‘I don’t—’
‘Cover yourself!’ The ferocity of his tone shocked even him so he could hardly blame her for shrinking back in her seat. Her reaction shamed him because whatever his faults, he had never struck a woman and never would. He was a man who prided himself on his self-control and yet at that precise moment he wanted to kill someone. ‘You are barely dressed,’ he said flatly, turning his head so that he didn’t have to look at the confusion in her eyes. He didn’t want to feel sympathy. Didn’t want to feel anything. ‘When we reach my home, my staff will find you something more suitable to wear.’
Preferably something that covered every inch of her.
She glared at him. ‘You’re behaving like a caveman.’
‘If I were a caveman then I would have followed my baser instincts and stripped you naked in the ballroom when you all but begged me to do so,’ he said silkily, ‘and you would now be lying naked on one of those tables and your pleasure would be so great that you would be sobbing and begging for mercy.’
Her soft gasp of shock was at odds with her provocative appearance. ‘I would never beg you for anything,’ she said hoarsely, but her gaze held his for a fraction longer than necessary and his gaze hardened.
Experience told him that she was clearly not indifferent to him, no matter how much she would have liked that to be the case.
The attraction between them was as strong as ever and he was willing to overlook her less appealing traits in order to have her naked in his bed.
The marriage might be short lived, Tariq mused silently, but sexually it promised to be full-on and immensely satisfying.
‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Just drop me home, please.’ Her tone was flat but she slipped her arms into the jacket and closed it around her. She was so slender that it would have been possible to fit two of her inside but she was also tall and the jacket did nothing to conceal the tempting length of her legs. Clearly aware of that fact, she pressed her knees together and slid her legs closer to the seat.
Tariq gave a predatory smile. ‘It’s a little late for modesty, don’t you think?’ For some reason the sight of her bare, beautiful legs served to reignite the anger that he’d only just managed to subdue. ‘Charity balls have certainly taken an interesting turn since I was last in England. Is it suddenly a necessary requirement for the guests to reveal all?’
She didn’t glance in his direction. ‘It was all in a good cause.’
‘If you’re trying to persuade me that you really care about the charity then you’re wasting your time. We both know that you just seize on any excuse to dress up and flaunt yourself in public.’
Like mother like daughter.
‘That’s right.’ She turned her head towards him, her amazing green eyes glittering in the semi-darkness, her blond hair falling sleek and smooth over his jacket. ‘I spend all day lying in bed resting so that I have enough energy to get myself through another night of drink-fuelled partying. Isn’t that right, Tariq? Isn’t that the person I am?’
She looked so innocent, he mused as his eyes rested on the tempting curve of her soft mouth. Nothing like a woman who’d turned flirting into an art form or a woman who was only interested in expanding the contents of her already bulging wardrobe.
‘Don’t try and provoke me,’ he warned softly. ‘Next time you wish to support a cause then let me know and I will write them a large cheque. It will save you the bother of stripping off.’
‘I’ll do as I please.’ She lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘Life is all about money to you, isn’t it? All about power and influence. Well, I don’t need your money and your power doesn’t interest me. I don’t need anything at all from you. The way I act, the way I behave, is nothing to do with you. You don’t know me and you never did.’ The words were thrown at him with careless indifference but he sensed the growing tension in her, saw her amazing green eyes darken as something live and dangerous snapped taut between them.
The car sped through the night, smooth and silent, the darkness of the interior ensuring their privacy and increasing the intimacy.
Suddenly stifled by it, Tariq lifted a hand and tugged at his tie, opening the top two buttons of his shirt with a deft movement of his lean, strong fingers. She followed the movement with her gaze, caught his eye for a single tense moment and then looked away. The silken fall of her hair concealed her face but only after he’d seen the colour pour into her cheeks.
The atmosphere was pulled tight with a sexual tension so powerful that the air throbbed and hummed.
And he knew she felt it too because he saw the rapid movement of her slender throat as she swallowed, saw her fingers clutch his jacket around her like a shield. In a self-conscious gesture she tried to tuck her legs away but there was nowhere to put them. Nowhere to hide.
‘Stop looking at me, Tariq.’ Her hoarse plea brought a faint smile to his lips and dampened some of the anger inside him.
Her almost childish plea confirmed his belief that she was suffering as much as he was. Evidently she wasn’t as indifferent as she chose to appear.
‘That outfit is an invitation to a man to look. It was designed entirely for that purpose,’ he said smoothly, allowing his eyes to roam freely over her bare legs. ‘Presumably you knew that when you chose to wear it.’
Her knuckles whitened as she clenched her hands in her lap. ‘I wore it to annoy you!’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Then you don’t know much about men, laeela. In public, such an outfit would indeed annoy me but now we are in private my feelings are entirely different.’
‘I’m not interested in your feelings.’
‘No? We never found out, did we, laeela?’ He leaned towards her and gently brushed her hair away from her face, revealing her exquisite profile. ‘We never found out how we would be together. We dreamed and we danced around the edges of passion—those stolen meetings on the beach, kissing in the Caves of Zatua—all that foreplay—’ His gaze dropped to her lips and lingered there. ‘Five years. I have waited for five years to have that question answered.’
She turned her head then, her breathing rapid. ‘Then I hope you’re a patient man because you’re going to be waiting for the rest of your life and still you won’t find out. I’m not one of your toys, Tariq. I’m not yours to command. I’m not a fancy car you can buy or a jet you can fly. You can’t just decide to have me.’
‘Yes, I can. I have only to touch you and you will be mine.’ He wound a strand of hair around his finger. ‘And you want that every bit as much as I do.’
Her eyes stared into his, hypnotized. ‘Not true,’ she croaked. ‘I don’t want that. And your ego is sickening.’
‘A ruler with no confidence in himself does not inspire the loyalty and devotion of his people,’ he said huskily, moving his body closer to hers, ‘and we both know that my ego is not the problem here. Your feelings are the problem. Or rather, your insistence on denying them. Despite what you say to the contrary, you’re mentally undressing me and you’re wondering how our bodies will move together when we’re finally in bed. You’re wondering how it will feel when I’m inside you.’
He watched the movement of her slender throat as she swallowed, saw the flash of shock in her eyes, the hint of excitement in those green depths. ‘Stop it.’ Her voice was a tortured whisper. ‘I want you to stop it, now.’
His eyes gleamed dark with amusement. ‘Do you think I was unaware of your feelings? At eighteen your sexual curiosity was hard to conceal. You hadn’t learned to play games, laeela. Your eyes followed me everywhere and when I came near you, you felt an excitement so intense that you ceased to breathe.’
She