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‘Stories?’ Imogen sat forward sharply. ‘What stories?’
Those gleaming eyes clashed with her uneasy ones for a moment, then again that inscrutable smile flickered across his mouth.
‘That I’m here to break your father down—to steal the stud—and worse. I think you’d better be prepared for the fact that now I’m also supposed to be planning to steal away his daughter.’
‘Oh, no, they can’t think that?’
The way one black, straight brow drifted upwards, questioning her assertion, had her thinking backwards, remembering the knowing looks that she’d received as she’d struggled to explain that the wedding was off, that her prospective groom had left the area—maybe even the country for all she knew.
‘Would it be so very bad?’
His voice had lowered, becoming richer and darker. The soft traces of his accent had deepened, turning his words into a husky purr. The warmth of his breath told her that he was closer, his face almost touching hers. If she blinked she felt her lashes brush across his cheek, and she inhaled his intensely personal scent with every indrawn breath. The handkerchief slipped to the floor and its pressure on her cheek was replaced by the burning touch of his hand, skin against skin. She had only to turn her head and…
‘Oui…’
She heard the agreement forced from his lips, felt it against her cheek as her mouth found the skin of his palm. The scent of his body was like a drug reaching straight for what little was left of her functioning brain and blotting out rational thought.
‘That’s what I’ve wanted to do all day,’ she murmured as she let her tongue slide out to taste him, taking that essence of him into her mouth.
‘And I’ve wanted that for days too.’
His voice was thick and raw, the words struggling to be heard above the beat of his heart so close to hers, the heat of his breath dancing over her skin.
‘Ever since I arrived in that church and saw you there.’
‘Really?’
It was all she could manage as she tried to look into his face, to read the truth in his eyes. But she found that the heat and focus of his stare was too much, too strong for her to take without dissolving into a puddle of molten awareness. Her need for him was like a throbbing pulse all along her body, centring at the juncture of her thighs. The stinging hunger that pooled there made her shift uncomfortably on the chair, uncontrollable need making her reach for him, link her hands behind his head, pulling his face down towards her, holding it there while her lips explored his with the yearning she couldn’t control.
‘Vraiment.’
It sounded like the truth he’d declared it to be. It sounded like the words she’d heard him whisper in the darkness of the long, hot nights on the island in the days when she knew she’d been falling in love with him. In the time when she’d thought there was no reason not to fall in love with him.
‘Me too…’ There was no point in denying it, so why even try. ‘That’s the way I’ve felt too. From the moment I turned and saw you.’
No, before that. As soon as she’d heard his voice and known who was behind her. Wasn’t the truth that in that single moment she had known the wedding could never go ahead? Wasn’t that why she had gone to Raoul’s room in the middle of the night? She’d gone about things the wrong way. She should have spoken to Adnan first. She should have told him that she could never love him as he deserved a wife to love him. She should have acknowledged to herself that she had always loved Raoul, falling for him in a heartbeat and never escaping again. She’d known she could never have a proper marriage with Adnan, but that had done nothing to destroy all the reasons why she had to marry him and live up to their agreement.
‘W-what did you come back for?’ She asked and felt his soft laughter against her ear. His warmth surrounded her, cutting out the rest of the world and enclosing her in a bubble of security, if only for these moments.
‘Exactly as they said,’ he murmured. ‘I came to steal you away.’
She didn’t believe him for a moment, but right now it was what she wanted to hear. What she wanted to feel. That someone thought she was special. That she was wanted for herself, not for what she could offer him or what she brought with her.
