He looked down at her, all golden power and dark desire, his breathing heavy. ‘I told you that you were beautiful when you were angry,’ he said, his voice little more than a coarse rumble that tugged at her raw nerve-endings and refused to let them settle. ‘But it is nothing to how beautiful you are when you are aroused.’
‘Oh, n…no,’ she stammered, shaking her head as she took a wobbly step back. ‘I was hardly—’ But she couldn’t bring herself to say the word. By saying it she would be admitting it, and by admitting it when she was about to board a plane with him for Jamalbad, for goodness knew how long, she would be in real trouble.
‘So you always kiss men like that when you are not aroused?’
‘I don’t kiss men like that—period! You just took me by surprise.’
His eyes proclaimed a victory that made no sense to her. How could it be victory when he hadn’t won that kiss? She’d damn near volunteered it. And why that didn’t have him terminating her contract on the spot, when he’d been so insistent on her virtue before, made even less sense.
‘By surprise, you say? And I say you are proving to be a more delightful surprise by the minute.’
‘And you are proving to be more irritating by the minute!’
For a moment he looked too shocked to respond. She was wondering if she’d well and truly overstepped the mark—here was a man used to people kow-towing to him, a man who could put paid to any idea of her entering his country—when he suddenly threw back his head and laughed.
It was too much. Indignation lent strength to her backbone. She reached down and grabbed her bag. She needed to be in her room.
No, it was much simpler than that. She needed to be anywhere he wasn’t. She reached for the door handle and turned it.
The laughter stopped behind her just as suddenly as it had started. ‘Miss Fielding.’
His voice rang out like an order. Her hand paused and reluctantly she looked over her shoulder, half wishing she was more like her sister. Giving anyone lip had never been Morgan’s forte. Why had she ever expected to go head to head with a man like this and get away with it?
She took one look into his eyes, shocked at what she saw. Under the night sky he could have been some kind of jungle cat, golden eyes glistening with hunger and the guarantee of a certain kill. She shivered, her heart thumping afresh, certain that he was about to terminate her services, if not her.
‘What is it?’ she whispered, her voice little more than a shudder.
‘We leave at six,’ he said. ‘Be ready.’
The sleek jet crouched low on the tarmac, its El Jamal insignia curling artistically up the tail, whilst heated air from the warming engines turned the landscape behind into a shimmer. Inside the limousine speeding out over the tarmac towards it, Morgan knew her thoughts had just as little clarity.
Her fuzzy head was only partly to blame—it had taken her hours to get to sleep, and when she had her tortured dreams of a dark and dangerous pursuer had left her tangled in the sheets. She should never have let Tajik kiss her. She should have pushed him away.
And then the car slowed, and the real reason for both her sleepless night and her muddled thoughts caught her eye and held on tight. Oh, no, she thought, as she felt herself drowning in those liquid eyes. It wasn’t just the kiss and what she should have done. The real reason for her addled brain was the man who sprawled so nonchalantly opposite her, his long legs eating up the space between them, his hands steepled over his stomach as his eyes lazily contemplated her.
And as he watched her lips tingled with the memories of that kiss, with the warm press of his lips and the welcoming sensuality of his mouth. She bit down on her own betraying lips and turned away as the car came to a halt.
Beside her Nobilah squeezed her hand, misinterpreting Morgan’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘Don’t be nervous. Our pilots are the best in the world,’ she said with a smile in her son’s direction. ‘And by tonight we’ll be there. You’re going to love Jamalbad.’
Morgan didn’t doubt it. But she knew she’d like it one heck of a lot better if Tajik wasn’t part of the deal. She smiled back, fully aware of the Sheikh’s continued scrutiny. ‘I know I will.’
Then the door was pulled open, and it was time to alight and board the streamlined jet.
‘Goodbye, Gold Coast,’ Morgan muttered as she followed Nobilah up the stairs into the plane, taking her last look back at the familiar shape of Tamborine Mountain and the range that bordered the Gold Coast strip and marked the start of the hinterland.
Her words were whipped away by the wind that tugged at her fitted skirt and tightly knotted hair, but still she paused at the top of the stairs, hesitant to take that final step into the plane.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the Sheikh, bounding up the stairs two at a time behind her. ‘Fear of flying?’
She looked back at him, his linen pants and white shirt emphasising his dark hair and framing his golden good looks, and she felt her world of security and planning start to crumble.
How could a man look both cool and hot at the same time? How could he have eyes that looked coldly assessing one minute, yet rich with molten desire the next?
And how could she feel both fear and yet such a bewildering attraction? What was it about this man that unsettled her on so many levels?
She shook her head, more to clear her thoughts than to answer his question, but it served the purpose. ‘I’m just not too good with turbulence,’ she answered honestly. Not since the accident.
‘In that case,’ he said, climbing a step higher so that his eyes were on the same level and just inches from her own, ‘let’s hope this is all plain sailing.’
Was he talking about the flight? As she searched his eyes all she could think about was another time when his face had been so close, his lips just a heartbeat from hers. Her gaze dropped to those lips, her pulse kicking up as she remembered the sensual press of them against her own, the masterful way he’d overcome her initial resistance, the easy way he’d melted her from the inside out.
Then those lips turned into a smile that broke into her thoughts, forcing her eyes back to his.
‘I know,’ he said, his voice a clear and steady thread amid the noise of screaming engines. ‘I keep thinking about it too.’
Did he mean what she thought he meant? Were her thoughts so obvious?
It took a few moments to find her voice, given the tremors that coursed through her body. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Then she turned and headed into the plane, knowing full well that it hadn’t been fear of flying that had held up her progress boarding. It was knowing that once inside she would no longer be in her world.
She would be in his.
Tajik watched her enter the plane, enjoying her discomfiture almost as much as he’d enjoyed last night’s kiss. That had been a surprise—the urgency of his passion like a beast demanding to be fed. But it was little wonder, he mused as he moved towards the cockpit. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, after all, and this one promised to deliver everything he would need from her in that department. She’d shocked herself too with the force of her response, if her eyes had been any indication.
Visions of another pair of eyes, deeply expressive and framed with kohl, intruded on his thoughts, and once again he felt a stab of guilt that he might feel an attraction to another woman—and one so different from his fiancée. But what choice did he have? Joharah was gone, and reports overnight had only confirmed what Kamil had discovered. Taj needed to take a wife, and soon, if he was to put paid to his cousin’s moves to angle the sheikhdom under his control.
He greeted the other pilot and strapped himself into his seat, his mind exploring every memory and nuance of that kiss.
Besides,