Taken by the Sheikh (13 page)

“I suppose you could,” she replied, knowing that her voice was going to become a great deal less steady if she thought of his body half-naked and his hands in her hair—or more likely on her skin.

As though reading her mind, he lifted her long tresses with the brush and pressed a soft kiss onto her nape. The touch of his lips sent shivers of anticipation rocketing down her spine.

Her indrawn breath made him smile and close his eyes. She’d be delicious if coaxed gently and surely to abandon herself to him. Already she’d demonstrated she was a truly sensual being—her response to his kiss in the stables had been instinctive and generous, and now she was sighing with pleasure as he brushed her beautiful hair.

As compensation for the hideous kidnapping and the horrible exhibitions by her foster-brother, Rafiq was willing to proceed with infinite restraint, melting her caution, allaying her suspicions, drawing her ever closer to desiring him. He pictured craving and confusion warring in her vivid blue eyes...until the craving won and he advanced another step.

She was exquisite—a true test of his manhood because of her vulnerability and desperately low expectations. Taking a woman to his bed was pleasurable, yes—but withholding his own pleasure to give and give and give to her until she screamed for him; that was the ultimate challenge—and his ultimate reward as well.

“Perhaps the swimming’s not a good idea?” she asked.

He felt his dream puncture...his plan shatter.

“The swimming,” he murmured, bending to kiss her nape a second time, “is an excellent idea. The moon will be full, the water in the lake has been warmed by a long day’s sun, and we can take all the time we want to enjoy ourselves. There’s no need for an early start tomorrow.”

He kissed her a third time—brushing his lips a little lower to where her neck met her tunic collar—and was rewarded by definite trembling. His spirits rose. Taking her by storm would be easy, but taking her by stealth would be sensational.

He swept the brush through her hair several more times, and laid it aside as Yasmina approached.

“I have set two places at the big dining table, My Lord Rafiq.”

“Thank-you, Yasmina. Will you serve in five minutes?”

“I will, My Lord. And your lady is very beautiful in her new clothes.”

He inclined his head and smiled.

“Come,” he said to Laurel, holding out a hand for hers. “Yasmina’s decided we look fit for the formal dining room tonight.”

“We certainly didn’t last night,” she replied. “Me in your shirt, you in
no
shirt.” She rose to stand, and he pulled back the chair for her. As she turned, she got her first proper look at him and her mouth fell open.  Black tuxedo, snowy white dress shirt, velvet bow tie.

“Rafiq!”

“Laurel...” His eyes danced with merriment as he enjoyed her surprise. “The Lodge deserves a little grandeur.” He surveyed her slowly from top to toe, noting her touches of make-up, her long drift of hair against the regal clothes he’d provided, her small feet in the jeweled golden sandals.

The desire to possess her streaked through him sharp as a sword. Smokey hunger flared in his eyes, replacing the merriment in a split second. His former resolution slipped a notch or two; she was so bewitching he wanted her on any terms at all. Could he bear to wait?

He enclosed her hand in his and led her through the house to the softly-lit dining room.

“Yasmina is match-making,” he said, amused, as he surveyed the romantic table setting with its bowl of fragrant red roses and flickering candles.

“Between the jailer and his captive?” Laurel queried, trying to put some distance between them. If she’d thought him gorgeous the night before, now he was magnificent. The candle-light cast dramatic shadows over his imperious face. His eyes were blacker than ever, and the mouth she’d initially thought so cruel looked softer now, and warm. He tugged her hand and unbalanced her—she thudded against his chest and into his arms.

“You are not my captive,” he grated. “But if that’s what you want to think, then consider it this way.” His mouth descended upon hers and she felt exactly how soft, exactly how warm his lips were.

He kissed her with ravishing thoroughness—slowly and deeply. She had no idea quite when she parted her lips for him, or when she welcomed his tongue to answer her explicit invitation to slide against her own, or how her hands came to be clenched in his hair, pulling him down greedily so she could sink deeper and deeper into the passion sweeping right through her.

His hands smoothed down over her back and away.

“Now who is the captive?” he demanded against her lips. And Laurel was devastated to find his arms were held wide open, and it was she who was holding him, clinging to him, demanding and desperate...wanting their embrace to last long enough for her to sample all his flavors and textures, all his strength and fiery determination, all his pride and tradition and potent male magic.

Gasping, she pushed away. He wrapped his arms back around her instantly, pulled her hard against him and then fisted his hands in her hair.

“I am not your jailer—you come to me of your own free will,” he whispered beside her ear. His hot breath scorched her neck. Then he set his teeth delicately into her earlobe and sucked at the earring threaded there. The combined assault of teeth and tongue had her entire nervous system re-ignited in an instant.

“Let me go!” she exclaimed, not wanting him to release her in the slightest. She’d never felt like this before. The previous night in his bed seemed tame by comparison. Last night there’d been the pretence of keeping her safe, but this embrace flamed with long fiery banners of danger. It was as if she was surrounded by heat and light; as though her senses were being re-arranged into one long stream of wanting.

He chuckled and let his lips slide away from her ear. “Let you go? Only for now, Laurel,” he murmured. “Only for now.”

He drew out a dining chair and waited for her to seat herself, then shook one of the starched napkins from its folds and laid it across her lap as though he was an attentive waiter. His fingers caressed her thigh as he moved the white damask into place.

He seated himself at the head of the table—at right angles to her. Yasmina had set the two places at one end of the polished expanse of timber. His long legs stretched out and locked around one of her ankles.

“Mine again,” he said.

And she could not protest or struggle free because Yasmina arrived at that instant with the first of several delicious courses.

“Tell me about your home,” he suggested once they were alone again and eating. He forced himself to turn down the pressure so his seduction could proceed in tiny increments, building with infinite slowness until he’d made the very air around them start to hum with breathless wanting.

“
My
home?  I don’t have one,” she said with a defensive little shrug. “I was fostered with different families and did my childcare training as soon as I was eligible.”

She cast her eyes down to the tablecloth and he saw the spiky shadows of her long lashes on her cheeks. She’d tinted her eyelids a gentle shade of aqua. Make-up, or her own delicate blue veins?

“They arranged for me to live in a student hostel for a while, and then I went flatting with three other girls and worked in different homes in Wellington. Which is a beautiful city—built on hills all around a circular harbor with two quite big islands. But the harbor entrance can be dangerous for shipping when there’s a gale blowing—and there often is.” Her face softened, remembering. “I mostly tied my hair back, out of the wind.”

“I like it loose—as you have it tonight.”

He reached over and curled his fingers around and around one of the strands until she had either to lean close to him, or complain he was hurting. He kissed her softly on her cheekbone and released her just as slowly by letting her hair slide back through his fingers. Laurel drew away with a small sideways glance at him, confused as to whether she was supposed to stay close.

“And New Zealand?” he asked, as though the devastating caress had never happened. “I hear it’s very fertile.”

“A lot of grass,” she agreed faintly. “Millions of sheep. Lots of cows. Butter and cheese. Nothing like here at all. No sandy desert.”

Her descriptions came in the briefest bursts as she stumbled to find suitable words to describe her homeland. “Lovely beaches,” she added. “More coastline I think than anywhere else in the world.”

“But it is not a big country, surely?”

“Small. But long and thin. It must be ‘more coastline for its land area’, or something. Stop doing that...”

“Stop doing what? I’m doing nothing.” He set down his fork and looked innocently at his empty hands.

“Rubbing my ankle.”

“Like this?” he asked, increasing the pressure of his legs around hers.

“Yes. Stop it.”

“But you like it.”

“Yes. No. Not while I’m eating.”

“But you’re hardly eating at all, Laurel.” His voice was soft and amused.

“Because you’re doing that to my leg. It’s very distracting.”

“Rubbing your ankle is distracting?” His eyebrows lifted with a brief suggestive twitch. “What if I was rubbing you here?” One of his hands disappeared below the splendid table-top. “No!” she gasped, before his fingers had even made contact.

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Nowhere. Nowhere at all.”

“But that was such a definite ‘no’, you must have been imagining somewhere?”

She sat frozen, staring at him like an animal caught and held in a car’s headlights. His hand finally settled warmly on her knee, and his finger and thumb started making small circles through the slippery fabric of her skirt.

“No!” she groaned.

“Not there?” He licked the corner of his mouth. “Not good? Perhaps there’s too much of this in the way?” He started to draw her skirt upwards, gathering it slowly, slowly, into his palm.

Yasmina’s soft footfall approached down the hallway and he laughed at Laurel’s horrified expression and finally released the fabric.

The servant set down the next course and took their entree plates away.

What must she have thought, Laurel agonized? Surely she’d seen, even in the soft candle-light, that Rafiq’s arm had not been decently on top of the table? That it was most indecently underneath, doing heaven-knows-what? But maybe Yasmina was used to him bringing women here so he could flirt and make love to them in privacy?

She was already so warm and flushed that it didn’t seem possible to blush any hotter at that thought. And then his strong fingers resumed their slow circular massage—this time against her bare skin.

She forked up some pilaf from the plate in front of her, determined to show him his caresses were having no effect. No effect apart from causing her ears to buzz, and her eyes to glaze over, and her brain to turn to mush... No effect except raising the tiny hairs on her arms and neck so they quivered and prickled as though inviting his hands to smooth them down again...

He forked up some pilaf of his own and chewed, returning his eyes to hers as he ate.

“It’s good?” he asked.

“Delicious,” she confirmed, hoping he meant the food and fearing he did not.

His slight smile came again. His fork descended into his dinner and his fingers crept a short distance up her thigh and then down to her knee.

She almost grabbed them back.

“Please... don’t...” she said in a choked voice.

“But you said it was delicious?”

“Yasmina’s cooking...”

“Not what your body’s telling me, Laurel.” He licked the tines of his fork clean and reached across to scrape them gently over her nearest nipple—her very prominent aroused nipple which was all too visible through the flimsy lace of her half-cup bra and the shining blue fabric of her modestly-cut tunic.

She gave an involuntary gasp and squeezed her eyes shut. When she dared to open them, his smile was huge, and his hand had deserted her leg.

She watched in disbelief as he picked up his knife to cut through some meat. Her other nipple was feeling way left out of the game. And he was eating, unconcerned, as though it was all he’d ever had in mind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rafiq chewed and considered. Oh yes, she was a responsive little thing. He could make this very good for her—and therefore very good for himself as well. He’d give her a couple of minutes to wind down, and then he’d enjoy winding her up again. Winding her tighter this time. Winding her as tight as he was.

He watched as she dropped her gaze and made an effort with the food.

“Yasmina always prepares my favorite dishes when I visit”, he said. “We should reward such devotion with clean plates.”

Laurel nodded until she managed to swallow. “How often do you visit the lodge?” she asked, desperate to escape from the seductive cloud he’d created around them. “Where do you live otherwise?” Her legs still quaked and her peaked nipples still felt super-sensitive and wouldn’t be subsiding any time soon, but she was pleased she could at least talk some sort of sense.

“I have an apartment in the capital—Ai-Dubriz. I often work away from the city. Right out of Al Sounam, in fact. So I need somewhere that’s easy to come and go from.”

She tried to look as though this was fascinating news.

“I get to the lodge perhaps a day or two each month. Not often enough. But it’s a haven for me, as it was for my parents.”

She speared a cube of eggplant. “And you always pack a bag to bring here as though you’re a visitor? Surely you didn’t need to bring evening clothes.”

“I think I did. It makes an occasion of dinner. I knew you would be beautifully dressed. Undo some buttons for me, Laurel.”

It took a moment for her to register his lightning-fast change of subject.

“What?” she gasped.

“Undo some of the buttons. I want to see more of you.”

She sat, knife and fork in hand, unmoving.