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He touched her.
Deliberately.
Casually.
He reached out and cupped his hand beneath her elbow. He rested her elbow gently in his open hand. There was no pressure. He simply wanted to touch her, it seemed.
Then his fingers curled around her arm and she felt a warm, instant sensation. Her breathing tightened and heat raced uncontrollably to her face, warming her cheeks.
She glanced down at his hand and then back at him. He seemed to waiting for some kind of reaction. His gaze was steady, unflinching.
Gemma could see the determination in that gaze, a hint at other things, at other kinds of promises.
She didn't move away from him. Instead she held his gaze, saying nothing for a long moment.
Finally she forced herself to speak. "I'm going to take this phone into the tent and leave it there. Okay?" she said.
He didn't move, at first. Had he been expecting her to say something else? Something more intimate?
Then he moved his hand away from her. She felt the sudden absence of his touch keenly. Had she wanted him to do more?
Gemma moved away from him and started toward the tent. She heard his voice from behind her. "You still haven't answered my question," he said.
She shook her head and refused to respond. "I'm going to take some time on my own, again. If that's okay with you."
He paused and then nodded slowly.
She was sure he wanted to say something to her, right now. Especially now that he'd touched her and she hadn't rejected that touch.
Would that simple gesture encourage him even more, she asked herself?
In spite of his disappointment, would her acceptance of his touch merely spur him on?
"I'll talk to you later, Ahmed. Okay?" she said.
And then she pulled back the flap of the tent entrance and rushed inside.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He should not have touched her, he told himself as he watched Gemma enter the tent and close the flap shut behind her.
That had been a mistake.
But he'd been seized by such an irresistible urge to do it.
The way she'd looked at him had made the impulse overwhelming. Her gaze had been so soft, so alluring, so tempting that he'd been unable to control himself.
It had been such a simple thing. How could the merest touch of her arm cause that rush of sensation through his entire body? Because that was what had happened.
The feeling of her arm in his hand had been exquisite. And it had been made even more so by the fact that she hadn't pulled her arm away from him. In fact, he was sure she'd been secretly pleased by the gesture.
He'd wanted more. So much more, but he'd known that this wasn't the time. He wondered if that time would ever come. Whether she would just exit his life and leave behind an emptiness, an unsatisfied longing.
Ahmed turned away from her tent and walked across to the pool. He leaned against a tree and felt like roaring his frustration out loud.
Why had she done that? Hadn't she realized how much he valued his privacy? That this was the one place in the kingdom where he could feel truly himself?
Of course, she didn't. How could she know that. They'd only just met. Even if their brief acquaintance had been strangely intense, almost like an instant attraction, it was still to short a time for Gemma to really know what he thought, what he felt.
