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‘It is very good,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘The airplane, he does not go until His Highness is back on board. I will tell him that you use the shower and he will tell the Captain.’
If she was quick she might have time to be in and out of the shower and dressed before Drax returned. It would certainly give her pride a much-needed boost if she could present herself to him looking freshly groomed.
‘Thank you, Ali,’ she said to the steward again. ‘I shall shower and change now, then, if that’s all right?’
‘It is very good,’ Ali repeated. ‘You will call me, please, if you wish anything? Perhaps more champagne?’
There was no lock on the bedroom door—but then there was no need for her to lock it, Sadie assured herself. She had never found the al Sawars’ staff to be anything other than respectful and polite, and Ali certainly hadn’t struck her as being anything other than trustworthy.
Five minutes later she stepped beneath the shower and felt the bliss of its warm water on her skin, even better than she had anticipated. To see the fine grains of sand sluicing down with the water into the shower tray made her change her mind about not bothering to wash her hair. If she couldn’t dry it then she would plait it, and at least it would be clean—even if it meant taking a longer shower than she had planned.
Drax frowned as he watched the line of immaculately dressed young women handing over the glossy designer logo carrier bags to his waiting staff. He had bought what he had thought most suitable—not just for a young woman about to enter the employ of the ruling house of Dhurahn, but also for the prospective bride of one of them. Guessing Sadie’s size for the clothes hadn’t been too much of a problem. He had enough experience to make a pretty shrewd estimate of her measurements. But to be on the safe side he had instructed the boutiques to supply the shoes they had suggested went best with the outfits in two sizes. Now she would have a wardrobe fit for a young woman well-groomed enough to catch the eye of his fastidious brother, complete with some discreet pieces of costume jewellery and a Cartier watch.
Drax stepped into the interior of the jet and the waiting stewards closed the doors.
‘Where is Ms Murray?’ he asked Ali as the steward offered him a glass of champagne, which he waved away.
‘She asked me if there was sufficient time for her to take a shower before takeoff.’
Drax glanced at his watch.
She should be out of the shower by now. He got up and headed for the guest bedroom. He had no intention of warning Sadie of his plans for her, but he would have to give her some acceptable explanation for the new clothes he had bought her and make sure she wore them from now on.
Sadie was crouched on the floor, wrapped in a large bath towel, going through her almost empty suitcase with increasing disbelief and dismay, looking for the underwear that should have been there but so far she hadn’t been able to find. She was oblivious to the brief knock on her door before Drax opened it and walked in.
The shock of seeing him brought her upright, but as she stood her foot caught in the trailing hem of the towel, causing it to slip from her body and leaving her completely naked.
For a heartbeat neither of them moved. Sadie couldn’t even breathe, never mind retrieve the towel. But still her soft, pale-skinned rounded breasts lifted slightly, as though she had drawn in her breath, whilst her nipples, still damp from her shower and lightly gilded from the discreetly placed lighting, tightened subtly. But not so subtly that Drax’s attention wasn’t caught by their quick hardening—a hardening that was reciprocated far less subtly by his own body.
Without taking his gaze off her he pushed the door shut. Its soft click as it locked them together into the silent privacy of the bedroom made a small pulse jerk in Sadie’s throat. She made a small sound, a protest that wasn’t a protest at all, more a moan of female acknowledgement, her eyes widening as Drax took a step towards her.
It was almost as though she had been turned into two different people, Sadie thought. One of them, the Sadie she knew, was urging her frantically to pick up her towel and conceal her nakedness and her vulnerability with it. But the other Sadie, a Sadie who bemused and astonished her, wasn’t listening. She was choosing to stay where she was; she felt only the pure female awareness of the power of her naked body and its right to accept the homage of the man who was subjecting its every curve and line with the look of a critic and a connoisseur.
Sadie had never stopped to think of her body as an object of artistic beauty before, and the Sadie she knew was horrified by the thought. But the other Sadie took pride in knowing that she could command the silent attention of such a man. She might as well have been a slave girl, commanded to stand before a man who would buy her for his pleasure, Sadie told herself, trying to goad this new, rebellious side of herself into submitting to angry shame. But instead that Sadie mocked her for her cowardice, and whispered to her that a slave girl could command the man who was her master if she had the courage to do so. She could give him such pleasure that she was the one who enslaved him—so that he was commanded by her pleasure to worship the sensuality she embodied. Such a woman knew how to tempt and torment a man until all he could think of was possessing her; until the slavery between them encompassed and held them both; until he was as shackled to her by the unseen chains of his own desire as surely as she was shackled in the market place for his inspection.
With every thought this unfamiliar Sadie had the old Sadie could feel herself becoming her, so that her belly hollowed erotically, and her breathing deepened and quickened, and the tight thrust of her nipples hardened into flushed arousal.
He had come here to tell her about the clothes he had bought for her, but the truth was, Drax decided, she didn’t need clothes. She was perfect the way she was. And the heavy, unsteady thud of his heartbeat echoed the potency of his thoughts.
The only covering such perfection should have was that of his hands, exploring every silken centimetre of her soft flesh, or his lips, paying her the homage of his male hunger. She would taste of the fruits of her own country, ripe summer berries salted with just enough sharpness before being dipped in honey-sweetened cream that would meld on the tongue, leaving behind the memory of its velvet softness and warm scent. Her skin was as pale as the desert sand in the moonlight, her nipples the rose-gold of the dawn shadows on the mountains beyond the plain, the cleft between her legs as delicately hidden as one of the secret valleys deep in those mountains, concealed from the eyes of men.
If she were his he would command that she always came to him unclothed. He would build her a house with a secluded courtyard, its floor covered in the softest, deepest rugs, so that she could walk upon them without damaging the tender flesh of her feet. He would plant it with thornless roses and scented plants, so that when he took her in its seclusion the scent of the petals crushed beneath her body would release their perfume all around them. She would be his to enjoy as and when he wished.
But she wasn’t going to be his. He had chosen her for his brother.
With one swift movement he reached down and retrieved her towel, handing it to her. His curt, ‘Cover yourself,’ brought Sadie out of the spell her unfamiliar half had woven around her, snapping her back to reality and to the humiliating embarrassment of her nudity.
She snatched the towel from Drax, holding in front of herself, her face on fire. ‘You should have knocked,’ she told him fiercely.
‘I did. When you didn’t answer I assumed…wrongly…’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Or perhaps the assumption I made was the right one? At least as far as you are concerned.’
It took several seconds for his meaning to reach her. When it did, the embarrassed pink of her face changed to an angry red.
‘If you’re trying to suggest that I wanted you to come in…Well, I didn’t,’ she told him flatly, when he didn’t say anything. ‘And now I
’d like you to leave, please, whilst I get dressed.’ It struck her that she was in no position to order him around on his own plane, but there was no way she was going to have him making those sort of accusations against her.
‘You will have to be quick. I came to warn you that we are about to take off. You will need to be seated in the lounge area and wearing a seatbelt.’
