‘Ah, Cinders, Cinders,’ he mocked as he watched the battle between her provocative words and her blossoming body. And wasn’t it echoing the same battle which was taking place in his own? ‘I was simply talking about art, yet all you seem to want to talk about is sex. And just what is your real name, by the way?’
‘It’s Ella,’ she said, her head spinning. ‘And will you please stop twisting everything I say? I don’t want to talk about sex!’
‘Neither do I,’ he agreed unexpectedly. ‘Since talking about it is a complete waste of time.’
Before she properly realised what he was going to do, he had pulled her into his arms. Pulled her right up close to his aroused body and, with a thrill of shocked recognition, she was letting him. An urgent kind of hunger overwhelmed her as she felt the weight of his hands at her back. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin was as electric as it had been on the dance floor and it had precisely the same sizzling effect on her. Only this time they weren’t in a crowd with the curious eyes of the other dancers on them. This time they were dangerously alone.
She opened her mouth to say something but by then his curiously empty eyes had begun to blaze into life as he lowered his head towards her. And then it was too late.
His lips came down to meet hers and Ella’s mouth opened of its own volition, and she found herself unwillingly lost in the most sensational kiss of her life.
CHAPTER THREE
ELLA swayed as Hassan kissed her, his arms tightening around her so that every hard sinew of his powerful frame seemed to be imprinted indelibly on her body. She could feel the pricking of her breasts and their sudden aching heaviness as they pressed against him. And she could feel the coiling heat which was building inside her, pooling in an erotic, silken warmth at the juncture of her thighs.
The thunder of her heart played a backing-track as his lips explored hers and she sank against him. Yet even as his tongue slid inside her mouth and her eyelids fluttered to a close she knew that something wasn’t right. Through a haze, she tried to remember just what that something was, but her greedy body seemed intent on pushing all sane thoughts from her mind. The blood pooling in her breasts and at her groin was denying her brain the vital fuel it needed in order to think clearly. But how could she think clearly when she was feeling like this?
She gasped as Hassan caught hold of her breast, his big hand splaying with arrogant possession over its hardening swell. Against the finely beaded surface, he teased the already-aching nipple with his finger, and at that split second she remembered the source of her discomfort.
She hated him.
And he hated her.
He was supposed to be showing her the way out of the palace … and instead he had her pressed up against some cool palace wall where he seemed intent on having hot and urgent sex with her.
So why wasn’t she pushing him away and professing outrage at his seduction? Why was she winding the arm which wasn’t holding her shoes around his neck and breathing urgent little sounds of encouragement?
Because she’d never felt like this before.
Never imagined that a woman could feel like this when a man kissed her. As if this was what her body had been invented for. Her one previous sexual experience now just seemed a mockingly bland rehearsal for this rapid awakening which was making her blood fizz.
But it was wrong. It was very, very wrong.
‘Hassan.’ With an effort, she tore her mouth away from his as her high heels nearly slipped from her fingers onto the floor. ‘This is … absolutely … crazy….’ She thought how weak her voice sounded. As if he had somehow sapped all her strength and resolve.
‘Don’t break the spell, Cinderella,’ he warned unsteadily, pushing open the door to his suite. Pulling her inside, he kicked the door shut, before taking her into his arms and beginning to kiss her again, as if that might obliterate any objections she might have.
And it was working, wasn’t it? It didn’t seem to matter that she was in the bedroom of a man who was a virtual stranger—a dark and empty-eyed sheikh who had spoken about her family with the cruel lash of his tongue. Such was his skill that he melted away every single doubt beneath the practised caress of his lips. His hands stroked their way down over her body as he kissed her, until her nerve endings were raw with desire and she was moving restlessly in his arms.
Her skin felt heated, her body on fire. She groaned when he cupped her breast again, his thumb brushing negligently against the bead-covered nipple. Why couldn’t he touch her bare skin instead, she wondered distractedly when, as if he’d read her thoughts again, he reached out and peeled down the flimsy bodice of her dress.
He leaned back a little to survey her, the way people did in art galleries when they wanted to get a better look at a painting. His eyes seemed to devour her breasts and she felt the skin tighten and tingle beneath that fierce black scrutiny.
‘Do you always go braless?’ he questioned unsteadily.
She wanted to tell him that the fashionable dress had made the wearing of a bra impossible but somehow the words seemed to have lodged in her throat.
‘But then again, why would you ever cover up anything so beautiful as these pert little breasts?’ he continued as he grazed a lazy thumb over one hardening nub. ‘I like the fact that they are so instantly accessible. That they are within easy reach of the curl of my tongue.’
She wanted to protest at the outrageous mastery of his words but he leaned forward to suckle a taut nipple and the corresponding shaft of desire made her body shudder helplessly.
She could see the erotic contrast of his black head against her pale skin and could feel his tongue licking sensual pathways over the diamond-hard nub. And suddenly, the pleasure almost became too intense to bear. She felt her knees begin to sag and he responded by bending down to curl his arm beneath them to pick her up. He carried her across the glittering gilded room towards an arch beyond which she could see a massive, canopied bed. And the reality of what was about to happen hit home.
‘Hassan?’
‘That’s my name.’
His teasing words momentarily distracted her. But not nearly as much as the warmth of his fingers as they pressed against her bare flesh. ‘We … we shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Shouldn’t we? You don’t sound very certain.’
That’s because she wasn’t. She’d never been carried by a man before and it was making her feel intensely feminine. As if for the first time in her life, she’d found someone strong enough to protect her. Her loosened dress was flapping against her bare breasts and she looked up to find his black eyes burning into her as if she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She had never felt quite so desired, nor so deliciously compliant.
He put her down on the bed and she lay there watching as he shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the floor. His tie followed, and then his silk shirt. Shoes and socks were efficiently disposed of and then his hand moved to the belt of his trousers, gingerly easing them down over his formidable erection. Completely absorbed by what was happening, Ella stared at him, unable to tear her eyes away from his magnificent body. Surely she should have felt shy at such a careless striptease, but she didn’t feel a bit shy. Was that because he knew that his hard, honed body was the closest thing to perfection she had ever seen?
He moved to the bed, his face a dark mask as he bent over her, his fingers moving to find the zip of her dress. But the zip seemed to have been jammed by some errant beads and when he tugged at it, the whole thing split, sending silver beads spilling all around them, some rolling from the bed and others cascading