* * *
Jacqui hurried down the wide corridor, grateful for her flat shoes. If she’d tried to run in the heels she’d worn last night...
She put a brake on her thoughts. Last night was over.
Asim had made that clear when he’d discreetly left her to wake in his bed alone. And she’d been grateful. She had no experience of mornings after and she’d needed time to process everything.
Heat swirled in her belly. Last night had been extraordinary. Magical. She’d felt desired and desirable, sexy and treasured. She’d woken to a sense of well-being that eclipsed grief and doubt. She was grateful to Asim for that gift.
Her gift to him would be proving she had no unrealistic expectations. He needn’t fear she’d read too much into kindness and passing attraction.
For him, that was. For her... Well, it hadn’t passed. The night together had only made her eager for more, despite the slight ache between her legs. She stifled a smile, remembering in glorious detail her unaccustomed exercise.
Jacqui buttoned her jacket and strode faster. She was late. Her visit to the old harem baths had been fascinating and the female historian informative. But, when the woman had learnt Jacqui had never experienced a traditional Jazeeri bath and massage, she’d insisted that be righted immediately. She’d said Jacqui couldn’t write about the process unless she experienced it.
So for the last several hours Jacqui had been bathed, exfoliated, rinsed, covered in herbal concoctions, massaged and scented till she glowed. Every pore felt alive and she was preternaturally aware even of the scrape of cloth over her tingling body.
Or was that the effects of a night of hot sex?
She’d discovered she was a woman with needs, and she’d never been as aware of herself as a sexual being before. She’d never felt so happy in her life.
The shade of Imran rose in her mind and she waited for guilt to slice into her. It was a sign of the change in her that instead it was Imran’s grin she recalled, his laughter. The way he’d always urged her to take chances.
Jacqui shook her head. Whatever her needs, she had to sublimate them. A woman had her pride. Sighing over Asim wasn’t an option. Yet her pulse tripped as she entered the royal offices.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said to Asim’s secretary. ‘I got caught up.’ Her hand rose to the unfamiliar silky camisole peeping above the deep V of her jacket.
She might have been on time but, opening the wardrobe to grab her trusty suit, she discovered a skimpy camisole instead of her serviceable grey top on the next hanger. There’d been a note pinned to it, an apology from Lady Rania, saying an accident in the laundry had damaged her top beyond repair and offering this replacement. As if Jacqui’s ancient cotton top and this fragile garment—spun, she suspected, from gilded spiders’ webs—bore any similarity. Even the shade of it, between old gold and amber, was luscious. And disconcerting to a woman not used to wearing anything that drew attention to herself, like bold colours.
Yet what could she do but accept it and hurry to her appointment?
Now, though, as Asim’s secretary entered the Sultan’s office, Jacqui wondered if she’d done the right thing. Her fingers fluttered over the delicate fabric. Against her skin it felt like a whisper, not clothing. A whisper that teased like the memory of Asim’s breath on her bare skin.
Horrified at the sultry heat unfurling within her, Jacqui turned towards the water cooler, stopping as Asim’s secretary returned.
‘His Highness will see you now.’ He smiled and held the door open and Jacqui had no choice but to enter.
Her mouth turned as arid as the great Jazeeri desert when the door closed and she confronted Asim. He stood by the windows, the glare turning him into a formidably large silhouette, his face in shadow.
Jacqui’s heart hammered a tattoo against her ribs and she sucked in a breath, grateful he was too far away for her to register the spicy scent of his skin. It had lingered in her nostrils all day, a tantalising reminder.
What to say?
She swallowed and tugged her jacket.
Casual. She needed to be casual and calm. As if last night hadn’t blown her self-possession to smithereens then put her back together a different woman.
Jacqui opened her mouth.
‘Take it off.’ Had his voice been so deep last night? It burred through her, stirring the blood in her veins.
She blinked. ‘Sorry?
‘The jacket. It’s an offence to my eyes. Take it off.’
At that tone of command her hand jerked up automatically to the button of her jacket before she realised what she was doing.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She tried to inject her voice with hauteur, but what emerged was a breathless gasp. She’d been prepared for embarrassment and the need to assure Asim she wasn’t some lovesick fool. She hadn’t expected this.
‘So you should. It’s appalling.’ He crossed his arms. ‘Wear it near other men. Never with me.’
Jacqui sucked in air. Again that hint that they’d be alone again and, from the gravelly undercurrent in Asim’s voice, intimate.
She shook her head. She was imagining things. ‘No thank you.’ Best to treat his words as an invitation to be comfortable during their meeting. ‘I prefer to keep it on.’
‘And I prefer never to see it again.’ He paused and when he spoke again his voice was a sultry ribbon of invitation. ‘Take it off for me, Jacqueline. Or should I come across and do it for you?’
His words terrified her. It was one thing to tell herself she could pretend to be aloof and quite another to do it if he came near.
She fumbled the button open then peeled the jacket off, covering the wash of heat across her bare arms and shoulders by taking her time putting it on a chair.
When she turned back she heard a sharp intake of breath.
‘Lovely,’ he murmured in a voice that turned her blood to sweet, heavy syrup. ‘As lovely as I recalled. And you remembered not to wear a bra for me.’ His words scraped to the core of her where her insides seemed to be melting. ‘I approve of the colour too. You should wear it more often.’
Jacqui licked her lips, about to tell him the camisole was a gift from his grandmother, when her brain slipped into gear. He thought she’d gone braless for him? That she’d wanted to please him in the hope that they’d...?
She gulped, shocked. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done? She’d told herself she was running so late and it wouldn’t matter if she was braless as no one else would know. But she’d known and with every step, as her tight nipples grazed cobweb-soft silk, she’d thought of Asim.
‘Now your hair. Take it down.’
‘No! Anyone could come in.’
‘No one disturbs the Sultan unless invited.’ He spoke with such certainty it hit her anew that he was a man used to having every order obeyed. ‘Now, take it down.’ Dimly she registered surprise as excitement rather than anger rippled through her.
Part of her wanted to comply. The part that had come alive under his touch and the velvet caress of those dark eyes, not to mention that potently deep voice. But this was broad daylight. They were in his office. They couldn’t...
The molten heat between her legs told her they could. That she wanted to.
‘Last night I stripped when you asked me, Jacqui.’
Is that what he wanted? A striptease? Her heart hammered so heavily against her chest she wondered if she’d feel bruised later. A shot of adrenalin, heady as