t changed his mind about anything overnight because this morning it was almost as if he’d completely disappeared.
She’d waited with her stomach full of nervous knots but he hadn’t knocked on her door to escort her to breakfast. Finally, even though she wasn’t convinced that she’d be able to eat a thing, she refused to cower in her room any longer and set off on her own.
When she really didn’t care one way or the other, she found the room without a single wrong turn. Unfortunately, the only person there to applaud her achievement was Razak’s mother, and by the time Lily realised that she was the person sitting in the beautiful breakfast salon it was too late to retreat, even though the last thing she needed that morning was another confrontation.
Her elegant silk suit was perfect enough to be a designer original and Lily guessed that it probably cost more than a month’s salary and there wasn’t a hair out of place on her elegantly coiffed head, but there was a less genuine welcome on her face than if she’d been a tailor’s dummy.
‘Good morning,’ Lily said brightly, as she firmly rejected the option of turning on her heel and scuttling back to safety. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I join you?’
In the absence of anything more than a tight-lipped stare for a reply, she turned to pour herself a cup of aromatic coffee, proud that her hands were perfectly steady. With a croissant and a couple of fresh figs on a plate, she chose a seat almost at the other end of the table and wondered if she would choke herself to death with her first mouthful.
‘Do you know if Razak has already left to visit his father?’ Lily asked, as she split the flaky pastry and reached for the dish of butter. She’d thought it a sufficiently innocuous topic of conversation, but obviously just the mention of her son’s name was enough to release the torrent of words the woman had been holding back since the moment Lily had set foot in the house.
‘You are wasting your time, chasing after my son,’ she said precisely and almost without expression. ‘You have been blatant with your sinful ways. You have been trying to seduce Razak from his duties but it will not work. My son is the first-born and he is an honourable man who will not turn from the path he has been destined to tread.’
It wasn’t just that her accent was far stronger than those of the other members of their family that made it difficult for Lily to understand what she was saying. What she did know was that the woman was seriously disturbed by her presence in Razak’s life. Well, after last night she had absolutely nothing to worry about, but Lily could hardly tell her that.
‘Your son and I are colleagues at work,’ she began calmly, deliberately suppressing the pain it caused to know that after the dreadful final seconds in her room last night, colleagues were all they would ever be. ‘He is teaching me all about the new operating method he’s setting up at my hospital so that when his contract ends and he comes to work at the hospital here—’
‘Do not think that you can fool me!�
�� the older woman interrupted heatedly, her cheeks darkening as her control slipped a notch. ‘We have all seen the way you look at him and lure him into your rooms like a common…’
Lily didn’t need to understand the language to know that she’d been insulted, but before she could find polite words of her own to object, the imperious woman was speaking again.
‘Anyway, this doctoring, it does not matter!’ his mother snapped with a dismissive gesture of a heavily beringed hand. ‘It is not Razak’s destiny to cut bodies up like the man who slaughters animals for the kitchen. As the first-born son it is his destiny to follow his father, to take his rightful place as leader of—’
‘Of course being a surgeon matters to Razak,’ she argued swiftly, not caring how rude it was to interrupt her elder. Denigrating their profession as nothing more than butchery was one thing, but to suggest that Razak would be willing to abandon it any time soon to take over as a mere figure-head of some business corporation was nonsense. ‘He has worked hard for many years to perfect his skill and is one of the most gifted men I’ve ever seen or worked with. You’re fooling yourself if you think he’d ever give it up.’
There was deep anger in the woman’s eyes when she stared Lily down and for a second she almost believed the woman capable of doing her physical violence. Then she saw a calculating edge creep into her expression and knew that she had a trump card to play.
‘You do not know my son as well as you think you do,’ she said coldly, each word coated with its own measure of venom. ‘He will give medicine up as easily as he will toss you out where you belong because he knows it is his duty.’
She deposited her linen napkin beside her plate and rose elegantly to her feet, somehow seeming far taller in her scorn.
‘As soon as he has fulfilled his contract in England, he will take the place that has been destined to be his since the minute he was born and he will marry the woman who has been intended to be his wife ever since they were betrothed.’
‘Betrothed?’ Lily hadn’t even realised that she’d echoed the word until she saw the victorious sneer on the woman’s face.
Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride Page 12
