‘I don’t understand you,’ she burst out.
Amer leaned back in his chair. His body was utterly relaxed. But the sleepy eyes were watchful.
‘But I am a simple man.’ He was drawling again.
‘Huh.’
He laughed. ‘I am,’ he insisted. ‘Simple pleasures. Simple wants.’
Leo surveyed the table eloquently: Venetian crystal, embossed silver, hand-painted china…
‘It looks like it,’ she said drily.
‘Don’t judge by appearances,’ he chided.
‘What else have I got to judge by?’
He considered her thoughtfully.
‘You could try asking a few questions.’
‘Questions? About what for Heaven’s sake?’
Amer raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Me, you contrary woman,’ he said exasperated. ‘Don’t you want to know anything about me?’
Leo blinked. Was there the faintest undertone of hurt there? Or was it all outraged vanity because she had managed to resist him? After all, he did not know what a struggle she was having to keep to her resolve.
She said drily, ‘I know all about you.’
He was pleased. ‘You’ve been asking about me.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Then you don’t know anything.’
She gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Well, let’s just say I know all I need to know. You spelled it out for me.’
He frowned, puzzled. ‘I did?’
Leo said malevolently, ‘“Come with me to the Casbah”, remember?’
His contribution to the Antika Foundation’s book! Amer’s brow cleared, enlightened.
‘Is that what made you sign up with Simon Hartley?’ He needed to know for sure.
Leo ground her teeth. ‘Will you get rid of the idea that you have any influence on my behaviour? You are nothing to me.’
She thought he would be annoyed. But he was amused. Not just pretending, really amused. Leo looked at him with the deepest suspicion. He laughed aloud.
‘Prove it.’
For an outraged second Leo thought she really was going to hit him. She, who had never hit anyone in her life? She clenched her fists in her lap.
‘I think it’s time I was going,’ she said in a suffocated voice.
His eyes danced. ‘No coffee?’
‘I—’
‘Very wise,’ he said kindly. ‘If you think you can’t handle it.’
Leo glared. ‘I can handle anything you throw at me,’ she announced.
Amer threw back his head and gave another of his deep-throated laughs. She watched, helpless.
‘You,’ he said when he regained control over his voice, ‘are a delight. And a terrible temptation.’
Leo was shaken. No one had ever called her a temptation before. I knew this dress was too low-cut, she thought. It was her only coherent thought. The rest was a panicky whirl of half-formed suspicions and wholly impractical escape strategies.
She huddled her shawl round her incendiary décolletage and refused to meet his eyes.
‘If I have coffee with you, will you call me a cab?’
‘If you still want to go.’
Leo swallowed. ‘Then let’s have coffee now.’
Having made her bargain, she turned her eyes away dismissively and looked pointedly out of the window.
Amer summoned the butler.
‘Coffee in the conservatory,’ he told him. With one eye on Leo’s averted face, he added in a lower voice, ‘And then, I won’t be needing you again tonight.’
It was not the first time the butler had received such instructions from Amer. His expression did not change.
‘Certainly, Your Excellency. And do you wish to speak to Mr Farah?’
‘No,’ said Amer unequivocally. He stood up and held out a hand to Leo.
‘Come and see some more plants you can interrogate me about.’
Ignoring the hand, she got up and followed him. I must not bump into the furniture, she thought hazily. I could not bear it if I blundered into one of his priceless bits of art in my dash for the door. With today’s luck, I’d probably break it.
The conservatory ran the entire length of the house and looked out onto the now twilit garden. Discreetly placed lights illuminated palms, vines and a column of jasmine, covered with fragrant star flowers. At one end a wall-mounted fountain played. Leo’s lips parted in amazement.
‘Yes, you like that, don’t you?’ Amer was wry. ‘I’m beginning to think botany is the only thing that turns you on.’
Leo swung round indignantly—and bumped into the butler, bearing the coffee tray silently behind her.
The butler recovered his balance. Not so the tray he was carrying. China flew, and the coffeepot tipped its contents in a neat stream down the front of her dress.
Leo closed her eyes. ‘Today’s luck strikes again.’
Amer whisked the stained shawl away from her. ‘See what can be done with that Harrods.’
The butler bore it off rapidly.
Amer was blotting the hot coffee with an impeccable white handkerchief. His hands were quite impersonal. Leo swallowed and opened her eyes hurriedly. She was disconcerted to find that she did not feel impersonal at all.
He stood back, dissatisfied. ‘This is soaked. We’ll have to do better than this.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Come with me.’
He whisked her up two flights of stairs to an imposing set of double doors in shining mahogany. Leo was taken aback. But Amer flung open their magnificence as casually as if they led to a broom cupboard and ushered Leo inside.
It was not a broom cupboard, of course. It was a bedroom. The most sumptuous bedroom she had ever seen. Luxury like this was something that Leo, well-off and widely travelled though she was, had never even imagined.
Gulping, Leo looked round in disbelief. It was like a renaissance prince’s salon. The room she was standing in was enormous. Carved pillars supported a domed ceiling that was clearly intended to represent the sky and was nearly as big. The wooden floor had been polished until it shone like wine. Great swathes of gold brocade framed tall windows. One entire wall was painted with a desert hunting scene. Against it stood a gilded couch upholstered in royal blue and scattered with gold cushions.
And the bed. Leo swallowed hard. She kept an eye on that bed. It looked dangerous. It was big and low and rich; ebony inlaid with intricate gold decoration; and it was covered with a shimmering cloth that she had very little doubt was woven gold.
She said the first thing that came into her head.
‘Simple pleasures, my eye.’
Amer was shaken by a silent laugh. ‘Design approved by my cousin the Minister for Culture, I’m sorry you don’t approve of his taste.’ He waved a hand at the couch. ‘Take off that wet dress and sit down. I’ll find you something to wear.’
He disappeared through a door behind a pillar.
Leo unzipped her dress and sank down onto the couch, holding the damp cloth modestly in front of her. A tubular cushion fell squashily to the floor, its ornate tassels flying wide. Gold thread unravelled. It pooled on the polished floor like tangled knitting.
She winced. Leo Groom, true to form, causing devastation wherever she set her clumsy feet. It was the last straw. Leo choked and began to cry.
Amer appeared at once, a robe of some sort over his arm.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, concerned.
Leo looked up. ‘I’ve spoiled your cushion,’ she said tragically.
She pointed at the puddle of gold braiding on the floor. It had hooked itself round the diamanté motif on her smart black shoe and before she got it off became ten times more tangled than before.
Amer was blank. He cast the robe from him and went down on one knee beside her. Very gently he put a fingertip to her eye. Sure enough, when he removed it there was a tear on the end of it.
‘You cry over a cushion?’ he said in disbelief.
‘I always spoil things,’ said Leo. She sniffed. ‘I always h
ave. I’m clumsy. I break things and fall over things and get coffee down my dress…’ Her voice became suspended.
‘I count your getting coffee on your dress as a bonus,’ he said softly. ‘Believe me.’
Leo turned drowned brown eyes to his. He smoothed the anxiety lines from her forehead with a gentle finger.
‘Believe me,’ he repeated, his voice suddenly husky.
With a little gesture of surrender Leo leaned forward and rested her head against his chest.
‘I think this has been the worst day of my life,’ she said, her voice muffled in the ivory silk of his shirt.
Amer stroked her hair. His hand was not entirely steady. Leo was unaware of it.
‘No, it hasn’t,’ he said caressingly. ‘You broke off an engagement you should never have got into. And you put me in my place. Can’t be all bad.’
Leo gave a choke of startled laughter.
‘Put you in your place?’ she echoed drily. ‘Oh sure.’
She looked up and met his eyes. They were warm, the grey of the soft twilight sky outside. Intent. And very close indeed.
Leo drew a shaky breath. There was that fugitive cologne again. Leo moistened her lips. The scent of it seemed to curl round her like smoke, like fog, awaking all her senses.
She said uncertainly, ‘I—’
Suddenly it did not seem to matter that she was an emotional mess; or clumsy; or not wanted in the business. She was in his arms—well, almost in his arms—and it was Heaven.
Amer touched her cheek. ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘Hush.’
This time she did notice that he was shaking. It was a gentle gesture. No force. No demand. It should have been kind and comforting, but the tremor in his fingers distracted her and it was neither.
For a long moment they looked at each other in silence. Leo thought hazily: I’ve been here before. This is how he made me feel that night. I want…I want…
Very, very gently, he prised the dress out of her unresisting fingers. Her lace-covered breasts started at the sudden chill. She heard him catch his breath.
‘Beautiful,’ he said reverently.
Leo turned her head away. Acute need warred with acute embarrassment. She vibrated with tension.
Taking his time, Amer stroked the lace aside and bent his head. Leo kept her head turned away. She held her breath. Very softly he brushed his lips across the nipple he had uncovered. She groaned.
‘Truce over, I think,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you?’
Leo was beyond answering; beyond concentrating on anything but this incredible feeling.
‘Time we were somewhere more comfortable.’
He was on his feet. Leo watched him, dazed. He twitched the corner of the gold coverlet. It rippled off the bed like a water snake.
‘Scratchy,’ explained Amer.
He slid his arms round her, lifting. She could feel his every tiny muscle movement in her fingers’ ends.
He laid her down so gently. She hardly felt her silks and laces slide away until he replaced them with the warm sensuousness of his mouth. Leo could not believe it. He ran his open palm possessively over her naked hip and she shivered. Nothing had ever prepared her for this exquisite sensitivity. It was so piercing that it was almost like pain. But at the same time it was like being bathed in sunlight. She closed her eyes, drifting in delight.
‘I’m glad you grew your hair.’ It was a whisper.
Leo turned her head to look at him. He was drawing the pins out of her sophisticated hairstyle and fanning her hair out on his pillow. He ran his hands through it, watching absorbedly.
‘I knew I would do this,’ he murmured.
He shifted his gaze and smiled down at her, right into her eyes. Wonderingly she put up a hand to touch his mouth, his cheekbones, the corner of those silver eyes.
He stilled. For a moment his eyes were not silver any more, or gentle. And all vestige of amusement left his face. For a moment he looked as if he was in agony.
Leo was alarmed. ‘What is it?’
But he did not answer. Or not with words. Instead he bent over her unhurriedly and his hands began to move. They smoothed and moulded and explored every inch of her body. Slowly. Then his mouth followed the same path down her pliant limbs with butterfly kisses.
Leo had never imagined such exquisite sensations. Soon she was writhing with pleasure and a wholly new hunger. Eyes tight shut, she reached for him.
He let her get rid of his jacket, even helped her with the buttons of his shirt so that she could feel the amazing sensation of her cool, quivering flesh against his warmth. But that was as far as he permitted.
‘No,’ he said, catching her clumsy, seeking hands.
Leo froze and her eyes flew open.
Amer saw her reaction. His eyes darkened. Suddenly he was unhurried no longer. He pushed her back, his mouth urgent at her breast, his hands shifting her as if he knew without words what her body required. His fingers circled, spiralled, drew her irresistibly into a dark vortex of response.
Leo cried out. Amer said something harsh she did not hear—or did not understand—and then his caress deepened urgently.
A rhythm she did not know she knew took hold of Leo. She arched and arched. Her heart raced. The strange, fierce sensation made her cry out, almost in fear.
Just for a moment she saw Amer’s expression. It was total triumph.
And then she convulsed and the world spun out of control.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS Amer who stirred first. Leo was lying across his chest, breathing in the scent of him. She felt shattered by her own sensations. At the same time the dark pulse still throbbed, cavernously deep, waiting to reignite, waiting to meet its fellow.
Now, she thought. Now he will get rid of his clothes. Now he will lose himself, too. This time we will travel together.
She could hardly breathe as he fanned her hair about her bare shoulders.
It feels like silk, she thought. It amazed and delighted her. My hair feels like silk. What has he done to me? She turned her head, and quickly, shyly, kissed the warm golden chest where his heart beat so steadily.
But he did not respond. And he did not kiss her again.
He said, ‘You’ll get cold.’
‘Mmm?’
He caressed the curve of her shoulder as if he owned it. As if he savoured the ownership. But not with passion.
‘I can’t have you catching cold.’ His voice was full of lazy laughter. ‘Think what it would do for my reputation.’
Leo’s heart turned over. Hardly believing it, she thought: He has had enough of me already.
She was shaken to the core by the sensations of the last few minutes. She had never even imagined feelings like that existed, far less that she was capable of them. And now she lay in his arms, getting colder and colder, tasting rejection as she had never imagined that, either.
But she had started the evening fighting back and she was not going to fall into a decline now. With a courage she did not know she possessed, Leo raised her head and narrowed her eyes at him.
‘For that matter, what would it do for your reputation to have it known that you seduce women by pouring coffee all over them?’ she taunted.
‘Would you call it seduction?’ he murmured.
Leo winced inwardly. But she continued as if she had not heard. ‘The least I was expecting was candlelight and a string quartet to serenade me.’
Amer looked at her curiously. ‘I’ll do better next time,’ he promised.
He picked up her hand and carried it to his mouth. In spite of herself, Leo could feel her muscles uncurl in response. Her eyes grew slumberous. Amer smiled and turned her hand over so he could press a kiss into the palm. Every nerve ending in Leo quivered.
Surely now he would…
But he was swinging off the bed, refastening his shirt.
‘Come along, my little sensualist. I’ll give you candlelight and your serenade if you let me wrap you up in something warm first.’
&nbs
p; He dropped a soft velour robe over her. It was the colour of tawny port and sported the inevitable gold facings. She huddled into it, grateful for not having to pretend any more that she did not mind him looking at her nakedness.
Something in her expression must have given her away. Amer’s brows twitched together.
Quickly she flipped the gold braid with a disparaging finger. ‘More design courtesy of the Minister of Culture?’
‘Probably.’
Amer sat on the edge of the bed beside her. He put his hand against her cheek, savouring the warmth.
‘I’ve never seen such skin.’ He pulled the velour aside and kissed her shoulder. ‘Pale as moonlight. We have poems about that, you know. Up to now I thought it was a poetic invention.’
He pulled her against his shoulder. At once, of course, he felt the rigidity in her body.
‘What is it?’ he said concerned.
She could not bear any more. Scrambling off the bed she dived for the bathroom door. She banged it behind her and leaned against it, letting the tears fall at last.
It was only a brief storm. She was careful to make no sound. And when it was over, she bathed her eyes and flushed face. To steady herself, she took stock of the bathroom.
It was on the same excessive lines as the master bedroom. It had marble floors and Greek columns. And a round sunken bath that was clearly designed for more than one person. Arched niches following the curved wall held statues and urns as well as a startling selection of expensive oils. Even the soap was sculptured.
Leo picked up a creamy bar and sniffed experimentally. There was a shadow on the pale bar. She rubbed at it and realised that it was ink transferred from her own finger.
‘Leonora Groom, walking disaster,’ she muttered. ‘You may go to bed with princes but you still have the writing habits of a fourth former. How many times have you washed your hands since you acquired that stain? Ten? Fifteen? It must be ground in.’
She put the soap down hurriedly and a faint elusive scent wafted up to her. Amer’s! She would know it anywhere. She backed away from the bath as if he were lying in it, laughing at her.
‘Time to go back to walking disaster mode,’ she told herself.
She went back into the bedroom and announced, ‘I’ve got to go,’ before her resolve wore off.
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