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‘Just that it seems someone is monitoring your communications with the outside world.’
‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ she retorted.
His smile was condescending. ‘Why don’t you ask de Couteveille? He comes now, and if I read him right he is not happy to see us talking together.’
Indeed, Rafiq sent her a keen glance as he approached, but although his tone when he greeted Felipe again was cool, it certainly wasn’t brusque. Felipe chatted a little about the hotel development before Rafiq and Lexie moved on.
From then on they were never alone. They stayed another hour, saw another dance, this one even more sensual than the first, and then it was time to go.
On the way back to the castle Lexie was aware of a certain air of constraint in Rafiq. He was courteous, amusing, interesting—and unreachable.
Felipe’s observations gnawed at her mind. She wanted to confront her host with them, yet another part of her brain told her to be sensible. Why on earth would Rafiq monitor her phone calls?
Eventually, as they drove in through the gates, she said, ‘Felipe said he’s been trying to contact me, but the staff were uncooperative.’
‘I’m afraid they probably were,’ Rafiq said coolly. ‘I have people who are trained to handle the media, and they dealt with all the calls about you. I gave your sister’s name to them, which is why she was put straight through, but I gained the impression that you wouldn’t want Gastano to have free access to you. If I was wrong, I will of course add him to the list.’
Hastily Lexie said, ‘No, it doesn’t matter, thank you. He won’t be calling again.’ As for the emails—even if Felipe did have her correct address, they’d been known to disappear into cyberspace for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Curiosity and a certain relief drove her to ask, ‘Were there many approaches from the media?’
‘Quite a few. Some of the big news agencies have stringers on the island, and of course news travels fast.’ His tone hardened. ‘I didn’t think you’d like to be discussed in the gossip columns.’
Distastefully, she replied, ‘You were right.’
Her brief encounter with gossip writers and paparazzi had sickened her of the whole industry. In Illyria she’d been shielded from the worst of their excesses, but she’d seen the havoc they could create, and she wanted no part of it. Besides, she had a feeling that if Jacoba found out she was staying with Moraze’s ruler she’d send Prince Marco down to check him out.
The last thing she wanted was for Rafiq to discover who her father had been.
Honesty warred with shame. Perhaps she should tell him—right now. Yet the words froze in her throat. The sins of the fathers were indeed visited on their sons—and their daughters, she thought wearily, remembering how suspicious the Illyrians had been of her. Mud stuck; occasionally she even found herself wondering if she’d inherited any of her father’s brutality.
No, much better to leave things as they were. Then Rafiq might remember her as an ordinary woman, not as the child of a monster.
Once inside the castle, Rafiq asked, ‘How did you enjoy the evening?’
‘Very much,’ she told him, her tone more brittle than bright. ‘It was interesting to meet the people who’d actually worked on the project. And their singing was fantastic.’
‘What did you think of the dancing?’
His voice was amused, and his eyes half-hidden by his lashes. They were walking towards the terrace with the pavilion and the pool, and she could feel that forbidden, intoxicating anticipation chipping away at her control.
‘It was very sexy,’ she said firmly. ‘And amazingly athletic! At times I thought they might dislocate their hips.’
He threw his black head backwards and laughed, the sound full and unforced. ‘Did it give you the desire to try it?’
‘I know my limitations,’ she said. Curiosity drove her to ask, ‘Can you do it?’
‘Every Moraze-reared person can dance their version of our national dance,’ he said gravely. ‘Our nurses teach us it in our cradles—or so they say.’
They walked across to the pavilion, its translucent draperies floating languidly in the sea-scented breeze. A moon smiled down, silvering everything in a soft, unearthly light—the pool, the white-and-pink water lilies, the shimmering expanse of gauze that surrounded them and shut out the world.
Lexie swallowed something that obstructed her throat and said chattily, ‘I think you’d probably need to learn it in the cradle to be able to do it without falling over or making a total idiot of yourself. And constant practice must be necessary to give your hips and legs that flexibility.’
‘Don’t be so wary—I am not like the dancers at the hotels who sometimes lure tourists onto the sand to show them how very lacking in flexibility their hips are. And to dance properly you need drums and music.’ He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming and intent. ‘But I would like to teach you,’ he said deeply.
‘Teach me what?’
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_0d0789d6-9d2a-52d9-925f-19cb9deb74bb)
LEXIE swallowed again, her throat closing. He was talking about dancing, not making love. He didn’t even know she was a virgin, and she had no intention of telling him.
In a voice she barely recognized, she said, ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to learn—to dance, that is.’
‘You’re very graceful, so I’m sure you have a natural aptitude,’ he said, his smile cool and subtly mocking.
‘I don’t know about that.’ This banter with its tantalising undercurrents was new to her. Nervously she glanced away, eyes widening as she saw that the table had been set with trays of small delicacies and what was clearly a bottle of champagne.
‘I thought we should toast your stay on Moraze,’ Rafiq told her. ‘I noticed that you didn’t drink anything stronger than fruit punch at the party, but I’m hoping to tempt you with some champagne.’
Lexie knew she should refuse. In this magical glimmer of moonlit enchantment, any sensible woman would make sure her brain was in full control.
But then a sensible woman would have seen danger in the prospect of an evening with Rafiq, and would have pretended a fragility she didn’t feel. And once at the party, no sensible woman would have allowed herself to be carried away by the erotic rhythms and hypnotic drumbeats of the dancing, the whirl of colour and the open sensuousness.
And even a halfway-sensible woman would have avoided any sort of post-party drinks, and said a briskly cheerful goodnight at the door of her room before shutting said door firmly on him.
All right, so she wasn’t sensible. She certainly wasn’t going to walk back to the arid, lonely refuge of her bedroom.
To the crackle and heat of bridges burning behind her, she said, ‘I’m easily tempted,’ adding hastily when she realised what she’d implied, ‘To champagne.’
Colour burned across her cheekbones and she fought back embarrassment, holding her head high and her smile steady.
One black brow lifted to shattering effect. Without saying anything, Rafiq turned to ease the top off the bottle. Instead of a pop it emitted a soft sigh—of satisfaction?
Don’t even think about satisfaction! Small sips, Lexie promised herself as he poured the sparkling wine into long, elegant flutes. She’d take tiny little sips, at long, long intervals…
And when she got back to real life she’d remember this evening—this whole stay on Moraze—without regret. Instead she’d feel gratitude that the man who summoned those reckless, dangerous impulses from her was a man of honour and integrity.
‘So,’ Rafiq said calmly, handing her a glass, ‘We drink to your continued good health.’
After one tiny, wholesome sip, she said, ‘Oh, that’s superb wine.’
‘It is French, of course. Moraze produces some excellent table wines, but for champagne we rely on France.’ He set his glass down. ‘I’m glad you like it.’
Lexie made the first comment that came into her head. ‘New Zealand makes good wines too.’
‘Indeed it does. I have drunk a very supple, subtle Pinot Noir from the south of the South Island, and some extremely good reds from an island off the coast of Auckland.’
‘Waiheke. It has its own special microclimate.’
Her innocuous words were followed by silence, far too heavy with unspoken thoughts, unbidden desire.
Desperately Lexie broke it. ‘I’m no connoisseur, but I do like the wines made in Marlborough from Sauvignon Blanc grapes. In the north of the North Island, where I live, wine growers are also trying out unusual varieties of grapes to see which cope best with the humidity and the warmth.’
Oh, brilliant, she thought in despair. Talk about banal!
‘Shall we stop fencing?’ Rafiq suggested, his amused tone laced with another emotion, one that sent shivers of excited recognition through her.
‘I wasn’t aware we were,’ she lied, hoping she sounded crisp and fully in control.
He held out his hand for her glass, and when after a moment’s hesitation she handed it over, he set it beside his own on the low table. The moonlight glimmered on his white shirt, lovingly enhancing the breadth of his shoulders, the narrow waist and hips, the arrogant angles and planes of his features. Whenever she’d ridden a roller coaster she’d felt like this: both exhilarated and terrified.
‘Of course we were,’ he said, straightening up to smile at her. ‘We are like swordsmen, you and I, continually duelling for advantage. But it is time to bring an end to it.’
Once again her stomach did that flip thing. A hot rush of sensation drove away memories and common sense. When he looked at her like that she was aware of nothing but the drumming of her heart in her ears, and the relentless heat of desire building like a storm through her. Honey-sweet, potent as the strongest rum, powerful and frightening, it shook her to the core.
Eyes dilating endlessly, she watched his smile harden, and her breath locked in her throat at the slow slide of his hands up her arms.
‘Your skin is finer by far than the silk you’re wearing. For this whole interminable evening I have been wanting to touch it,’ he said in a low, harsh voice, and bent his head to kiss the place his fingers had caressed.
Sharp as joy, acute as pain, pleasure shot through her at the touch of his mouth. When he slid his hands across her back and pulled her against him, she sighed his name and met his seeking, demanding kiss with open passion.
It ended too soon. He lifted his head and looked at her, green eyes glittering, and in a tone that was almost angry said, ‘That is the first time you’ve allowed yourself to say that.’
Somehow the simple act of pronouncing the two syllables that made up his name was almost more intimate than the kisses they’d exchanged. ‘You’ve never told me I could,’ she said huskily.
A smile curved his sculpted mouth. ‘I didn’t know New Zealanders held to such strict rules of etiquette. In fact, I believed the publicity—that you are a laid back, ultra-casual lot.’
But her mother had not been a New Zealander, she’d been Illyrian, and she’d brought up her daughters to be more formal than their friends.
Rafiq went on, ‘We’ve kissed—that gives you the right to call me whatever you want.’ And he kissed her again, this time lightly. ‘And me the right to call you sweet Lexie—no?’
Sweet? Was he indicating that he knew she was a virgin, and that it was all right? Forcing a smile, she said, ‘I don’t think I’m sweet. Practical, perhaps…’
But a practical woman wouldn’t be like this, locked in his arms, her body rejoicing at the hardness of his, her heart pounding so heavily he must feel it.
‘Do you feel practical right now?’ His voice was low and tender.
She closed her eyes against him, afraid that he’d see just what she was feeling—total surrender, a desperate, wanton abandonment of all the rules she’d lived by until she’d met him.
‘No,’ she admitted, gaining confidence from the thudding of his heart against her. Whatever he thought, he couldn’t hide the fact that he wanted her.
‘So—how do you feel?’ And when she didn’t answer, he laughed softly. ‘A little wild?’
He punctuated each word with teasing kisses, but she sensed the inner demands driving him, and something unregenerate and fierce flared up to meet and match his hunger.
‘Reckless?’ he murmured, his mouth poised so close to hers that their breaths mingled.
‘Yes,’ she said simply, knowing what she’d just agreed to, knowing that after this there would be no going back—knowing, and not caring, because there was nothing in the world she wanted as much as learning about Rafiq in the most intimate way of all.
Later? Oh, she’d deal with later when it came.
She gave a squeak of astonishment as the world swooped, and he lifted her high in his arms and carried her across to that sinful double day bed.
Beside it he lowered her to her feet, sliding her down his lean, powerful length so that his need for her became blatantly, erotically obvious. Shivering, afire with sensation, she couldn’t drag her eyes away from his narrowed gaze, which darkened with an elemental need that banished all her shyness with its heat.
‘This pretty dress is a seduction in itself,’ he said deeply. ‘I’ve been wanting to slide these tiny, taunting buttons free, push them back so that the silk frames you…’
As he spoke his hands followed his words. Prey to an intensity of feeling she’d never experienced, she ignored the colour burning her skin and shrugged free of the bodice. And then stopped, acutely conscious that the only thing between her breasts and his deft, insistent hands was her bra.
Should she undo it?
Almost before the thought had formulated she felt his hands at the catch—knowledgeable and far too skilful at this, she thought on a spurt of sharp jealousy that kept her head high when he eased her bra away.
He stood looking at her, the dark, fierce hunger in his eyes satisfying something primitive and untamed in her.
On a raw note, he said, ‘You are—perfect,’ and took her eager mouth, bending her back over his arm so that his lips slid easily from hers to the demanding, importunate tips of her breasts.
The hot caress of his mouth splintered every inhibition. Moaning, lost in a carnal haze, Lexie’s hands clenched helplessly in the fine fabric of his shirt as his mouth worked erotic magic on her.
‘No,’ she muttered when he lifted his head.
‘What?’
He bit it out with such harshness she forced her eyes open, and saw the sudden rigidity in his features. ‘Don’t stop,’ she said on a gasp.
But he held her eyes in a measuring stare. ‘You are sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ Frustrated, she stumbled over her next words. ‘If you stop, I just might kill you.’
Strong arms closed around her again, and he set her on the bed. Shivering with anticipation so keen it came close to pain, she watched him shuck off his shirt. Lamplight gilded his skin, picking out the smooth swell and flex of muscles as he dropped the garment to the ground. But when his hands moved to the belt of his trousers she looked away, suddenly and shyly aware of her total lack of experience.
Should she tell him? Would he think she was some sort of frigid freak? Worse still, would he be overcome by an outdated chivalry and refuse to make love to her?
Clamping her mouth to hold back the confession that threatened to tumble out, she kicked off her shoes, not caring whether they landed on the stone terrace beside the bed or in the pool a few feet away.
Lithely, Rafiq came down beside her, muscles shifting and coiling, a study in gleaming bronze power. Lexie swallowed to ease a dry throat as the sheer size of him struck home. Without the civilising influence of his superbly tailored clothes, the difference between her female slenderness and his forceful masculinity overwhelmed her.
But that initial qualm was immediately eased by his gentleness as he began to slide the dress down her body.
Only to stop when he saw the faint shadows on her ribcage. She said quickly, ‘They’ve just about gone now.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ He bent his sleek black head and kissed them, his lips sending darts of sensation to her very soul.
‘You couldn’t hurt me.’ When he hesitated, she held her breath in an agony of supplication.
He said, ‘I will be very careful, and you must tell me if there is any pain.’
‘I will.’
Her eyes flew open in dismay as another thought presented itself. What if he thought she was using contraceptive medication?
