Annie West - Desert Jewels - The Sheikh's Undoing / The Sultan's Choice / Girl in the Bedouin Tent

Desperately she shook her head, telling herself that she couldn’t risk a repeat of what had happened. He was dangerous . She knew that. If she wasn’t careful he would break her heart—just as he’d broken so many others in the past. And the closer she let him get the greater the danger. ‘I don’t want to kiss you.’

He walked across the office towards her, a sardonic smile curving his lips as he reached for her, his hand snaking around her waist as he pulled her close. ‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled, and he brushed his lips over hers.

Isobel swayed, and for a moment she succumbed—the way women sometimes succumbed to chocolate at the end of a particularly rigid diet. Her lips opened beneath his kiss, and for a few brief seconds she felt herself being sucked into a dark and erotic vortex as he pressed his hard body into hers. Her limbs became boneless as she felt one powerful thigh levering its way between hers, so that she gave an instinctive little wriggle of her hips against it.

Until common sense sounded a warning bell in her head.

Quickly she broke the contact and stepped away from him, her cheeks flushing. She cooled them with the tips of her trembling fingers. ‘D-don’t.’

‘Don’t?’ he echoed incredulously. ‘Why not?’

His arrogant disbelief only made her more determined. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me.’

‘Because…because I don’t want to. How’s that for clarification?’

Tariq’s gaze ran over her darkened eyes and the telltale thrust of the taut nipples which were tightening against her dress. His lips curved into a mocking line as he transferred his gaze to her face. ‘Really?’ he questioned softly. ‘I think the lady needs to get honest with herself.’

Stung by the slur, but also aware of the contradictions in her behaviour, Isobel shook her head. ‘Oh, Tariq—please don’t look at me like that. I’m not saying that I’m not attracted to you—’

‘Well, thank heavens for that.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘For a moment I thought my technique might be slipping.’

‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that,’ she said drily. ‘But I’ve been thinking about last night—’

‘Me, too. In fact I have thought of little else.’ His voice softened, but the blaze in his black eyes was searing. ‘You’re now regretting the loss of your innocence? Perhaps blaming me for what happened?’

She shook her head. ‘No, of course I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming anyone,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s just I feel I’m worth more than a quick fumble in the office—’

‘A fumble?’ he interrupted furiously. ‘This is how you dare to describe what happened between us?’

‘How would you describe it, then?’

‘With a little more poetry and imagination than that!’

‘Okay. That…that amazing sex we had, pressed up against the wall of your office.’ She sucked in a deep breath—because if she didn’t tell him what was bugging her then how would he know? ‘And you then treating me like a total stranger in the car before waltzing off to your fancy party at the embassy.’

Tariq narrowed his eyes with sudden comprehension. So that was what this was about. She wanted what all women wanted. Recognition. A place on his arm to illustrate their closeness—to show the world their togetherness. But wasn’t she being a little presumptuous , in the circumstances?

‘I didn’t touch you because I knew what would happen if I did—and I had no intention of walking into the party with the smell of your sex still on my skin. No.’ He shook his head as he saw her open her mouth to speak. ‘Let me finish, Izzy. It would have been inappropriate for me to take you to the party,’ he added coolly. ‘For a start, you weren’t exactly dressed for it.’

‘You mean I would have let you down?’

‘I think you would have felt awkward if you’d gone to a party in your rumpled work clothes, post-sex. Especially to a diplomatic function like that.’

‘I’m surprised you know the meaning of the word diplomatic,’ she raged, ‘when you can come out with a statement as insulting as that!’

‘I was trying to be honest with you, Izzy,’ he said softly. ‘Isn’t that what this is all about?’

His question took the wind right out of her sails. She supposed it was. She had no right to be angry with him just because he wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear. If he’d come out with some flowery, untrue reason why he hadn’t taken her to the embassy, wouldn’t she have called him a hypocrite?

‘Maybe last night should never have happened,’ she said in a small voice.

Ignoring the sudden hardening of his body, Tariq thought about the mercurial nature of her behaviour. Last night she had been wild and today she was like ice. Was she testing him to see how far she could push him? She had turned away from him now, so that he got a complete view of her thick curls tied back in a ribbon and a dress he’d seen many times before. Nobody could accuse Izzy of responding to their lovemaking by becoming a vamp in the office. She was probably the least glamorous woman he’d ever met.

Yet the strange thing was that he wanted her. Actually, he wanted her more than he had done yesterday. The contrast between her rather unremarkable exterior and the red-hot lover underneath had scorched through his defences. The memory of how she had yielded so eagerly wouldn’t leave him. But it was more than a purely visceral response. Her freshness and eagerness had been like sweet balm applied to his jaded senses. Hadn’t she given him more than any other woman had ever done—surrendering her innocence with such eagerness and joy?

And yet what had he done for her? Taken that innocence in as swift a way as possible and offered her nothing in return. Not even dinner. He felt the unfamiliar stab of guilt.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ he said.

The question made Isobel turn round. ‘It’s my book club.’

‘Your book club?’

‘Six to eight women,’ she explained, since he’d clearly never heard of the concept. ‘We all read a book and then afterwards we sit round and discuss it.’

He knitted his brows together. ‘And that’s supposed to be enjoyable?’

‘That’s the general idea.’

‘Cancel it.’ The answering smile he floated her was supremely confident. ‘Have dinner with me instead.’

Shamefully, she was almost tempted to do as he suggested—until she imagined the reaction of her girlfriends. Hadn’t she let them down enough times in the past, when Tariq had been in the middle of some big deal and she’d had to work right through the night? Did he really expect her to drop everything now, just so he could get a duty dinner out of the way before another bout of sex?

She thought about everything she’d vowed. About not leaving herself vulnerable to heartbreak—which wasn’t going to be easy now that she had taken such a big leap in that direction. But even if she had made herself vulnerable she didn’t have to compound it by being a total doormat.

‘I don’t want to cancel it, Tariq—I’m hosting in my apartment. There’s two bottles of white wine chilling in the fridge and we’re reading Jane Eyre.’

Damn Jane Eyre , he thought irreverently—but something about her resistance made his lips curve into a sardonic smile.

‘What about tomorrow night, then? Do you think you might be able to find a space in your busy schedule and have dinner with me then?’ he questioned sarcastically.

Her heart began thundering as she stared at him. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted all along? The cloak of respectability covering up the fact that they’d had sex without any of the usual preliminaries? Wouldn’t a civilised meal prevent their relationship from being defined by that one rather steamy episode—no matter what happened in the future? Because the chances were that they might decide never to have sex again. Maybe in a restaurant, with the natural barrier of a table between them and the attentions of the waiting staff, they could agree that, yes, it had been a highly pleasurable experience—but best kept as a one-off.