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‘Come on, then.’
They were only yards from the square in front of the palace when the storm caught up with them, drenching them with a deluge of rainfall that soaked them through to the skin, hammering down so hard that Keira felt as though she could hardly breathe.
When Jay took hold of her hand, shouting to her above the noise of the rain, ‘We’ll go this way—it’s quicker!’ as he half-pulled her down a narrow passageway and through a high gate in the wall that took them into his own private courtyard, she didn’t have the breath to object, even if she had wanted to do so. Far easier and safer to simply let Jay lead her up the flight of stone stairs that led from his courtyard to his door, which he opened speedily, pushing Keira inside ahead of him, and then slammed closed behind them, enclosing them both in the welcome dry protection of the room beyond it.
The thought occurred to Keira that not once during the storm had she felt anything less than complete faith in Jay, and complete trust in his judgement as he had made decisions she knew she would not have had the confidence to make. But what she would remember most of all about the storm was the warmth of his hand holding hers. It was pointless telling herself that the sense of intimacy she had felt and the joy it had brought her were completely out of proportion to his actions, and therefore a warning sign of how dangerously out of her depth she was getting. It was too late. She suspected that somehow, somewhere along the journey from their first meeting to being here in this room, she had fallen in love with him.
Out of breath and soaking wet, Keira pushed her realisation aside and looked round the room. A bedroom. Jay’s bedroom? Her heart lurched and crashed into her ribs—and not out of fear, she recognized, as Jay strode across the room to switch on the lights.
She was shivering now, and not just because of her body’s reaction to the intimacy of their surroundings. Her wet clothes were plastered to her body, just as Jay’s were plastered to his. Jay’s shirt was clinging to his torso, so sodden that it had become virtually opaque. Her heart was skittering around inside her ribcage now, her mouth was dry and a dangerous and unwanted pulse was aching deep inside her. Keira dragged her gaze away from its hungry focus on Jay and made herself study her surroundings instead.
A large modern bed dominated the room, with crisp white bedlinen turned down over a richly embroidered silk coverlet. Art Deco lamps with Tiffany shades threw soft shadows across the dark silk-rug-covered floor, repeating the 1930s theme of the women’s quarters and reminding Keira that it had been a habit of the fabulously wealthy Maharajas of that era to build themselves new palaces, decorated and furnished in the fashion of the times.
Outside the sky had turned dark, and the only sound was that of the rain hammering down. Keira lifted her hand to brush her wet hair out of her eyes and then nearly jumped out of her skin as suddenly there was a flash of lightning so intense it seared the sky, followed almost immediately by the most deafening crash of thunder. As she cried out, more in shock than fear, the lights went out, plunging the room and the city beyond it into darkness.
Keira took a step forward and then came to an abrupt halt as she collided with Jay. His fingers curled round her upper arms—to steady her or to hold her off? She didn’t know. All she did know was that the mere act of him touching her was setting off a storm of its own inside her body that she knew she would not be able to contain. Desire zig-zagged through her like the lightning outside, burning from nerve-ending to nerve-ending, leaving her a mass of aching, volatile need. Her heart crashed into her ribs. The threat of her longing was causing her far more fear than what was happening outside. Instinctively and immediately Keira tried to protect herself, but it was too late. Her body had other ideas. As she had done before she leaned towards him, the stifled urgent sound of her breathing tattooing onto the silence a sensuality that spoke openly of her desire.
Jay heard the message and recognised it. He should turn her down. But in the electric tension of the darkened room her quickened breathing was suddenly a conduit for the desire he had been fighting to keep at bay from the moment he had first seen her. It ran like fire over gunpowder along his veins and through his senses, blowing apart his control over not just his reactions, but over something he had thought no woman could ever influence—his emotions.
