Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘You’ll find her in the glasshouses,’ he explained, glancing down at his watch in a manner that seemed uncharacteristically distracted to Tair. ‘She’s interested in that sort of thing. Well, she would be, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘She would?’ Tair, who was mentally bringing forward his plan by an hour, pretended an interest he did not feel.

  ‘Well, yes, she’s head of the science department but her first degree was in botany. When I told her about the glasshouses built by great-grandfather and his collection she was fascinated. I was looking for Khalid to do the honours for me, but I can’t track him down.’

  ‘She is a teacher?’ he said, unable to hide his doubt. Surely in order to command the respect of pupils a teacher needed to project an air of authority?

  Tariq looked amused. ‘Have you spoken to her at all? She teaches at a girls’ school.’ He named a prestigious establishment that even Tair had heard of and added, ‘Molly is really very bright.’ He said this with an obvious pride that set Tair’s teeth on edge.

  ‘I know she seems quiet, but once you start talking to her…she’s actually got a great sense of humour and—’

  ‘She seems to have a most articulate advocate in you,’ Tair cut in before his cousin waxed even more lyrical and was unable to keep a guard on his tongue. ‘I will,’ he promised, ‘certainly make the effort to know her better.’ He knew all he needed to know about Miss Mouse.

  ‘So we have you for a few more days?’

  ‘My travel plans are not certain yet,’ Tair lied, thinking of his refuelled plane and freshly charted flightplan.

  ‘Tell Molly I’m sorry, but I’ll have to take a rain check. Bea had a bad night. They think it’s a good idea if she checks into the hospital.’ He glanced down at his watch again. ‘I’ve been banished while she packs a bag. She says I’m driving her mad fussing.’ Despite his joking tone the lines of strain around his mouth made it clear that Tariq was worried.

  ‘You should have said something!’ Tair exclaimed. ‘Is she—?’

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ Tariq cut in quickly. ‘Her blood pressure is up a little and, well, the fact is she’s been doing too much. It’s my fault—I shouldn’t have left her alone.’

  Tair thought it was a little late for the other man to realise this, but given his obvious agitation it seemed unnecessarily cruel to labour the point so he contented himself with an abrupt, ‘Your place is with your wife.’

  ‘So you’ll explain the situation to Molly?’

  Could he not forget the woman even now? ‘I will make sure she understands.’

  Tariq laid a hand on his arm. ‘Thanks, Tair, and try not to scare her. Poor Molly has the impression you can’t stand the sight of her.’

  The girl was highly perceptive, Tair thought, while lifting his brows in an attitude of amazement.

  ‘I know, crazy,’ Tariq remarked with an indulgent smile that made Tair’s teeth grate, ‘but I think you make her nervous…I know you can be charming, Tair, and I’d be grateful if you’d make the effort for me. This is her first visit here and I want her to come back.’

  Not if I have anything to say about it. ‘For you, yes, cousin, I will make the effort.’

  ‘Thanks for this, Tair.’

  ‘It is my pleasure.’ And if not his pleasure, it was certainly his duty to remove temptation from Tariq’s way.

  The perfectly preserved glasshouses built in the Victorian era covered acres of ground and they contained not only historical and rare fruit and vegetable varieties, but a unique and priceless collection of orchids.

  Tair was familiar with the glasshouses as when he was a boy visiting his cousins they had played there. It took him a short time to locate Molly, though he almost walked past her, only catching sight of the shiny top of her head at the last minute.

  He backtracked and saw she was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up, her attention divided between the sketch-book balanced on her knee and an orchid in full fragrant bloom. Its heady scent filled the air around them.

  She was so intent on her task that she didn’t hear his approach and as she continued to remain unaware of his presence Tair had the opportunity to study her unobserved.

  Her body was hidden once more behind another unattractive outfit—an oversized shirt and shapeless skirt that reached mid-calf. But his attention remained on her face. Like last night, she was not wearing the librarian glasses, but unlike last night he was close enough to appreciate the delicacy of her bone structure and the smooth creaminess of her skin. Still oblivious to his presence, she turned her head as she laid down the pencil in her hand to pick up another from the tin that lay open beside her and he was able to see that her face was a perfect oval.

  Her delicate winged brows drew together in a frown of concentration as she turned her attention back to the drawing, her slim fingers flying over the paper.

  When she finished the frown deepened into a grimace of dissatisfaction as she compared what was on the paper to the waxy petalled bloom she was studying.

  ‘Hopeless!’ she muttered in apparent disgust at her inability to do her subject justice.

  ‘A lack of talent can be frustrating.’

  She started as though shot and turned her head jerkily, causing several strands of hair to break loose from the knot tied at the base of her slender neck. Their eyes connected and Tair was struck by two thoughts simultaneously. Her eyes were pure gold and she was looking at him as though he were, if not the devil himself, then certainly a very close relation. She appeared not to notice as the pencil slipped from her nerveless fingers and slid into the decorative grating of an air vent.

  He raised one brow and she astonished him by blushing to the roots of her hair. Hair that turned out not to be boring mousy brown, but a subtle combination of shades ranging from soft gold to warm conker.

  The knot on the nape of her neck appeared to be secured by a single barrette; presumably if it was removed her hair would spill like silk down her back.

  Had Tariq done this?

  He pushed the thought away, baring his teeth in a smile. Tariq wouldn’t be doing that or anything else that involved Miss Mouse any more.

  Even before she turned Molly had known who was standing there. Tair Al Sharif’s voice had to be just about the most distinctive on the planet! He could have made the ingredients on a cereal packet sound like an indecent proposition. The velvet smoothness had an almost tactile quality that sent tiny secret shivers up and down her spine.

  Even when he stopped speaking she could hear it in her head.

  Molly kept her head down and got to her feet slowly to allow the heat in her cheeks time to dissipate.

  Even when she was standing straight he remained a full foot, probably more, taller than her. Molly would have liked to believe it was simply the extra inches alone that made her feel at such a disadvantage. But even without looking directly at him she could feel the effect of the leashed power and blatantly sexual aura he radiated lying like a stone fist in her chest. It made her conscious of each breath she took.

  He was dressed smart-casual, or in his case sexy-casual, in jeans, secured across his lean snaky hips with a leather belt, and a blue open-necked shirt.

  Molly had never thought before that the words denim and disturbing could be in the same sentence as she glanced at the way the material clung to his long muscular thighs.

  Last night Molly had tossed and turned in bed unable to get this man’s voice or face from her mind although she had tried to blame her inability to sleep on the second cup of coffee she’d had at dinner.

  At about two a.m. she had decided that she had imagined the hypnotic quality of his searing blue eyes and the inexplicable hostility she saw in them when they were turned in her direction.

  Now a caffeine-free zone, she had to admit she had been fooling herself.

  Even after having adjusted her stare to a point over his shoulder she could feel his eyes on her. The sort of eyes that layers of skin and bone seemed a poor d
efence against—it felt as if he could see inside her skull.

  When she was this close to him she felt as though every protective layer she had built up over the years had been peeled away. Chastising herself crossly at the whimsical illusion, she kept staring into the safety zone over his shoulder, deciding it was preferable to have him assume she was cross-eyed than maintain direct eye contact and do something stupid like trip over her own feet, drool or forget her name.

  This is stupid—you look ridiculous, Molly thought. Look at the man—you can’t talk to the wall! Surely nothing should scare a person who had stood in at the last minute for an absent colleague and delivered a sex-education lecture to a hall of sixteen-year-old girls?

  It had turned out the girls knew a lot more than she did!

  ‘You startled me,’ she said, brushing the dust off the seat of her skirt before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I didn’t hear you.’ And if I had I would have run in the opposite direction.

  It was still an option, she thought, staring at his shiny boots.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, not looking it, but not actually sounding as openly antagonistic as he had the previous evening.

  It was possible she’d been wrong about the hostility, not that he had the sort of face that was easy to read if he didn’t want you to. And right now it would seem he didn’t want her to.

  Her gaze flickered across the hard contours and angles of his lean face and a sigh snagged in her throat. He might not be easy to read, but he was damned easy to look at! A lot more than easy!

  Her glance dropped to his feet shod in leather boots and then, as though drawn by an invisible magnet, worked its way upwards, lingering over some areas more than others, until she reached his face. Everything about him was worth looking at.

  She applied the tip of her tongue to the moisture that broke out along her upper lip and struggled to disguise the fact that her feet were nailed to the ground with lust.

  No man had ever elicited this type of raw response from Molly in her life and she found it both utterly mortifying and deeply scary.

  As he reached across to take the sketch-book from her she opened her mouth to protest but nothing came out. With fingers clenched almost as tight as her teeth, she injected amusement into her voice as she held out her hand.

  ‘I doubt my scribbling will interest you, Mr al…Prince…’

  His eyes lifted, meeting hers momentarily. He ignored the hand. ‘Or my opinion interest you?’

  ‘I’m holding my breath.’ Actually the entire breathing thing was currently something of a chore. She was twenty-four and had never been in a situation where sexual awareness caused her brain to malfunction before.

  The acid sweetness of her retort caused his eyes to narrow before they dropped. Biting her lip, Molly watched in dismay as Tair Al Sharif, his dark head tilted a little to one side, continued to study the sketch.

  So far he hadn’t been overly impressed by anything about her, so why, she asked herself dourly, should now be any different?

  She stopped and blinked…Will you just listen to yourself, Molly? Have you any idea how pathetic and needy you sound?

  She took a deep breath, lifted her chin and advised herself sternly to grow up. For goodness’ sake, he was not an art critic. Why should she give a damn what he thought?

  She didn’t!

  So why was she standing here shuffling her feet like a kid called to the headmaster’s study?

  This was ridiculous. She was acting like some needy loser who wanted everyone to love her…Someone might be nice, but that someone was not going to bear any resemblance to Tair Al Sharif.

  The internal dialogue came to an abrupt end as he lifted his raven head.

  He was surprised that she actually did have the talent he accused her of lacking, a fact that was obvious even to his uneducated eye. The drawing leapt off the paper. It was detailed and delicate and if it did not meet with her approval the artist was an extremely harsh critic of her own skills.

  He removed his eyes from the sketch-book and turned his attention to her, his dark gaze drifting over the outfit that was not what most women would have selected for a meeting with a lover, but clearly Tariq was able to see past the dowdy disguise. The thought of his smitten cousin brought a dark scowl of disapproval to his face and it was still in place when their eyes connected.

  Molly went to push up the glasses on her nose only to discover they weren’t there. She experienced a moment of total panic, the sort she felt in nightmares.

  She didn’t need his approval, she told herself sternly, and she didn’t need a safety blanket either. The glasses had been useful once, but she was no longer a precociously bright but gauche kid plunged into the university environment among people who were older.

  Tair had seen the gesture. ‘You have mislaid your spectacles…Can you not see without them?’ It amused him that the teacher was looking at him as though she were a pupil expecting a reprimand from a headmaster.

  She gave a shrug. ‘They’ll turn up.’

  ‘The picture is very good.’ He handed back the sketch-book, which she took and slowly closed.

  A gratified smile lifted the corners of her sensual lips, and her eyes looked like polished amber as they shone with pleasure. The permanent groove above his hawklike nose deepened. Her reaction struck him as a wildly over-the-top response to what had been a grudging observation.

  As if the same thought had suddenly occurred to her, the smile vanished and she lowered her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I CANNOT be the first person to tell you that you have…talent.’

  The harsh emphasis Tair placed on the last word confused Molly. ‘It’s a hobby…it’s just for my own amusement.’

  And did it amuse her to steal another woman’s husband? The muscles of his brown throat worked as he regarded her with distaste.

  His rigid disapproving stance made her shift uncomfortably, and she dropped her gaze. Seeing her glasses lying on the floor, she bent to pick them up with a grunt of relief. Unfortunately Tair did too, his brown fingertips brushing the skin of her wrist as he reached them just before her.

  The brief contact sent a surge of tingling sensation through her body. She stepped back, almost stumbled, then, breathing hard, she straightened up.

  Tair watched as she nursed one hand against her chest, his eyes drawn to the visibly throbbing blue-veined pulse spot at the base of her throat.

  The air was dense with a sexual tension you could have reached out and grabbed with both hands. It hung in the hot, humid air like a crackling field of electricity.

  Tair viewed this unexpected development with as much objectivity as he was able—which wasn’t very much when he was seeing life through a hot hormonal haze.

  It hadn’t been slow burn, it had just exploded out of nowhere and it still held him in its grip.

  Tair’s jaw clenched as he struggled to reassert control; he was not a man who let his appetites rule him. Of course he had experienced his share of lustful moments but he’d never been drawn to anyone in such an elemental way before.

  This personal insight into what this woman could do to a man ought to have made him feel sympathy for his cousin, but it was not empathy he felt when he thought of Tariq following up on the sort of impulse he had just resisted.

  Resisted, even though he was free to follow his urges, unlike his cousin.

  His hooded gaze slid to her mouth.

  ‘It’s just for my own amusement,’ she repeated hoarsely.

  His own amusement was very much in Tair’s thoughts as his eyes stayed on the soft full outline of her lips. If he followed up on his impulses it would be because he chose to and not because he couldn’t help himself.

  He had control.

  So why had he been staring at her mouth for the last two minutes as if it were an oasis and he were a man who needed water?

  Hands clenched at his sides, he removed his eyes from her lips. If he did kiss her
it would be at a time and place of his choosing.

  Pushing back strands of loose hair from her brow, Molly extended her hand towards him. ‘Thank you…’

  As he looked at her fingertips Tair thought about them trailing over his damp bare skin. A spasm of irritation drew his lean features into a frown. His problem was that there had been too much work in his life recently and not enough sex.

  His problem, he acknowledged, was her mouth.

  To Molly’s utter dismay, instead of handing her the spectacles Tair held them up to his own eyes.

  She watched his dark brows lift towards his hairline and thought how it was typical that the only person who had ever seen past her harmless charade had to be him.

  ‘Clear glass…?’

  He struggled to hide his extreme distaste at his discovery. Presumably the clothes and unmade face were all part of the same illusion. The one that made other women dismiss her as no threat, but every man she came into contact with knew different.

  He knew different.

  Molly, feeling an irrational level of guilt as though she had been caught out in some shameful crime, shook her head mutely.

  She was not about to explain that when arriving at university via an educational hothouse scheme for gifted children, aged sixteen and looking fourteen, she had come up with the inspired idea of looking older by adopting a pair of heavy spectacles. She realised now that they hadn’t made her look older but over the years they had become a safety blanket.

  ‘A fashion accessory.’

  ‘I think you should change your fashion guru.’

  The suggestion drew a forced laugh from Molly. ‘Fashion isn’t really my thing.’

  ‘But wearing clothes two sizes too big is?’

  He didn’t come right out and say that she looked like a dowdy bag lady, but that was clearly the message in his comment. The voltage of Molly’s smile went up and her muscles ached from the fixed and slightly inane grin her facial muscles had frozen into.