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‘Sara?’ he questioned.
She turned her head and he was shocked by the pallor of her face, which made her eyes look like two glittering violet jewels. ‘What?’
He picked up one of her hands, which was lying limply in her lap, and raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘You didn’t enjoy that?’
She shrugged. ‘On one level, yes, of course I did—as, I imagine, did you. But that wasn’t about sex, was it, Suleiman? That seemed to be more about anger than anything else. I think I can understand why you’re feeling it, but I don’t particularly like it.’
‘You were angry too,’ he said softly.
She turned her head to look at the endless stretch of sand outside the window. ‘I was feeling things other than anger,’ she said.
‘What things?’
‘Oh, you know. Stupid things. Regret. Sadness. The realisation that nothing ever stays the same.’ She turned back to him, telling herself to be strong. Telling herself that the friendship they’d shared so long ago had been broken by time and circumstance. And now by desire. And that made her want to bury her face in her hands and weep.
She forced a smile. ‘So now we’re done—are you going to take me to the airfield so I can go back to England?’
He reached his hand out to touch her face, sliding his thumb against her parted lips so that they trembled. Leaning over, he hovered his lips over hers. ‘Are we done?’
Briefly, Sara closed her eyes. Say yes, she told herself. It’s the only sane solution. You’ve escaped the marriage and you know there’s no future in this. Her lashes fluttered open to stare straight into the obsidian gleam of his eyes. His mouth was still close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath and she struggled against the temptation to kiss him.
Were they done?
In her heart, she thought they were.
She ought to go back to England and start again. She should go back to her job at Gabe’s—if he would have her—and carry on as before. As if nothing had happened.
She bit her lip, because it wasn’t that easy. Because something had happened and how could she go back to the way she’d been before? She felt different now because she was different. Inevitably. She had been freed from a marriage in which she’d had no say, but she was confused. Her future looked just as bewildering as before and it was all because of Suleiman.
She had tried burying memories of him, but that hadn’t worked. And now that she’d made love with him, it had stirred up all the feelings she had repressed for so long. It had stirred up a sexual hunger which was eating away at her even now—minutes after he’d just brought her to orgasm in the front seat of the Sultan’s car. It didn’t matter what she thought she should do—because, when push came to shove, she was putty in his hands. When Suleiman touched her, he set her on fire.
And maybe that was the answer. Maybe she just needed time to convince herself that his arrogance would be intolerable in the long term. If she tore herself away from him now—before she’d had her fill of him—wouldn’t she be caught in the same old cycle of forever wanting him?
‘Do you have a better suggestion?’ she questioned.
‘I do. A much better one.’ He stroked his hand down over her plaited hair. ‘We could take my plane and fly off somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere you like. As long as there’s a degree of comfort. I’m done with desert sand and making out in the front seat, like a couple of teenagers. I want to take you to bed and stay there for a week.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘SO WHY PARIS?’ Sara questioned, her mouth full of croissant.
Suleiman leaned across the rumpled sheets and used the tip of his finger to rescue a stray fragment of pastry which had fallen onto her bare breast. He lifted the finger to his mouth and sucked on it, his dark eyes not leaving her face.
And Sara wanted to kiss him all over again. She wanted to fling her arms around him and press her body against him and close her eyes and have him colour her world wonderful. Because that was what it was like whenever he touched her.
‘It’s my favourite hotel,’ he said. ‘And there is a reason why it’s known as the city of lovers. We can lie in bed all day and nobody bats an eyelid. We need never set foot outside the door if we don’t want to.’
‘Well, that’s convenient,’ said Sara drily. ‘Because that’s exactly what we’ve being doing. We’ve hardly seen any of the sights. In fact, we’ve been here for three days and I haven’t even been up the Eiffel Tower.’
He kissed her nipple. ‘And do you want to go up the Eiffel Tower?’
‘Maybe.’ Sara put her plate down and leant back against the snowy bank of pillows. That thing he was doing to her nipple with his tongue was distracting her from her indolent breakfast in bed, but there were other things on her mind. Questions which kept flitting into her mind and which, no matter how hard she tried, wouldn’t seem to flit away again. She had told herself that there was a good reason why you were supposed to live in the present—but sometimes you just couldn’t prevent thoughts of the future from starting to darken the edges of your mind. Or the past, come to that...
She kept her voice light and airy. As if she were asking him nothing more uncomplicated than would he please order her a coffee from room service. ‘Have you brought other women her
