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His possession...
Something blew a fuse in Clemmie’s thoughts, forcing her to realise that the modest tee shirt nightie was no longer anything like so modest. It was no barrier at all to those urgently seeking fingers. Her nightdress was rucked up well past her waist, her naked legs were tangled with his, smooth skin against the muscular power of long, hair-covered masculine limbs. The feel of his hot skin under her hands was like bathing in liquid fire. She wanted to touch all of him, kiss all of him, feel all of him, all at one time.
‘Karim...’
She mouthed his name against his skin, taking in the taste of him as she muttered the word. The hair on his chest pricked at her tongue, soft electrical impulses that made her shiver in response. She needed to writhe nearer, pressing herself against the length of his body.
Karim muttered something in a language she didn’t understand, his teeth grazing her neck softly, and with a sudden movement he took possession of the breasts he had exposed to his caresses, making Clemmie gasp aloud and rear up slightly, flinging back her head in a rush of response. But a moment later she regretted the slight break of contact, needing more, so that she dropped her face down to his again, her hair forming a soft curtain around them as she took the kiss she wanted—needed.
The heat of his erection pressed against the moist curls between her legs, but her body hungered for more. She yearned to feel the full heat and power of him without even the barrier of his underwear, fine though it was. With a hungry murmur deep in her throat, she slipped her hands between them, finding the elasticated waistband and tugging at it, wanting to draw it down. She felt the tension in his body in a new and disturbing way; one she wanted to ignore because she was afraid of what it meant.
‘Clemmie! No!’
Karim bucked underneath her, his reaction as violent as if he had been stung. And what she feared was there in his tone, in the warning she didn’t want to hear.
‘Hellfire, lady... I— No! I said no!’
He twisted away, caught her hands again and held them prisoner at the wrist. She could feel his heart thudding against his ribcage and knew that he was every bit as aroused as she was, every bit as hungry. But he was determined to deny it.
‘Karim!’ she protested, her voice thick with need. ‘Don’t do this. I want you—why are you doing this?’
The breath he snatched in was raw and ragged, grating its way into his lungs.
‘We can’t do this. We must not. You know why.’
She knew he was trying to appeal to her sense of reason but it wasn’t going to work. She didn’t want it to work. She didn’t feel at all reasonable. She wanted this. Wanted it with every beat of her heart.
‘Do I?’
Deliberately she wriggled against him, smiling under the cover of her hair as she heard his groan, felt the tension in the long body beside her.
‘I don’t see why. This is almost the last night of my single life—my last night of freedom—surely I can spend it as I want—with who I want.’
‘If you were anyone else, then yes.’
His voice scraped over her nerves, waking restraints and scruples that had never been there before. It was as if someone had lifted away the blankets, doused the fire, and the cold, creeping sense of misery that oozed over her skin was almost overwhelming.
Almost. But underneath the sense of hesitation that chilled the heat of her hunger there was another, more rebellious feeling that flared and burned away her qualms. It throbbed to the beat of the pulse between her legs, impossible to deny.
She had spent her life living according to her father’s calculated rules. Settlements that had been decided for her and about her but without any consent or even knowledge on her part. She hadn’t even lived her life. It had all been dictated for her by her parent’s ambition. But here, tonight, she had one chance—her only chance—to live as other women her age had the freedom to live. The freedom to...
No—her thoughts danced away from the dangerous four-letter word she had almost allowed into her mind. There was no love in this.
She couldn’t fall in love in less than forty-eight hours with a man who had been a stranger until she had opened the door to him—was it really only yesterday? It wasn’t love; it was lust—but lust was a new and exciting feeling. One she had never experienced before. One she was sure she was never likely to feel when she was forced into a diplomatic marriage with a man she didn’t know. No, not a man—a boy—nearly five years younger than her.
She would never experience the joy and excitement of falling in love. But she could experience this. It might be all she would ever have to sustain her in the arid, desolate years that lay ahead.
‘But we are who we are and this can never be. It is forbidden. You are forbidden.’
‘Not tonight.’
Increasing anxiety, the nagging ache of withdrawal as the stinging excitement ebbed painfully, leaving every inch of her burning and hungry, made her voice desperate.
‘Tonight we are just two people, alone in the dark. This cottage is miles from anywhere, and the snow has isolated us even more. There’s no one to see us, no one to know.’
‘We would know.’ His voice sounded as if it was fraying at the edges. ‘I would know.’
‘But we need never...’
Something about his terrible stillness, the way his head was turned away from her, his eyes refusing to meet hers, staring into the fire instead, sent a shaft of ice slicing through her. It froze her into an immobility to match his, her heart quailing deep inside.
‘Is it—’
She couldn’t manage to say it, didn’t want to say it. But it had to be faced. In her naiveté, had she made the most terrible mistake, imagining something that wasn’t there? Had she put her own longings on to the moment, creating a scenario she wanted, but one that had never been there at all?
‘Don’t you want me?’
Karim’s answer was a deep, soul-felt groan.
‘Not want you?’ He was almost laughing when he said it. But it was a laugh that broke in the middle.
‘Not want you? Dear God, lady, but does this...’ he turned so that the heat and hardness of his erection was pressed against her naked stomach ‘...feel like I don’t want you?’
It felt like the exact opposite so that her heart leapt a little then sank back down again as she saw the hard set lines of his face.
‘I want you so much that it’s tearing me apart.’
‘Then why? Why not? Karim—you want me—I want you. So why can’t we...?’
‘No!’
It was a wild explosion of sound, underlined by the violent movement of his long frame, pulling away from her and jack-knifing off the settee in a savage rush.
‘No. Damn you to hell, woman, you are not going to tempt me this way. This ends now. Once and for all. It’s over. Done. It’s never going to happen.’
‘But...’
In spite of herself, she rose up on to her knees on the cushions, letting the blanket slip away from her to pool around her legs as she held a hand out to him, trying to reach him. She saw those dark eyes sear over her exposed naked body and it felt as if he had actually flayed the skin from her flesh, leaving her raw and bleeding.
‘Don’t touch me!’ he commanded. ‘Don’t ever touch me again! I want nothing to do with you—nothing but the job I was sent here to do. I will deliver you to Nabil—to your promised husband.’ Could he have injected the words with any more venom? ‘And then I will never see you again.’
And he would only be happy when that had happened. He didn’t have to say the words. They were there in the darkly savage way he spoke, the burn of violent rejection in his eyes.
Already he was turning away from her, grabbing at the jeans and sweater discarded on a nearby chair, pushing himself into them with rough, angry movements. But when he stamped his feet into his boots and headed for the door, Clemmie couldn’t just keep silent and watch him go.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Outside. In case you haven’t noticed—it’s raining.’
A brusque jerk of his head indicated the windows, where Clemmie now noticed that water rather than snow was lashing against the glass. A slow dawn was starting too, bringing a faint tinge of light to the sky.
‘I will get your car moving—or find a connection for the phone.’
He would do it if it killed him. The declaration was stamped into every line of his face, turning every muscle to stone.
‘And while I’m out you should get dressed and be ready to leave. I want to be out of here as soon as it’s physically possible.’
Out of here and away from her. Or at least on his way to delivering her to Nabil to pay off a debt of honour. He made her sound like a parcel for which someone had paid express delivery. He was not the passionate lover she had dreamed of, nothing but a cold, hard man intent on using her for his own ends, just as her father had done.
