Dismissing the subject, Rafiq got to his feet. ‘Are you ready for dinner?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ But she stood too fast; the abrupt movement sent a jab of pain through her neck, making her clamp her lips together.
She didn’t think he’d noticed, but it took him only a second to reach her, his hands gripping her shoulders from behind as he asked, ‘What is it? What’s the matter? This is the second time you’ve almost fainted.’
‘I didn’t.’ Her voice sounded thin and far away, so she swallowed and tried again. ‘I must have twisted my neck in the accident. It’s fine, but every now and then the muscles remind me of it. It’s nothing.’
His grasp eased, but he didn’t let her go, still so close that she could discern his subtle, potent male scent.
‘Perhaps this will help,’ he said quietly, his thumbs moving in slow circles on the nape of her neck.
Sensuous little chills raced down her spine. Lexie closed her eyes, but that made her pulse rate soar even higher; an odd weakness in her bones threatened her with an undignified collapse. Resisting the temptation to lean back, she forced her eyes open and stared belligerently ahead, blinking to clear the dreamy haze from her sight.
Break it up right now, caution warned. She said curtly, ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you.’
‘Are you?’ A raw note in the words caught her attention as he turned her to face him.
She looked up into an angular visage, all hard lines and intensity. What she saw there drove every thought into oblivion.
Green eyes blazing, he bent his head. ‘You don’t look all right. Shall I carry you to your room?’
‘No!’ Sheer panic raised her voice.
Panic—and a wild response that blazed up from nowhere, licking through her like the best brandy, burning away inhibitions and restraint in a conflagration of need.
‘Your eyes give your words the lie.’ He dropped his narrowed gaze to her mouth. ‘And that delicious mouth makes promises I want to collect on.’
Struggling for control, she shook her head.
‘Say it,’ he said in a harsh voice. ‘Tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you.’
Lexie’s breath stopped in her throat. Her muscles locked as she met his gleaming gaze with a challenge she couldn’t hide.
‘Say no—or take the consequences.’ This time he spoke more gently.
Wordlessly she lifted a hand to his cheek.
Half smiling, he teased her with kisses on the corners of her willing mouth. An inarticulate little sound from her made him smile, but in answer to her wordless plea he deepened the kiss, and his arms clamped her against the lean strength of his body.
The tension between them was now revealed for what it was—a fierce sexual charge that hungered for this, for more…
Rafiq lifted his head to tilt hers back, so that he could kiss the length of her throat, stopping only a fraction above the neckline of the prim silk shirt she’d bought half a world away in Illyria.
Lexie’s heart literally jumped; she was sure she felt it move in her breast, then settle back into place before he said against her skin, ‘You have the mouth of a siren.’
His faint accent intensified so that he sounded exotic—almost barbaric. ‘And you kiss like one. Where did you learn that?’
‘I don’t—I don’t think you learn to kiss,’ she parried breathlessly, aware only that she couldn’t let him see how much that final caress had shattered her once-safe world.
One black brow arched. ‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.
And he kissed her again, mercilessly stoking the craving that ate into her, a wild, primal longing for union, a desire that burned hotter and even hotter until she was aching, her body poised and eager, her mind clouded as though with drugs.
Alarm bells rang. When he lifted his head and let his gaze slide downwards, she realised that her inner turbulence was physically revealed; her breasts had peaked, demanding a satisfaction only Rafiq could give her.
Shocked, she pulled back. For a second she thought he was going to keep her in his arms by force, but then he gave a twisted, rather sardonic smile and let her go.
‘No,’ he stated rather than asked.
‘Dinner must be ready.’ Although her voice was hoarse and uneven, she met his gaze steadily, without flinching.
His laughter held no amusement. ‘Indeed, and one should never keep the servants waiting. This way.’
He extended his arm. After a moment’s hesitation Lexie laid her fingertips on it, feeling the slow flex of his muscle beneath them with a voluptuous thrill—half forbidden desire, half fear.
This was dangerous, she warned herself silently as they walked across the great hall.
‘You are afraid of me?’ His tone was aloof, at odds with the penetrating look he sent her.
‘No,’ she said rapidly. ‘Of course not.’
The person she was terrified of was herself. She appeared to have no resistance to Rafiq’s particular brand of potent masculinity, and her abandon startled and dismayed her.
Stiffly, her voice as brittle as her tight-strung body, she said, ‘I don’t normally make a habit of kissing near strangers like—like that.’ The last few words rushed out. Aware that she’d probably revealed more than she wanted him to know, she straightened her shoulders and stared straight ahead.
‘I guessed as much.’
His worldliness shattered what remained of her composure. Was he insinuating that she was transparently inexperienced?
Well, she was, she thought stoutly, and what did it matter whether her untutored response to his kisses had told him so?
He finished with forbidding emphasis, ‘And you need not worry—I do not force women.’
‘I… Well, I’m sure you don’t,’ she said warily, then stopped when she saw where he was leading her. ‘Oh—oh! Oh, how lovely.’
They’d gone up one floor and through a small salon that opened out into air lit by lamps, their warm glow illuminating a wide, stone terrace, and a row of arches on the seaward side that were latticed with stone delicately carved into flowers and leaves. Shrubs and trees cooled the terrace and shielded it from prying eyes. At one end a lily-starred pool surrounded a roofed pavilion, connected to the terrace by a stone bridge. Behind floating, gauzy drapes, Lexie discerned the outlines of furniture.
‘Another whim of yet another besotted ancestor,’ Rafiq explained with a touch of irony. ‘He rescued his wife from a corsair ship; she loved to swim, and he loved to join her, so he built this pool and made sure it couldn’t be overlooked.’
The kisses they’d exchanged suddenly loomed very large in Lexie’s mind. Was he indicating…?
A sideways glance at his face banished that vagrant thought. He wasn’t even looking at her, and it was impossible to read anything from his expression.
Rafiq looked down and caught her watching him. His lashes drooped, and she asked too hastily, ‘Why was she on a corsair ship? Was she a pirate too?’
He stopped by the bridge. ‘She was the daughter of the British governor of a West Indian island, snatched for ransom, but the captain found her appealing enough to keep her. When the Caribbean got too hot for him, he fled to the Indian Ocean. She waited until they approached Moraze, intent as they were on plunder, then managed to wound her abductor