‘He’s not interested in me that way,’ she’d told him stolidly. ‘Not any more. I know he’s not.’
‘Then for the first time in my life I must question his judgement,’ Khalim had replied in a hard, cold voice.
‘And anyway,’ she’d said, in a small voice, ‘even if he was, I don’t think I could bear to make myself that vulnerable again. If you love someone, then losing them is just unbearable.’
His dark eyes had narrowed. ‘Explain,’ he’d ordered quietly. And she’d told him all about Michael and he’d listened thoughtfully.
‘So you see,’ she’d finished, ‘it’s much too soon for me to fall in love with someone else—it does a disservice to Michael’s memory.’
The hard lips had curved briefly into a smile. ‘But love has no respect for convention, Sabrina,’ he had sighed.
And from that moment on he had behaved almost as though she was sick, and in a way maybe she was. For the pain in her heart was real enough, surely? As real as the sharp pierce of longing which ripped right through her whenever she thought of Guy.
Khalim had made her eat a little something, and told her something of his homeland. His voice had lulled her and soothed her, and his softly accented descriptions of his upbringing had transported her to another world.
Just as Guy had transported her to another world.
But it wasn’t her world.
‘It was certainly different,’ she said to Guy, as she remembered.
He forced himself to keep the jealous monster at bay. ‘Oh?’
She sat down, picked up her glass and sipped at it gratefully, acutely aware of the glittering grey gaze which held her fast in its dazzle. She thought that he looked almost strained tonight, with a strange kind of restlessness about him.
‘How was Jenna’s party?’
‘Boring as hell.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. But I don’t want to talk about Jenna’s party. I’m much more interested in your evening.’
‘Oh, Khalim had hired a private room in the most amazing restaurant you’ve ever seen,’ she said, still slightly reeling from the experience. ‘Imagine—a whole room to ourselves!’
Behind the hard line of his mouth Guy gritted his teeth. Just a taste of Khalim’s average over-the-top seduction technique. ‘How very impressive,’ he said steadily.
He really did seem to be tense, as if he was hanging onto his self-control with difficulty, and Sabrina stared at him, willing her heart not to wrench, but it was hopeless. Every time she looked at him she felt nothing but an unbearable sense of longing.
‘It was. Very,’ she said simply. No need to tell him that she’d barely eaten a thing, or that the spectacular surroundings hadn’t registered. She might as well have been sitting in some scruffy old café for all that she would have noticed—because Guy hadn’t been there. And the world was just not the same place when Guy wasn’t there.
‘And are you going to see him again?’
Something in the harshness of the question made her go very still, and she gazed up into the hard contours of his face. ‘And if I am?’
There was a dangerous pause. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You don’t like it?’ Sabrina stared at him. She thought about his rage when she’d told him she was going to accept Khalim’s offer of a date. If she thought about it rationally, all the facts added up to jealousy. So, was Guy jealous of Khalim and, if so, why, when he had shown no signs of wanting her for himself? ‘Why not?’
‘Why do you think?’ he snapped. ‘Because it’s doing my head in to think that he wants you when I want you so badly for myself.’
Joy mingled with disbelief. ‘You…want me?’ she repeated, her voice trembling.
‘Of course I want you! Haven’t I wanted you ever since I made the foolish suggestion that you come and live here?’
‘Why was it foolish?’ she breathed.
He knew that now was not the time for his habitual evasion. ‘Maybe I was just fooling myself into thinking that what happened in Venice was a reckless one-off.’ Hadn’t part of him secretly hoped it had been? He shook his head. ‘But my feelings for you haven’t changed.’
Sabrina stared at him. He’d used the word ‘feelings’, but she suspected that he really meant desire. But, however he chose to phrase it, it didn’t really matter—because nothing could change the way she felt about him. Nothing.
‘Haven’t they?’ she whispered.
‘Not a bit.’
Guy watched her eyes darken involuntarily as their eyes locked, and saw the soft tremble of her lips. And suddenly he knew that neither logic nor reason could stop what he was about to do.
With a hand that wasn’t quite steady he put his glass down on the table, walked over to the sofa and stood looking down at her. He saw the sudden parting of her lips as she read the answering hunger in his eyes.
‘Guy?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Sabrina?’ came the soft mocking response. ‘Do you think we’ve played the waiting game for long enough?’
She could barely get the single word out. ‘Y-yes.’
He held his hand out to her and she took it. In an instant she was in his arms, and his eyes were hard and bright and hungry as he brought his lips down to kiss her.
And just that first heady contact set her on fire. Blazing. With a tiny moan, she coiled her arms around his neck like a snake and he pulled her hard into his body so that their hips melded, and she could feel the hard, powerful jut of him throught the fine linen of his trousers.
He kissed her with a frustration that went bone-deep, and Guy found himself lost in the sweetness of her mouth, as if he could never get enough of plundering its honeyed moistness. He pulled her even closer, feeling the tips of her nipples as they strained against the sheer, silky fabric of her dress.
With an effort he pulled his lips away from hers, and she made a murmured little protest as he looked down at her, his eyes glittering black, opaque with desire.
‘Is this what you really want, princess?’ he groaned. ‘Because if you don’t, we’d better stop this right now.’
Her arms were still around his neck, their hips still intimately meshed. She could feel the growing power of him and realised how much he wanted her. And how much of an effort it must have taken for him to say that.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said almost shyly—which was crazy when she considered that she hadn’t been in the least shy with him before. But that night and that capitulation had been motivated by passion, pure and sweet and undiluted. While this…
This was love—more potent than any other emotion in the world. But only for her, she reminded herself. Only for her. Guy wasn’t making any declarations—he was just a man, with a man’s libido.
And maybe, knowing that, she should have stopped him, but Sabrina knew that no force in the world could have stopped her. Not when she wanted Guy this badly. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Yes.’
He found the gleam of flesh on her pale shoulder utterly irresistible and trickled a slow finger over its satin curve, watching as she shivered in response.
‘Mmm,’ he murmured, as he slipped first one strap down and then the other, so that the material fell in soft folds to her waist. Her tiny breasts were thrusting furiously against the soft lavender lace of her bra, the tips rosy and hard, and he nudged the pad of his thumb against one, seeing her body jerk automatically in response.
Her eyelids fluttered to a close. ‘Guy!’ She uttered his name in choked response to that first touch, feeling the wet, wild warmth of response.
‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’ he murmured, circling his thumb with feather-light torment.
Good? It felt as if she’d just been catapulted straight into a place where nothing existed but pure sensation. ‘It feels fantastic,’ she moaned.
‘No, you feel fantastic.’ His closed his hand possessively over one tiny breast and her nails immediately dug into his neck as she swayed against him, communicating her heated reaction
as clearly as if she’d spoken it.
Guy frowned. She was so damned responsive! He always took his women to bed. Always. And yet suddenly he discovered that he didn’t want to break the spell by moving from where they were and taking their clothes off. He wanted to do it to her right here. And right now. It was as simple and as elemental as that.
‘I don’t know if I can make it to the bedroom,’ he groaned.
‘Who cares?’ she whispered back.
‘You mean you don’t?’
‘No.’ She would swing from the chandelier if he wanted her to.
He pushed her down onto the carpet and joined her there, pulling her into his arms and kissing her while his hand slid beneath her dress and smoothed it all the way up to her thighs. He gazed down at their milky pale curves and felt his resolve slipping away. ‘I don’t know if I can even bear the time to take your clothes off, princess. Or mine.’ He grazed her a light stroking touch where she was most responsive, smiling as her body bucked against his hand.
Sabrina’s head fell back against the Persian carpet as she felt the first honeyed flutter of his fingers, and her thighs parted for him of their own volition. ‘Then don’t,’ she breathed hoarsely, feeling as wanton right then as she had ever felt. ‘Don’t. Let’s just do it.’
She found herself fumbling at the button of his trousers, then rasping the zip down with difficulty, her hand straying agitatedly over his hard swell, and she heard him suck in a ragged breath.
‘Make that a definite,’ he moaned as he tugged her panties down right over her thighs, skimming them impatiently over her ankles and then tossing them over his shoulder. ‘Now, my little temptress…’
Hearing the slumberous intent in his voice, Sabrina opened her eyes to see him kick off his trousers, exposing the true, daunting power of his arousal, and she shivered as he came to kneel over her.
He bent his head and touched his mouth against hers as he positioned himself close to her. Tantalisingly close. ‘Want me?’ he whispered.
She couldn’t think of a time when she hadn’t. Not if she was being honest with herself. ‘Oh, God, yes,’ she moaned helplessly, as she writhed her hips impatiently beneath his.
‘Well, then…’ And he groaned as he entered her with one single, powerful thrust. ‘You’ve got me.’
This time was different. This time she knew him—or at least as much of him as he was prepared to let her know. For there was always some sense that Guy was holding something of himself back. But who cared? Maybe she would never have all of him—but no person could ever totally possess another, could they?
But now—physically at least—he was as abandoned as she had only ever dreamed he could be.
In Venice he had been a skilful lover, but they had been strangers. This time his kisses were deeper, his caresses more tender. With each long, deep stroke, she felt enchained by his possession. It felt different. As if it really mattered.
No. That was simply an illusion, she forced herself to remember. Just the body’s way of tricking the mind into thinking that this was something more than just a basic human need. She tried to keep a hold on her sanity, even as the first waves of orgasm began to shimmer her down into its sweet, shuddering waters. And only sanity prevented her from crying out how much she loved him.
Guy watched the arching of her back and the indolent splaying of her limbs, and only when he saw her body begin to judder and bloom did he allow himself to let go, to the most exquisite release.
Afterwards they lay together on the carpet, dipping in and out of a slumberous doze, their limbs still damp and tangled.
He heard her yawn and looked to where her tousled red-blonde hair lay ribboned across his chest. ‘You do realise,’ he murmured sleepily, ‘that we’re still half-dressed?’
She looked down at herself. Then at him.
Her dress lay rucked up to her waist, while Guy was wearing nothing but a T-shirt. She could see the beautifully pale curves of his buttocks and she felt a warm heat begin to suffuse her. ‘Oh.’
He rolled on to her and captured her face as his hips crushed hers beneath him. ‘Is that all you can say—“Oh”?’ He saw her squirm and her agitated look and his eyes narrowed. ‘Oh,’ he repeated softly, but he managed to fill the word with a sultry promise. ‘Maybe we had better go to bed.’
Sabrina swallowed. ‘What, right now?’
He smiled. ‘Mmm. Right now.’ And he pulled her to her feet, shaking his head as he saw her look around the room for her underwear. ‘Leave that,’ he instructed softly. ‘You won’t be needing any clothes tonight.’ And saw her shivered response.
He took her by the hand and led her to his bedroom, in a section of the large flat she usually avoided, throwing the door open to reveal an airy room dominated by an enormous bed. Huge windows looked down onto the flower-filled square.
‘I don’t think you’ve ever been in here before, have you, princess?’ he murmured. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Well, I have seen it,’ admitted Sabrina, and saw the question in his eyes. ‘I sneaked a look when I first moved in. I was…curious.’ More than curious.
She had wanted to see whether the room could tell her more about the man, but it had thrown up few clues. The paintings were superb, the furniture modern and luxurious—but it was an oddly dispassionate room. As though he was wary about expressing too much of his personality through mere fixtures and fittings. Again, there was that distinctive air of containment.
Guy should have been riled at what could definitely have been termed as an intrusion, but found himself smiling instead. He thought that few people would have admitted it. But then wasn’t Sabrina’s innate innocence one of her sweetest and most appealing features? Well, that and her stubborn insistence and the way she could make him mad and then make him smile an instant later. Even the way she nagged him about working too hard—which his mother had long given up on.
‘Do you mind?’ she asked. ‘That I sneaked a look?’
He saw the uncertainty which had clouded the ice-blue eyes, and a wave of an emotion he didn’t recognise washed over him. He forced himself instead to watch the pert thrust of her breasts.
‘I’m rather turned on by the thought of you prowling around in here like a pussy-cat,’ he said roughly. ‘Come on, let’s go to bed.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SABRINA opened her eyes to the morning light and closed them again as images of the previous night came flickering back.
What had she done? Placed herself in the most precariously vulnerable position in the world—that was what she’d done. Given herself to Guy, heart, body and soul.
‘Good morning, princess,’ came a murmured greeting, and her eyes snapped open to see Guy standing, towering above her, already shaved and dressed for work in another exquisitely cut dark suit, and she felt a great wrench of longing.
‘Hello,’ she whispered, her heart thundering at the sight of him.
He smiled. ‘You were sleeping so beautifully that I couldn’t bear to wake you.’
She sat up and saw his eyes darken as her bare breasts were exposed, and some protective instinct made her gather the sheet around her.
‘You’re going already?’ she asked him.
‘Wish I didn’t have to, but I have an early meeting,’ he said softly, and sat down on the bed beside her.
Of course he did. Guy the workaholic. Guy the driven. He might have spent most of the night making exquisite love to her, but that didn’t change his priorities, did it? And work came first. It always would.
Well, she might have been compliant in his arms last night, but that didn’t mean that she had to exist in a passive state of insecurity now.
‘This changes things, doesn’t it?’ she said slowly.
There was an imperceptible pause as the grey eyes narrowed. He’d hoped to avoid any kind of analysis. ‘How come?’
‘Oh, don’t be obtuse, Guy, you’re much too intelligent for that,’ she told him crossly. ‘If I’m living with you…’
She saw the wariness on his face and wished she’d phrased it better. ‘If I’m living here and we’re having—’
‘Sex?’ he put in, with a wicked grin.
Thank goodness he’d interrupted her. She’d been about to say ‘a relationship’, but his drawled one-word question had brought what had just happened between them down to the lowest common denominator. And shown her more clearly than anything else could have done just how different their agendas were. She might love Guy—but that didn’t mean he felt the same way about her. Men didn’t need to be in love to make love the way he had done.
‘Yes, sex.’ She swallowed.
‘Good sex.’ He trickled a finger slowly from shoulder to breast, and she let the sheet fall. ‘The very best,’ he added slowly.
It should have been a compliment, so why did it sound little short of an insult? ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
He flicked softly at one rosy nipple, feeling it surge into instant life beneath his finger. God, he felt like just getting back into bed with her and forgetting the damned meeting. His face hardened. He hadn’t got where he was today by letting a woman trap him with her honeyed sweetness.
‘Why should it change anything, except for the better?’ he questioned softly. ‘We carry on as we were, only now you share my bed at night. I can’t think of anything I’d rather have.’
‘No,’ she said sadly. Of course he couldn’t. He didn’t want commitment, or even a relationship. He wanted sex, pure and simple—and obviously he thought that was all she wanted, too. And who could blame him? Hadn’t she always demonstrated the sensual side of her nature around him?
He reluctantly moved his hand from her breast and cupped her face instead. ‘What’s the problem, Sabrina?’ he asked gently. ‘Why the long face? Let’s just enjoy it, huh?’
And when she came to the end of her stay with him, what then? But consenting adults didn’t make unnecessary emotional demands, did they? Guy didn’t love her—and wouldn’t he doubt her feelings if he had any idea what they were? Wouldn’t he consider her fickle if she told him she’d fallen in love with him—only months after the death of the man she’d been due to spend the rest of her life with?
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