Desert Sheikhs: Monarch of the Sands / To Tame a Sheikh / Sheikh Protector. Dana Marton

and closeness she was experiencing right now? Surely she was allowed to spin out her hopeless fantasies about her dark and brooding lover for just a little longer.

      ‘You mean about—’

      ‘Please don’t make it worse by playing games with me, Francesca. It seems you’ve done enough game-playing to last a lifetime.’ Angrily, he wiped away the tear which shimmered on her cheek and which seemed to reproach him. Why hadn’t she told him before it was too late? ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

      ‘About me being …’ Her voice tailed off because the word seemed like an unwanted intruder and the dark look on his face filled her with trepidation.

      ‘A virgin. A virgin!’ He shook his head in disbelief as he rolled away from her, reaching down to grab the cashmere throw, which had tumbled to the floor during their love-making and thrusting it at her, not wanting to look at her pink and white nakedness. He saw her move one milky thigh to reveal the secret, dark fuzz of hair and felt the rapid escalation of his heart. ‘Cover yourself up!’

      Frankie was grateful for the blanket, tugging it over herself with trembling fingers as she stared at him with apprehensive eyes.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded.

      ‘Because I knew you would stop if I did—’

      ‘Damned right I would have stopped!’

      ‘And I didn’t want you to,’ she said, in a small voice.

      Her wide-eyed honesty took him aback and almost made him melt, until he reminded himself of what she had done and the repercussions of her actions. ‘You didn’t have sex with Simon?’ he queried, then gave a short laugh as he realised the ridiculous nature of his question. ‘Clearly not, as I’ve just discovered for myself.’ He looked at her, trying to steel himself against the softness of her lips and the blue temptation of her darkened eyes. ‘The question is, why not?’

      She felt as if she were on a witness stand—suddenly expected to mount her own defence with little or no preparation. And her only defence was the truth, Frankie realised—even if it opened her up to the charge of being too trusting and too vulnerable.

      ‘Because I was … nervous whenever Simon touched me.’ Awkwardly, she wriggled her shoulders. ‘I sort of … froze.’

      ‘You didn’t act very nervous just now.’ And she certainly hadn’t frozen.

      She swallowed but the candid question still sparked from his black eyes. Did he want her to spell it out for him, detail by cringe-making detail—and inflate his already over-inflated ego into the bargain? Did she admit that she’d been stupid enough to get engaged to a man who hadn’t made her feel a modicum of what she felt for the brooding sheikh? That she had only just discovered what real passion and desire could feel like?

      ‘You made me feel relaxed,’ she said simply. ‘No, maybe that’s the wrong word. You made me feel …’ She gave another rueful shrug of her shoulders—for surely there was no place for coyness now. ‘Wanton, I guess. Which he never did. He told me that day when I went to see him that I was basically … frigid. And I believed him.’ She stopped while Zahid said something very profound in his native tongue, her heart beating hopefully as he pulled the cashmere throw over him as well, so that she could feel the heat from his body as he drew closer. ‘Anyway, maybe I should be grateful that we didn’t have sex.’ Her voice wobbled a little. ‘Not if he was sleeping with somebody else at the time.’

      Zahid gave a ragged sigh as he stared at the ceiling, cursing the man who had hurt her and cursing his own hot-blooded impetuosity. How bloody complicated life could be at times, he thought. The best sex he’d ever had and it had been with his oldest friend—who had now wasted her virginity on him and given him a whole new layer of unwanted responsibility towards her. Was this not the most impossible of all situations?

      ‘You know what kind of man I am, Francesca,’ he said furiously. ‘As King, I will be expected to marry a virgin—but it will have to be a woman from my own culture,’ he ran on hastily, in case she should think that she now qualified for the position. ‘Not a foreigner.’

      Frankie was glad that he was looking at the ceiling because otherwise he might have seen the hurt which had criss-crossed over her face. How unwittingly cruel he could be. Did he think she was now angling for marriage, simply because he had been the first man she’d had sex with? Did he imagine that she had withheld the information from him in order to put herself in a powerful position?

      But it took her only moments to compose herself. Why should he feel guilt about what had just happened, when in a way—she had misled him? Yet she hadn’t kept quiet about her innocence because she had some form of agenda. She had done it because she’d wanted Zahid more than anything else in the world. She had wanted him to be the man to introduce her to the world of sex. And she had done it because she … well, she liked him. That was all. Surely that was something which could be celebrated instead of regretted?

      Beneath the superfine cashmere, she stretched her glowing body and the movement made him turn his head to look at her, his eyes narrowing as she gave him a tentative smile.

      ‘I don’t want to fall out about it,’ she said softly, and with that she reached out her hand to cup the jut of his jaw. She could feel the rasp of new growth there and traced her thumb over his lips, not surprised when he caught it between his teeth and gave it a tiny nip.

      ‘Neither do I,’ he growled.

      ‘So couldn’t we … couldn’t we forget it ever hap pened?’

      ‘Are you crazy?’ The absurdity of her statement stirred him into action and he rolled closer, pulling her against his warm and newly aroused body. And then he sighed. ‘No, you’re just inexperienced—and in a way, it’s a bit of a pity that you’ve started with the best.’

      She bristled at the implication behind his words. ‘You mean that no lover will ever match you?’

      That hadn’t been what he’d meant at all. He’d meant that sex rarely felt this good—especially given that it was her first time. He wondered why that was, before quickly dismissing the thought. The whys and wherefores were irrelevant—it was the facts they had to deal with. And the fact was that he had just made love to his sweet virginal Francesca and he wanted to do it again.

      ‘I doubt it,’ he told her honestly.

      ‘Why, you arrogant—’

      He silenced her with the brush of his lips. ‘Arrogance is sometimes the truth, anisah,’ he said sombrely.

      When he spoke like that—how could she resist him?

      When his black eyes looked as deep and as dark as ink and she just wanted to write her name with them …

      ‘Oh, Zahid.’

      ‘Zahid, what?’

      She shook her head, shrugged her shoulders helplessly so that the throw slipped down. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

      And neither did he. All he could think about was the distracting softness of her warm breasts and her evocative feminine scent, which seemed to have invaded his senses. His lips brushing against her shoulder, he slid his fingers between her thighs as he gave into a temptation he had no desire to resist. Why mar this beautiful experience with troublesome questions which could easily wait?

      Lowering his mouth onto hers, he gave a low moan as his kiss blotted everything except the hungry clamour of their bodies.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      THE finger which was stroking circles on her belly suddenly stilled and Frankie made a little sound which was midway between pleasure and protest.

      ‘That’s nice,’ she whispered.

      ‘I know it is. Too damned nice.’ With a quick and disbelieving glance at his watch, Zahid saw that it was two hours