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He filled the goblet and, uninvited, sat on the bed beside her. She lay there, tense and stiff, as he proceeded to drink it down. She could see the movement of his throat as he swallowed and it made her feel oddly weak. ‘See,’ he proclaimed when it was done, ‘there is nothing in it.’
‘You might have a high tolerance...’
He smiled.
Not a smile that could go on a dental commercial and perhaps not a smile that many would ever see, but she did observe the slight twitch of his lips that were moistened from the drink.
There was a sudden tsunami warning beneath her belly button. The covers remained, yet it felt as if everything had swept back, leaving her feeling raw and exposed. She lay there, oh, so aware of him, while trying her hardest not to be.
Oh, why, oh, why did she have to find him so impossibly attractive? When every other man left her lukewarm at best, why did this one ignite her on sight?
Why couldn’t she have an ugly kidnapper with a hook for a hand and snaggle teeth?
And why couldn’t he smell of body odour instead of the exotic, tangy, clean fragrance that she breathed in now?
‘Drink,’ he said, and replaced the vessel on the table after refilling it. But still Maggie refused to comply.
‘When am I going to be freed?’
‘No one is going anywhere,’ he told her. ‘The simoom is fast approaching, so no helicopter can land. For now, you need to have something to drink. I can assure you it is safe.’
‘I’m supposed to trust you?’ Maggie checked.
‘You have to drink,’ Ilyas said. ‘So I shan’t be leaving until you do.’
‘That’s your choice,’ Maggie said. She lay on the silk pillows and closed her eyes, all the while knowing there wasn’t the remotest chance of resting with him so close.
The assault on her senses was just as violent with her eyes closed.
More so perhaps.
For now, away from the intensity of those amazing eyes, she could focus on the notes of his scent and the feel of him sitting close to her thigh.
Yes, the feel, for though he sat a respectable distance away there was an awareness so acute that she might soon have to roll to her side just to escape it.
‘Maggie.’
He called her by her name but she ignored him.
‘I’m not asking you now,’ he said, ‘I’m telling you.’
‘Oh, well, in that case...’ Maggie said, and opening her eyes she lifted her hand towards the goblet, but instead of picking it up and doing as she’d beentold, very deliberately she knocked it from the bedside so that it fell to the carpeted floor.
She was like a cat, Ilyas thought as her defiant eyes met his.
‘I shan’t be drinking anything,’ Maggie said. ‘Especially given that the last time I accepted a beverage with an al-Razim close by I ended up being framed.’
Ilyas looked at her for a very long time and knew her words were sincere. If she was telling the truth about her drink being spiked then she had every right to be suspicious now.
Yet it would soon be sunrise and she had been taken just after midnight.
The desert was no place to forego nourishment.
He picked up the vessel from the floor and refilled it again as she lay there staring up at him. Her red hair was splayed out on the pillow and as his hand moved towards her she flinched, but then in a very thorough motion he sat her up.
Maggie’s response was not ladylike; she struggled, though it was to no avail. Ilyas put the goblet to her mouth and he poured. Though she fought, he was stronger. But that was not the reason she gave in—suddenly they were close, so close, and there was the ragged sound of his breathing, thefeelof his hand on the back of her head, and the overwhelming sensation that Ilyas was near.
It was safer to swallow.
