The Sheikh's Reward. Lucy Gordon

in what doesn’t concern you, and which would certainly be beyond your understanding. Please—’ he held up a hand ‘—don’t bore me with lectures about your brain. A woman’s brain, for pity’s sake!’

      His scornful tone almost made her blow a gasket. ‘We do have brains, you know! We are members of the same species. And you were ready enough to concede that Scheherazade had a brain the other night.’

      ‘No. Scheherazade had wit. A woman’s wit that sparkles and dazzles a man. Not a bludgeon to challenge him. I thought then that you were witty and subtle, but now you seem determined to prove me wrong.

      ‘If you want me to listen to you, Diamond, forget your degree, and speak to me of your hair which is like a river of molten gold in the sunset. Then you will have all my attention. Since that night I’ve been troubled by your hair, thinking how I would run my hands through it and delight in adorning it with priceless jewels.

      ‘I’m haunted, too, by your skin, which has the smoothness of satin. I’ve dreamed of how it would feel pressed against me when we lie together in bed—’

      ‘Never,’ she whispered in outrage.

      He took a step closer to her and looked directly into her eyes. His own were burning.

      ‘At this moment I too feel like saying never. I will never take to my bed a woman who rejects her own womanhood, and therefore my manhood. I will never trouble myself with a female who knows nothing about men and women and what fate created between them. I will throw her out and say good riddance.

      ‘But then I look into the depths of your eyes, and I know that it isn’t so easy. You and I met because we had to, and at our final parting we will neither of us be the same. What exquisite pleasure there will be in giving and taking with you, and knowing that what you give me you will have given no other man because you did not know it existed. That will be a treasure worth fighting for.’

      He wasn’t even touching her, but her heart was thumping wildly from the effect of his words and the images they conjured up in her fevered brain. She was fully clothed, but the caressing way he’d spoken of her skin had made it come alive. She felt as though his fingers were tracing soft paths across it, lingering, teasing her, and his tongue was driving her wild with flickering movements everywhere—her mouth, her breasts…making her want everything in the world, knowing that he was the one man who had it in his power to give.

      She wanted to turn away, to refuse to meet his eyes and see in them the destiny he planned for her, whether she consented or not. But that would be cowardly. Danger must be faced, not avoided. And so she gazed on the picture he painted, and felt it swallow her up.

      ‘Don’t you feel that too?’ he asked. ‘That it must be so?’

      ‘No,’ she said, taking another step back from him. ‘No, it can’t be. You can’t make something like that happen by giving an order.’

      He reached for her. She backed but struck against the sofa, lost her balance, and had to sit on it. She tried to rise but he held her down with a hand on her shoulder, and sat beside her.

      ‘But the order has already been given,’ he said. ‘And it was you who gave it. You came to The Golden Chance in search of me, and I recognised you at once as the woman who would play a special part in my life. It’s too late to turn back. And why should you want to? Can it be that you are afraid?’

      She would not let him kiss her, because he would take that as proof of his chauvinistic belief that only passion counted between men and women. And that was one victory he mustn’t win. But while her resolve was strong her bones felt as if they had been turned to water.

      Nor did he try to kiss her. He merely raised his hand and touched her lips softly with one fingertip, tracing the outline of her wide mouth. The sensations he could evoke by that simple gesture were shocking. She was on fire, and there was no hope for her.