The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus (6 page)

As was Xavier himself, Mariella decided as she took Fleur from him.

CHAPTER FIVE

G
ETTING
up from the bed where she had been lying reading one of the research books she had brought to Zuran with her, Mariella went to check on Fleur.

A brief glance at her watch showed her that it was nearly eight p.m. Fleur was awake but obviously quite content, and happy to oblige when Mariella checked her mouth to look at the small pearly white tooth just beginning to appear. Her face was still a little bit swollen and flushed, but the paracetamol seemed to have eased the pain she had suffered the previous night.

Mariella had retreated to ‘her bedroom’ late in the afternoon, desperate to escape from the highly charged atmosphere in the main living area.

It had become impossible for her to look at Xavier without imagining him as he had been earlier: naked...male.

He had retrieved the things she had carried out to the four-wheel drive and put them back in the bedroom, and when Mariella had come across a sketch-book and pencils she had forgotten she had brought, along with her book, she had fallen on the book with a surge of relief.

Apart from the fact that she genuinely found the subject interesting, it gave her a perfect excuse to distance herself from Xavier, who had been busily working on his laptop.

On the pretext of Fleur needing a nap she had come into the sleeping quarters and had remained there ever since.

A thorough understanding of anatomy was essential for any painter in her type of field, and she had quickly become totally engrossed in trying to trace the development of the modern-day racehorse from the original Arabian bloodstock.

As Kate had said, the potential commission from the prince was indeed a prestigious one.

Picking up her sketch-book, Mariella started to work. Those incredible muscles that powered every movement... Her pencil flew over the paper, her absorption in what she was doing only broken when Fleur started to demand her attention.

Smiling, she discarded the sketch-book and then frowned sharply as she looked at what she had done, her face burning mortifying and disbelieving scarlet.

How on earth had that happened? How on earth had she managed to sketch, not a horse, but a man... Xavier...Xavier, swimming, Xavier standing, Xavier: his body lean and naked, clean-muscled and powerful.

Guiltily, Mariella flipped over the page. Fleur was blowing kisses at her and becoming increasingly vociferous.

Tucking the sketch-pad safely out of sight, Mariella went to her and picked her up, fastening her into her car seat and then carrying her into the kitchen.

‘Look at this yummy dinner you’re going to have,’ Mariella crooned to Fleur as she prepared her food.

It had been her intention to take Fleur back into the bedroom to feed her, but instead Mariella carried her into the living area.

Fleur was Xavier’s daughter, after all, and perhaps they both needed reminding just what that meant, albeit for very different reasons! Perhaps too he ought to be made to see just what he was missing out on by not acknowledging her.

He was working on the laptop when Mariella walked in and put Fleur down in her seat so that she could feed her.

She was a strong, healthy baby with a good appetite, who thankfully no longer seemed to be too bothered by the tooth she had been cutting.

Absorbed in her own enjoyable task, Mariella didn’t realise that Xavier had stopped work to turn and study them until some sixth sense warned her that they were being watched.

His abrupt, ‘She has your nose,’ made Mariella’s hand tremble slightly. She and Tanya shared the same shaped nose, which they had both inherited from their mother. Fleur had their nose, but, according to Tanya, her father’s deliciously long thick eyelashes.

Mariella could feel her face starting to burn. What was it about a certain type of man that enabled him to behave so uncaringly towards the child he had fathered?

The way Xavier was behaving towards Fleur was so reminiscent of the way her father had behaved towards her! She knew all too well what it was like to grow up feeling rejected and unloved by one’s father and she couldn’t bear to see that happen to Fleur!

Xavier ought to be made to see that she was at least in part his responsibility instead of being allowed to just walk away from her. The way she felt had nothing whatsoever to do with money, Mariella recognised, and everything to do with emotion.

Fleur had finished her meal and was beginning to drift off to sleep. Bending down to double check that she was comfortably fastened into her seat, Mariella tenderly kissed her downy cheek, then straightened up and headed for the kitchen to wash out her feeding things.

Left on his own with Fleur, Xavier studied her frowningly. She was far fairer skinned than his cousin and, whilst Xavier could see an unmistakable physical resemblance to Mariella in her, he could see none to Khalid. Fast asleep now, Fleur gave a small quiver.

Immediately Xavier went over to her. Desert nights could be unbelievably cold—she felt warm enough, but perhaps she needed an extra cover?

He could hear Mariella in the kitchen and so he went through into the bedroom area, to get an extra blanket from the carry-cot.

Mariella had tucked her sketch-pad in between the carry-cot and the box of baby equipment, and as Xavier reached for a blanket he saw the sketch-pad, and its very recognisable sketches.

Frowning, he picked it up and studied it.

Having washed Fleur’s feeding cup, Mariella walked into the bedroom intending to put it away, coming to an abrupt halt as she saw Xavier bending towards the carry-cot.

‘Where is Fleur?’ she demanded immediately.
‘What—?’

‘She’s fast asleep where you left her,’ Xavier answered her adding, ‘From looking at her, it is plain to see her resemblance to you, but as to there being a similarity to her supposed father...’

Mariella had had enough.

‘How can you deny your own flesh and blood?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘I can’t imagine how
any
woman could ever desire you, never mind—’

Before she could say ‘Tanya’ he had cut her off as he asked with cutting brutality, ‘Indeed? Then, what may I ask, are these?’

Mariella felt the breath wheeze from her lungs like air squeezed from a pair of bellows as he held up in front of her her own sketches.

Chagrin, embarrassment, guilt and anger fused into one burning, searing jolt of emotional intensity had her lunging frantically towards him, intent on snatching her betraying sketches from him. But Xavier was withholding them from her, holding them out of her reach with one hand whilst he fended her attempt to repossess them with the other.

Furiously Mariella redoubled her efforts, flinging herself at him, and trying to shake off his hard grip of her wrist as she did so.

‘Give those back to me. They are mine,’ she insisted breathlessly.

As she tried to reach up for them she overbalanced slightly, her fingers curling into his arm, her fingernails accidentally raising livid weals on his olive skin.

‘Why, you little...’

Shocked as much by her own inadvertent action as his reaction to it, Mariella went stiff with disbelief as he suddenly dropped the sketches and grabbed hold of her waist with both hands.

‘Other men might have been willing to let you get away with such behaviour, but I most certainly do not intend to!’ She could hear Xavier grating at her as he gave her a small, angry shake.

Mariella could feel the edge of the bed behind her as she turned and twisted, frantically trying to break free, but Xavier was refusing to let her go and suddenly she was lying on the bed, with Xavier arching over her, pinning her down.

He was angry with her, Mariella recognised as she stared into the lava-grey heat of his eyes, but her senses were telling her something else as well and a savage little quiver then ran unmistakably through her own body as she realised that something else had nothing whatsoever to do with fear.

Xavier wanted her! Mariella could sense, feel it, breathe it in the sudden tension that filled the air, engulfing, locking them both in a place out of time.

This was fate, Xavier decided recklessly, a golden opportunity given to him to prove to his cousin beyond any shadow of a doubt that this woman was not worthy of his love, but, strangely, as he lowered his mouth to Mariella’s it wasn’t his duty towards his cousin that was filling his thoughts, driving him with an intense ferocity that a part of him recognised was more dangerous than anything he had previously experienced.

This was wrong, desperately wrong, the very worst kind of betrayal, Mariella acknowledged as her whole body was savaged by a mixture of anguish and hunger.

Xavier’s mouth burned hers, its possession every bit as harsh and demanding as she had expected, barely cloaking a hunger that scorched right through her body to her fingertips.

Helplessly her mouth responded to the savage demand of his, her body quivering as his tongue probed her closed lips demanding entry. Somehow, some time she had lifted her hands to his body so that she was gripping his shoulders. To push him away, or to draw him closer?

His teeth tugged ruthlessly at her bottom lip and her resistance ebbed away, like the inner tears of shame and guilt she was silently crying inside for her inability to resist giving in to flames of her own desire as they licked and darted inside her, burning down her pathetically weak defences. Without knowing how she knew, she knew that this man, this moment was something a part of her had been waiting for, for a very long time. Even the merciless intent of his sensual need was something that a part of her was fiercely responsive to.

Her eyes, magnificent in their emotional intensity, shimmered from turquoise to dark blue-green. Xavier was mesmerised by them, caught in their brilliance. How could such cool colours glow so hotly? But not nearly so hotly as his own body.

Without knowing what she was doing, Mariella raked the taut flesh of his arm—deliberately this time—her body galvanised by deep, urgent shudders as his kiss possessed her mouth, his tongue thrusting into its warm softness.

Mariella tried to deny what she was feeling, pulling frantically away from Xavier, in a desperate attempt to escape and to save them both from the very worst kind of betrayal, but having shared her surrender Xavier refused to let her go, pinning her to the bed with the weight of his body hot and heavy on hers, making her melt, making her ache, making her writhe in helpless supplication and moan into his mouth, a tiny keening sound lost beneath the greater sounds of their bodies moving on the bed. The rustle and rasp of fabric against flesh, of two people both revealing their hunger in the accelerated sound of their breathing, and the frantic thud of their heartbeats.

Xavier’s mouth grazed her skin, exploring the curve of her jaw, the soft vulnerability of her throat as she automatically arched her whole body. The hot, fevered feel of his mouth against her flesh made her arch even more, shuddering in agonised pleasure.

Just a few kisses, that was all it was... And yet she felt as possessed by him, as aching for him as though he had touched her far more intimately and for far, far longer. The desire she was feeling was so acute, so very nearly unbearable, that Mariella dared not allow herself to imagine how she was going to feel when he did touch her more intimately. And yet at the same time she knew that if he didn’t—

When his hand covered her breast she cried out, unable to stop herself, and felt his responding groan shudder through his body. She could hear herself making small, whimpering sounds of distress as she tugged at his clothes, her own body consumed by a need to be completely bare to his touch, to be open to him...

And yet when he had finally removed them and she was naked, a sense of panic that was wholly primitive and instinctive ripped through her, causing her to go to cover her naked breasts protectively with her own hands. But Xavier was too quick for her, his fingers snapping round her wrists, pinioning her hands to either side of her head as he knelt over her.

Mariella felt the heavy thread of her own hungry desire. She just had time to see the molten glitter of Xavier’s answering hunger before he looked down at her exposed breasts. A sinful desire slid hotly through her veins, her face burning as she watched him absorbing the taut swell of her breasts as her nipples tightened and darkened, openly inciting the need she could hear and feel in his indrawn breath, even before he lowered his head to her body.

The feeling of him slowly circling first one and then the other nipple with the moist heat of his tongue, whilst she lay powerless beneath him, should surely have inflamed her angry independence instead of sending such a sheet of white-hot sensuality pouring through her that her belly automatically concaved under its pressure whilst her sex ached and swelled.

Mariella closed her eyes. Behind her closed eyelids she could see him as she had done in the oasis, just as she wanted to see him again now, she recognised as her body began to shudder. Slow, deep, galvanic surges of desire that ripped rhythmically through her, her body moving to the suckle of his mouth against her breast.

She could feel his knee parting her thighs her body already aching for the aroused feel of him, hot, heavy, masculine as he urgently moved against her.

* * *

H
E
WAS
LOSING
himself, drowning in the way she was making him feel, his self-control in danger of being burned away to nothing. Just the sight of her swollen breasts, their nipples tight and aroused from his laving of them, made him ache to possess her, to complete and fill her, to complete himself within her.

The moment Xavier released her wrists, Mariella tugged impatiently at his clothes, answering her demanding need for him. Immediately Xavier helped her, guiding her hands over buttons and zips and then flesh itself as she moaned her pleasure against the hot skin of his throat when her fingertips finally tangled with the soft, silky hair she had ached to touch earlier.

His body, packed hard with muscle, was excitingly alien and overpoweringly male. His impatience to be a part of her made her gasp and shudder as he kissed her throat, her shoulder and then her mouth, whilst he wrapped her tightly in his arms so that they were lying intimately, naked body to naked body.