by Penny Jordan
The room held a very faint but altogether disturbing tang of the cool, discreet cologne Tariq wore, and Gwynneth had to catch herself up to stop herself from closing her eyes, the better to breathe in and relish the intimacy of it.
Tariq reappeared from the bathroom holding a plastic bottle of soothing skin lotion.
‘I like to keep a reasonably well-stocked medicine cabinet here. Sometimes the young volunteers who come out to work with the archaeologists forget how dangerous the sun can be, even in the winter.’
Gwynneth smiled her polite thanks as she reached out to take the lotion from him. But instead of giving it to her he walked over to the bed and threw back the heavy cover to reveal the immaculate white bedlinen underneath it.
Gwynneth stared at the bed as though she had never seen one before. Her heart was pounding ridiculously heavily, all her senses so acutely alive that her awareness of him unnerved her.
‘I imagine that your back has suffered the most damage,’ he told her coolly. ‘If you want to sit on the bed, I’ll put some of this on for you.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SHEcould have given any number of responses to that. But what with her emotions screaming a panickyNo, no, no and no again , and the effort it took to keep the words inside her head instead of allowing them to her lips, all she could manage was a red-faced stutter. ‘I…I can do it myself.’
One dark eyebrow rose in a mixture of disbelief and impatience.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Truthfully, I think I can manage to do it myself—and it isn’t really hurting.’
Her face was as pink as her bare arms and she looked as modestly apprehensive as though they were strangers, and she was the kind of woman who was reluctant to expose her body even to the gaze of a lover. And, what was more, she wasn’t faking her self-consciousness, Tariq recognised.
He dismissed this somewhat contradictory realisation with a mental shrug. He had no idea what exactly it was that was causing her apprehension, but she was perfectly safe from any threat from him.
‘Despite your denials, I refuse to believe that you aren’t in some discomfort,’ he informed her dryly.
Oh, she was. But it was not the kind of discomfort he meant! Hers sprang from her awareness of what was going to happen to her the minute he touched her, and it had nothing to do with a bit of sunburn.
It was panic that was making her body tremble slightly as she turned her back, wasn’t it? Certainly not excitement.
‘This would be easier without your top,’ Tariq pointed out.
‘What? No!’ Before she could stop herself Gwynneth had turned round, her face burning far more hotly than her body as she tried to control her own thoughts. And desires. Because she did desire him, didn’t she? Her breath came quickly, in soft short bursts, as she struggled against the knowledge of just how much she loved him.
‘You were naked in the pool, and therefore the whole of your back will have caught the sun,’ he was saying, almost prosaically.
Why was she dragging out this torment? He was obviously determined to administer the lotion, and very probably capable of removing her top himself if she didn’t do so for him. She might as well let him go ahead and get it over with as quickly as possible, Gwynneth told herself miserably, exhaling as she turned her back on him and tugged off her top.
Still keeping her back to him, she perched on the corner of the bed. She could feel the warmth of Tariq’s breath against the nape of her neck, and then the firmness of his lotion-cooled hands. She gasped as she felt the coldness of the lotion on her sun-warmed flesh, and then suppressed a far more betraying gasp as Tariq started to smooth it into her skin, stroking and massaging his way up her spine, smoothing it round her ribcage so that his fingertips brushed against her breasts. Then, whilst her nipples were still peaking in arousal, making her stiffen every muscle apprehensively as she tried to control her need, he moved up to her shoulders, where he paused to push her hair out of the way before massaging the lotion into the back of her neck.
‘Thank you—’ she began, desperate to escape before she totally disgraced herself and let him see how much she wanted him. But she couldn’t pull away because his hands were still resting on her shoulders.
‘It was my pleasure.’
Was something wrong with her hearing? And, if not, why did his voice sound so thick and filled with pain?
‘My pleasure,’ he repeated. ‘And my torment.’
Now she couldn’t stop herself from turning to look at him.
‘Tariq—’ she began, and then stopped when Tariq leaned towards her, covering her mouth with his and kissing her with the kind of passion she had been yearning for.
Eagerly she kissed him back, parting her lips to the possessive demand of his tongue, clinging to his shoulders as he picked her up bodily and placed her on the bed.
‘No words,’ he told her as he joined her there. ‘Not anything but this, my Gwynneth. Just this and us…’
Just us!Gwynneth closed her eyes and gave herself up to the magical touch of his hands, sighing in wanton pleasure as she felt them sliding over her. She wriggled out of her skirt and watched his eyes darken as he studied her almost naked body.
‘Lie down.’
Quivering with excitement, she did so, watching him as he reached for the bottle of lotion.
There was no sunburn where he was using the pads of his thumbs to massage deliberately sensual slow circles of delicious pleasure, on the flesh just above the curve of her buttocks. But she didn’t care. All she cared about was that he kept on doing what he was doing and didn’t stop. How was it possible with such a simple touch for him to make her body respond to him in the way it was doing right now? She wanted to stretch out beneath those massaging fingers. She wanted to sigh and moan, to arch her spine and open her legs, to…
She felt him removing the tiny fluted-leg briefs that hugged her hips, barely covering her bottom.
‘Oh, yes…’ Had she actually said that or, please heaven, merely thought it? she wondered hazily as Tariq stroked the lotion into the round globes of her buttocks and then down the backs of her thighs.
‘Turn over.’ The words were a command, but his hoarse tones made them sound almost like a plea.
Gwynneth gave a voluptuous sigh and turned over, looking up at him, her flesh and her senses flooded with the sensuality he had aroused. Her whole body felt boneless and soft, his to mould and caress as he wished. The same bonelessness seemed to have softened the resistance from her thoughts as well, turned her into a creature of willing compliance…
She held her breath she watched as him undress, her expression mirroring everything that she was feeling. Had he ever seen a woman look at him like this before? Tariq wondered. If he had he couldn’t remember it. Gwynneth’s gaze, so openly aroused and ardent as it looked and lingered where he was already erect and ready for her, and her tongue-tip moistening her lips was the most powerful aphrodisiac he had ever known. Without speaking to him, without touching him, without him touching her, she had told him how it was going to be. How she would hold him within the warm caress of her body whilst he plunged within it over and over again, until he took them both over the edge of that cliff at the end of the universe beyond which lay eternity itself.
The way Tariq was looking at her made words redundant, Gwynneth knew. A thousand times a thousand words would not be enough to convey all that he was conveying to her as their gazes meshed, hers clinging desperately to his, knowing he was telling her that he was taking her into a place so far away from anything she knew that, once there, she would be wholly dependent on him.
When he came down to her, the feel of his skin on hers was like the cool brush of silk, and the weight of his body answered a need she had not previously known she had. When he kissed her mouth it was slowly and lingeringly, savouring the taste and texture of her as she lay supine and soft beneath him, letting him take her where he wanted to go.
He kissed her again, more deeply, causing her bod
y to arch up off the bed to his. Gwynneth clung to him, too afraid of what was happening to her to risk letting go and being left alone in the maelstrom of her own desire.
He kissed her throat and behind her ear, and then the curve of her shoulder, and her fingers curled into his flesh whilst her nipples pushed up against him.
When he kissed the slope of her breast her fingers splayed against his buttocks, holding him tight against her body. She was on fire for him now, consumed by a throbbing, pounding ache that beat through her in hot demand.
His tongue flicked against her nipple, making her shudder in the spasm of erotic delight that gripped her. When he raked her nipple gently with his teeth she cried out against the pleasure, welcoming the weight of his hand cupping her sex and momentarily soothing its need. She was open and ready for his touch, the swollen lips flushed with desire and as juicily ripe as the sweetest peach.
Tariq could feel the ache in his own body to taste and enjoy her. He kissed his way down her belly, his heart pounding heavily with the weight of his need as he rubbed the tip of his tongue over the pulsing thrust of her clitoris, feeling it swell and harden within his caress. Her soft cries of shocked pleasure drove him on to take her further and deeper, until her arousal overwhelmed her.
Gwynneth tried to hold back what she was feeling, what she was being driven to feel by the caress of Tariq’s tongue, but it was impossible It crashed down over her and through her in surge upon surge of molten liquid pleasure until it finally receded, leaving her behind, satisfied and yet somehow not satisfied, fulfilled and yet still craving some other deeper unknown pleasure—a craving she had to communicate to him.
‘Tariq, I want you.’ Had she said it or only felt it? Was Tariq responding to her words or his own need when he held her and kissed her, with the taste of her own self still on his lips? Over and over again, his tongue thrust deeper and deeper within the warm cavity of her mouth, whilst his hands slid to her hips to lift and ready her.
It didn’t matter how many men there had been, just so long as from this moment forward there was only him, Tariq thought passionately, all his doubts and reservations washed away by the overpowering surge of his love for her. Clean and new and whole, it filled and humbled him. She was so incomparably precious to him. She made him feel a thousand and one things he had never known it was possible to feel, and in a thousand and one different and unique ways. She touched the deepest part of him and brought it and him to life. Who could understand love? A man could merely experience it, give himself up to it and to the woman for whom he was born.
I love you.The words filled his head and his heart as he took Gwynneth’s mouth in a kiss of possession and commitment, releasing his body to sink deep into her sleekly muscled warmth, and then deeper still. Only he couldn’t. And she was lying rigidly beneath him, her eyes open wide with shocked apprehension and pain.
Whilst his mind grappled with the true meaning of her body’s tightly held muscles, his body gave in to its own driving need. One thrust, fierce and quick, made her cry out, and then she was clinging to him, her eyes shimmering with the same emotion he could feel glittering in his own.
Gwynneth could feel Tariq’s shock, but already the brief sharp pain was fading, to be replaced by a pulsing ache to feel him deeper inside her.
‘No,’ she whispered possessively as he tried to pull back. ‘No…’ As though to demonstrate her determination she moved against him, holding his gaze with her own until he gave in, shuddering with the release of his own tension. Slowly and carefully he thrust into her again, deeper and then deeper still, as she clung demandingly to him, grinding her hips against his, until he moved faster and deeper and her own body picked up the rhythm of his and moved in counterpoint to it. Up and up he took her, until there was nowhere left to go, and then they were poised on the pinnacle of a pleasure so acute it made her cry out in sweet agony as it pierced her. She felt its fierce surge grip her in the same heartbeat as Tariq gave a guttural moan of release and she felt the heat of his completion pulsing inside her.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’
No matter how hard she tried, Gwynneth could neither control the hot colour storming her face, nor bring herself to look directly at Tariq as he put the tea on the bedside table next to her and then sat down on the bed.
‘Is there any news yet about when—when we can leave here?’ she asked unevenly. The last thing she wanted was for him to fear she was going to use what had happened last night as a means to try to cling to him. She had more pride than that!
She wanted to leave? After what they had shared? Tariq felt his heart slalom inside his chest wall. Too late to stop the pain wrenching him apart. No way was he letting her leave. Not now and, if he had his way, not ever. And certainly not before he had an opportunity to find a way to convince her that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him as passionately as he wanted to spend his with her.
‘No, not as yet,’ he lied.
‘Oh.’ Gwynneth tried discreetly to moisten her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t believe she had actually slept so deeply that she hadn’t even known that Tariq was sleeping next to her. But it was obvious from the dent in the pillow and the scent of him all around her that he had done. It was too late now for her to grieve for the memories she might have stored up.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Tariq announced tersely.
Gwynneth plucked nervously at the sheet.
‘I can understand why you would think…I mean why you wouldn’t have thought…’ She wrinkled her nose and took a deep breath. ‘It is unusual for a woman of my age to be…I mean, not to have…’
‘So why?’ Tariq asked her.
‘My father,’ Gwynneth answered him honestly. ‘As I told you, he was something of a sexual predator—a man who believed that sex was an appetite to be enjoyed and who didn’t see why it should have any connection with his emotions. After he left, my mother used to complain that I was like him. I think that was one of the reasons she didn’t want to have me around.’
Tariq looked away from her. There wasn’t even the vaguest hint of self-pity in her voice, but he knew if he looked at her he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking her in his arms and telling her exactly what he thought of both her parents, and especially her mother.
‘I suppose it started then in a way,’ Gwynneth admitted. ‘Although I was too young to connect what I was feeling with sex. I just knew that I didn’t want to be like my father. It was only when I got older, hearing him talk openly and without shame about his sex life, that I began to worry that I might have inherited whatever traits he possessed that were responsible for his immoral behaviour. Sex was just a physical appetite to him—the pursuit of a woman for sex was a challenge he couldn’t resist. He loved the thrill of a new sexual conquest, but he was incapable of making any kind of real emotional contact with a partner. I was afraid that I might end up the same, so I decided that I wasn’t going to have sex—and, more importantly, that I wasn’t going towant to have sex. And it worked. I didn’t. Until that first night with you. And then I realised…’
Abruptly Gwynneth stopped speaking, her face burning as she realised how close she had come to telling him that the knowledge that she had fallen in love with him had shown her how very different she was from her father.
‘You realised what?’ Tariq probed.
‘I realised that I was missing out on a lot of fun, and that I didn’t after all want to spend the rest of my life as a virgin,’ she made herself say, as lightly as she could.
‘Fun?’
‘Well, I certainly enjoyed last night,’ she told him.
Tariq looked at her. This wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
What he wanted to hear was that in his arms she had realised that she couldn’t live without him, that she loved him and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. And he was pretty sure that wasexactly what she felt, having listened to her talking about her father and seen the shadows of
her past lying darkly in her eyes.
He’d never been a gambler, but some things were so important that a man had to risk something of great value in order to gamble with life for the prize he wanted. Right now he was gambling with his pride. And Tariq’s wasn’t just any old male pride: it was the kind of pride it took generations of alpha male history to create.
‘Really?’ he asked her smoothly. ‘How much?’
‘H-how much?’ Gwynneth wondered wildly what on earth she could say. This wasn’t the way she had expected the conversation to proceed.
‘Yes, how much? Enough, for instance, to do it again tonight?’
Gwynneth’s heart was pounding so loudly she could hardly think.
‘Er…yes. I mean, if you want to.’
‘So, tonight, then?’ he repeated, ignoring her small rider. ‘And what about right now?’