by Lynne Graham
‘Village weddings used to be extremely lengthy affairs.’
‘And your grandmother…how did she meet your grandfather?’
‘With a great deal of cunning because in those days only parents arranged marriages and daughters were never allowed out without a chaperone. She dropped her scarf in the street, he picked it up and then it was the love-at-first-sight story all over again,’ Rauf delivered cynically. ‘My parents were the same. They got one glimpse of each other at a wedding and my mother went into a decline until my grandfather agreed to her marrying him…at the time he wanted her to marry someone else.’
‘You have a very romantic family tree.’ Lily tried not to say what was on her mind but in the end could not hold her curiosity in. ‘So why did you have to be different?’
‘Because the girl I thought I loved at nineteen was in love with one of my best friends…but she would still have married me because I was a richer catch.’ The minute he’d said it, Rauf admitted that he was irritated with himself, for even his family had no idea how close he had come then to fulfilling their fondest hopes.
‘Oh, no…that must have been awful for you,’ Lily exclaimed with the kind of ready sympathy that made him grit his teeth. ‘How did you find out?’
‘I found them rolling about a bed at a party.’ Rauf shrugged with expressive finality and went back to unbuttoning his shirt. ‘It was no big deal. I got over it. Don’t get the idea that I went off marriage because of that one bad experience.’
‘Of course not…’ Lily swallowed hard but she could imagine how vulnerable he must have been as a teenager, especially after having been raised on a careful diet of romantic love-at-first-sight stories by his shrewd but over-protective family. ‘Was she one of the girls your relatives were hoping you would marry?’
‘Yes. How the hell did we get onto this subject?’ Rauf demanded.
Lily did something she had never done before. Seeing that a distraction was called for, she reached behind herself and undid the zip on her dress. Then she let the sleeves drift down her extended arms and the entire garment finally dropped in a heap round her toes.
The strangest ache stirred in Rauf’s chest. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t laugh when she shimmied out of her dress with that taut, flushed air of daring and stood there revealed in…a full-length white cotton petticoat that revealed very little more than the dress had. ‘Love the frills,’ he breathed huskily.
Lily had forgotten she was wearing the petticoat. ‘That dress is a bit see-through,’ she muttered awkwardly.
‘I wouldn’t have liked that at all,’ Rauf asserted instantly, moving fluidly forward to spin her round and peel her out of the petticoat.
Lily shut her eyes tight and leant forward as he let his mouth drift down the exposed line of her spine and a faint moan parted her lips. He caught her back against him, the shirt he still wore falling open to bring the smooth skin of her back into contact with the hard muscularity of his hair-roughened chest. As she quivered he whispered, ‘Want me?’
‘Can’t help it…’ Lily admitted.
‘That’s how it should be.’ But how much did she want him? a little demon in Rauf’s conscious mind taunted. Enough to turn down Gilman had circumstances been different? If she was content to settle for sex and look for nothing more, wasn’t that his own fault?
‘Exactly as it should be.’ Rauf breathed in deep to continue with a roughened sexy edge to his drawl that made Lily’s toes curl. Unclipping her bra, he let it fall and his hands curved round to mould the creamy swell of her breasts. ‘You’re my wife.’
A long, sighing gasp broke from her as he toyed with her taut rose-tipped nipples. A little flame had already flickered into a slow burn low in her belly. She squeezed her eyes tight shut in shame because she couldn’t keep herself still, couldn’t prevent her hips from squirming back into connection with the bold thrust of his arousal, couldn’t think of anything but the pleasure to come.
He nipped at a tiny pulse point below her ear with his teeth and she jerked, already well on the way to meltdown. Not a sound did she make as he caught her up in his arms and tumbled her down on the bed.
‘Look at me,’ Rauf commanded.
Lily opened dazed eyes feeling as if she had ‘wanton’ stamped all over her. Her total inability to do anything but revel in his every caress still seemed vaguely indecent to her.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘You…’ A wave of colour washed her fair complexion. ‘What you do to me.’
A brilliant smile flashed across his mouth and she rested back limp with incredible longing and love. He discarded his shirt. She watched his every move from below the screen of her lashes, breath catching in her throat at his sleek male beauty, heart thumping a little faster each time.
‘You didn’t use to think of me like that…’ Rauf said thickly.
‘I did…’ As he gave her a disbelieving look, Lily came up on one elbow, struggling to find the right words to explain. ‘It’s just when I tried to make the…dream real, I…I couldn’t…’
And why had that been? Because Gilman had had her loyalty and her love, Rauf reflected with vicious anger, swinging away with scorching golden eyes to toss his Rolex watch down on the cabinet.
‘But I can now,’ Lily muttered, noticing the hard set of his masculine profile, feeling the dangerous vibes emanating from his lean, powerful frame, trying to understand what she had said that had had that effect.
‘I’ll make every dream real,’ Rauf intoned as though she had thrown down a gauntlet.
‘You already do…’ Lily confided half under her breath, absorbed in the insidiously sexy way he stripped off his trousers, noting the way the light coming through the window glistened over the fine furrow of dark hair running down over his hard, flat stomach. As the boxer shorts came off her eyes widened and she blushed for herself. The tiny beat of need already pulsing at the very centre of her throbbed.
‘You make me so hot…’ Rauf confessed, coming down on the bed with all the easy grace of a prowling tiger, plundering her reddened lips and letting his tongue delve deep in a darting, erotic imitation of a more intimate penetration.
The meltdown point came back to Lily fast. She just looked at him and dizzy joy grabbed hold of her because, now that they were married, she felt that he was finally hers and that emotional high of loving heightened her every response. He stroked the sensitive pink tips of her breasts, employed his knowing mouth there, shaped her tender flesh, worked his expert path down over her slender, gasping body, discovering pulse points she had not known existed and lingering there with a quite devastating effect on her self-control.
‘I want this to be superlative,’ Rauf muttered fiercely when she was way beyond grasping words of more than two syllables with any degree of comprehension.
She tried to touch him, she was desperate to touch him, smooth worshipping hands over the sleek, tight skin of his muscles, discover the solid wall of his chest with her palms and let her own lips explore and taste him as he tasted her. But every time she got anywhere near to fulfilling that need he pinned her back flat to the bed and overwhelmed her with more sensation. She was panting for breath, half out of her mind with excitement, her hips writhing long before he deigned to seek out the damp, aching heat at the heart of her.
‘Rauf…’ she moaned.
‘Don’t be so impatient,’ he husked.
And somewhere around then, all sense of time and place left Lily. She didn’t know what was happening any more. The excitement would build and build and then he would let it fall again until she wanted to scream and almost did. It was like being tortured with pleasure and her body was driven from one excruciating high of frustration to the next.
‘Please…’ she gasped.
‘Please what…?’ Rauf teased in a suggestive growl, sizzling golden eyes intent on her, enjoying his power over her.
‘Don’t stop…please don’t stop,’ she practically sobbed, begging, helpl
ess, desperate for that unbearable need to be quenched.
He came over her and into her then, in one forceful movement and she almost passed out on the shock wave of incredible pleasure. Intense excitement took over and finally sent her flying over the edge into ecstasy and into an explosive shower of sensation that seemed to last for ever. In the aftermath, she felt drained, shell-shocked, still out of her own body, but she fought off the drowsy relaxation threatening to claim her.
Rauf rolled over and took her with him, arranging her over his hot, damp, sprawled length with a possessive intimacy that warmed her even when she was angry with him. As he closed both arms tightly round her and claimed another kiss, part of her wanted to just lie there and make appreciative noises, but another part of her wanted to kick him for his arrogant need to control her.
Golden eyes slumbrous with very male satisfaction, Rauf murmured, ‘That was—’
‘You at your most domineering…’ Lily slotted in helplessly, lifting her tousled head, face hot but eyes reproachful.
Rauf laced long lazy fingers into her tumbled hair. ‘So you can go for domineering in a very big way, güzelim,’ he countered silkily.
Lily trailed herself free of him and suppressed a sigh, knowing she ought not to say what she wanted to say, knowing she was going to say it anyway because it hurt so much not to be loved. ‘Maybe I wanted romantic…’
‘Was Brett romantic?’ Rauf asked in a tone of derision.
Lily blinked and then turned her head in confusion. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘I was just curious,’ Rauf drawled smooth as honey.
‘Well, how would I know?’ Lily grimaced and turned away again, thinking of the way Rauf had made love to her. Wild, inventive, exciting, full marks, she guessed, for technique, expertise. Was it such a turn off when she touched him? Was she so inept? And had he had to demonstrate his superior control with such humiliating completeness that she had ended up virtually begging for him to make love to her?
‘I can do romantic…’ Rauf asserted, tugging her back to him.
Lily stiffened. ‘No…you can do sex.’
‘Don’t be crude…I don’t expect that from you.’
Lily had never attracted an accusation like that in her life before. Crude?
‘Sex…sex…sex…sex!’ Lily hissed back at him like a furious spitting cat.
In a sudden movement, Rauf leant over her, propped his blue-shadowed jawline on the heel of one lean hand and studied her with wickedly amused golden eyes and a lazy, electrifying smile. ‘Petticoat…petticoat…petticoat.’
The volatile speed at which Rauf could change mood had always disconcerted her. As Lily gazed up at him in chagrin he lifted her hand and threaded an exquisite diamond ring onto her finger next to her wedding ring. ‘Romantic,’ he pointed out.
‘Where did it come from?’
‘I put it under the pillow before I got into bed.’
Dumbstruck, Lily surveyed the glorious diamond cluster from all angles.
Rauf shifted with lithe masculine intent into a more intimate position over her. ‘What’s my score now?’
‘Eleven out of ten…it’s a very beautiful ring.’ Lily sighed, feeling incredibly tired and knowing that she should have guessed that he would excel at one-upmanship. He loathed being criticised and it was their wedding night. It wasn’t the time to tell him that, no matter how incredible he was in bed, no matter how intense her own response, having to plead for him to make love to her made her feel small.
He gave her a challenging look and then freed her to sprawl back across the pillows, all lithe indolence and gorgeous masculinity. ‘But I would hate to be thought domineering.’
Impervious to hints and with a sleepy smile, Lily just wriggled back across the divide he had opened up between them and snuggled up to him as if he were a large teddy bear. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open,’ she mumbled round a stifled yawn. ‘And I don’t want to look like a hag when I meet your family tomorrow.’
‘You couldn’t look like a hag if you tried,’ Rauf groaned and tucked her under his arm.
But he then lay there smouldering and trying not to wonder if she would have gone to sleep on Brett. It was not that he was jealous or competitive, just that he was sensitive. She might be his wife but he was not about to make a fool of himself over her. So why was he staying in bed at ten in the evening wide awake but holding her tight as if she might be about to make a break for freedom? She was his wife; she wasn’t going anywhere. And if she ever did, he would soon fetch her back.
All things considered, he decided that he felt remarkably good in spite of overhearing that phone call. He relaxed and listed all the physical things he liked most about her. The smell and the feel of her hair, the smoothness of her skin, the blue of her eyes and the sparkle there when she smiled, the trusting way she curved round him. Trusting her, though, was still a challenge. He would never tell her that that diamond ring was three years old.
The next morning, Lily ended up in a mad rush. Having breakfasted in bed and promised Rauf she would only be half an hour, she went through everything in her luggage before finally settling on wearing a lilac skirt and toning shirt that looked more formal and smart than anything else she had with her. But when she emerged breathlessly from her room, she found Rauf’s housekeeper waiting to intercept her in company with one of the maids who spoke English and who explained that Irmak wanted to give Lily the official guided tour of the house. Reluctant to risk causing offence, Lily smiled and just hoped that Rauf would be patient.
She loved Sonngul. It was a timeless, special place where she and Rauf had found each other again without the intrusion of the outside world. She was duly admiring the tall, serried ranks of pristine bedding in the huge linen cupboard when Rauf appeared and gave her a pained masculine appraisal. ‘We have to be at the airport in less than an hour…what are you looking at sheets for?’
‘Irmak was pleased,’ Lily chided.
As they passed the door of the room he used as an office he paused and strode in to wait for the fax that was spewing out papers. Tucking them at speed into the file lying on the desk, he lifted the file and rejoined her.
‘If I hadn’t had work demanding my attention, I would’ve stayed in bed later.’ In the shaded privacy of the path that led out to the helipad, Rauf claimed a hungry kiss that made her senses sing.
At Bodrum airport, Lily could only be impressed by the sleek private jet that bore an MMI logo on the tail fin that awaited them.
‘This is definitely how to travel,’ she confided after takeoff, studying the big, luxurious cabin and the amount of space surrounding her cream leather seat.
There was no response from her bridegroom and she smiled. Rauf was settled by the built-in desk opposite, a laptop computer sitting open in readiness, and his entire attention appeared to be consumed by the contents of the file he had brought with him.
Rauf had not realised that one of the faxes that had arrived before he’d left Sonngul was a response from the Turkish bank he had requested information from. Therefore when he initially glanced at the sheet in the act of leafing through the file, he could not at first grasp why Lily’s name was printed there. And then he saw Brett Gilman’s name as well and comprehension dawned at an excessively slow speed, for Rauf did not want to believe the evidence before his eyes.
There had to be a mistake. He angled a sideways glance at Lily from below dense black lashes. She was watching him and she gave him a sunny smile as if she had not a care in the world.
‘Lily…’ Rauf breathed without any expression at all.
Something in his voice made her tense and she looked at him and connected with piercing dark eyes. ‘What is it?’
Rauf rose upright in one forceful motion and stared down at her, not a muscle moving in his lean dark face. ‘You must’ve known that I was going to find out. Is that why you married me?’
A frown line indented her brow. ‘What on earth is the matter?’
>
Rauf lounged back against the side of the desk, raw incredulity and rage beginning to flame inside him. He had made it so simple for her. He could not credit his own stupidity. She had run rings round him! Had he really believed that he was the one controlling events? In the space of four days, she had got his wedding ring on her finger and, with that single achievement, she had made herself safe from all threats.
After all, it really didn’t matter what he found out now, did it? She could afford to sit there and look politely enquiring, for he wasn’t likely to prosecute his own wife, was he? He had married a thief. A lying, greedy little thief, who had conspired with Brett Gilman to defraud him of over two-hundred-thousand pounds. He snatched up the fax he had been sent and slung it down in front of her.
Lily lifted the sheet and tried to read, only to say, ‘But this is in Turkish—’
‘I’m sure you’re capable of reading your own name and Brett’s,’ Rauf derided.
Lily looked up at him, frightened by the dark bleakness of his accusing gaze. ‘My name and Brett’s? What is this? Where did you get it?’
‘You and Gilman opened that bank account for Marmaris Media Incorporated together,’ Rauf spelt out so softly that she almost strained to hear him. ‘And guess what, the little bad fairies have been in and they have emptied the account just as I expected!’
CHAPTER NINE
LILY lost colour as she finally grasped what Rauf was talking about. ‘I did not open any bank account with Brett!’ she protested.
‘Yes, you did. It’s down here in black and white in this fax,’ Rauf pointed out with a rawer edge to his deep, dark drawl, his fabulous bone structure rigid, his pallor below his bronzed skin pronounced.
‘Well, then, someone’s made a mistake…or Brett has set me up. That’s the only possible explanation!’ Lily flung back at him, and no longer able to bear him standing over her like a very tall building casting a menacing dark shadow, she jumped up out of her seat.
‘Don’t waste my time. I don’t believe you. You conspired with Gilman to steal from me!’