‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Sayid’s voice was rough, every sense on alert.
He’d noticed movement in the shadows beyond the pool and instinct screamed a warning. Instinct that had, in the past, saved him more than once.
He’d swum to the end of the pool, vaulted out and prowled silently through the darkness to circle the silent watcher, approaching not from the lighted pool but the darkened garden.
A soft grunt of expelled air sounded as he hauled the intruder against him. An even softer body collided with his, a face against his chest, one smooth leg slipping against his.
What the—?
Swiftly he checked for weapons. Nothing. Just the extraordinary realisation that his intruder was female.
He peered down, making out the pale oval of an upturned face and a cascade of dark hair. Silky hair that draped over his chest and arm like a seductive blanket.
But it was the body against his that focused his thoughts. A curved, taut female body that seemed in the first instant of surprise to be unclothed. He moved a hand to her hip and found it covered in fabric that clung like a second skin. His fingers curved reflexively.
‘You can let me go.’ The voice, shaken but clear, came from near his collarbone.
Sayid identified that voice instantly. ‘Lina? What are you doing here?’
He’d spent the evening trying to wrench his thoughts from the sight and sound of her, vibrant and beautiful in that clinging dress. Eventually he’d decided to work off his restlessness with exercise, only to find her, impossibly, here, in his private domain.
He breathed deep and felt the press of lush breasts against him. She was no schoolgirl any more. This was a woman, her body seductively ripe.
His body knew it. With her plastered against him and her breath feathering his nakedness, a weighted tension gathered in his loins. A clamouring rush of testosterone quickened his blood.
It had been months since his enjoyable interlude with that Danish actress. Now that seemed far too long ago.
‘I didn’t mean to intrude. I had no idea you were here. I thought the courtyard was deserted.’ Was that panic in her voice? Fear?
Instantly Sayid stepped back, keeping his grip firm.
Air filled the gap between them but the sweet scent of her skin, like the fragrant damask roses his mother used to cultivate, lingered. As did Lina’s warmth.
Desire, rough and urgent, slammed into him.
‘Come into the light.’ He led her towards the pool. Briefly it crossed his mind to clothe himself. But she’d already spied on his nakedness and it wasn’t as if he had anything to hide. He was damned if he’d release his grip before he got an explanation.
There she stood, chin raised and eyes on a point near his shoulder, as he surveyed her in the glow of the underwater lights. It revealed every line and curve. From the sweet swell of her hips to her narrow waist and her high, lovely breasts. She’d been pressed against him and her one-piece swimsuit was wet. Wet enough to make her nipples peak. Which in turn increased the pressure in his groin.
He enjoyed beautiful women but kept a strict rein on his libido. Tonight his search for self-possession seemed futile. She’d filled his thoughts all evening and there was no escape even here, in his private space.
‘Why are you spying on me?’
‘I’m sorry. Truly.’ Her eyes were huge as she met his stare and the crackle of energy between them detonated a silent explosion inside him. Yearning, desire...
She was pure seductress with that lush mouth and the shimmering dark hair falling to her waist. He should be furious at the invasion of privacy yet he wanted to comb his hand through her hair, enjoy the luxury of it against his skin. Not think but feel.
‘I couldn’t sleep and I knew there was a pool here.’ The words tripped quickly from her lips. ‘I thought a swim might help me relax. I had no idea...’ She shook her head and that silky veil of hair slid across his hands where he held her. His flesh tightened. ‘I didn’t realise it was your pool. Then when I saw you—’ she swallowed hard, her gaze slipping from his ‘—I planned to leave. But I got tangled in the bushes.’
‘You didn’t know this was my private wing?’
‘Absolutely not!’
Her smooth brow wrinkled in obvious dismay.
Real or feigned?
The woman who’d returned to Halarq after years in Europe wasn’t the same innocent who’d left. Lina was confident and beautiful, at ease with the adulation of men, as tonight had proved. But he couldn’t quite believe she was like those predatory women who tried so hard to invade his privacy and his bed without invitation.
Yet she looked the picture of guilt. The question was whether it was because of an honest, though unlikely, mistake. Or simply because he’d caught her.
‘You didn’t seek me out?’
She gasped and shook her head, stiffening in his hold.
Once more her eyes met his and fire shot through his veins. He couldn’t remember a more potent, instant response to any woman.
‘Of course not. Why would I?’
Because you feel the throb of attraction between us too.
Because you want, as I do.
It was there in her convulsive swallow. In the fine tremors he felt running through her body. Not fear, he was certain, but arousal.
Sayid didn’t say the words aloud. He retained, just, the sense to realise he was projecting his desires onto her.
Self-disgust smote him. Was he so needy? So desperate for a taste of those lips he, himself, had declared forbidden fruit?
‘We’ll discuss this in the morning.’ Then, surely, he’d be able to think straight.
Stoically he ignored the seductive scent of her filling his nostrils.
Worse was the way she looked at him. Not like an embarrassed girl, but the way a woman looked at a man she desired.
It had to be unintentional. A trick of the light. Lina was, if no longer an innocent, at least not devious. She’d strayed here in error.
Yet now their gazes locked her nerves seemed to have disappeared. If anything she swayed ever so slightly towards him. Her gaze ate him up. Made him wonder exactly how much experience she’d acquired overseas, freed of the scrutiny of her family or any Halarqi supervision.
She was past the age when many women in his country became brides. No doubt there’d been plenty of foreign men ready to teach the little desert flower about love.
The notion brewed a bitter tang on his tongue.
Then Sayid registered the quick rise and fall of her breathing, the implicit invitation as she licked her lips and the faint, unmistakable fragrance of feminine arousal, mingling with her rose perfume.
He swallowed, stunned by the sudden certainty he wasn’t the only one to want. He wasn’t simply projecting his desires.
Yet Lina was his dependant, under his protection.
He was in a position of authority over her, with obligations as host, ruler and, above all, guardian. He couldn’t act on his desire. He’d ensured that when he’d made her his ward.
Lina wasn’t his to do with as he wished. She was no longer his concubine, provided for his pleasure.
But the memory of that night four years ago whispered through him, like a rain-laden wind rushing through a parched gully, promising an end to a long, painful drought. She’d offered herself then, ready to please his