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‘Tell me the good reason!’ she demanded.
He shook his head.
‘Why not?’
‘You know not what you ask.’
‘So you decide for me,’ she mocked. ‘Where is the sharing of minds and hearts in that?’
‘There are matters of far greater consequence than you,’ he snapped.
She ignored that and advanced on him, adrenaline running high, determined on touching him again. ‘All the time in the world will not win my trust if you won’t give me yours. Or is it your plan simply to dominate me, and keep yourself apart?’
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For the first time she saw conflict in his eyes, a dark raging turbulence that coalesced into one searing need. ‘I am tired of being without a true companion.’
‘So am I,’ she whispered, her heart turning over at the vulnerability he revealed.
He stepped forward and scooped her hard against him. She felt a tremor run through him at the full impact of their bodies coming together. There was a quiver inside herself, as though of something momentous being recognised.
‘You,’ he murmured, his eyes burning into hers, probing her mind and heart and soul with an intensity that pierced any possible deception. ‘You could be the price that cost a sheikhdom.’
He lifted a hand to her cheek, his fingers stroking her skin as though needing to draw absolute truth from her. ‘Show me what you promise,’ he commanded.
Then his fingers raked through her hair to grasp her head and hold it to his as he kissed her.
If that was what it could be called.
Certainly his mouth claimed hers and ravished it with an invasion so passionately intense, Amanda was totally lost in the bombardment of sensation, drowning, yet connected to a source of vibrant energy that thrummed through her body, a surging river of it, stirring an overwhelming compulsion to stay linked to him.
Yet it was not a subjugation. While she had the sense of falling into him, she felt him falling into her. Her arms curled around his neck, her hands cupped his head, holding him to her, and she felt strong and invigorated, and soft and melting all at the same time.
There was no remaining aloof from what was happening. It was captivating, enthralling, touching deep hidden places that rejoiced and savoured being drawn from isolation, suppressed no longer, released and winging free from the cage of loneliness, soaring and swooping from one to the other in jubilant recognition of finding at last there was somewhere else to belong...welcomed...wanted.
She was barely aware of his mouth leaving hers, of her head dropping onto his shoulder, cradled there against the warm strength of his neck. Her mind was intoxicated with dreams of what could be possible, her body safe in the warm haven of his arms. She felt him breathe and her own lungs filled. He sighed and she knew it was the wind of change.
She felt the ripple of new energy through his body, the stirring of purpose, control firming, but she did not believe he could retreat from her now. Physically yes, but not mentally, not emotionally, not spiritually. If he did, it would be a violation of something so precious it would be akin to homicide.
‘Amanda...’ There was both awe and pain in his voice.
So strange, she mused. He had not even given her his name. She tried Jebel in her mind. It didn’t quite fit the deep dark strains of power in him...the elemental primitive man that called to all that was untamed in her.
‘You would come to me...of your own free will?’ he asked.
The strained note in his voice told her he wanted to believe it, but his intelligence questioned it. She wanted him to let her go free. She wanted her father exonerated. The stakes were high.
‘Yes,’ she said, not knowing where this would end, no longer caring.
However it had happened, an act of destiny or pure accident, Amanda was sure in her own mind that there would be no other man for her. Why it should be, she didn’t know. The perversity of fate was imponderable. A collision course had been set, and once effected, there was no going back.
She felt the quickening of his pulse. He eased back from her, lifting his hands to cup her face, draw her gaze to his. He looked into her eyes and she didn’t mind him seeing the desire for him openly reflected there. She was sorry to see the torment of uncertainties in his.
‘I will put an end to this matter. You are tired after your long journey. Perhaps distraught. I should let you rest. I should not have pressed so hard. For all your inner strength...you remain a woman.’
It was a strange, tortured mixture of concern and tenderness and self-criticism. It was as though, having hunted, he was struck by an empathy with his prey, and he could not bring himself to move in for the kill.
‘Was more too much?’ she asked with rueful irony.
