Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

felt the prickling of her nipples, budding and pointing almost painfully in response to his words. Even worse was the honeyed rush right at the very cradle of her, and she found herself squeezing her thighs together—the way you were taught to in an exercise class. But, oh, what a long way away the gym seemed right at this moment!

      ‘Get out,’ she whispered.

      He laughed, but it was a cruel, cold laugh.

      ‘You don’t want me to go anywhere, you lying little bitch,’ he taunted.

      She recoiled from his harsh words as if he had struck her. ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘Oh, no.’ His voice became a caress of silk and of velvet. ‘You want me. You want me to touch you.’

      ‘You’re mad!’

      He nodded. ‘Quite probably,’ he mused. ‘I must have been mad to have wondered why you were so deliciously compliant on our so-called “date”. I may have had a moderate degree of success with women, but they usually require a little more wooing than one course at an inexpensive restaurant and a short massage around the shoulderblades.’

      It was as insulting as it could possibly be, but that was what he wanted. He wanted her to react. And she wouldn’t.

      ‘You were the one who invited me out—remember?’

      ‘True.’

      He removed one hand from where it had been poised over his belt, like some gun-slinger, and rubbed thoughtfully at the darkening shadow which emphasised the masculine jut of his jaw. As macho gestures went, he really couldn’t have bettered it, thought Lara weakly.

      ‘But you played the siren, didn’t you, Lara? That super-smart confidence at the casting. The way you spoke to me as if you didn’t care.’ He nodded, as if he had been shown a glimpse into the workings of a criminal mind. ‘Very clever. Did someone once tell you that what powerful men crave more than anything is for someone to speak to them as if they aren’t? To treat them just like everyone else?’

      Lara gave a low laugh. ‘I wish I had a tape recorder,’ she vowed fervently. ‘Then I could play this back to you in the morning—I think that even you might be appalled at your own arrogance and conceit.’

      He raised his eyebrows in a mocking challenge. ‘It would make for a very interesting morning,’ he agreed laconically. ‘But, there again, it’s going to be an interesting morning anyway—isn’t it?’

      It took a moment or two for his meaning to sink in, and when it did Lara underwent an uncomfortable sensation of shock coupled with excitement, which made her want to squirm—except she didn’t dare to, for fear that he would misinterpret it. Or—even worse—interpret it correctly.

      ‘I hope you aren’t suggesting that you’re spending the night here? With me!’

      ‘Of course not.’

      Lara frowned, feeling like a mouse being teased by a very clever cat. ‘You’re…not?’

      ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Lara. Just stating a fact. Of course I’ll be here in the morning—we’re sharing a room.’

      It was like that feeling you got when you’d eaten three chocolate biscuits and knew that you were going to eat a fourth, even though you shouldn’t.

      Lara didn’t want Darian Wildman anywhere near her. She didn’t.

      Okay, she did.

      But that was on some stupid fundamental level. That was a Lara who didn’t exist, wanting to be with a Darian who didn’t exist. If only they could be standing here, a man and a woman who had just met…but that was crazy.

      If they had only just met then they most definitely wouldn’t be standing here—and neither would she be wearing just a towel covering her nakedness. A nakedness she was pretty sure he was responding to, judging from that dark, seductive look in his eyes, as if he were running those long, experienced fingers over every single crevice of her body. And yet the contrast between that hot look of desire and the cold contempt which rang from his voice was almost unbearable.

      ‘Darian,’ she breathed. ‘We…we can’t!’

      ‘Can’t what?’ he enquired unhelpfully.

      ‘We can’t share a room together—you know we can’t!’

      ‘Afraid that you won’t be able to resist me?’ he questioned insultingly.

      Yes! ‘No! I will not stay here—not with you!’

      ‘But our host has allotted us this room,’ he ground out. ‘We cannot question the Sheikh or his judgement.’

      ‘Oh, really?’ she demanded furiously. ‘He just happened to put us in here together, did he? Without any pressure from you?’

      ‘No pressure from me, I can assure you.’ He gave a slow smile, pleased to see her give an instinctive little wriggle of frustration, knowing that her body craved him even while her mind fought him. ‘He simply asked whether or not we were lovers, and I told him that yes, we were. So here we are,’ he finished, on a murmur which somehow managed to sound like a sultry threat.

      ‘We are not lovers!’ she declared.

      ‘Want to do something about that?’ he drawled, and began to unbutton his shirt.

      ‘Darian, stop it!’

      ‘Stop what?’

      ‘Un…’ The shirt fluttered to the floor and Lara watched it in fascinated horror, lifting her eyes only to be confronted by the infinitely more disturbing vision of Darian’s bare chest—the tawny flesh gleaming enticingly. ‘Undressing!’ she managed to get out.

      ‘But I have to undress,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

      His belt was unclipped and she heard the rasping of a zip. She closed her eyes in horror.

      ‘I refuse to share a room with you!’

      ‘Then go and tell Khalim that yourself!’

      The silky challenge made her open her eyes again, and she wished she hadn’t—because he was completely naked. And completely at ease with it.

      Lara went hot. Then cold.

      ‘Are you trying to torment me?’ she gasped.

      He frosted her with an icy smile. ‘That’s about the most honest thing you’ve said so far,’ he clipped out. ‘But then, honesty isn’t really your forte, is it, Lara?’

      She wanted to appeal to his better judgement. But how could she appeal to anything when now he wasn’t just naked, but was showing unmistakable signs of…

      She turned her back, biting her teeth down into the flesh of her bottom lip, hearing his low laugh with something approaching despair as he walked towards the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

      Lara had never dressed more quickly in her life. Whipping through the few outfits she had brought for herself, she slithered into a dress she had bought on a modelling assignment in Singapore. It was a long, fitted dress in bright scarlet silk piped with black—high-necked and skimming her body to fall demurely to her ankles. She controlled the most wayward of her curls with tiny jet-covered clips, applied mascara and lipstick with a trembling hand, and then went over to the bookcase which stood in one corner of the large room, determined to have something to occupy her. Anything to keep her mind and her eyes off the impending and disturbing prospect of Darian emerging from the bathroom…

      But it was difficult to concentrate on the book—a beautifully photographed history of Maraban—which would normally have fascinated her. She could hear the splash, splash of the shower, and the sound of Darian singing, loudly and rather tunelessly—as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

      He seemed to have settled in and coped with his momentous news with amazing ease, she thought, her eyes nearly