Eleni wondered what had happened to make his attitude change so suddenly—but then the engines began to make a huge sound like the roaring of a thousand thunderstorms and she was too preoccupied to care.
And when she had shakily made her way down the aircraft steps, a big shiny black car was waiting to whisk them through narrow little roads which Kaliq called ‘lanes’ and which were lined with the thickest and greenest hedges that Eleni had ever seen. It all looked so lush and so beautiful that some of her trepidation dissolved. What had her teacher at school told her? That life was there to be experienced and enjoyed. So what was the point of worrying about what might happen? It hadn’t happened yet.
‘You like what you see?’ he queried as he heard her soft sigh.
She turned to him, her eyes were shining. ‘Oh, yes, Highness!’
‘We are going to my house in Surrey,’ he said, wondering if she knew just how potent that kind of unfeigned enthusiasm could be. No, of course not. She was a simple girl from the country—and a virgin—so what would she know of men’s desires? ‘I thought that you might find London a little overwhelming—and this is much closer to the stables we are going to visit.’
‘You… you own a house in England?’ Eleni questioned uncertainly.
‘I do.’
‘So you mean, this is where you live when you are not in Calista?’
‘Oh, I stay here when I’m in England and feel a hankering for the countryside,’ he said dismissively. ‘But I also keep a place in New York, an apartment in Milan and a villa in the South of France.’
‘So many homes!’
Her tone seemed to imply puzzlement rather than admiration and Kaliq’s mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile. At least nobody could ever accuse her of being a gold-digger! ‘Staying in hotels is beset with difficulties,’ he explained, without stopping to ask himself why he was bothering to offer his stable girl some kind of explanation for his conduct. ‘It means I have to rely on someone else’s security arrangements.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Eleni slowly, remembering that time at her father’s when he had made her taste his pomegranate juice first, in case it was poisoned. When he was talking to her like this it was almost foolishly easy to forget that he was a prince—and to some, perhaps, a target. ‘But I do not notice any bodyguards, Highness.’
‘There is a car ahead of us and one behind—but they are discreet because that is how I like it. And sometimes I prefer not to have any at all… when their presence would inhibit me,’ he added, with a glitter in his black eyes which Eleni did not understand. ‘But my estate here is so well guarded that I have a certain kind of freedom when I am here. Now look over there,’ he instructed softly. ‘For we have arrived.’
Nothing could have prepared Eleni for that first sight of the sheikh’s English home. His palace in Calista was splendid—so lavish and rich and sumptuous—but this was different and so totally outside her experience that for a moment it completely overwhelmed her.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, her fingers fluttering to her lips as she stared in disbelief.
‘What do you think of it?’
The house rose up from a lawn of impossible greenness—a stately building of bricks as warm and as red as a desert sunset. There were stone steps leading up to a huge door flanked by carved pillars. And everywhere she looked, she could see flowers dancing—they had frilly trumpets and were coloured saffron.
‘It’s… it is beautiful, Highness. Truly beautiful.’
Ridiculously, her comment pleased him—for he sensed it came from the heart rather than because it would be what he was expecting to hear. And for a man who spent his life having his moods gauged and his wishes judged it was as refreshing as the summer rain. ‘Why, thank you,’ he said gravely.
‘And look at the flowers—I have never seen quite so many in one place!’
‘Daffodils,’ he said unsteadily, thinking that the colour of her eyes was as green as the fresh young growth of spring. ‘They are called daffodils. There’s a very famous poem written about them by a man named Wordsworth.’
‘I should like to read it,’ Eleni said wistfully.
‘You shall.’ And suddenly, he couldn’t stop himself. The moist gleam of her mouth was too provocative and her innocent sense of wonder was like an unexpectedly powerful aphrodisiac—and Kaliq leaned over, pulling her into his arms. He looked down at her. ‘You shall do many things when you are with me, Eleni—do you understand that?’
Staring up into his face, she saw a look of intent written in the glitter of his eyes and Eleni knew what was about to happen. But it was not fear she felt in her heart but a great sense of longing. There was a split second when she tried to tell herself this was wrong—but the sight of his hard, dark features dominating her vision wiped away the nagging voice of doubt on Eleni’s lips.
Because she was impatient for his kiss—greedy to taste it once more. It was as if the sheikh had woken in her a dormant hunger she hadn’t known existed until he had liberated it with the first touch of his lips back in Calista.
‘Oh,’ she breathed as his lips began to explore hers with a thoroughness which took her breath away.
Kaliq kissed her and, to his astonishment, she kissed him back as sweetly as the most experienced lover. Kissed him until there was no breath left in his lungs and he levered himself away from her to gaze down into the wide-eyed wonder of her face. ‘It’s good, isn’t it, lizard?’ he questioned unevenly. ‘To kiss like this?’
Eleni swallowed. ‘Oh, yes, Highness.’
Quickly, he claimed her mouth once more—enjoying her little whimper of pleasure as he took control. She was like an unbroken horse, he realised. All fire and spirit—with an innate need to be conquered. And how quickly she learned, he thought with admiration—as her hands reached up to softly knead at his shoulders and he imagined those fingers pressing into his naked flesh.
He felt the moist softness of her lips—the shy and darting uncertainty of her tongue as it mimicked the movement of his and flicked inside his mouth. Hesitantly, at first—and then with a growing confidence until it became a lazy curl against the roof of his mouth which made him groan.
He pushed her back against the soft leather seat and he could see that the amazing pistachio-green of her eyes had almost completely been obscured by the dark brilliance of desire. Her firm, young breasts were pushing against the silk of the tunic she was wearing—their pert tips as hard as Calistan diamonds—and how he longed to bare them. To feast his eyes on her naked flesh. To take them into his mouth and suckle them.
He pushed back the hair from her flushed face, sensing that sexual desire had her firmly in its grip. Knowing that he could slide the silk from her body and explore her secret places which no man had ever touched. Why, no doubt he could loosen the cord of his silk trousers and impale her here, on the back seat of the car—until she cried out with her pleasure.
His gaze flicked to the tinted window of the limousine—but already he could see activity beginning. The staff had been alerted and told that their sheikh was here. And now he found himself looking at Eleni as if through new eyes—seeing her as an outsider might see her.
His closest aides were from Calista, yes—but some of the resident staff here were English. How would it look if he emerged from the car bearing the wild-haired stable girl with seduction having just taken place on the back seat of the car?
He frowned. Eleni had natural skills and talents with a horse which most of them would only ever dream of—but how could she possibly assert any kind of authority here if she was seen as his submissive lover? The kind of woman who would simply let a man take her in a semi-public place?
Angry