‘Tariq!’
‘Don’t you?’
She met the mocking gleam in his ebony eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘So pick up your handbag and let’s get out of here—before I do something really crazy like hauling you to your feet and kissing you in front of the entire restaurant. Now, that really would provide fodder for the tabloids.’
She was trembling with anticipation as they went outside, where Tariq’s chauffeur-driven car was sitting purring by the kerb. Climbing into its sumptuous interior, she waited for him to pull her into his arms. To kiss her as she so badly wanted to be kissed.
But he didn’t. In fact he slid his body as far away from her as possible, and when he saw her turn her head he must have read the disappointed expression in her eyes because he shook his head.
‘No, Izzy,’ he said sternly. ‘Not here and not now. I think we have demonstrated the wilder side of passion, and I think I’ve made it clear that once I start touching you all bets seem to be off. Tonight we will have the slow burn of anticipation and I will show you just how pleasurable that can be.’
Even when they reached his apartment he simply laced his fingers in hers and led her along the long corridor to his bedroom. Once there, with dexterous efficiency, he began to slide the clothes from her body. Only this time he hung her black silky dress over the back of a chair and did not tear off her panties.
When at last she was stripped bare, he peeled back the silken throw which covered his bed and laid her down on it.
‘I want to see you naked,’ he murmured appraisingly, as his gaze travelled slowly down the length of her body.
She watched as he undressed, the breath dying in her throat. His body was taut and magnificent—and he made no attempt to hide the heavy length of his arousal. But when at last he was completely naked, and maybe because he felt the trembling of her body, he frowned.
Smoothing back the cascade of Titian curls, he looked deep into her eyes. ‘You are nervous?’
‘A little.’
‘But there is no reason to be, habiba.’ He brushed his mouth over hers. ‘For tonight there will be no pain—only endless pleasure.’
She gave herself up to his kiss at last, glad to lose herself in its seductive power. And grateful, too, for the clamour of her senses, which responded instantly to his expert touch and drove all nagging thoughts from her mind.
It was only afterwards that they came back to haunt her. When all passion was spent and they were lying there, Tariq’s hand splayed possessively over the damp fuzz of curls at her thighs and her head slumped against his shoulder.
No pain, he had said—only pleasure.
But he had been talking about the physical pain of having surrendered her virginity to him. Not the infinitely more powerful pain she suspected might be about to be inflicted on her heart.
THE office door clicked quietly shut, and Tariq’s distinctively soft voice whispered over Isobel’s senses.
‘So what has it been like without me, kalila? Did the office grind to a halt without me? More importantly…did you miss your Sheikh while he was away?’
Isobel looked up from her work, trying to steel herself against the impact of seeing Tariq for the first time in almost a week. Having to fight back the urge to do something stupid—like leaping up and throwing herself into his arms.
He’d been to New York on business, and along the way had taken delivery of a new transatlantic jet. He’d also announced the expansion of the Al Hakam Bank in Singapore, but was still refusing to confirm reports that he was in the process of buying the famous ‘Blues’ football team. Consequently, his face had been pictured on the front pages of the financial press—and Isobel had secretly pored over them whenever she had a spare moment. It had felt slightly peculiar to look at the hard and handsome face which stared back at her amid the newsprint. And to realise that the man with the hawk-like features and noble lineage was actually her lover.
Now he leaned over her desk, a vision of alpha-sex-iness in a dark grey suit and pristine white shirt. His olive skin made him look as if he had been cast in gold, and his black eyes gleamed as they surveyed her questioningly.
‘Tariq,’ she said slowly, laying down her pen and putting the churned up feeling in her stomach down to his tantalising proximity. ‘You know perfectly well that the office always runs smoothly in your absence. In fact, there’s a quiet air of calm around the place. People are that bit more relaxed when the big boss isn’t around.’
He gave a slow smile as he loosened his tie and dropped it in front of her like a calling card. She sounded as unruffled as she always did when she spoke to him in the office—her cool air of composure barely slipping. Why, nobody would guess that the last time they’d seen each other she had been giving him oral sex in the back of his darkened limousine. Demonstrating yet another new-found sexual skill which she seemed to have adopted with her usual dexterity.
And he had reciprocated by sliding his fingers beneath her skirt and bringing her to a shuddering orgasm just moments before he’d left the car to catch his flight to JFK.
Yet to look at her now she seemed light-years away from his fevered and erotic memory of her. She looked restrained and efficient—almost prim.
To Tariq’s surprise, any fears he’d had that she would become cloying or demanding had not been realised. Despite being such a sexual novice, Izzy seemed to have no problems juggling her dual roles as his lover and PA, and was as discreet as anyone in his position could have wished for.
He frowned. The only downside was that she seemed to be getting underneath his skin in a way he hadn’t anticipated. By now he should have been growing a little bored with her—because that was his pattern. Once the gloss of new sex had worn off, predictability tended to set in—and three weeks was usually long enough for him to begin to find out things about a woman which irritated him.
But Izzy was different, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Might it be because she knew him better than almost anyone? Working so closely with him over the years had given her glimpses of the private person that he would never have allowed another to see. Sometimes it felt as though she had already stripped away several layers to see the man who lay beneath. Was that what gave sex with her its extra dimension of closeness? Or was it just the fearless way she responded to him? The way she looked straight into his eyes while he was deep inside her? As if she wanted to see into his soul with those big tawny eyes of hers. Sometimes it unsettled him and sometimes it did not—but it always excited him.
He watched as she picked up his discarded tie and began to roll it into a neat silken coil. ‘So, did you miss me?’ he repeated.
Isobel put the tie down and looked at him. What would he do if she told him that she always missed him? That she wished she could suddenly become one of his ties, so that she could wrap herself round his neck all day and stay there? He would run a million miles away—that was what he would do. Declarations of adoration were not what Tariq wanted, but she could see perfectly well from his darkening eyes just what he did want.
She rose from her desk and walked towards him, aware of his gaze on her and conscious of the fact that her thighs were bare above her stocking tops. She’d dressed with deliberate daring for the office this morning, knowing that he was bound to want her as soon as he arrived—and