Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence. Lynne Graham

they burned a pure hot gold. Her heart started to hammer as if she were sprinting.

      Jasim was not in a good mood. He had not been amused when he’d arrived for the weekend only to discover that his brother and sister-in-law and even his quarry were all out and unavailable, making his presence as an interested onlooker somewhat superfluous. ‘Miss Tempest?’

      ‘Er…yes?’ Elinor reached out a trembling hand to brace herself on the carved pedestal at the foot of the massive wooden staircase. He had a gorgeous face that inexplicably continued to draw her attention like a powerful magnet. She just wanted to stare and stare. ‘Sorry, you…are?’

      ‘Prince Murad’s brother, Jasim,’ he breathed, surveying her with forbidding cool, in spite of the powerfully masculine interest she fired in him.

      He immediately wanted to know if she looked at his brother in the same awestruck way. Any man might be flattered by a woman looking at him with a wonder more worthy of a supernatural being. In the flesh, Elinor Tempest was, he already appreciated, a much more dangerous entity than he had ever imagined she might be. In a dress that hugged the sensual swell of her breasts and revealed her incredibly long legs, she was out-and-out stunning. Hair that had looked garishly bright in the photo was, in reality, a rich dark auburn and a crowning glory that hung in a luxuriant curling tangle halfway down her back. Only the finest emeralds could have equalled the amazing green of her eyes. With that spectacular hair, those wide eyes and a lush pink mouth set against flawless creamy skin, she was literally the stuff of male fantasy. It was a challenging instant before Jasim, universally renowned for his cool head, could concentrate his thoughts again.

      ‘You appear to be drunk,’ Jasim breathed icily, his stern intonation roughened by the disturbing hardening at his groin as his body reacted involuntarily to the sexually appealing vision she made.

      Colour flared in Elinor’s cheeks. ‘P-possibly…er…a little bit,’ she stammered in great discomfiture, dragging in a long deep breath that made the rounded mounds of her breasts shimmy beneath the fine fabric of her dress. ‘I don’t usually drink much but it was a special occasion.’

      Jasim was finding it a challenge to keep his attention above her chin. ‘If you worked for me, I would not tolerate you appearing in this state.’

      ‘Luckily I’m not working for you,’ Elinor flipped back, before she could think better of it. ‘Nor am I working at this precise moment. I’m on my own time. I had the evening off—’

      ‘Nevertheless, while you live beneath this roof I consider such conduct unacceptable.’

      Elinor registered that he had drawn closer and that she actually had to tip back her head to take all of him in. He was very tall, she noted belatedly, at least six feet four inches, considerably taller than his older brother. In fact there was nothing about him that reminded her of Prince Murad, for Jasim was broad-shouldered and muscular in build. He carried not an ounce of excess weight on his lean, lithe physique. Of course, the two men were only half-brothers, she recalled, born to different mothers.

      ‘What if Zahrah was to wake up and see you in such a condition?’ Jasim demanded, meeting her intense gaze with his own and stiffening at the rampant response of his body to her encouragement. If that was how she looked at his brother, he totally understood how Murad could have been tempted off the straight and narrow. The ripe fullness of her soft pink mouth was a sensual invitation all on its own.

      ‘The nurse who has been with Zahrah since she was born sleeps next door to her. I think you’re being very unreasonable,’ Elinor told him tightly.

      Jasim was staggered by that disrespectful rejoinder and decided that she was utterly without shame. Nor had it escaped his notice that she apparently had a limousine at her private disposal. That was a flagrant display of his brother’s special favour, which could only add weight to Yaminah’s worst fears. ‘Is this how you speak to my brother?’

      ‘Your brother, who is my employer, is a great deal more pleasant and less critical. I don’t work for you and I’m entitled to a social life,’ Elinor declared, her chin at a defiant tilt even though she could feel a tension headache building like a painful band of steel round her temples. Her self-esteem, already battered by the treatment she had earlier withstood at the nightclub, refused to bear any more in saintly silence. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to bed.’

      Jasim only knew in that moment of red-hot outrage at her impertinence that he wanted to take her to that bed, spread her across it and make love to her until she begged him for more and ached from his passion. As he struggled to master the fierce desire threatening his usually rigid self-control he was shocked by the sheer novelty of a lust that powerful. No woman ever came between Jasim and his wits, not even the one he had once briefly planned to marry. But as he watched Elinor Tempest endeavour to mount the stairs without swaying and stumbling from the effects of the alcohol she had consumed, he knew that he would know no peace until he had bedded her and made her his.

      Her foot, shod in a sandal with a thin slippery sole, slid off a step and she lurched back with a cry of alarm breaking from her lips as she clutched frantically at the solid balustrade for support.

      ‘Safety is yet another reason why you shouldn’t drink like this,’ Jasim breathed hatefully close, a splayed hand like an iron bar bracing her spine to prevent her from falling backwards down the stairs.

      ‘I don’t need your help,’ Elinor protested furiously, sliding off her shoes to ensure there were no further accidents and gathering them together in one impatient hand. ‘I hate people who preach…. I bet you say, “I told you so”, as well!’

      The scent of her hair and her skin assailed Jasim in an evocative wave of sensuous appeal. She smelt like peaches and made him think of hot sunlight and even hotter sex. He was convinced that she would be a willing partner. Her style of dress and her behaviour had already persuaded him that she was far from being an innocent. Murad was much too trusting to be left at the mercy of his own lust and the manipulations of a rapacious youthful temptress. Elinor Tempest, Jasim decided, was a justifiable target for his calculating plan to bring about her downfall. Striving to keep the lid on his temper and his libido, he urged her upstairs.

      ‘All right…I’ll be fine now,’ Elinor muttered as she reached her comfortable bedroom. The defiance was steadily seeping out of her, for she was exhausted and her spirits were low. ‘You’ve been the perfect conclusion to a truly horrible birthday and now, please, I’d like to be left alone.’

      Jasim subjected her to a measured assessment from the doorway. Alienating her was not a good idea. What had he been thinking of? Desire was pulsing through him and already as much entrenched there as the beat of the blood through his veins. He wanted her and once he took her to his bed Murad would turn his back on her. Taking her to bed would not be a sacrifice. Picturing her there with those flame-coloured curls loose and her eyes soft with longing offered him the prospect of a sweeter and more sensual pleasure than he had ever dreamt he might find in so premeditated an encounter.

      Conservation needs had put the thrill of the hunt out of reach in Quaram and Jasim had long missed the excitement. He discovered that he could hardly wait for the satisfying conclusion of what promised to be a most enjoyable sexual game. It did not once occur to him that he might fail to get her into his bed—since he had never yet met with a refusal…

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE next morning, while Elinor showered, she turned clammy with horror when she recalled her dialogue with Prince Jasim. Alcohol had made an idiot of her! She should have been more careful about how much she’d drunk. But then it was six months since she had even tasted alcohol, she thought, biting anxiously at her lower lip. Furthermore she had been resentful about the fact that she couldn’t just have a couple of days off when she asked for them and a taste of youthful freedom.

      But not so resentful that she wanted to lose her very well-paid job, she reflected worriedly, a job, moreover, which would add solid-gold appeal to her CV when she went off in pursuit of her next position. No, the very last thing she needed now was to get sacked for being cheeky to a prince!