by Lynne Graham
Lily snatched in a sustaining breath. ‘What you want may not be what I think best for my family!’
‘But if you want me to ease your family’s passage through this, you’ll do as I ask. If you choose to go up against me, remember that you were warned.’ Golden eyes hard as a polished wall rested on her shaken face.
‘You’re threatening me,’ Lily whispered sickly.
‘No, I’m not,’ Rauf contradicted with cool conviction. ‘I’m just pointing out the facts. At this moment, I have no reason to trust your sister or your father but I’m willing to withhold judgement in the short term. However, if one of you were to tip off Gilman, accidentally or otherwise, he might disappear and I would then have good cause to wonder whether or not he really was the only thief in your family.’
‘Thanks a bundle…’ Lily muttered, flags of chagrined colour blooming across her taut cheekbones as she absorbed that telling speech.
‘You need to know where you stand.’
Between his foot and the ground and in danger of being crushed. Oh, yes, she understood the message she was receiving. Either she left her sister in ignorance or she invited Rauf to suspect either Hilary or their father of having been in league with Brett. ‘Am I your hostage now?’ Lily demanded.
Rauf paused and from below dense black lashes cast her a molten-gold glance that was as erotic as a caress. ‘Would you like to be?’ he asked huskily.
That easily he churned up the atmosphere between them. She was disconcerted and trapped by those stunning eyes of his, and a tiny flame of awareness lit low in Lily’s tummy; it happened so fast it left her breathless. Tearing her gaze in dismay from his, she focused in a daze on the extraordinary house that had come into view. It sat like a fantasy painting surrounded by venerable oak trees and Lily just stared. With a domed roof and an overhanging first floor, it had all the appearance of a medieval building for, unless she was very much mistaken, it also seemed to be made entirely of wood.
‘Sonngul,’ Rauf said with perceptible pride. ‘The Kasabian yali…that means summer home. I had it restored two years ago as a surprise for my great-grandmother.’
A summer home the size of a mansion. Lily breathed in deep.
‘Of course, I also built a large extension at the rear,’ Rauf continued. ‘In the original house, cooking and washing were done in the courtyard. There were no bedrooms either. The family slept in the same areas where they lived by day.’
The arched front door stood wide. It was an airy house of open spaces, tall windows with shutters, soaring ceilings, plays of filtered light and shadow. At the entrance he removed his shoes and a second later she followed suit. Up the sweeping carved staircase on the first floor was a huge room with doorways leading off in several directions and Rauf told her that it was called the basoda. Each corner of the room was a distinct and different area, one furnished for dining, another with bookshelves and a desk. Rauf strode up the single shallow step into the furthest corner and opened a drinks cabinet. There opulent cushioned divans edged the walls and created a charming window-seat into the tall bay that overlooked a tranquil river and the dense woods beyond. Slipping off her cardigan, Lily sat down there, soothed by that beauty and the silence.
Unasked, Rauf brought her a brandy. Lily sipped and grimaced, for she had never liked the taste of alcohol, but the fiery spirit helped to disperse the chilled knot of apprehension still keeping all her muscles taut.
Rauf set his own glass down untouched and studied her with level dark golden eyes. ‘I misjudged you yesterday,’ he murmured with wry honesty. ‘I was also very rude. That is unlike me but the whole time that I was with you, I was angry and I wanted to hurt you.’
Surprised by his candour, Lily nodded jerkily, compressed her lips and then dropped her head because the over-emotional tears were threatening her again. Finally she was getting a glimpse of the male she had once fallen hopelessly in love with. A guy who was incredibly proud and very stubborn but who would acknowledge when he was in the wrong even though it killed him to own up to being anything less than perfect. A passionate and very masculine male, who could be domineering and arrogant but who had still been capable of melting her heart with one rueful charismatic smile. But then mercifully, she thought crazily as she fought the moisture dammed up behind her aching eyes, Rauf had not smiled since her arrival in Turkey.
‘Why would you want to hurt me?’ she muttered unevenly, for she could think of no good reason in the world why he should have experienced such a need. He had been the one to walk out of her life. He had not looked back either, but it had been a very long time before she had answered the phone in her student flat without a prayer in her heart that it would be him calling her. But then wasn’t she forgetting his current suspicions about her, or at least her family, having been involved in Brett’s dishonesty? She shut out that unwelcome recollection for, as matters stood, she had neither control nor influence over the events that would enfold.
Rauf vented a roughened laugh. ‘How can you ask me that?’
Lily looked at him, recognised the raw tension in that lean, strong face that had once haunted her dreams and her heart skipped a beat.
‘You must feel the hunger you rouse in me,’ Rauf breathed with driven emphasis. ‘I neither expected that nor sought its return, but that desire for you is still there inside me just as it was that summer.’
Through the open sash-window behind her, Lily could hear the soft rushing sound of the river flowing and rippling over stones and, in the silence that fell, it seemed to fill her eardrums while she tried to absorb what he had just admitted. Was he saying that he wanted her back? Why else would he admit to still desiring her? Slowly, she lifted her head high, faint pink chasing the pallor from her lovely face, astonished blue eyes finally connecting with his fierce measuring appraisal.
‘Do you always want most what you think you can’t have?’ Lily whispered shakily.
‘Evet…yes,’ Rauf admitted in Turkish with a fatalistic shrug as if that state of affairs went without saying as the norm for him.
‘So I say no and get wanted even more…you shouldn’t have told me that,’ Lily tried to tease, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time, and then the tears pounced when her guard was down and streamed in rivulets down her cheeks, startling her as much as they seemed to startle him.
‘Lily…no…’ After an instant of hesitation, Rauf found himself sinking down by her side to draw her into his arms, only to still the motion when she was mere inches away.
‘I’m s-sorry…’ she gulped, but that confession of his had set free the pent-up tears as nothing else could have done.
‘I’ve been tough on you,’ Rauf conceded, and then he questioned why he had said that, but he did not question why he was holding her for that development struck him as inevitable.
‘It’s hardly your fault that Brett’s a total creep,’ Lily bit out unsteadily, giving way to what every natural sense prompted and pushing forward into the support of his broad muscled chest to bury her damp face in his shoulder. ‘But I don’t want to think about him right now.’
‘I expect not.’ Rauf held her back from him and used one lean hand to tip her lovely face back up to his.
It was the optimum moment to demand answers. His other hand closed into the fall of her hair where a clip held it confined. His intent golden eyes melded with her damp blue gaze for a long, timeless moment while he reminded himself that she had slept with her sister’s husband, that she was an accomplished liar. But still he stared down into those glorious blue eyes that he recognised were the exact same shade he had chosen for the bedroom ceiling in his Istanbul apartment. A what-the-hell feeling that was totally out of character hit Rauf in a raw, energising wave.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Lily whispered half under her breath, for he was so close she could see the gold lights in his amazing eyes and a different tension, an edge-of-seat, thrilling sense of suspense, held her taut.
‘I’m appreciating you.
’ Rauf tilted her back over one strong arm as he freed the clip confining the long, thick fall of her hair and tossed it aside. He made every move with exaggerated slowness, instinctively waiting for her to protest or retreat as she had once done whenever he got too close. Her response in his arms the day before still struck him as unreal, for that was not how he remembered her.
Beneath the burning probe of Rauf’s measuring appraisal, she felt her breath feather in her throat for she could hardly wait to feel his mouth on hers again. ‘Are you?’
‘Very much…’ Rauf husked, a bitter sort of amusement lancing through him, for there was no doubt in his mind now that the reluctance he had met with before could only have been a deliberate ploy to make him all the keener. ‘Especially as you don’t seem quite so nervous as you used to be around me.’
Hot pink surged into Lily cheeks and her uneasy gaze dropped from his in embarrassment at that unexpected reminder. ‘I got over that.’
But when had she magically got over it? Just yesterday when she’d appreciated that he held the future of Harris Travel in his hand? Dark, dangerous thoughts threatening, Rauf tuned them out with single-minded purpose and let his fingers slide into her gorgeous hair to tug the golden weight of glossy strands round her taut shoulders where it coiled and slid downward again in a tumbling mass. ‘I always wanted to see you wear it loose like this.’
‘It’s too long…gets in the way.’ The smouldering entrapment of his golden gaze kept her still. She could hardly breathe and her heart was thumping as though she had run a marathon, making it difficult for her to speak. Her breasts ached and a liquid sensation of heat was stirring at the very heart of her so that she pressed her thighs together in sudden guilty mortification.
‘I love it…’ Rauf confided thickly, dropping his lean, strong hands to her slender hips to raise her to him. ‘I promise you…it won’t get in my way.’
He captured her lips in a slow, searching onslaught that sent her senses spinning. The very taste of him was pure intoxication and the feel of his sensual mouth sublime. All that still approached rational thought was stolen from her in the first few seconds and then the sheer pleasure of what he was doing to her took over. He explored the tender interior of her mouth with a seductive expertise that made her gasp and cling, fingers biting into his broad shoulders with helpless impatience, tiny little tremors assailing her quivering length while she melted and burned for more.
Rauf lifted his dark head. ‘Time to make a move…’ he growled, springing upright.
Before she had even surfaced from the effects of that last lingering kiss, he had bent and swept her up into his arms to stride across the basoda and into a connecting hallway.
Lily stole a confused ennervated look up at Rauf. ‘I can walk…’
‘I like carrying you,’ Rauf imparted with a slashing smile that brought his lean, devastating features to vibrant, charismatic life.
Her heart leapt inside her at the appeal of that smile.
Rauf shot a charged glance down at her. ‘I’m taking you to my bed, güzelim. If you don’t like that idea, say so now…’
Something akin to panic seized Lily in initial response to that invitation. His bed. Wasn’t it much too soon for that development? But was she about to refuse the only male who had ever managed to make her want him? Taking into account his strong pride and their past history, he would never approach her again. This time around he expected an adult relationship and evidently he saw no reason why they shouldn’t just go straight to bed. Having stuck by her moral principles would be cold consolation if she lost Rauf again at their expense. And, all nerves and shyness aside, if she was truly honest with herself, the mere idea of finding out what real passion was like with Rauf just left her limp and weak with wanton, wicked longing.
‘Lily…?’ Rauf prompted, strung high on the suspicion that he had fallen for yet another come-on destined to end in a freezing-cold shower.
Lily collided with sizzling golden eyes and butterflies broke loose in her tummy. By dint of clutching his shoulder, she lifted herself up to find his tempting mouth again for herself and gave him her answer that way. He succumbed with a roughened groan of appreciation and flattering immediacy. It was at least a minute before Lily got a single brain cell operating again and by that stage she was being set down on a superb gilded and carved bed. Instant tension froze her there.
Rauf backed off just to fully enjoy the sight of her there on his bed, her wonderful hair draped round her in a rippling sheet of gold, fairy-tale-princess style. She looked breathtaking. As he shed his jacket where he stood, quite unable as yet to actually imagine touching her, his tawny gaze rested on her and narrowed with sudden decisive force.
He was going to keep her! No way was he letting her go again. Why should his moral code sentence him to self-denial in his private life? He would take her back to Istanbul and set her up there in an apartment. In a cosmopolitan city, such arrangements were understood. If a faint current of unease assailed Rauf on the score that his female relatives were about as sophisticated as home-baked bread and as quick to pick up on gossip about him as high-tech listening devices, he blocked it out fast. At the age of thirty, he told himself that he had an indisputable right to live his life as he saw fit.
‘I can’t take my eyes off you…’ Rauf confessed with roughened appreciation.
Lily watched him jerk loose his silk tie and let it fall and her tension level hit another high. She could not take her eyes from him either, but then nor could she quite believe that she was on his bed so soon after her arrival in Turkey. She felt terrifyingly shy and self-conscious yet being with Rauf still felt so right to her. But then he had stayed in her heart, hadn’t he? Her memory of him locked there with magnetic determination and ferocious staying power. Taken aback by a truth that she had denied for so long, Lily focused on Rauf with dawning comprehension and understood why her resistance was nil around him. She had never got over loving him.
‘Do you do this all the time?’ Lily heard herself ask without even being aware that she was about to frame such a leading question.
Halfway through unbuttoning his shirt, Rauf stilled in surprise.
‘I mean…’ Lily continued unsteadily, her tongue reacting to her anxious thoughts faster than caution could instigate a hold on it. ‘…just kiss and go straight to…er…bed?’
‘Not since I was a teenager.’ Somehow, Rafe acknowledged a second later, that was not the most comforting of thoughts.
Her cheeks flushed, Lily bent her golden head. ‘I just wondered.’
Without hesitation, Rauf gathered her up and kissed her with drugging intensity. ‘This is us…that’s different,’ he pointed out.
Stepping back from her, he peeled off his shirt. Lips tingling but mouth running dry, Lily stared: he was all sleek, rippling muscles and bronzed skin. He was magnificent. A haze of dark curls outlined his pectorals and arrowed down into a faint furrow over his flat, taut abdomen. As he embarked on removing his well-cut trousers, treating her to a view of his narrow waist, lean hips and a disturbing glimpse of long, powerful, hair-roughened thighs, Lily actually thought she might have a heart attack then and there. Dragging in a stark sudden breath, she dredged her attention from him, but his disturbing image stayed stamped behind her eyelids: incredibly male, big, dominating. Rampantly sexy too, just rather panic-inducing.
‘I forgot to offer you lunch…’ Rauf commented without warning.
‘Lunch?’ Lily echoed as the mattress gave beneath his added weight. Without glancing in his direction, she endeavoured to look less like a reclining statue. Having watched his boxer shorts hit the rug, she wasn’t quite ready as yet to embrace the visual challenge of him in all his unadorned glory.
‘Later…’ Rauf promised, closing a long, confident arm round her to tug her back towards him, shift her hair out of his path and reach for the zip on her dress.
Lily almost told him she was too hungry to wait for lunch. Only will-power kept her on the bed. Had
n’t she passed the kissing category with flying colours? Why else had they reached the bed so fast? Only Rauf was now expecting her to jump several categories all at once and without any prior practice. This was Rauf she was with, though, she reminded herself bracingly. He would make the experience as good as it could be. Adverse circumstances challenged him, brought out the very best in his competitive character.
‘This feels so sexy…’ he purred, inching down her zip only inch by inch, dragging out the moment as befitted what felt like an historic occasion, for he had never seen an inch of Lily exposed between throat and knee.
‘Does it?’ Lily muttered tautly as cooler air touched her spine.
‘You have incredibly soft skin.’ Lean fingers brushing over her narrow back, Rauf let his lips zero in on the pale perfection of one slender shoulder and linger there.
His knowing mouth felt like a brand on her and she trembled, suddenly plunged back into aching awareness. Weak with longing, she leant back into him for support. But instead, he turned her round to face him, took her lush mouth with hungry urgency and drove every thought from her mind. Her dress and her bra fell to the carpet without her even being aware of their smooth removal. Every inch of her skin felt supersensitive, thrumming with wild anticipation to the passionate melding of his mouth on hers and the even more erotic plunge of his tongue. Nothing else existed for her, nothing else mattered, and she laced her fingers into the springy depths of his hair to hold him to her.
But when Rauf drew back and lifted her to pull the bedspread back from beneath her and settle her on the cool crisp sheet instead, the real world reclaimed Lily again. As she tumbled back against the feather pillows she was startled to find herself clad in only her panties and embarrassment inflamed her at the sight of her own bare breasts.
But Rauf wasted no time in coming back to her again, smouldering golden eyes raking over her with very male appreciation.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ he breathed with roughened conviction as he absorbed the picture she made against the white linen: blue eyes bright as stars, her lips reddened from his, her glorious hair semi-veiling her in sensual disarray, allowing only a tantalising glimpse of one pouting, pink-tipped breast. With Lily in his life, getting out of bed to make an early meeting would prove to be the toughest challenge he had ever faced. But also the most enjoyable.