by Lynne Graham
‘You’ve spent virtually the whole of the last month ignoring me!’ Tilda recovered enough to splutter.
‘But you made it plain that you wanted to be left alone,’ Rashad reminded her darkly, walking her down the stairs at a pace she could manage in her long dress and high heels. ‘You said you wanted to sleep apart from me.’
As Tilda paused to look up at him a sensual frisson of awareness slivered through her body. ‘Not tonight, but-’
‘No conditions,’ Rashad slotted in.
‘Just one tiny one,’ Tilda told him winsomely, noting the way his devouring gaze was glued to her and feeling an intoxicating sense of her feminine power. ‘You have to tell me what really happened five years ago. I want to know what made you turn against me.’
Seriously disconcerted by that demand, Rashad breathed, ‘You want to rake up the past on our wedding night? Are you crazy?’
‘Don’t I have a right to know?’
‘Yes,’ he conceded, but with a reluctance she could feel, ‘but not tonight.’
Tilda supposed he had a point and his admission that she had a right to know mollified her a little. Even so, she did not want to drop the subject until she had received an answer that she could depend on. ‘What sort of evidence do you have?’
‘A security file,’ Rashad divulged, in the hope that revealing the source of his knowledge would persuade her into a diplomatic retreat. He could see no point in putting either of them through the discomfort of examining evidence that she would only find degrading.
Tilda was taken aback by that admission. ‘And how the heck did you get hold of a security file?’
‘It’s been in my possession for a while. No one else has seen it,’ he grated tightly. ‘Right now it’s in my briefcase.’
Satisfied by that admission, if a little spooked by the strength of his reaction, Tilda said nothing more; he’d listened to her request and acted on it. Tomorrow or the next day would be soon enough to resurrect the past. For the present, Tilda realised that she was more interested in making the most of her wedding day.
CHAPTER NINE
THE magnificent main bedroom suite, which neither Rashad nor Tilda had occupied before, was bedecked with flowers and bore more than a passing resemblance to a fairy-tale bower. Tilda was enchanted.
Rashad watched her reverently touch a snowy-white lily blossom. He moved forward to grasp her hand gently in his. ‘This is my wedding gift to you.’ He threaded a stunning oval diamond ring onto her finger. ‘A betrothal ring. We were never engaged but I would like this ring to signify a new beginning for us.’
Her eyes prickled. The diamonds glittered with breathtaking brilliance. She was very touched by what he had just said, because he was offering her heart’s desire. More than anything else she wanted to believe that she had a proper future with him. His choice of gift told her so much more than he would have managed to say. ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous.’
Rashad detached the coin headdress from her hair with great care and set it aside. Beautiful dark eyes serious below his luxuriant black lashes, he removed the turquoise jewellery piece by piece. ‘It meant much to me to see you wear these gems.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you how amazing you look in army uniform?’ Tilda muttered helplessly.
‘No,’ Rashad said truthfully, and an amused smile lightened his solemn expression.
‘Well, you do,’ she told him gruffly.
‘I want you so much I hurt,’ Rashad breathed not quite steadily, letting the tip of his tongue delve between her readily parted lips.
As he leant closer she felt the hard evidence of his arousal through his clothing and a combination of nerves and excitement gripped her. He detached his sword belt and undid his jacket. She tugged it off him with hands that were clumsy with impatience. She had waited too long for him. She wondered if he would realise that he was her first lover. She hoped so. Then he would have to accept how wrong he had been about her and she supposed she would graciously accept his heartfelt apologies.
He undid the tight sash at her waist and unzipped the ornate and heavy kaftan, easing the rich fabric down slowly over her hips. Desire sparked low in her pelvis and she pressed her slim thighs together in embarrassment. Tiny little tremors were running through her slender figure. She stretched up and found his wide, sexy mouth again for herself. He held her there entrapped, one lean hand braced to her spine, the ripe swell of her breasts crushed by the powerful wall of his chest. As he captured her lips with shattering urgency her heart thumped an upbeat tempo inside her ribcage and a delicious surge of heat warmed her belly. His tongue plundered the soft recesses of her mouth, teaching her a wickedly erotic rhythm that made her whimper low in her throat with surprise and pleasure.
Golden eyes smouldering like the heart of a fire, Rashad set her back from him and removed the gossamer fine silk slip she wore. ‘So many unnecessary layers,’ he complained thickly.
Still clad in bra and briefs, Tilda reddened, wildly conscious of his appraisal as he shed his uniform. Watching in guilty fascination, she thought how beautiful he was from the smooth golden skin of his wide, sculpted shoulders to the hard, muscular breadth of his chest and his long, lean, hair-roughened thighs. Her admiring scrutiny jolted to a sudden halt just below the low-slung waistband of his boxers, where the explicit outline of his bold maleness was all too obvious to her disconcerted eyes. Hastily she glanced away, a tiny frisson of mingled response and alarm gripping her.
‘Come here,’ he urged.
‘Can we do this really slowly?’ Tilda asked abruptly.
Surprise and amusement made Rashad smile. With quiet confidence he let his long brown fingers feather through her pale silky ringlets in a soothing motion. ‘What are you scared of? Surely not of me?’
Tilda went pink, mortified that she had let herself down with that nervous and all-too-revealing question. ‘Don’t be daft.’
Unhooking her bra with deft assurance, Rashad vented a husky sound of satisfaction and lifted his hands to cup the full, firm mounds of creamy flesh that tumbled free. ‘I promise that you will know only pleasure in this bed tonight.’
Tilda remained tense. ‘I’m not as experienced as you seem to think.’
His stubborn jaw line tautened, for he did not want to think of anything that might awaken thoughts of the men with whom she had betrayed his trust. He shut out that statement and wiped the very memory of it from his mind. If he let anger touch him again he feared that his promise of a new beginning would become empty, meaningless words and so he made no answer. Instead, he bent his head to kiss her into silence again and he stroked the delicate coral pink buds that crowned her breasts with skilful fingers.
The liquid sensation at the juncture of Tilda’s thighs became a knot of almost painful anticipation. She sucked in an audible breath, but a gasp of disconcertion was wrenched from her when he pulled her down across his thighs, though she had no thought of protest. He used his tongue to lash a lush, pouting nipple with wicked expertise. He followed that bold caress with the gliding graze of his teeth, tormenting the tender peaks into rigid, straining points.
‘Rashad…’ she gasped, her hips squirming in a forlorn attempt to assuage the throb of need he had awakened.
‘You like that?’ Venting a soft laugh of satisfaction, Rashad framed her face with lean brown fingers to hold her still. ‘I think you will like everything I do.’
He tasted her swollen mouth with erotic urgency and eased a hand beneath her hips to remove her last garment. Suddenly aware that she was totally naked, Tilda tensed and there was a hint of insecurity in the way her tongue twinned with his. Rising with her in his strong arms, he tumbled her gently down amongst the pillows. Removing his boxer shorts, he joined her on the bed. His rawly appreciative gaze feasted on the pale rounded contours of her shapely body. She lay there, her entire skin surface buzzing with a wanton response that not even an attack of almost paralysing shyness could kill.
‘I want to please you,’ Rash
ad muttered huskily. ‘Just as you will wish to please me.’
‘Please you?’ she whispered uncertainly.
He took her hand and closed her fingers round that part of him that she had rigorously avoided looking at. The size of him dismayed her, even while the offer of such blatant intimacy fascinated her. Her face flamed at the iron-hard heat and satin smoothness of his rigid shaft. Uncertain though she was, curiosity took over. When he rested back against the pillows and groaned with uninhibited pleasure, answering heat slivered through her and centred on the damp, tender heart of her.
‘How am I doing?’ Tilda whispered shakily
‘Too well for my control.’ Rashad laced possessive fingers in her hair and devoured her luscious mouth in an almost punitive kiss while he spread her back against the pillows. He skimmed teasing fingers through the pale blond curls below her belly and she shivered, madly, wantonly aware of the hot, moist heat of that hidden place. He found the tenderest spot of all and she moaned and pushed her flushed face into his shoulder, alternately taut and melting with delight in response. She was wildly sensitive to his erotic skill. Her head moved restively back and forth, her spine incurving in a helpless attempt to release the unbearable tension rising inside her. He tested the slick, wet heat of her with a single finger. Consumed by the sheer force of her own response, she cried out, her senses scattered with need.
She had never dreamt that she could want and crave as she did at that moment. ‘Rashad…please!’
But only when the ache for fulfilment had become a torment did he angle her back, sliding lithely and surely between her thighs. She was frantic by that stage, urging him on with eager, clutching fingers. With an earthy sound of male pleasure he eased a path into her delicate passage, restraining himself with difficulty as she was very tight.
‘You feel marvellous,’ he breathed raggedly.
Tilda was past speech, all her needs pent up in the violence of the hunger he had aroused and the astonishing newness of what he was making her feel. Only when he deepened his penetration did she feel discomfort. It took her entirely by surprise and was swiftly followed by a sharp stab of pain as he completed his possession. That final pang wrung an involuntary cry from her lips.
‘Tilda…’In bewilderment, Rashad angled back from her and stared down at her. For a split second he had thought he felt a barrier, but he could not bring himself to voice what he believed would be a foolish question. Of course she could not have been a virgin. Of course it must have been his imagination. ‘Have I hurt you?’
‘No…no,’ she mumbled, scarcely knowing what she was saying for she was not in the mood for a postmortem. All momentary discomfort now forgotten, her body was tingling and aching with desire. She was on the thrilling edge of a sensual precipice, her excitement eager and ready to fly high again. That quickening sensation of overwhelming need made her feverishly impatient and she arched up to him in a wholly instinctive movement of encouragement.
With a roughened groan, Rashad succumbed to her provocative invitation and embedded himself again in the sweet oblivion of her body. The hot, virile glide of his flesh within hers submerged her in a sensual world of the purest pleasure. Enthralled by the discovery, she rose up to him and he thrust again. The potent masculine rhythm that he set increased her hunger for him, banishing all awareness of everything but the excitement he had unleashed. At a delirious peak of ravenous need, she reached a glorious climax and abandoned herself to the sweet convulsions of writhing pleasure that engulfed her.
Afterwards, enveloped in a heavy languor, she wondered abstractedly if she would ever move again. Inside she felt like warm, melting honey and buoyantly happy. She was amazed by how close she now felt to Rashad. He kissed her slow and deep and then rolled over, carrying her with him. Content to be held, she snuggled into him, revelling in the achingly familiar scent of his skin. Beneath her cheek, his heart had a steady, reassuring beat.
With a rueful sigh, Rashad eased her up level with him and subjected her to the onslaught of frowning dark golden eyes. ‘I hurt you…I’m sorry.’
‘You noticed, didn’t you? But you are so stubborn,’ Tilda murmured rather tenderly, running a slim forefinger along the taut line of his passionate mouth. ‘So stubborn that you won’t put two and two together and come up with the right answer. Well, it seems that I’ll have to do it for you. I was a virgin.’
Rashad frowned down at her in disbelief. ‘That’s not possible,’ he muttered half under his breath.
Tilda pulled herself up against the pillows and winced at the unexpected pang of tenderness that reminded her of how intimately entwined they had been just minutes earlier.
In an equally sudden movement, Rashad sat up, dislodging the bedding. He went very still when he saw the evidence of her lost innocence on the white sheet. He was so stunned to appreciate that he had not been mistaken in his suspicions that he was silenced. There could have been no other men in her life, not even one other man, or even a single serious affair. It should have been impossible but he looked down into her clear, expectant eyes and knew it was not, for there was fearlessness in that look that challenged him to disbelieve her again.
‘So now you have to explain yourself…and a little humility would go a long way,’ Tilda told him gently, positively basking in a sense of power and willing to offer helpful hints. ‘Are you just a paranoiacally jealous guy? Because I really do need to know, if that’s the problem.’
‘That’s not the problem,’ Rashad breathed stiltedly.
‘I want to see that file-’
‘That is impossible.’ Rashad could now imagine nothing more disastrous than to show her the sleazy file that had destroyed his faith in her. What an insult that would be to add to the original injury!
‘You don’t have a choice.’
‘I have wronged you. I have misjudged you.’ His head was pounding, he could barely think straight. He was fighting to absorb and contain the shock of what he had just found out. But he could not yet move beyond it because the fallout from that misjudgement five years back had been too great. ‘I can only ask for your forgiveness.’
Tilda was seriously dissatisfied with that wooden response. She did not know exactly what she had expected from him but an ongoing refusal to do as she asked was not acceptable. ‘The file?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’ In one strong movement, Rashad sprang out of bed, determined to get his head straight before he risked saying one more word to her. But, really, all he was conscious of was an enormous surge of bitterness and shame. ‘I need a shower.’
In angry stupefaction, Tilda watched as his long, powerful golden back view vanished into the en suite bathroom. It didn’t really matter to him, she thought painfully. She felt so horribly rejected. It didn’t really matter that he had been her first lover, after all. Had she honestly believed that he would think that she was somehow more special? Wasn’t that pathetic of her? All her hurt and anger turning destructively inward, she slid off the bed. What a fool she had made of herself! Why was she always doing that with him? She loved him, he lusted after her. Nothing had changed in five years. She was still looking for what she couldn’t have, still hoping to somehow win what he didn’t have to give her!
Despising her nakedness, she snatched up the wedding kaftan and wriggled her way into it, twisting round to do up the zip with frantic hands. She angled a shamed glance back at the tumbled bed, seeing it as the scene of her humiliation. Why had she thought a wedding ring would change anything? But why, most of all, had she allowed herself to believe that sexual intimacy would somehow make everything all right between them? She was on the way back to her own room when she recalled his grudging admission that the file he had mentioned was in his briefcase. Her eyes flashed. Without hesitation, she changed direction and headed for his office suite.
In the tiled wet room, Rashad stood with clenched fists under the powerful flow of the water. What did he say to her? Where were the words that could express his regret for his lack of trust? He
was convinced that there were no words adequate to such a massive challenge. Especially after what he had gone on to do to Tilda and her family. He could blame only himself for the fact that he had added the pursuit of revenge to his tally of sins. Shame cut through him as keenly as the slash of a knife. He forced his taut shoulders back against the cold tiles. A boiling knot of rage was forming in place of his usual reasoned restraint. He shuddered at the memory of that file and what it had cost her…and him.
Such slander could only have been authorised at the very highest level. Sweat broke on Rashad’s brow. He looked back five years. He remembered his father’s lukewarm attitude to the prospect of his son taking an English wife. The king had urged his son to wait and consider before embarking on such an important commitment. Accustomed to independent, decisive action, Rashad had resented the suggestion that he could not be trusted to choose his own wife. No comment had been made when Rashad had let it be known that the relationship was at an end. Now Rashad was suspicious of what he had regarded at the time as his father’s tactful silence. All his life he had awarded absolute loyalty to his parent. But he also knew that if the older man had sanctioned the sordid destruction of Tilda’s reputation, he would never be able to forgive him for it. It was an issue, he recognised bleakly, that had to be dealt with immediately.
Rifling through Rashad’s briefcase, Tilda finally came on what she sought. Swallowing hard, she withdrew the slim folder. She pushed the case back under the desk and returned to her bedroom, wondering if Rashad had noticed yet that she was missing and, if he had, what he would do about it. In the distance she could hear the sound of lively music and revelry: the royal wedding guests were still celebrating.
She sat down on the bed and opened the file. Her heart was in her mouth and she scolded herself, for all she was expecting to see was the source of the misunderstanding that she believed must have taken place-possibly, the name of a male friend had been erroneously linked with hers. Her address was given as the student house in which she had rented a room that summer. What she was not prepared to see was a fabrication of lies that listed a string of men, whom she had never heard of, and declared that they had all stayed overnight in her room. It was very precise as regards dates and times. Evidently she had been the victim of a sordid character assassination. She was devastated by the realisation that Rashad could have believed her capable of such rampant promiscuity.