Kylie Brant - Born In Secret

“You need to leave.” With a recklessness fueled by desperation, she reached up, withdrew the last few pins, then shook her head to toss her hair back into place. His gaze never left her, his eyes following every movement.

Little tongues of flame danced through her veins. The man had to do no more than look at her, touch her, and she was a mass of quivering nerve endings. The thought filled her with despair. Her reaction was fueled by guilty snippets of memories she couldn’t control. Her body recognized the source of its pleasure, even as her mind rejected him.

“It’s late.” Anxious to escape, she shoved past him. “And the water has been running for too long already. You need to leave before someone comes to investigate.”

“Who? The prime minister? His quarters are on the other side of the building. And there are no servants who live here that I’ve discovered.”

“I don’t care. I want you out of here!”

“Why, Jaz?” With his hands on her hips he pulled her back against him, and his mouth went to her shoulder. “Are you afraid of what might happen if we’re alone together too long?”

She shivered under his lips. His fingers burned through the thin silk of her nightgown, branding her flesh. “This is a stupid risk. We know there are bugs in the other room….”

“So you’d have to be quiet this time.” The combination of his words and his warm breath caressing her skin had a shudder working through her. She could hear the hint of humor in his voice. “We both would.”

“No!” She pulled away and whirled to face him. His expression abruptly shuttered. “I think we can both agree that last time was a mistake. It is one I will not make again.”

“It doesn’t have to be a mistake this time. We’d both know what to expect.”

Her lips twisted at his response. “And what would that be, Walker? Should I expect to rise in the morning from the bed of my lover and return to an angry stranger making vicious accusations?”

“No accusations. No anger,” he said carefully. “We’d both go into this with our eyes wide open.”

And therein lay the heart-rending pain of it. He couldn’t have said more plainly that there was nothing between them but sex, a basic physical need that he could appease with anyone. At any time.

“I do not think so.” Her indifferent tone would have done an actress proud. “I have grown a bit more discriminating since we parted. And it is far less complicated to choose lovers who are not involved in our jobs, is it not?” Without waiting for an answer, she went to her bag on the counter, took out a hairbrush. As she pulled it through her hair, her gaze met his in the mirror. Her hand faltered. Banked emotion was apparent in his eyes. The new colored contacts couldn’t disguise the familiar piercing intensity.

Then, so quickly that she wondered if she’d imagined it, the moment passed and his expression went guarded once again. “If you plan to stick to your new formula for selecting lovers, you’ll want to tone down your come-on to Abdul. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who needs a whole lot of encouragement. And from what I saw tonight, you were giving him plenty of that.”

He could elicit flash points of emotion from her, dragging her from one to the other with almost dizzying speed. Her fingers clenched around the handle of the brush. She longed to throw it at his arrogant head. “You can go to the hellfire.” The amused lift to the corner of his mouth at her mangled English was like throwing gasoline on a flame. Her cursing was much more fluent in Arabic, so she reverted to her native language. From the way his brows skimmed upward, she knew he’d correctly interpreted at least part of her words.

“Calm down. I’m going. Don’t lock the window on the south side while we’re here.”

She pressed her lips together in an effort to regain control. “Why?”

“Because that’s how I get in.” Before she could react, he crooked a finger and ran a careless knuckle over the curve of her cheek. “Dream of me, Jaz.”

His exit stemmed any rejoinder she might have made. Dropping the brush, she gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, battling the welter of emotions crashing and colliding inside her. With short, jerky movements, she yanked off her nightgown and stepped under the shower’s frigid spray.

The icy needles of water raised shivers and chills but did nothing to douse the heat that Walker had torched deep inside her. She was very much afraid that there wasn’t enough cold water in the hemisphere to do that.

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