Эбби Грин – Desert Jewels: The Sheikh's Undoing / The Sultan's Choice / Girl in the Bedouin Tent (страница 15)

Isobel drew away from him, hating the sudden leap of her heart, angry with herself for wanting to buy into what was clearly a lie. And angry with him for feeling that she needed to be placated with a lie as whopping as that one. ‘Oh, come on, Tariq—with all the lovers you’ve had, you’re honestly expecting me to believe that?’

‘But it is true.’ He stared into her now smoky tawny eyes, wondering how much of the truth she could bear. ‘You see, never before have I made love to a woman without protection. It is a risk that I can never take—for all the obvious reasons. But a virgin who has never known another man cannot be tainted.’ He took her fingers and drifted them over his groin, enjoying seeing her eyes widen as he hardened instantly beneath them. ‘And a virgin who is on the pill cannot give me an unwanted child.’

Isobel snatched her hand away. ‘So you really hit the jackpot with me?’

He gave a low laugh as he recaptured her hand and brought it up to his lips. ‘You wanted to know why I found sex with you more exciting than with anyone else and I’ve told you. Don’t ask the questions, Izzy, if you can’t bear to hear the answers.’

‘You’re impossible,’ she whispered.

‘And you’re…’ His eyes narrowed as he kissed each fingertip in turn. ‘Well, right now you are looking positively decadent.’

Her indignation melted away as he slid her fingers inside the moist cavern of his mouth. It was as if even his most innocuous touch could weaken all her defences. ‘Am I?’

‘Extremely.’ He drifted the now damp fingers to the faint indigo shadows beneath her sleepy tawny eyes. ‘But you also look worn out, kalila.’

She loved him touching her like that. She loved him touching her pretty much anywhere. ‘Mmm?’

‘Mmm. So why don’t you just relax?’ He brushed back the heavy spill of curls which had fallen down around her face. ‘Go on, Izzy. Relax.’

With a little sigh, she let her head drift back against the sofa as he continued to stroke her hair, just as if she were some cat that he was petting.

Distantly, as her weighted eyelids whispered to a close, she could hear the sound of water splashing. For one crazy moment she could have sworn that she heard someone whistling. But then the emotion of what had just happened and the stupefying endorphins it had produced made Isobel drift off into a glorious half-world of sleep.

She was woken by the distinct smell of sandalwood and the lightest brush of lips over hers, and when she blinked her eyes open it was to see Tariq standing over her. His black hair was glittering with tiny droplets of water and he was wearing a stark and beautifully cut tuxedo. He must have showered and changed in his office’s luxury bathroom, she thought dazedly.

The crisp whiteness of his silk shirt contrasted against the glow of his olive skin, and his black eyes positively gleamed with energy and satisfaction. He looked like a perfect specimen of masculinity, she thought—all pumped up and raring to go. As if, for him, sex had been nothing but a very gratifying form of exercise.

She stared up at him. ‘What’s…what’s happening?’

Tariq swallowed down a surge of lust. She looked so damned sexy lying there that part of him wanted to carry on where they’d left off. To do it to her again—only more slowly this time, and on the comfort of a couch. But wouldn’t some kind of natural break be better—for both of them? Wouldn’t that allow them to put some necessary perspective on what had just happened—and allow her not to start reading too much into what could be a potentially awkward situation?

‘You know I have to go to the party at the Maraban Embassy,’ he said softly. ‘You were nagging me about it before we…’

Isobel kept the stupefied smile glued to her lips. He was still planning on going to the party!

‘Yes. Yes, of course. You must go.’ She struggled to sit up a little, but Tariq made matters even worse by leaning over her and stroking a strand of hair away from her lips with the tip of his thumb. For a moment his thumb lingered, tracing its way around the sudden tremble of her lips.

‘I’ll get my car to drop you off home,’ he said.

‘No, honestly. I can get the—’

‘Bus?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Without your panties?’ His rueful gaze drifted across the room to where her ripped knickers were lying in a crumpled little heap of silk. ‘I don’t think so, anisah. So go and quickly run a brush through your hair, and then we’ll go.’

It was rather a grim end to an eventful afternoon, and one which made Isobel question the wisdom of what she had just done. Quickly she availed herself of his bathroom, dragging the Titian curls into some sort of order and straightening her clothes before they went down in the elevator to his waiting car.

There was no back seat kiss, no telling her that she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever met and that he would spend the evening thinking about her. Instead all proprieties were observed as Tariq spent the short journey to the Maraban Embassy tapping on the flat, shiny screen of his laptop.

When the car pulled up and he looked up he seemed almost to have forgotten who he was with.

‘Izzy,’ he said softly.

She looked at him, aware that he looked impeccably groomed in comparison to the rumpled exterior she must be presenting. Was he regretting what had happened? Wondering how he could have allowed himself to get so carried away in the heat of the moment? Well, she didn’t know how these things usually worked, but she was determined that he should have a let-out clause if he wanted one.

Batting him a quick smile, she pointed to the car door, which was already being opened for him. Let him see that she was perfectly cool about what had happened.

‘Better hurry along, Tariq,’ she said quickly. ‘Leave it much later and you’ll have missed all the canapés.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘I JUST wanted to check that you got home okay. The party at the Embassy went on longer than I thought. In fact it was a bit of a bore. I should have stayed right where I was and carried on with exactly what I was doing.’ There was a pause before the distinctive voice deepened. ‘I’ll see you in the office tomorrow, Izzy.’

With an angry jab of her finger Isobel erased the message on the answer-machine and made her way out to her tiny kitchen; where the morning sunshine was streaming in. It was a strangely unsatisfying message from the man she’d given her virginity to—Tariq must have left it late last night, after she’d gone to bed. But what had she expected? Softness and affection? Tender words as an after-sex gesture? Why would he bother with any of that when she’d practically begged him to have sex with her?

She stared at the piece of bread which had just popped out of the toaster and then threw it straight into the bin. She wasn’t in the mood for breakfast. She wasn’t in the mood for anything, come to think of it, except maybe crawling right back under the duvet and staying there for the rest of the week. She certainly wasn’t up for going into work this morning to face her boss after what had happened in the office last night.

She closed her eyes as a shiver raced over her skin, scarcely able to believe what she’d done. Taken complete leave of her senses by letting Tariq have wild sex with her, pressed up against the wall of his office. After years spent wondering if maybe she didn’t have the sexual impulses of most normal women, of wondering if her mother had poisoned her completely against men, she had discovered that she was very normal indeed.

Behind her eyelids danced tormenting memories. Was that why she’d behaved as she had? Because a lifetime of longing had hit her in a single tidal wave? Or was it simply because it was Tariq and subconsciously she’d wanted him all along?

She shuddered. She’d been like a woman possessed—urging him on as if she couldn’t get enough of him. It had been the very first time she’d ever let a man make love to her, and she’d been so greedy for him that she hadn’t wanted to wait. She felt the dull flush of shame as she acknowledged that she hadn’t even been ladylike enough to hold out for doing it in private—in a bed!

Yet she knew what kind of man he was. Hadn’t she seen him in action often enough in the past? She’d lost count of the times she’d been dispatched to buy last-minute presents for his current squeeze—or bouquets of flowers when he was giving chase to a new woman.

And what about when he started to cool towards the object of his affections, so that he became positively arctic overnight, usually three to four weeks into the ‘relationship’? She’d witnessed the faint frown and the shake of his head when she mouthed the name of some poor female whose voice was stuttering down the telephone line as she asked to speak to him. She’d even seen him completely cold-shoulder one hysterical blonde who’d been lying in wait for him outside the Al Hakam building. Then had had his security people bundle her into a car and drive her away at speed. Isobel remembered watching the woman’s beautiful features contorted with rage as she glared out of the back window of the limousine.