Rumours: The Billion-Dollar Brides. Lynne Graham

flushed scarlet. ‘My...grandfather? Please tell me you’re joking—’

      ‘There was no discussion, Polly, but I guessed what he meant. He merely wished to protect you from the risk of me being naïve in that line. I am not naïve,’ Rashad completed with wry emphasis. ‘But Hakim and I have naturally never discussed anything that intimate, so he could have formed no idea of my attitude in advance.’

      In receipt of that explanation, her mortification ebbed. It was evident that her grandparents had made the same assumption and she couldn’t find it in her heart to fault her grandfather for trying to shield her from the threat of Rashad’s disappointment.

      ‘You’re not that old-fashioned,’ she commented with a helpless little giggle. ‘But obviously Grandad is.’

      ‘I spent several years studying at Oxford University and that was an enlightening experience being a mature student,’ he told her wryly.

      ‘Must’ve been,’ Polly conceded, picturing Rashad with his film-star good looks and wealth let loose to enjoy a student’s freedom. ‘Was that after your wife passed away?’

      His lean, strong face tensed. ‘Of course. I could not have left her behind here to be oppressed by her father.’

      Polly frowned. ‘How...oppressed?’

      ‘In essence my late uncle was a good man but he was also a bully. I say that with respect because without his intervention I would not be alive,’ Rashad admitted levelly. ‘On several occasions during Arak’s dictatorship rumours of my continuing existence put a price on my head. I could have been hunted down and killed like an animal but the tribe took me in as one of their own and protected me because my uncle was their sheikh.’

      It was the first time he had given her a little window into the sheer turmoil of his formative years and it sobered Polly as nothing else could have done. Certainly it could not have been all rainbows and roses being brought up by a bully, most particularly not if he owed his very life to that same bully, who had coolly married the putative future King of Dharia off to his own daughter at the age of sixteen. Her heart was touched and she pressed her hand briefly against a lean masculine thigh in silent empathy.

      ‘It seems we do, in spite of all that has happened, have something in common,’ Rashad remarked with a flashing smile of such intense charisma that she couldn’t drag her attention from his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘We were both raised by strict guardians.’

      ‘Yes,’ Polly conceded feverishly, encountering the dark golden depths of his eyes with a mouth that was running dry and a stomach awash with butterflies as awareness of their proximity kicked in with electrifying effect.

      ‘I do not want you to be nervous of me, habibti,’ Rashad confided huskily. ‘I promise you that I will never do anything that you do not want.’

      ‘I... I pretty much want everything!’ Polly confided with a strangled little laugh of self-consciousness because she didn’t feel it was fair to go on acting as if she were a terrified virgin because she was not.

      ‘Everything...’ Rashad savoured the word and she flushed. ‘I love your honesty.’

      And he kissed her, slowly, carefully, nibbling at her lower lip, then tracing it with the tip of his tongue. In fact he turned up the temperature so gradually she was barely aware that one of her hands had crept up to spear into his thick black hair and the other to tighten on a strong shoulder. She wanted more, much more, she acknowledged, her whole body turning warm and languorous in response while the little prickles and tingles of desire were already pinching at her nipples and warming her pelvis.

      ‘I will make it special,’ Rashad intoned into the scented depths of her tumbling hair, his dark deep drawl roughened by the knowledge that she was giving him her trust.

      ‘You can’t promise that,’ Polly felt forced to tell him prosaically. ‘If it hurts, it’s not your fault. I’m not that ignorant—’

      ‘Hush...’ Rashad groaned.

      ‘No, you stop setting standards,’ Polly warned him playfully, tracing his hard jawline with a gentle forefinger, marvelling at how much closer she felt to him as he pressed her back against the pillows and leant back to flip off her shoes, letting them fall to the tiled floor.

      ‘I’ve done that all my life—’

      ‘But not here, now...when it’s only the two of us,’ Polly persisted helplessly.

      And for a split second, Rashad contemplated the strangeness of not seeing everything in the light of passing or failing and shouldering the blame, but it was too engrained a habit for him to even imagine. He shook off that alien concept and homed in on his bride instead, studying that ripe rosebud mouth with an amount of hunger that threatened his control.

      He kissed her again and the passion he couldn’t conceal burned in that kiss and it thrilled her as much as the hungry thrust of his tongue melding with her own. He was so intense, she thought tenderly, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. He took far too many things far too seriously. Maybe she would be able to make him lighten up a little and relax more. But that solemn thought was quickly engulfed by the intoxicating delight of his demanding mouth crushing hers beneath his own. Little noises she didn’t recognise escaped her throat.

      He slid her out of her dress with admirable ease, so deft at the challenge that she was a little surprised to find herself lying there clad only in her lace underwear. All of a sudden she was worried about what he would think of her body, which she knew was kind of average. Breasts neither large nor small but somewhere in between. Hips a little larger than she would have liked, legs and ankles reasonably shapely, she reflected ruefully, shutting her eyes, just lying there, not wanting to beat herself up with such foolish thoughts.

      ‘Ant jamilat jiddaan... You are so beautiful,’ Rashad told her with fervour, and she dared to open her eyes again.

      And yes, it was her body he was scrutinising much as if she were the seventh wonder of the world. Emboldened, Polly arched her spine to make the most of her assets, relishing his admiration while thinking no more about her physical imperfections. Her blue eyes settled on him and she murmured shyly but with determination, ‘You’re still wearing too many clothes.’

      His dark golden eyes gleamed with appreciation and he pulled off his tee shirt to reveal a bronzed and indented muscular torso worthy of a centrefold. The tip of her tongue crept out to moisten her dry lips as her gaze crept inexorably down to the revealing bulge at his groin. Apprehension was the last thing on her mind as he unzipped his jeans, showing her the intriguing little dark furrow of hair snaking down over his taut flat stomach. She stopped breathing altogether as he came back to her and fastened his mouth hungrily to hers again, the warmth of his big body against her an unexpected source of pleasure.

      He unclasped her bra and cupped a pale pouting breast, long fingers toying with the taut pink tip, rolling it, gently squeezing the distended bud before sucking it into his mouth and teaching her that that part of her body was much more sensitive than she would ever have believed. The tug of his lips on the straining tips of her breasts sent a pulling sensation arrowing down into the heat rising between her thighs. Lying still became a challenge while her hips dug into the mattress beneath her. The hollowed ache at the heart of her increased, making her restless and stoking her craving for more.

      ‘You’re not letting me touch you,’ Polly muttered in a rush, gripped by the fear that she wasn’t being much of an equal partner. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be a two-way thing?’

      ‘It is but it would please me most if this first time between us is for you, not for me,’ Rashad countered with assurance.

      A little red in the cheeks, Polly abandoned her objections, particularly when he made a point of pinning her flat with another passionate driving kiss and her temperature rocketed up the scale. He tugged off her panties and finally touched her where she most longed to be touched, tracing the delicate skin at the apex of her thighs and concentrating on the tiny nub that seemed to control her every nerve ending.

      The