Emma Darcy - Australia - In Bed with a Sheikh!

Tareq waved her to the swivel chair at his desk. The monitor screen above a computer keyboard glowed invitingly. Sarah could hardly believe her eyes as she sat down and began reading the printed script.

Dear Sarah,

I bet this surprises you. I’m writing this on my very own computer. It came the day after you left and a tutor has been showing me how to use it. I can do drawings on it, too, and colour them any way I want. If I don’t like one colour, I can use my mouse to change it to another colour. Isn’t that marvellous? And so quick. Tareq said it would be a lot of fun and it is. It’s the best present. Please thank him for me…

Her mind spun in shock. Her gaze jerked up to the man standing beside her. “You bought Jessie a computer? And lessons?”

He nodded. “Children take to computers very quickly. Here she is, up and running already,” he said, clearly pleased with her progress.

“But why?” The extravagance of the gesture stunned her, even as she recalled the conspiratorial smiles he and Jessie had swapped, and his insistence that he kept the promises he made.

“I took you away,” he answered with devastating simplicity. “This puts Jessie in easy touch and has the added benefit of keeping her well occupied. It’s a great educational tool for a handicapped child.”

Dear God! She had thought him ruthlessly manipulative while all the time he’d been thinking and planning how to help a crippled little girl over the absence of her big sister and give her something good to go on with.

“I’ll show you how to reply once you’ve finished reading,” he offered matter-of-factly.

She couldn’t read. Her eyes were blurred with tears. She shook her head helplessly.

“Sarah?” He gently tilted her face up, his eyes questioning her distress.

“It’s so kind…so generous,” she choked out.

His mouth twisted into a self-deprecating grimace. “A bit of thought, an order given, and the cost meaningless to me. Nothing compared to the two years you gave.”

“I love her.” Reason enough to give anything.

“I know. After what happened to you as a child, it amazes me you didn’t lose the capacity to love.” He tenderly brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Her heart contracted at the sense of enticing possibilities hovering. “Did you lose your capacity to love?” she whispered, the softness of the moment prompting the impulsive question, the wish to reach into the inner man and know what he was truly made of.

Then suddenly the moment wasn’t soft anymore. His hand dropped from her face, erasing the warmth. A hardness glazed his eyes. She could almost hear the armour he wore being locked into place. No cracks.

“Let’s say it was whittled away very effectively,” he answered sardonically. “To the point where I prefer horses to people. Horses are always beautiful. You can establish an empathy with them. And on the whole, they run true to form.”

The cynical comment drove her to protest. “But you cared about Jessie.”

“I always try to balance what I give and what I take, Sarah. I pride myself on playing fair.”

“By whose rules?” she flared, afraid that what he might take from her could never be given back.

He laughed. “My own, of course. In the end, we have to live with ourselves so it’s best to stay true to what we personally believe is right.”

It was a sobering reminder of what she knew in her heart. Somehow she had to steel herself against the temptations inherent in being with Tareq al-Khaima. There was no love on offer, only bargaining chips. If she didn’t stay true to herself…yet what was true? Since she’d been with Tareq, a Sarah she hadn’t known before was emerging, a stranger with needs that swamped common sense.

While Tareq—damn him!—was always in control.

“You don’t need to stay. I know how to use E-mail,” she said curtly, focusing her eyes on the screen again.

“Very well.”

His withdrawal hurt, which was utterly stupid since she’d more or less asked for it. She tried to ignore the thud of his footsteps, concentrating fiercely on the words Jessie had written to her.

Please thank him for me…

She hadn’t.

“Tareq…” She spun the chair around to face him.

“Yes?”

He paused in the study doorway, half turning to look back, so supremely composed, so arrogantly confident, so totally self-contained, so frustratingly untouchable, it stirred a wilful streak in Sarah that furiously dismissed the danger of courting trouble. He touched her whenever he felt like it. She wanted to know how he’d react if she touched him, if he’d still keep his armour intact.

Her feet sped across the room. Her hands lifted to splay over his chest. She went up on tiptoe. “A thank you from Jessie,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

The next instant her hands were trapped by his, preventing their removal. Her palms were forcibly pressed to his body heat, transmitters for a sensory power that charged up her arms and exploded through her body, making every cell tingle with awareness of imminent and possibly cataclysmic change. His eyes blazed, scouring her soul of the petty vengefulness that had driven her, searing it with white-hot needs her mind could not even begin to encompass.

She stared back, helplessly caught in the thrall of his power, fearful of what she had triggered so heedlessly. She felt herself begin to tremble, shaken by the whirlwind of sensation beating through her. Her heart seemed to be thumping in her ears. Her breasts were swelling, tightening. A heavy, dragging feeling in her thighs was transforming into a melting heat.

Most shocking of all, he saw…he knew…and he said, “Don’t tempt the devil unless you want to play with fire, Sarah.”

Harsh, challenging words. No intent to seduce. No forcing anything. Demanding an unequivocal decision from her. And her memory spewed out the words… I’ve never taken an unwilling woman to bed with me .

Living by his rules…

Dear God! What were hers? How could they be so easily lost, overwhelmed? In sheer panic she clutched at safety. The alternative was too frightening.

She swallowed hard and forced out the one weak excuse for her behaviour she had. “I was only thanking you.”

“Were you?”

Her skin burned.

The searing fire in his eyes slowly retreated to a mocking simmer. “So be it then. Consider me thanked.”

He carried her hands down to her sides, released them, then walked away…a man of rigid principle.

Sarah was left feeling bereft…foolish…relieved. The truth was scorched indelibly on her brain. She could and had tapped into a furnace of feeling that would swallow her up if she opened the door to it. Touching was very different to loving, powerful but extremely perilous and not to be played with. Unless she wanted to be completely consumed by Tareq al-Khaima.

Surely that would be the ultimate madness.

Or would it be the ultimate experience?

TAREQ CURSED HIMSELF for being a quixotic fool. He could have taken her then. He could have spun her into a sexual thrall so fast, resistance wouldn’t have occurred to her. Instead, his body was screaming against the restraint he’d imposed on it.

For what? She wanted her curiosity satisfied. She wanted to know what he’d be like as a lover. She was so transparent…

And so was her innocence, he reminded himself savagely.

He headed out to the pool, stripped off and dived in, threshing through the cool water for several lengths, using up the explosive energy that had been denied its natural outlet. When he finally paused for breath, the needling tension had gone but he was still at war with himself.