Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh's Last Gamble», sayfa 2

Just the sight of him was enough to make her heartbeat skip and her skin tingle while she sensed a pooling heat building between her thighs. She cursed her body’s wayward reaction and wished she could look away. Damn the man! When would she ever be able to look at him and not think of sex? After all the things he had said to her, after the way they had parted, after all the years that separated them, still he conjured pictures of tangled sheets, tangled limbs and long, hot nights filled with sin.

Then again, how was it possible not to think of sex when it was some kind of god that filled your vision? Was there some kind of formula for masculine perfection; some ratio of leg-length to height or shoulder-width to hip? Some magic number that nature had allocated at conception that marked a man for physical supremacy?

If so, this man was it, and that was just the view of his back.

He turned then, as the attendant ushered her to the seat across the aisle, and the blast of resentment in his eyes made her catch her breath and forget all about magic numbers.

‘Bahir,’ she uttered in acknowledgement.

‘Princess,’ he said sharply on a nod before he returned his attention to sorting through the rack. She was amazed he’d managed to pry his jaw apart enough to form the word, it had been so firmly set.

The cabin attendant chatted cheerily while she settled Marina into her wide leather seat, but Marina caught not a word of it, too consumed by Bahir’s reaction, too stunned to think about anything else.

So that was what she would get—the silent treatment.

Clearly Bahir was as resentful of being in her company as she was being in his. Equally clearly, he was in no mood for small talk.

Which suited her just fine.

So long as she could eventually find the words to tell him he was a father.

He tried to focus on the business magazine he’d selected from the rack but the words were meaningless scrawl, the article indecipherable, and he tossed it aside. Hopeless. It was no different from the online journal he’d been reading since he’d boarded the jet in Nice, his attention riveted not by the words he was attempting to read but by a simmering resentment that bubbled faster and more furious the closer the plane got to Al-Jirad. Why the hell had he agreed to this again? He still wasn’t sure he had agreed. But Zoltan had called and said she’d agreed to go with him and he knew he would have looked weak if he’d refused again.

Much better to look like it didn’t matter a bit.

Except that it did.

Because right now, as the attendant stowed Marina’s hand luggage and made her comfortable, and as he tried to pretend she wasn’t there, his focus was still held captive by the images captured on his retinas—those damned eyes, her pupils large, catlike and seductive. The jut of her collarbones in the vee of the open neck of the fitted ruffled shirt that flirted over her curves, and the jewel-studded belt hugging her swaying hips.

He growled, his nostrils flaring. He picked up his laptop again, determined not to give in, trying to find focus instead of distraction. Because, if it wasn’t enough that his mind was filled with images of her, now he could smell her. He remembered that scent, a blend of jasmine, frangipani and warm, wanton woman. He remembered the taste of it on her glistening, sweat-slickened skin. He remembered pressing his face to the curve of her throat and drinking it in as he plunged into her sweet depths.

He shifted in his seat and slammed the computer shut as the plane started to taxi to the runway. How long was the flight to Pisa—three hours? Four? He growled again.

Too long, however long it took.

How did you find the words to tell someone he was a father? Not easily, especially when that man sat across the aisle from you, rumbling and growling like a dark thundercloud. Any moment she expected to see lightning bolts issuing from his head.

And that was before she had managed to find the words.

What was she supposed to say? Excuse me, Bahir, but did I ever tell you about our son? Or, Congratulations, Bahir. You’re a father, to a three-year-old boy. It must have somehow slipped my mind …

The plane came to a halt at the start of the runway and she glanced across the aisle to where he sat, his posture closed off, his expression grim. Even though she let her gaze linger, even though she was sure he would be aware, still he refused to look her way.

And she wondered how, even if she could find the words, was she supposed to tell him about his child when he wouldn’t even look at her?

Did he hate her that much?

How much more would he hate her when he learned the truth?

The engines whined, preparing for take-off, echoing her own nerves, spun tight by his presence, and spun even tighter by the search for the words to tell him.

She closed her eyes and let the jet’s acceleration push her deeper into her seat, forcing herself to relax as the whine became a scream and then a roar as the plane launched itself and speared into the sky.

It wasn’t as though there was a rush. They had four hours of flight time and then a two-hour drive to her home in the most northern reaches of Tuscany. Why tell him now and spoil the fragile if tense cease-fire that seemed to exist between them? For he would not remain silent once he knew. He would be intolerable. Perhaps with a measure of justification. Still, why make their hours together more difficult than they already were?

No, there was plenty of time to tell him.

Later.

They were an hour into their flight when they were given the news. One hour of interminable and excruciating silence, filled with the static of all the things that were left unsaid, until the air in the cabin fairly crackled with the tension, a silence punctuated only when the smiling flight attendant came to top up their drinks or offer refreshments.

But this time she had the co-pilot with her and neither of them was smiling.

‘So fly around it,’ Bahir said after they’d delivered their grim message, too impatient for this trip to be over to tolerate delays, whatever the reason.

‘That’s not possible,’ the co-pilot explained. ‘The storm cell is tracking right into our path. And the danger is we could ice up if we try to go over. The aviation authorities are ordering everyone out of the area.’

‘So what does that mean?’ Marina asked. ‘We can’t get to Pisa at all?’

‘Not just yet. We’re putting down at the nearest airport that can take us. We’ll be beginning our descent soon. Just be prepared as we skirt the edges of this thing that it could get a bit rough. You might want to keep your seatbelts fastened.’

Bahir usually had no trouble sitting. He could sit for hours at a stretch when his luck was with him and the spinning ball might have been his to command. But right now he couldn’t sit still a moment longer.

He was up and out of his seat the moment they’d gone. God, if it wasn’t enough that he had to spend six hours in her company, now he would be forced to spend even more time. He raked clawed fingers through his hair. And with her sitting there, her legs tucked up beneath her and those eyes—those damned eyes—looking like an invitation to sin.

‘The co-pilot suggested keeping your seatbelt fastened.’

He ignored her as much as it was possible to do. That was the problem with planes, he realised. There was not enough room to pace and to distance yourself from the thing that was bugging you, and right now he sorely needed to pace and find distance from the woman who was bugging him.

Besides, any possible turbulence outside the plane was no match for what was going on inside him. He turned and strode back the other way, covering the length of the cabin in a dozen purposeful but ultimately futile strides, for there was no easing of the tightness in his gut, no respite.

Suddenly he understood how a captive lion felt, boxed and caged and unable to find a way out no matter how many times it turned to retrace its steps, no matter how hard it searched.

‘The co-pilot said—’

‘I know what he said!’ he spat, not needing input from the likes of her.

‘Oh, good. Because I thought maybe you’d developed a hearing problem. I should have realised it was a problem with your powers of comprehension.’

‘Oh, I’ve got a problem all right, and it begins and ends with you.’

She blinked up at him, feigning innocence. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

Suddenly the turbulence inside him exploded. He wheeled around and clamped his hands on the arms of the chair either side of her, his face occupying the space hers had been just moments before. He almost grunted his satisfaction, because he liked the way she’d jumped and pressed herself as far back as she could in the chair. He liked knowing he’d taken her by surprise. And, strangely, he liked knowing she wasn’t as unaffected by his presence as she made out. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

Inches from his own, those rich caramel eyes opened wide enough until they were big enough to lose yourself in. He watched them, knowing the dangers, watching their swirling depths as she tried to come up with an answer. He’d lost himself in those eyes once before, lost himself in their promises and their persuasion. But that was before, and for all their seductive power he sure as hell wouldn’t let that happen again, no matter what pleasures they promised.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He shook his head, not believing. ‘Then maybe I should spell it out for you. I’m talking about being stuck here—you and me. I expressly told Zoltan I wouldn’t do this. I told him there was no way you would agree. And yet here we find ourselves, together. How did that happen, do you suppose? Unless you agreed to it. And I have to ask myself, what possible reason could you have for doing that? What were you thinking?’

She tried to hide her nervous swallow, but he missed nothing of the tiny tilt of her chin and the movement in her throat. He had trained himself to spot the tiniest shift in facial expression or body language of his opponents, a skill that had stood him in good stead through many a poker game. He knew she was hiding something. Did she imagine that there was a chance for them again? Did she think that, because he’d accompanied Zoltan and the others to Mustafa’s camp, it meant something? That he was ready to take her back?

She looked up at him, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘You think I really want to be here, imprisoned thousands of feet above the earth with you and your black mood?’

Her words were no kind of answer, and he would have told her, only he was suddenly distracted by a stray strand of hair that looped close to the corner of one of those eyes. ‘Somebody must have agreed,’ he rumbled as he raised one hand. ‘And it sure as hell wasn’t me.’ She flinched as his fingers neared, holding her breath as he gently swept the hair back, surprised when he felt a familiar tremor under her skin, disturbed even more when he felt a corresponding sizzle under his own.

Abruptly he pushed himself away and stood with his back to her, rubbing his hands together to rid himself of the unwelcome sensation. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got better things to do than waste my time babysitting a spoilt princess?’

‘I absolutely agree,’ she said behind him. ‘I’m quite sure there’s a casino just waiting to be fleeced by the famous Sheikh of Spin. I can’t imagine how you managed to drag yourself away.’

His hands stilled. He didn’t need any reminders of why he wasn’t still at the roulette table. He turned slowly. ‘Be careful, princess.’

She jerked up her chin. ‘That’s the second time you’ve addressed me by my title. Is it so long that you’ve forgotten my name? Or can you just not bring yourself to utter it?’

‘Is it so long that you’ve forgotten that I said I never wanted to see you again?’

‘Maybe you should have thought of that before you turned up outside my tent that night.’

‘Is that what this is about? Why should that change anything? Or were you merely hoping to thank me?’

‘Thank you? For what?’

‘For rescuing you from Mustafa.’

‘Oh, you kid yourself, Bahir. You weren’t there for me. You were along for the ride, only there to have fun with your band of merry men. A little boys’ own adventure to whet your taste for excitement. So don’t expect me to get down on bended knees to thank you.’

A sudden memory of her on bended knee assailed him, temporarily shorting his brain, just as her mouth and wicked tongue had done back then. Not that she’d been thanking him exactly that time. More like tasting him. Laving him with her tongue. Devouring him. In fact, if he remembered correctly, he’d been the one to thank her …

He shook his head, wondering if he would ever be rid of those images, knowing he would miss them in the dead of sleepless nights if they were gone. But that minor concession didn’t mean he welcomed their presence now while he was trying to make a point. ‘I wouldn’t want your thanks anyway. If I did anything that night, it was out of loyalty to Zoltan and my brothers. It was duty, nothing more.’

‘How very noble of you.’

‘I don’t care what you call it. Just don’t go thinking that I’ve changed my mind about what I said back then. You’d be kidding yourself if you did. What we had is over.’

‘You really think you have to tell me that? I have no trouble remembering what you said. Likewise, I have no trouble believing you mean it now, just as you meant it then. And, for the record, it is you who are kidding yourself if you think I am insane enough to want you to change your mind. After what you said to me, after the way you treated me, I wouldn’t take you back if you were the last man left on earth!’

He sat back down in his seat. ‘So we understand each other, this is merely duty. Of the most unpleasant kind.’

Her eyes glared across at him as he buckled up. ‘Finally you say something I can agree with.’

Her agreement offered no satisfaction. His mood only mirrored the darkening sky as the plane descended judderingly through the clouds, icy rain clawing at the windows, the tempestuous winds tearing at the wings—and a sick feeling in his gut that, whatever the weather, things were not about to improve.

CHAPTER THREE

THE plane touched down somewhere on the coast of western Turkey at a small airport not far from where the rocky shoreline met the sea. It was almost dark now, although still only mid-afternoon, and they emerged from the plane into a howling wind that tore at their clothes and sucked the words from their mouths. A waiting car whisked Marina and Bahir through the immigration formalities before surprising Marina by heading away from the airport.

She flicked her windswept hair back from her face and looked longingly back at the airport. ‘Shouldn’t we stay with the plane?’ she asked, concerned. ‘So we’re ready to take off when the weather clears?’

Was it the lashing from the rain that had eroded her harsh demeanour and left her softer, almost vulnerable? Whatever. With her long black hair in wild disarray around her face, and with her eyelashes still spiked with the air’s muggy atmosphere, she looked younger. Softer. Almost like she had when she’d woken sleepily from a night of love-making. All that was missing was the smile and the hungry glint in her eyes as she’d eagerly climbed astride him for more.

‘Didn’t you hear the pilot’s last announcement, princess?’ Bahir asked, dragging his thoughts away from misspent days and nights long gone. This was the reason he’d never wanted to see her again. Because he knew she’d make him remember all the things he would never again enjoy. ‘Airports all over Europe are closed. We are not going anywhere tonight.’

‘But my children … I promised them I would be home tonight.’

Bahir looked away. He wasn’t taken in by her sudden maternal concern for her children. It was the first time she had even mentioned them and, if they meant so much to her, why had she left them at home in the first place? Maybe in hindsight it might have been the right thing to do this time, given how she had lumbered into the path of Mustafa, but she could not have known that would happen. And surely they had deserved to be at their own aunt’s wedding if not the coronation of Zoltan himself?

‘We leave at first light,’ he said, already looking forward to it. ‘You will be home soon enough.’ Though never soon enough for him.

She was silent as they passed through a small town that was seemingly abandoned as everyone had taken cover from the storm, the shutters of windows all closed, awnings flapping and snapping in the wind.

‘So where are we going now? Why couldn’t we stay with the plane?’

‘The crew are staying with the plane. It is, after all, Al-Jiradi property. They will not leave it.’

‘So we must?’

‘There is a small hotel on the coast. Very exclusive. You will be more comfortable there.’

‘And you?’

‘This is not about my comfort.’

If there was comfort in this hotel, it was proving elusive to find. There was luxury, it was true: the plushest silk carpets, the finest examples of the weaver’s art. The most lavish of fixtures and fittings, from the colourful Byzantine tiles to the gold taps set with emeralds the size of quails’ eggs.

But comfort was nowhere to be found. Just as it was impossible to sleep. Even now, when it seemed the worst of the storm had passed, lightning still flashed intermittently through the richly embroidered drapes, filling the room with an electric white light and bleaching the room of colour. But the atmosphere in the room remained heavy with the storm’s passing, and the soft bed and starched bed-linen felt stifling. She looked longingly at the doors that led onto the terrace overlooking the sea.

Ever since they’d arrived she’d locked herself away in her suite, wanting desperately to find distance from that man. He’d been impossible on the plane, sullen and resentful at first, openly explosive when the news had come of their flight’s delay, as if it had been all her fault.

Maybe it was. She had been the one to agree to him seeing her safely home, but it wasn’t for the reason he was thinking—that she somehow imagined that he might change his mind, that he might take her back.

What kind of arrogance led a man to believe a woman would want him back after the things he’d said to her?

Did he think she had no pride?

No, the man was unbearable.

So she’d taken refuge in her room, savouring her privacy and her time alone to call Catriona and explain about the delay. She took her time to talk to each of her children and tell them she would soon be home to hug and kiss them and tickle their tummies until they collapsed with laughter again.

It had seemed such a good idea to lock herself away like this while the storm had raged all around. But like the worst of the storm, hours had passed, and still she could not sleep. Still, she could not make sense of the war going on inside herself.

For she hated him, didn’t she? Hated him for the way he had amputated her from his life as quickly and decisively as if he’d been slicing a piece of fruit—as if she had never meant more than that to him. Yet still one sight of him and some primal, some base, bodily response kicked in and she had been wet with wanting him. Even now her body ached with need, as if he had flicked some kind of switch and turned her heartbeat into some kind of pulsing drumbeat of desire.

What kind of woman did that make her?

Was she mad? Or simply wanton? The party princess out for nothing but a good time and not caring who it was who gave it to her.

God, it was hot! The mattress seemed to cocoon her, trapping the heat of her thoughts and slowly roasting her in them. She pushed herself up and a bead of sweat trickled from her hair down her neck.

So much for a refuge. All she’d succeeded in doing was exchanging one kind of prison for another. And, in a few short hours from now, she’d be back on the plane—with him—and the torture would continue.

Another flash of lightning lit up the room, and her gaze went to the doors again. There was a chance they could be opened now, without being blown off their hinges or she being blown away herself. And maybe it would be cooler outside on her terrace. Maybe the wind would tear away some of the heat from her overheated skin, and maybe the air might have a chance to cool her sheets while she was gone.

She slid from the bed and reached for her gown, only remembering then that it was still tucked somewhere deep in her luggage because she had thought the weather too warm to need it. She thought for a moment of the hotel robe waiting neatly on a hanger in the closet, but the thought of towelling against her skin when she was already so hot …

She hesitated only a fraction of a moment. She didn’t really need it. It was three in the morning, and she was only stepping onto the darkened terrace. She wouldn’t be outside for long, and she so craved the feel of cool air and rain on her skin.

The wind had dropped but still she had to hang onto the door lest it slam open. She snicked it firmly closed behind her, knowing the sound would not carry over the waves crashing on the nearby shore, the wind already whipping her hair around her face and sending swirls of air up the slit in her long nightie, brushing against her legs and fanning against her heated core.

She shivered, not with cold from a sprinkling of rain, but with the wind’s delicious caress against her skin, and she turned into the onshore wind, pushing against it until she reached the balustrade overlooking the sea.

This was more like it. The shoreline was thick with dancing foam, bright white against the inky black of sea, the tang of salt heavy in the moisture-laden air. In the distance the storm rumbled and lit up the world for an instant at a time.

Then a wild wave crashed on the rocks below and she was hit with the spray, the wind turning the droplets icy on her skin.

She gasped as it hit, her body electric and alive from her head to her toes, and she flung her arms out wide and laughed into the wind with the sheer thrill of it. It was wild. It was exhilarating. And she felt free, just like she’d always yearned to be.

Like she had been once, before Bahir had stolen her heart.

He watched her from his doorway, where he had been standing for more than an hour watching the storm boil and simmer away. At first he had not heard her, whatever sound she made whipped away by the wind or lost under the crash of the sea, but then he had caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, a vision of a woman in a long white nightgown. But not just any woman. Marina. A ghost from his past, moving across the terrace with bare arms and bare feet while her black hair followed, untamed, blowing riotous and free.

He watched and grew hard as the nightdress was plastered against her body by the wild wind and the rain, against her lush breasts and the slight swell of her belly, against the sweet curve of her mound. Plastered hard against all the places he remembered, and plastered so close that she might not have been wearing anything at all.

The wind tore at her gown, peeling the fabric high around her legs, and he grew still harder wondering if she still never wore anything under her nightgown.

He growled. Why would she wear a white nightgown? So very virginal and innocent.

Who was she trying to kid?

She was nowhere near a virgin. She was a sorceress. She was wanton in bed, hungry and insatiable. She was sinuous and lithe, moved and twisted with a dancer’s grace, and he knew he should go. He should leave now, while he had the chance, before he was tempted to do something he might regret.

But he could not force his feet to move. He could not turn away. Instead he stayed and watched while she was hit by the spray of a wave crashing below; watched while she flung her arms out wide and laughed as brazenly as the weather, watched while her damp white gown turned transparent—and he knew that he had no choice.

Knew he had to go to her.

Her gown was soaked with spray and clinging to her, her hair blowing wild where it wasn’t stuck to her scalp and skin, and she knew that soon she would feel sticky with salt and think herself insane for doing something so utterly reckless when she should have been trying to sleep.

But for now she felt more alive than she had in months. More awake. More liberated.

She spun around, lifting her sodden hair high to cool the back of her neck as another wave sent spray flying, when lightning illuminated the terrace and told her in a chill bolt of realisation that she was not alone.

‘Bahir,’ she said, dropping her arms and backing away into the spray, the sound wrenched from her mouth before even she could hear it. But her body needed to hear no alarm. Her body was already on high alert, her breasts straining and peaked against the fine wet fabric of her gown, her thighs tingling with urgency and her feet primed to flee.

She might have tried to run, but his expression stilled her feet, his face a tortured mask, as if he’d battled his inner demons and lost. His eyes held her spellbound, dark and fathomless in a shadowed face, while his white shirt clung to him in patches, turning it the colour of the golden skin that lay beneath.

She swallowed, tasting the salt of the sea, or was it of his flesh? For even here she could feel the heat rolling off him as his body called to hers, in all the ways it had done in the past, promising all the pleasures of the past and more.

‘Why?’ she asked softly in a lull in the wind, wanting to be sure, wary of trusting the chemistry between them.

‘You can’t sleep either.’ He answered with a statement, without really answering at all.

‘I was hot.’

His eyes raked over her, slowly, languidly, and the heat she saw there stoked a fire under her skin that even the effect of the night air on her wet gown could not whip away. As she looked at how his white shirt clung to his skin, moulding to one dark nipple, she realised how she must look to him—exposed. As good as naked. She wrapped her arms around her torso in a futile attempt to cover herself.

She had never had reason for modesty with Bahir. There was perhaps no reason for modesty now. He had seen it all before and more. But she was different now. She was a mother, and pregnancy had left its inevitable marks on her body. Would he notice? Would he care? He had no right to care and she had no need to wonder—yet still …

Then his eyes found hers again and he simply said, ‘I feel it too. Hot.’ And she knew he wasn’t talking about the weather.

He took a step closer, and then another, so she had to raise her face to look up at him.

‘You should go,’ he said.

‘I should,’ she agreed, because it was right, and because to stay would be reckless. The last thing she needed was to be trapped outside on a storm-tossed terrace with a man she had never stopped lusting after, even when she had tried to hate him so very much. Even when she knew she should.

But her feet didn’t move, even when the wind pushed at her back, slapping the wet gown against her legs, urging her to get out while she still had time.

‘You should go,’ he repeated, his voice gravel-rough against her skin. ‘Except …’

She tilted her head up at him, her senses buzzing, every nerve in her body buzzing. ‘Except what?’

‘Except, I don’t want you to.’

She swallowed and closed her eyes, one part of her wishing she’d already left so she’d never have heard him utter those words. The other part of her, that wanton part of her that belonged to him for ever, rejoicing that he had.

‘I want you,’ he said, and she started and opened her eyes as she felt his hands lift her jaw and cradle her face.

Suddenly it was much too late to run, even if she could have recalled a fraction of all the good reasons why she should.

When she looked up at him it was to see him gazing down at her with such a look of longing that it charged her soul, for it had been so long since someone had looked at her that way, and that person had been Bahir. Nobody had ever looked at her the way Bahir had.

But that was before …

‘This is a mistake,’ she said, some remaining shred of logic warning her as his hand drifted towards her face.

‘Does this,’ he said as his fingers traced across her skin and she forgot how to breathe, ‘feel like a mistake?’ And she sighed into his touch, for electricity accompanied his fingers, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake, just like his touch had that moment on the plane when he had reached out to her brow and left her sizzling with the contact.

Maybe not right now, she thought, in answer to his question. But tomorrow or next week or even next month she would realise this was all kinds of mistake.

And then his hand curved around her neck, gentling her closer to his waiting mouth. Some mistakes, she rationalised, were meant to be made.

The wind pounded at her back, and she let it push her closer to him, meeting his lips with her own and sighing into his mouth with that first, precious touch.

It was like coming home, only better, because it was to a home she’d never expected to find again. A home she’d thought lost for ever.

‘Bahir,’ she whispered on his lips, recognising the taste and scent and texture of him, welcoming him.

For one hitched, exquisite moment the tenuous meeting of their mouths was enough, but only for a moment. Until he groaned and pulled her against him, his mouth opening to hers, sucking her into his kiss.

She went willingly, just as her hands went to the hard wall of his chest, drinking in his hard-packed body with her fingers, pressing her nails into his flesh as if proving he was real, as if proving this was really happening.