The Desert Prince's Mistress (7 page)

She remembered the first time she had seen Khalim and had almost melted into a puddle on the floor. Was she just one of those women who were suckers for arrogant and exotic-looking men who seemed to make most normal men look like a pale imitation of the real thing?

Darian sensed her reservations melting away and smiled lazily as he ran his hand down over her stomach, which curved faintly beneath the clinging cream fabric of her dress, and then down further still, until it edged up beneath the thin material. He splayed his fingers with arrogant possession over the space of cool flesh above her stocking top and Lara felt her thighs part, as if no power on earth could have stopped them.

‘You
do
like it,’ he purred approvingly, and the pad of his thumb stroked the silken flesh there. He felt her squirm, enjoying the look of helpless pleasure which made her lips form a disbelieving little Oh!

She tried one last, futile time. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she protested half-heartedly.

‘Want me to stop?’ This as his fingertips floated tantalisingly close to the moist, filmy barrier of her panties, and she shook her head distractedly.

‘No!’

He kissed her, and his words were muffled against her lips. ‘You just want me to know that you aren’t in the habit of leaping into bed on a first date, is that it?’

Lara felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Well, I’m not—’

‘And neither am I,’ he murmured silkily. ‘So we’re equal, aren’t we?’

If only he knew!

‘And now that we’ve established that…’ He pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her—only this time he
really
kissed her, deep, searching seeking kisses, which dissolved away everything but the need to be joined with him.

‘Darian,’ she moaned weakly as he started to unbutton her dress, little by little, bit by bit, lowering his head so that where his fingers led his mouth followed, annointing her skin with gentle kisses which made her squirm with pleasure. He slipped the dress from her shoulders and it slid away unnoticed, so that she was lying there in a tiny cream bra and knickers, her stockings and black leather boots.

Darian sucked in a hot, ragged breath. Women only ever wore undergarments like that if they were expecting to be seduced. This was what she wanted. What she had obviously expected. The heat built up inside him. ‘Undress me,’ he urged. ‘Take my clothes off, Lara.’

But Lara felt almost kittenish in her helplessness. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of his shirt until he made a low sound that was halfway between a groan and a laugh and tipped her chin up with his fingertip, unbearably ex
cited by the beguiling contrast beween wanton abandon and a kind of sweet shyness.

‘Your hands are shaking,’ he said gravely.

Her whole body was shaking—surely he could see that?

‘Yes.’

He pulled at his shirt with a hunger so sharp he scarcely recognised it. What invisible buttons was she pressing? he wondered distractedly as he yanked it off and impatiently threw it aside.

She saw the tension on his face and managed to undo his belt, but he unzipped his trousers himself, as though not trusting her to do so. Her lips were parched with both fear and excitement as the last of his clothing was removed, and she gave an instinctive sigh as she feasted her eyes on him.

His body was as beautiful as she had known it would be—his skin the colour of deep honey, his limbs long and lean and strong. And he was very, very aroused…

He ran a slow finger over her leather boot and up along her thigh, and felt her shudder in response. ‘Do you want to wrap these round my back?’ he whispered.

It was one of those questions which told her exactly what the score was. A deliberate and studied celebration of sensuality and nothing more than that. But Lara was too much in thrall to back out now—and what reason could she possibly give? That she was afraid he was going to hurt her as no man had ever hurt her before nor would again?

Instead, she reached her arms up to pull him close, and as he lowered his body down onto hers she had the strangest feeling of inevitability—as though this moment had been determined from the first time she had set eyes on him, as though her life would somehow be incomplete without this.

‘Wait!’ he commanded, and reached down to pull a packet of condoms from the pocket of his trousers.

‘I’m…I’m on the Pill,’ she said, her voice shy, which in itself was madness in view of the intimacy of their naked bodies.

Golden eyes glittered. ‘Let’s just be sure, shall we?’ he murmured, and slid one on.

Lara felt heat suffuse her cheeks. He was only being safe and sensible, the way she would have wanted and expected him to be, but it made her feel as if this was just…mechanical instead of special. Part of her wanted to pull her clothes back on and run away, but he had started to kiss her again, and the sweetness of his lips made flight impossible and unwanted.

‘Lara!’ Darian groaned as the hard, flat planes of his body met her moist and giving heat, bending his mouth to hers. Their lips met and fused and a strange warmth filled him. What the hell was she
doing
? What game was she playing that could have him feeling like this?

All she was doing was holding him in her arms, her hips rising up as if to invite him inside, and suddenly he knew he could wait no longer.

The last of her doubts fled as she felt him tremble because helplessness in such a strong man could be very potent. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, as if she had read his mind. ‘Oh, yes.’ But he was already entering her, plunging deep, deep inside her, and she gasped with delighted pleasure.

He heard the sound she made and felt a wild and exultant kind of joy, steadying himself as he began to move. She moved in harmony with him, and he watched the rapture flower and bloom on her face.

Lara’s breath caught in her throat. It had never been like this. Never. So… Her eyes snapped open and she saw the dark and golden man who moved above her with such
sweet and piercing precision. How could she be this close? This soon? This…?

‘Darian!’ It was a sigh and a cry laced with a sense of wonder.

But he was a silent lover. There was no response at all bar the silken touch of his skin and the feel of him moving inside her—the sudden brilliant gleam from his eyes was the only sign that he had heard her. She had to bite back words of passion, because even though they were joined so intimately there were some things you didn’t do. And telling a man like Darian that you thought he was the most wonderful lover was one of them. And then she was past thought…past caring…

Holding back until he thought it might kill him, he looked down and watched her until the instinctive and frantic arching of her back set him free. He let his seed spill into her with a spasm of pleasure which seemed to go on and on and on, and when it was over he felt as though she had robbed him of something. Taken something from him which he had not been ready to give.

They lay there, spent, in shuddering silence for a moment or two, and a tiny sigh escaped from her lips.

‘Oh, Darian,’ she whispered, and, turning her head, she kissed his shoulder. But he didn’t move, didn’t answer, just lay there like a statue made of flesh and bone and blood—and that was when the doubts came flooding back, startling her out of her post-coital haze, and she closed her eyes in despair.

What had she
done
?

Lara knew that regret was a waste of time emotion, but it washed over her in a great wave, leaving her shivering and cold in its wake. What in God’s name had she been thinking of? To have sex with a man so quickly—and not just any man—
this
man. And she still hadn’t asked him the most important question of all.

She licked her dry, parched lips. ‘Darian?’

Darian gazed at the ceiling. Usually he felt restless, not dazed like this. He would jump up, make coffee, perhaps play a little music. Indulge in physical activity which put a distance between him and a woman, and that was the way he liked it. A bout of sensational sex should be seen in context, as nothing more nor less than just that.

But tonight felt different. His limbs didn’t want to move and sleep was tempting his heavy eyes as his heart slowed into a regular pounding beat. It was as if he’d landed in a warm, safe place and didn’t want to leave it.

He fought it, and yawned. He would offer to take her home now. It was always the acid-test—how the woman reacted. Like a cool, emotionally independent woman or like a clinging little girl. The moment you let a woman stay the night she started moving in her toothbrush and leaving pairs of panties around the place—marking her territory. Though when he stopped to think about it he wouldn’t mind the tiny little scraps of nonsense which Lara wore lying
anywhere.
In fact, he’d preferably like her wearing them, so that he could slowly remove them and…

‘Darian?’ Lara said again, as she felt him begin to harden against her, and she wondered if he could hear the worry in her voice.

‘Mmm?’ He had been about to pull her into his arms again, but something in her question, something in her body language made him tense, and instinctively his features became shuttered. ‘Yes, Lara?’

She sensed just as much as she saw his mental retreat. It was there in the yawn, the way he hadn’t been tender, or kissed the top of her head, or told her that it had been amazing. But there were still things she needed to know. She had allowed herself to be seduced, and in so doing she had momentarily veered off course, but she needed to know one thing above all else.

‘How old are you?’

Darian was rarely surprised by a woman, particularly after he had just had sex with her; women tended to be predictable in their reactions to fast physical intimacy—they either acted as if you were about to start choosing the ring, or they started asking unanswerable questions like, Do you still respect me? But this was the last question he had been expecting.

Was it a Why aren’t you married yet? kind of question? And would other inevitable questions follow—like why had he never settled down before and didn’t he ever want children? The last drop of pleasure evaporated in an instant, like rain splashing onto a sunbaked pavement. ‘Thirty-five. Why?’

She felt the walls close in, and it had nothing to do with the odd, cold note which had entered his voice.

Thirty-five!

Which made him exactly the same age as Khalim. Or, rather, it probably made him
older
—because surely Khalim’s father would not have had a lover straight after he was married? And the repercussions of
that
just didn’t bear thinking about.

Suddenly something which had been almost abstract was brought into harsh and painful reality, and she knew that this was a responsibility too much to bear alone.

She had to tell someone, but it could not be Darian.

Not yet.

She ran her fingertips over his chest, her blood running icy-cold in her veins.

‘I think I’d better go home now,’ she said.

He only just resisted a sigh of relief. ‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll get dressed and then I’ll drive you.’

‘I can get a taxi.’

‘I
said
I’d take you,’ he said, in a tone which broached no argument.

Lara thought that she would have preferred to take a cab, alone with the reality of what a huge mistake she had just made.

Because the fact that he hadn’t tried to talk her out of leaving told its own story.

T
HERE
was a click on the line and Lara waited, as she had been waiting on and off for the past two days—but of course it was never going to be an easy matter to get through to Prince Khalim of Maraban. Despite the fact that phone lines to the mountain kingdom were notoriously unreliable, and the fact that she counted herself as his friend, Lara was pragmatic enough to realise that no one ever really became close to such a powerful and enigmatic figure. Certainly not close enough to just pick the phone up, get connected immediately and say Hi!

And she still hadn’t worked out exactly what she was going to say to him when he finally answered anyway.

‘Hello?’

It was unmistakably Khalim’s voice—deep, with the slightest accent. And—Lara didn’t know whether she was being simply fanciful—didn’t its deepness and richness remind her of Darian’s voice?

‘Khalim?’

‘Hello, Lara.’

He sounded wary, and Lara couldn’t blame him. He was married to her best friend Rose, and loved her with a fierce and unremitting passion, but he had spent his life being propositioned and pursued by countless other women. Why wouldn’t he be suspicious that Lara had decided to contact him in a way which had been specifically meant to exclude Rose?

‘I know you’re probably wondering why on earth I’m ringing you, and I hardly know how to begin.’

He made no helpful sound. There was merely silence
from the other end of the phone. It would have been better to tell him this face to face—but he was hardly going to jump on a plane to England on her say-so, just as she was hardly likely to fly to Maraban at a moment’s notice.

‘Khalim, you know I was working at the Embassy while someone was off sick?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Well…well, one morning this…this letter arrived.’ Lara began to speak, scarcely knowing what it was that she said, because the words seemed to come tumbling out of their own accord and she realised just how much she must have bottled it all up. It was incredible, but as the story unfolded it began to sound more real. She told him that she had found Darian, and that she had met him, deliberately and blushingly skating over the graphic details of their meeting.

‘And that’s it, really,’ she finished, and the sense of a burden shared gave her a brief feeling of lightness. ‘I’m sure that this man Darian Wildman is your half-brother.’

There was a short silence. She could imagine Khalim turning the incredible words over and over in his mind, choosing his own answering words carefully, as he always did—because men like Khalim could not risk misinterpretation, not even by friends.

When he spoke there was no emotion in his voice. ‘You cannot be certain of this, Lara.’

‘I know. I only know what I’ve found.’ She paused. ‘He…he looks like you.’

This time there
was
a reaction.

‘But he is half-English, you say?’

‘Yes, he is.’ Lara closed her eyes as she remembered the golden eyes and the dark and tawny body, that autocratic air and undeniable sense of solitude which Khalim always carried about him, which Darian shared. ‘But he is
unmistakably related to you,’ she finished softly. ‘I am convinced of that.’

Khalim said something rapid in Marabanese.

‘He could be a clever fraud,’ he bit out. ‘An impostor.’

‘How can he be? He knows nothing of the claim,’ argued Lara. ‘Nor anything of the letter.’

‘You hinted at nothing?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Why, Lara?’ asked Khalim softly. ‘Why did you say nothing to this man of such a momentous discovery?’

‘Because…because…’ Her words trailed off as she recognised that a kind of betrayal had occurred—but surely an inevitable one? ‘Because my first loyalty is to you.’

‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘The question is what we do about it now.’

‘Some people might ignore it. Throw the letter away and pretend it never happened. Carry on just as before.’

‘Could you ignore it, Lara?’

Doubt and uncertainty prevailed. Her body still ached from Darian’s lovemaking, her senses were still full of him, her mind unable to banish the image of his hard, mocking mouth softened by her kisses.

‘If you asked me to, then I suppose—’

‘No!’ He cut into her troubled words. ‘Your hesitation does you credit. I would not ask you to ignore it, nor could I ignore it myself—for the hand of fate is at work here. Predestination,’ he mused. ‘Sometimes friend and sometimes foe, but unable to be ignored or avoided. We cannot pretend something has not happened because something has—and because of it—things are for ever changed.’

‘Y-yes,’ said Lara falteringly, and she felt the strangest feeling of foreboding tiptoeing its way up her spine as she repeated his words. ‘For ever changed.’

There was a short silence, and then, unexpectedly, he asked, ‘Do you like him, Lara?’

Lara stared straight ahead. ‘Like’ him? Like did not seem to be a verb that one would apply naturally to a man like Darian Wildman. It seemed much too bland an assessment. And how could she possibly be objective about a man who had been the most wonderful lover she had ever encountered and yet also the most unsatisfactory? But it had only been unsatisfactory from an emotional point of view, and she had only herself to blame. You should not fall headlong into the arms of a man if you could not cope with the fact that he might reject you.

For there had been no word from Darian—not since he had dropped her off at her apartment two nights ago and dropped a perfunctory kiss on her lips that had felt as cold as ice, as different from his hot-blooded kisses when he was making love to her as it was possible to imagine.

But he wasn’t making love to you
, said that same, cruel voice which had been tormenting her non-stop.
He was simply having sex with you.

‘I’ll give you a ring,’ he had said, but it had sounded casual, and she suspected that he had intended it to do so. He had waited until she was safely inside her front door and then driven off, his powerful car sounding like a fighter jet as it had roared away.

Lara had hoped—like a foolish holder-on to romantic dreams—that perhaps he might have rung her first thing the next morning, told her that it had been beautiful and that he wished he was waking up next to her. Except she suspected that both those things would have been a lie, and something deep down told her that Darian Wildman might be all kinds of things a woman should steer clear of, but dishonest was not one of them. He would speak the truth, she recognised painfully, no matter how much that truth might hurt.

‘I hardly know him,’ she answered now, and her own honesty had the power to hurt, too.

She still didn’t quite believe that she had let him make love to her so quickly. Lara was no prude, but she worked in an industry which was notorious for its fickle sexual values, and up until now she had always fiercely guarded her reputation. Her lovers had been few, and not one of them had lived up to her unrealistically high expectations—until now. But there again never before had she allowed herself to be seduced with such ease, and then to experience such intense and unforgettable pleasure in the arms of a man she barely knew.

So what did that say about
her
? Maybe she was one of those people who could only be physically fulfilled if there was no true and lasting intimacy. Just like Darian, she recognised, with a sudden sinking sense of insight.

‘Lara,’ said Khalim urgently, ‘I will have to meet him.’

‘But how? And, more importantly, where?’

‘Rose is pregnant,’ Khalim said thoughtfully. ‘And must not be worried. If Darian were brought out to Maraban—’

‘Khalim,’ Lara interrupted, completely forgetting that he was not used to being interrupted, ‘I don’t think you quite understand—he isn’t the sort of man who could be brought anywhere, not unless he was in full agreement.’ A bit like you, she wanted to add, except that it was glaringly obvious. ‘And what are you going to do? Ring him up and mention that you might be related and would he please fly out to Maraban so that you can check him out?’

‘Then I will have to come to London,’ said Khalim slowly. ‘And you must arrange for me to meet him, Lara.’

But how? thought Lara as she slowly put the receiver down.

Especially if she didn’t hear from him.

Which was kind of defining her as a self-made victim, surely? She had been intimate with the man—didn’t that give her the right to telephone him?

She knew that in situations like this there were subtle
games played between the sexes, and that the man always liked to feel as though he was the one doing the hunting, but wasn’t she in danger of forgetting the bigger picture?

This wasn’t about her and Darian and a relationship which seemed to have started and ended on his leather sofa—it was about his ancestry, and Khalim’s.
She
had been the one to let her emotions get in the way, to fall for him, but none of that was relevant.

That was when she realised that she didn’t have his home telephone number, nor even his mobile—which left his business. She was going to have to ring him up at work.

And what if…what if he didn’t want to speak to her?

You cross that bridge when you come to it, she told herself, though her heart was beating frantically as she dialled the number and asked his assistant if he was free.

Another click.

‘Darian Wildman.’

Her heart began to pound. ‘Darian? It’s Lara. Lara Black.’

Darian raised his eyebrows fractionally when he heard her voice. He had been thinking about her and deciding when to call her again. In fact, he had been thinking about her a lot. It had been a pretty amazing evening all round, but something about it had made him wary. And so had she.

It had all been too…too easy, in a way. That wasn’t unusual, but it had not been what he had instinctively expected from Lara. Something about it had not seemed all it should be, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. But it seemed that Lara Black was liberated and bold enough to ring
him
.

He gave a faint smile. ‘Hello, Lara,’ he said smoothly. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m…’ I’m almost spitting with rage at such cavalier treatment after such an intimate evening, if you must
know—but you won’t know, because I would never give you the pleasure of telling you, and if it weren’t for this whole Maraban business I wouldn’t ever see or speak to you again, that’s how I am.

That was what she
felt
like saying.

‘I’m fine,’ she murmured instead. She paused, hating the words she knew she must say next and giving him the opportunity to say them first. But he didn’t. ‘I was wondering whether I could see you.’

Frankly, he was surprised. She was far too lovely to be chasing after men. Yet he could hear some suppressed emotion in her voice and knew he wasn’t being fair to her. Nor, he thought, with a sudden aching memory, to himself. ‘That would be lovely.’ He paused and his voice softened just as his body began to grow hard. ‘I enjoyed our evening together very much.’

Lara felt indignant, filled with a sudden sense of impotence that she was having to put herself in the humiliating position of ringing
him,
seeming as if she was desperate to see him. And aren’t you? mocked a voice inside her head. Aren’t you?

She set her mouth into a determined line. No, she wasn’t. She rated pride far more highly than desire, and this incident with Darian had taught her a salutary lesson. Never again would she allow herself to be carried away by the needs of her body, allow herself to believe that they were the clamourings of the heart.

But she had to see him. This wasn’t just a boy-meets-girl scenario; it was a whole lot more. She had set into motion a chain of events, and now it had gathered momentum and taken on a life of its own. She had no part in all this now other than to set up a meeting between Darian and Khalim.

‘Yes,’ she said softly, closing her eyes and imagining that she was playing the part of a sophisticated woman of
the world, used to dealing with the fallout from such casual, passionate dalliances. ‘I enjoyed it, too.’

He pictured the soft rose-white skin and the sparkling blue eyes, the gentle swell of her breasts, and all his vague misgivings fell by the wayside as he experienced an overpowering urge to see her again. He felt the hot, hard physical jerk of desire.

‘So when?’ he asked huskily.

She opened her eyes and glanced down at what she had scribbled on a piece of paper. The times and the dates when Khalim could practically and realistically be in London in person. ‘Next week?’ she questioned. ‘Say, Friday?’

Darian’s eyes narrowed at her unexpected response. Friday? He hadn’t imagined that she would be so upfront as to say tonight, or even tomorrow night—but next
week
?

The instincts of the hunter in him were aroused. ‘You can’t make it any sooner than that?’

She knew that she was playing this game well—too well, she thought bitterly—and that if she had suggested sooner then a bored note would have entered his arrogant voice.

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she said regretfully.

‘So where shall we meet?’ he demanded.

‘Would you like to come to the flat? Say, lunchtime?’

Lunchtime? Maybe she would be alone in the flat, with Jake Haddon away somewhere. A small smile of anticipation curved his lips as he flicked a glance at his diary and saw that he was busy. He scored through the appointments with a single stroke of his pen and added the words ‘cancel them’ for his secretary. ‘Sure,’ he said smoothly. ‘That sounds okay. About noon?’

‘Noon is fine.’ Lara swallowed, suddenly feeling assailed by nerves. ‘I’ll see you then.’

The week passed by in a curious state where time seemed either to be suspended in a state of utter unreality or to
pass in a flurry of high-level communication with Maraban. Lara had the letter itself flown out to Khalim, and he acknowledged it in a telephone call, his voice sounding cool and thoughtful.