Olivia Gates - Sheikh's Dark Seduction - Seduced by the Sultan

‘The desert sounds...amazing,’ she said, aware of how wistful her voice sounded.

‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘Although it is also a barren and unforgiving place, where the instinct for survival takes precedence over everything else.’

The instinct for survival.

Catrin’s heart began to pound as she thought about her own survival instinct. Where was that instinct now? Forgotten beneath that undeniably hungry look he was slanting at her, making her wish that things hadn’t changed and that she could just go over to him and lose herself in his embrace. She forced herself to focus on the sunlight which was spilling onto the pots of flowers on the terrace outside. ‘It’s a gorgeous day.’

‘I know it is. What do you want to do?’

She knew the answer he wanted. The answer she was longing to give him. She wanted to go straight back to bed, only this time to make love. She wanted his kiss and the hard thrust of his body. She wanted him to take away this ache of desire which was pooling softly at the base of her belly and to rid her of this terrible sense of frustration.

But something told her that would be a cop-out. And right now she felt much too vulnerable to risk having sex with him.

‘I’d like to do something different. Something on my terms for once.’

‘Such as?’

She looked out at where the rest of the city lay far below them. ‘I’d like to go somewhere without you being shadowed by a whole team of bodyguards. I’d like to get in a black cab and go to the cinema and eat popcorn without anyone knowing who you are. I’d like to pretend that we’re just the same as any other couple.’

‘Anonymity, you mean?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

He looked at her for a moment and then, brilliantly and unexpectedly, he smiled. ‘Then I place myself in your hands completely, Cat,’ he said softly.

She felt a warm glow of satisfaction as she finished her coffee and went off to get ready, while Murat spoke quietly to his bodyguards. And although they weren’t happy, they agreed to a very low-key presence throughout the day.

For Catrin, it felt like another small triumph. She knew it didn’t mean much, but for her it meant a good deal. The hours which lay before them seemed to have endless possibilities. And she was the one making all the choices.

* * *

They walked across Hyde Park and ate breakfast croissants in a café overlooking the glittering waters of the Serpentine. They walked along the riverbank, before making their way to Covent Garden, where they found a small art gallery which was, inexplicably, almost empty. It felt liberating to walk from painting to painting, discussing each one in detail, and she almost forgot the shadowy presence of the bodyguard hovering discreetly in the next room. She made Murat stand in the queue at the cinema and could tell from his attitude that queuing was an entirely new concept for him. She knew that one word would lead to them being whisked into the grandest seats and generally being fussed over, but Catrin didn’t want that. She didn’t want anyone to know who he was.

She wanted him all to herself.

Afterwards they went to Soho, mingling with crowds of tourists and theatre-goers beneath the gaudy lights. They ate hot slices of pizza and then found a quiet pub in one of backstreets, where they sat quietly drinking cola.

In the taxi home he held her hand, turning it over to study her palm as if he were reading her future. And Catrin felt stupidly choked by the simple gesture, quickly turning her head to look out of the window before he could see how suddenly vulnerable she felt.

‘Cat,’ he said.

Blinking away the sudden moistness in her eyes, she waited until she had composed herself before she turned to look at him. ‘What?’

‘Don’t ordinary couples usually kiss in taxis?’

She shrugged. ‘I have no experience of kissing in taxis.’

‘You do now,’ he said roughly as his pulled her into his arms.

This was no semi-chaste kiss like the one they’d shared in bed last night. This was lust: pure and potent. Her breathing grew erratic as his finger traced a provocative line over the zip of her jeans and she gasped helplessly into his mouth.

‘I want you,’ he whispered. ‘And if I could, I would have you now. Right here. In the back of this cab. I’d like to pull your wretched jeans down to your ankles and thrust myself deep inside you. I’d like to watch you writhe around on the seat and then I’d like to see you tip your head back and come, while the scent of our sex filled the air. Would you like that, Cat?’

‘Stop it,’ she whispered, her mouth so dry that she could barely get the words out.

‘I don’t want to stop it, and neither do you.’

The cab slowed to a halt and Cat was still trembling as they got out and she stood waiting while Murat pulled out his wallet. She remembered him telling her that, unlike many royals, he always carried cash with him because it made him feel slightly ridiculous to have to ask one of his aides for money.

But she frowned when she saw the driver peel off some change and hand it to him and she stepped forward.

‘Um. We gave you a fifty-pound note, not a twenty,’ she said.

The driver mimed incomprehension, but Cat was nothing if not persistent and she stood her ground and argued the point, until eventually they walked away with the correct change.

‘You know, I could have easily afforded to lose thirty pounds,’ said Murat wryly as they rode up in the elevator.

‘That’s not the point,’ she said, looping her arms around his neck. ‘It’s a matter of principle. You shouldn’t have to pay more, just because you’re rich.’

His lips grazed over hers. ‘Quite the little hustler, aren’t you?’

‘They call it being street-smart,’ she said lightly. ‘And it’s only because I’ve had to be.’

They shut the door on the bodyguards and turned to each other, but, although the removal of their clothes was fraught with hunger, the sex which followed was different from anything Catrin had known before. For a start, Murat’s fingers were trembling as much as hers as he undressed her and for once his smooth dexterity seemed to have deserted him.

He didn’t usually frame her face in the palms of his hands and look down at her as if he was only just seeing her properly for the first time.

But she didn’t usually have to bite back tears during sex either—aware that her pleasure was heightened by a cruel reality which reminded her that the end of the affair lay just around the corner.

CHAPTER SIX

THE SEX WAS different.

Actually, Catrin quickly realised that pretty much everything was different.

Pressing the send button in reply to the text she’d just received from her sister, she walked out onto the terrace, where Murat was busy talking on the phone in the late afternoon sunshine. His Qurhahian aide Bakri often phoned at this time and the two men usually engaged in long talks about state affairs, which completely engrossed him. But today he looked up as he heard her approach and she read the slow smoulder of approval in his eyes.

Her heart lurched. The last day of their last weekend. Two days during which all the normal rules of their relationship seemed to have changed.

Or maybe it was simply her attitude which had changed. She had shown him a stronger Cat. A more decisive Cat. And in response, Murat had become more of an equal and less of a master.

He’d grown more tactile in ways which didn’t just involve sex. He held her in his arms when he was watching a football game. He had even cooked her lunch, while she sat on one of the window seats quietly finishing a book she couldn’t bear to put down. For two days, at least, their roles had been reversed and it made her wonder how on earth she had been prepared to accept so little from him before.