by Annie West
Yet she couldn’t settle. On impulse she marched to the dressing room where her belongings took up a tiny corner of the space. Quickly undressing, she put on her swimsuit and grabbed an oversized towel.
On one side her suite gave out onto a long, leafy courtyard that she hadn’t explored. She’d been too busy with her new role, and too addicted to long soaks in the huge bath, to venture far. But she’d glimpsed a swimming pool at the far end.
Lina stepped barefoot onto warm flagstones. As always, there was no sign of life from the other rooms surrounding this garden. She was the only guest.
The sweet scent of jasmine filled her nostrils. Faint luminescence came from the stars and a myriad of tiny lights twining through the shrubs.
Lina smiled. It was a private fairyland.
She stepped into a patch of darker shade. Just ahead the underwater lights of the pool broke the darkness. The soft aqua glow of the water beckoned enticingly. Lina was pulling pins from her hair, shaking the heavy tresses from her face, when a sound made her stop.
Splashing.
Not a fountain but the rhythmic slap of flesh cleaving through water.
Curious, Lina moved forward, peering between the shrubs. For a second she saw nothing but the ripple of light across the water. Then a dark head came into view, a long arm arcing out of the iridescent aqua and down again. Wide shoulders and a sinuous curve of spine. Another, tighter curve of flexing bare buttocks then long legs with a lazy kick that nevertheless propelled the tall body with enviable speed.
Lina sucked in a hiss of air, her hand belatedly slamming over her mouth to stop the sound. Dismayed, she stepped off the path, stumbling into a bush and snapping twigs.
There was only one person this could be. One person so at home in the palace that they’d swim here naked.
Only one person with those sublimely beautiful masculine proportions.
Somehow she’d blundered into Sayid Badawi’s private garden!
She’d known there’d been a mistake when she was installed in those elegant rooms. More than once she’d thought the corridor leading to her suite was familiar from that night years ago when she’d sat by the Emir’s bed. Till logic told her she imagined it. How could she remember one corridor from all those in this sprawling place?
Her heart hammered against her ribs and a chill skipped down her spine. She couldn’t let him find her here, invading his privacy.
Lina spun on her foot and stifled a gasp as something hard dug into her sole. She wasn’t on the path any more. Worse, her long hair snagged on the bushes. Tiny twigs grabbed, refusing to release her.
She breathed slowly, tamping down panic as she fought to free herself. She couldn’t hear splashing now, probably because her hammering pulse blotted out every other sound.
Finally, free of clinging plants, she got back on the path. She took a single step towards her rooms, then someone grabbed her upper arms and hauled her against a hard, dripping wet body.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Sayid’s voice was rough, every sense on alert.
He’d noticed movement in the shadows beyond the pool and instinct screamed a warning. Instinct that had, in the past, saved him more than once.
He’d swum to the end of the pool, vaulted out and prowled silently through the darkness to circle the silent watcher, approaching not from the lighted pool but the darkened garden.
A soft grunt of expelled air sounded as he hauled the intruder against him. An even softer body collided with his, a face against his chest, one smooth leg slipping against his.
What the—?
Swiftly he checked for weapons. Nothing. Just the extraordinary realisation that his intruder was female.
He peered down, making out the pale oval of an upturned face and a cascade of dark hair. Silky hair that draped over his chest and arm like a seductive blanket.
But it was the body against his that focused his thoughts. A curved, taut female body that seemed in the first instant of surprise to be unclothed. He moved a hand to her hip and found it covered in fabric that clung like a second skin. His fingers curved reflexively.
‘You can let me go.’ The voice, shaken but clear, came from near his collarbone.
Sayid identified that voice instantly. ‘Lina? What are you doing here?’
He’d spent the evening trying to wrench his thoughts from the sight and sound of her, vibrant and beautiful in that clinging dress. Eventually he’d decided to work off his restlessness with exercise, only to find her, impossibly, here, in his private domain.
He breathed deep and felt the press of lush breasts against him. She was no schoolgirl any more. This was a woman, her body seductively ripe.
His body knew it. With her plastered against him and her breath feathering his nakedness, a weighted tension gathered in his loins. A clamouring rush of testosterone quickened his blood.
It had been months since his enjoyable interlude with that Danish actress. Now that seemed far too long ago.
‘I didn’t mean to intrude. I had no idea you were here. I thought the courtyard was deserted.’ Was that panic in her voice? Fear?
Instantly Sayid stepped back, keeping his grip firm.
Air filled the gap between them but the sweet scent of her skin, like the fragrant damask roses his mother used to cultivate, lingered. As did Lina’s warmth.
Desire, rough and urgent, slammed into him.
‘Come into the light.’ He led her towards the pool. Briefly it crossed his mind to clothe himself. But she’d already spied on his nakedness and it wasn’t as if he had anything to hide. He was damned if he’d release his grip before he got an explanation.
There she stood, chin raised and eyes on a point near his shoulder, as he surveyed her in the glow of the underwater lights. It revealed every line and curve. From the sweet swell of her hips to her narrow waist and her high, lovely breasts. She’d been pressed against him and her one-piece swimsuit was wet. Wet enough to make her nipples peak. Which in turn increased the pressure in his groin.
He enjoyed beautiful women but kept a strict rein on his libido. Tonight his search for self-possession seemed futile. She’d filled his thoughts all evening and there was no escape even here, in his private space.
‘Why are you spying on me?’
‘I’m sorry. Truly.’ Her eyes were huge as she met his stare and the crackle of energy between them detonated a silent explosion inside him. Yearning, desire...
She was pure seductress with that lush mouth and the shimmering dark hair falling to her waist. He should be furious at the invasion of privacy yet he wanted to comb his hand through her hair, enjoy the luxury of it against his skin. Not think but feel.
‘I couldn’t sleep and I knew there was a pool here.’ The words tripped quickly from her lips. ‘I thought a swim might help me relax. I had no idea...’ She shook her head and that silky veil of hair slid across his hands where he held her. His flesh tightened. ‘I didn’t realise it was your pool. Then when I saw you—’ she swallowed hard, her gaze slipping from his ‘—I planned to leave. But I got tangled in the bushes.’
‘You didn’t know this was my private wing?’
‘Absolutely not!’
Her smooth brow wrinkled in obvious dismay.
Real or feigned?
The woman who’d returned to Halarq after years in Europe wasn’t the same innocent who’d left. Lina was confident and beautiful, at ease with the adulation of men, as tonight had proved. But he couldn’t quite believe she was like those predatory women who tried so hard to invade his privacy and his bed without invitation.
Yet she looked the picture of guilt. The question was whether it was because of an honest, though unlikely, mistake. Or simply because he’d caught her.
‘You didn’t seek me out?’
She gasped and shook her head, stiffening
in his hold.
Once more her eyes met his and fire shot through his veins. He couldn’t remember a more potent, instant response to any woman.
‘Of course not. Why would I?’
Because you feel the throb of attraction between us too.
Because you want, as I do.
It was there in her convulsive swallow. In the fine tremors he felt running through her body. Not fear, he was certain, but arousal.
Sayid didn’t say the words aloud. He retained, just, the sense to realise he was projecting his desires onto her.
Self-disgust smote him. Was he so needy? So desperate for a taste of those lips he, himself, had declared forbidden fruit?
‘We’ll discuss this in the morning.’ Then, surely, he’d be able to think straight.
Stoically he ignored the seductive scent of her filling his nostrils.
Worse was the way she looked at him. Not like an embarrassed girl, but the way a woman looked at a man she desired.
It had to be unintentional. A trick of the light. Lina was, if no longer an innocent, at least not devious. She’d strayed here in error.
Yet now their gazes locked her nerves seemed to have disappeared. If anything she swayed ever so slightly towards him. Her gaze ate him up. Made him wonder exactly how much experience she’d acquired overseas, freed of the scrutiny of her family or any Halarqi supervision.
She was past the age when many women in his country became brides. No doubt there’d been plenty of foreign men ready to teach the little desert flower about love.
The notion brewed a bitter tang on his tongue.
Then Sayid registered the quick rise and fall of her breathing, the implicit invitation as she licked her lips and the faint, unmistakable fragrance of feminine arousal, mingling with her rose perfume.
He swallowed, stunned by the sudden certainty he wasn’t the only one to want. He wasn’t simply projecting his desires.
Yet Lina was his dependant, under his protection.
He was in a position of authority over her, with obligations as host, ruler and, above all, guardian. He couldn’t act on his desire. He’d ensured that when he’d made her his ward.
Lina wasn’t his to do with as he wished. She was no longer his concubine, provided for his pleasure.
But the memory of that night four years ago whispered through him, like a rain-laden wind rushing through a parched gully, promising an end to a long, painful drought. She’d offered herself then, ready to please his every whim.
‘Lina! Don’t look at me like that.’ The words ground from him, harsh and ragged.
Again that quick swipe of her bottom lip, as if her mouth was as dry as his.
‘Like what?’ Still she didn’t move away.
Sayid shook his head, determined to do the right thing as soon as he could unlock his hold on her arms.
Except she breathed deep and her breasts grazed him. A trail of fire rocketed through his ribs and abdomen, straight to his groin.
‘Like you want me to kiss you.’ He heard the rasp in his voice as duty battled desire, but she didn’t respond to that harsh warning.
She blinked up at him, her lips parted and slowly shook her head, her hair caressing him. Then her words, soft as the flutter of a nightingale’s wing, came to him. ‘But I do.’
The night stood still, except for his heart slamming his ribs and the saw of his breath, loud in the silence. Yet, hard as he fought, control was beyond him now.
A moment later his mouth captured hers.
* * *
If she’d had the capacity to think properly Lina might have been astonished at how she’d spoken aloud, admitting her desire so blatantly.
Or by the way she responded to being locked against his hard form.
By the shivers of sensual delight she felt at the riot of new sensations.
This was outrageous, terrifying.
Wonderful.
Hard, callused hands grasped her tight. Sayid’s warm breath feathered her face. His rich, potent scent swirled within her as if she’d absorbed his essence. And above all, the press of his wet, hard body against hers devastated her senses in the most thrilling way.
It was like a dream. Like those disturbing fantasies that had haunted her the last four years, growing ever bolder and more erotic.
Inevitably, as he bowed his head and possessed her mouth, Lina revelled in the fact this was no dream. She lifted her hands to his wet shoulders, relishing the strong bone, solid muscle and satiny skin beneath her questing hands.
Her daring surprised her, as if she made a habit of embracing men, when instead she’d spent years learning how to be friendly yet not encourage their advances.
Because, despite the stunning audacity of it, her heart, or perhaps her body, had fixed on Sayid Badawi as the only one she wanted. The one who, he’d made clear as he’d gently but firmly bundled her out of his bedroom and his life, was not for her. For of course he demanded sophistication and glamour, women who fitted his world of prestige and power.
This then was magic. A moment’s aberration.
An opportunity not to be missed. For too soon reality would end it.
Lina fell into his embrace. So long she’d imagined his mouth on hers. So long she’d pined for his touch. There was no holding back, no hesitation. And she discovered her imagination was a poor imitation of the real thing.
Being held by Sayid, kissed by him, made her head spin and her heart pound in delight. The taste of him, so rich, so...intimate, made her weak at the knees. Lina would have been completely overwhelmed except that it felt right.
His powerful arms dragged her up so that her breasts were crushed against that imposing naked torso and she exulted in his strength, the urgency she sensed in him.
His lips were softer than she’d expected. But there was nothing tentative about his kiss. His tongue dived in, probing, licking and swirling. It invited hers to curl in a dance of give and take that made her body prickle with a searing heat despite her damp swimsuit.
She’d imagined sweet kisses. Had wondered about the open-mouthed kisses she’d seen in movies. But nothing, neither the excited chatter at school or the women’s talk she’d heard in her old home, had prepared her for this.
If being near Sayid was like being bathed in starlight, this was like being tossed up into the bright Milky Way itself.
She slipped her hands higher, combing them through the drenched hair at the back of his skull, spreading her fingers and cupping his head possessively.
If she could, she’d hold him here for ever. Everyone knew magic was fleeting and she didn’t want this to end.
His hand dragged up her side, almost but not quite touching her breast and she shuddered. A second later that large hand planted itself on her cheek, angling her head higher as he bowed her back across his arm.
That combination of tenderness and mastery undid her.
With a great thump of her heart Lina abandoned any attempt at thought and let herself go, knowing Sayid wouldn’t let her fall. Everything his kiss demanded she gave, glorying not just in the delicious new physical sensations but her tangled, contrary feelings of power and helplessness.
When she pressed closer, sliding her tongue against his, he responded with a growl of pleasure deep in his throat that vibrated from his slick, hot body to hers. It made her quiver in delight.
She’d never felt so connected to another person. So...aroused. It was a heady new experience.
Liquid heat poured through her, pooling low in the centre of her body. Lina squirmed in his hold, trying to assuage the blind eagerness for more, more, more.
Then suddenly, devastatingly, it was over. Sayid’s hands gripped her upper arms, holding her steady as he straightened away from her.
His broad bronzed chest rose and fell like overworked bellows. The furnace heat of his bo
dy encompassed her. But though she still tasted him on her tongue, her tingling lips couldn’t reach him and her hands slipped from his head as he put her away from him.
Doubts assailed her. Regrets. Not for the kiss but because she hadn’t wanted it to end.
Hadn’t he enjoyed kissing her?
She was innocent but not that innocent. There’d been no mistaking his hard arousal between them. And that sound of pleasure he’d made, so low it rumbled through her bones—just remembering it made Lina shiver with luxurious pleasure.
Maybe she’d done it wrong. It was her first kiss, except for her cousin’s clumsy attempt years ago. That didn’t count, since his mouth had landed on her chin when she’d shoved him away.
Slowly Lina lifted her gaze, past the Emir’s heaving pectorals with their fine covering of dark hair, past those hard, broad shoulders that had felt so strong beneath her hands. Even his throat looked powerful and sexy.
Lina blinked, realising she had a whole new appreciation of the meaning of the word. Sexy. That’s what Sayid was. And his kiss sent her into orbit.
Steeling herself, she raised her eyes further. His mouth was a harsh line, set tight. If she couldn’t still taste the rich flavour of him on her tongue, if her lips weren’t swollen from his ardent kiss, she’d believe that mouth incapable of bestowing such bliss.
Lina wobbled, her legs unsteady, and instantly his hands firmed on her.
‘Steady.’ His voice was low, stroking places in her body she’d barely been aware of before now. She loved the differences between them. His size and strength were so much greater than hers. His experience too.
Finally she looked up to meet his blazing eyes. They were so dark they rivalled the black velvet sky behind him.
Whatever the reason for his withdrawal, it wasn’t because he didn’t want her.
An inner voice screamed that the issue wasn’t just whether he wanted her. She had a say too. But that was a given, she acknowledged despairingly. No matter how often Lina told herself she was now an independent woman, she was utterly in thrall to His Royal Highness the Emir of Halarq.
