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‘It sounds perfect.’ She tried to hide a treacherous surge of dizziness at that killer smile.
Something had changed, she thought as he took her elbow in an automatic gesture. She didn’t exactly know what, but some instinct sensed a softening—well, no, an awareness—in him that hadn’t been there before in spite of his consideration for her.
Rafiq sat her down, silently appreciating her smooth, lithe grace as she sank into the comfortable chair he held.
‘This courtyard was built by one of my ancestors for his bride,’ he told her when Lexie looked around with a soft sigh of pleasure. She was very tactile, responding immediately to beauty. Would she be as open and ardent when she made love?
Ruthlessly he disciplined his unruly mind. ‘She was from the south of Spain, and he wanted to give her something that would remind her of home, so he built her a serenity garden, something like the one in the Alhambra. She loved it, as did later wives.’
‘So this place has been a home for a long time?’
He nodded. ‘After the corsairs were defeated, yes, it became the residence of the oldest son. Until a hundred years or so ago, the actual ruler still lived in the citadel above the capital.’
He handed her a glass of juice, cool and refreshing. ‘I hope you enjoy this. It’s mostly lime juice, but there is some papaya there, and a local herb that’s supposed to heal bruises.’
‘It’s delicious,’ she said after a tentative sip. ‘That citadel looks pretty grim. I doubt if the wives of the heirs ever wanted to leave this lovely place for it.’
Stepping back, Rafiq tore his gaze from her lips and fought back a surge of desire. He’d watched hundreds of women drink a variety of liquids, and none of them had ever affected him like this woman.
Masking his intense physical reaction with cool detachment, he answered, ‘It was largely rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and is now used as offices for my household.’
He looked down, noting her interested expression, and wondered angrily what it was about her that bypassed the strictures of his brain and homed straight onto his groin. Taken feature by feature, she wasn’t even beautiful. Superb skin enlivened by smoky-blue eyes and a mouth that more than lived up to its sensual promise did make her alluring. But he’d made love to some of the world’s most beautiful women without feeling anything like this primitive desire to possess that gripped him whenever he saw Lexie Sinclair.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_29f40b27-9288-5503-8f10-e877ed04cbbf)
RAFIQ enquired, ‘You are interested in history?’
Lexie gave a rueful little smile, wondering what was going on behind the angular mask of his features. ‘Because we’re such a young country, most New Zealanders are impressed by anything that’s more than a couple of hundred years old.’
‘Moraze has a history stretching back a couple of thousand years, possibly even longer,’ he told her. ‘Certainly, the Arabs knew of its existence well before the end of the first millennium—its name is from the Arabic, meaning East Island, because it lies east of Zanzibar.’
East of Zanzibar—oh, the phrase had magic, she thought dreamily. Anything could happen east of Zanzibar. You could meet an excitingly dangerous man and discover things about yourself that shocked you.
You could even find your ultimate soul mate…
Hastily she dragged herself back to reality. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t exploit the fire-diamonds. Surely any trader worth his salt would have realised how incredibly valuable they were?’
Thick, black lashes covered Rafiq’s hard eyes for a second before he shrugged. ‘Before they are cut they look like mere pebbles, so they weren’t discovered until a hundred years or so after the first de Couteveille arrived. If you’re interested, there are ruins of unknown origin in the hills of the escarpment further to the north.’
‘Really?’
‘When you’re fully recovered I will take you there,’ he said casually.
A feverish thrill tightened Lexie’s skin. He was watching her, and as their eyes met he smiled, a slow movement of his mouth that sent even more chills of excitement through her. He sounded as though he was looking forward to the promised excursion as much as she was.
Help! Thoughts chased through her head in tumultuous distraction. She took a swift breath and said sedately, ‘How very intriguing. Does anyone have any theory on who built them?’
‘Theories abound,’ he informed her dryly. ‘Some say they are the original Atlantis, some that they were made by the Trojans when they fled Troy, some that the people who built them came from China.’
‘Are they being excavated?’
‘Yes.’
He told her about the ruins and the museum, and university teams that had combined to excavate them. He astonished her with tales of the furious war of words that had broken out between two extremely opinionated archaeologists, a battle fought through the media, until finally Rafiq had threatened to ban both of them from ever coming to Moraze again.
‘It seems incongruous for people whose profession is to find the truth to be so hidebound and one-eyed,’ Lexie said thoughtfully.
‘Egos often get in the way of the truth. Egos and greed.’
The words fell into the scented air, flat and cold and uncompromising, so much at variance with the soft hushing of the water in the fountain and the overarching infinity of the sable sky above that Lexie shivered. ‘Greed? Surely archaeologists don’t profit financially from their discoveries?’
‘Profit need not be financial. An interesting set of ruins well-excavated will build a reputation. Greed for the possible rewards of a big discovery can override common sense, and sometimes even lead to destructive actions.’
It sounded like a warning—one directed at her.
Did he know about her father? Greed and ego had led him to do monstrous things.
Shaken by the nausea that always affected her when she thought of the man who had sired her, Lexie sipped more of the delicious juice and said colourlessly, ‘I suppose you’re right.’
Dismissing the subject, Rafiq got to his feet. ‘Are you ready for dinner?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ But she stood too fast; the abrupt movement sent a jab of pain through her neck, making her clamp her lips together.
She didn’t think he’d noticed, but it took him only a second to reach her, his hands gripping her shoulders from behind as he asked, ‘What is it? What’s the matter? This is the second time you’ve almost fainted.’
‘I didn’t.’ Her voice sounded thin and far away, so she swallowed and tried again. ‘I must have twisted my neck in the accident. It’s fine, but every now and then the muscles remind me of it. It’s nothing.’
His grasp eased, but he didn’t let her go, still so close that she could discern his subtle, potent male scent.
‘Perhaps this will help,’ he said quietly, his thumbs moving in slow circles on the nape of her neck.
Sensuous little chills raced down her spine. Lexie closed her eyes, but that made her pulse rate soar even higher; an odd weakness in her bones threatened her with an undignified collapse. Resisting the temptation to lean back, she forced her eyes open and stared belligerently ahead, blinking to clear the dreamy haze from her sight.
Break it up right now, caution warned. She said curtly, ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you.’
‘Are you?’ A raw note in the words caught her attention as he turned her to face him.
She looked up into an angular visage, all hard lines and intensity. What she saw there drove every thought into oblivion.
Green eyes blazing, he bent his head. ‘You don’t look all right. Shall I carry you to your room?’
‘No!’ Sheer panic raised her voice.
Panic—and a wild response that blazed up from nowhere, licking through her like the best brandy, burning away inhibitions and restraint in a conflagration of need.
‘Your eyes give your words the lie.’ He dropped his narrowed gaze to her mouth. ‘And that delicious mouth makes promises I want to collect on.’
Struggling for control, she shook her head.
‘Say it,’ he said in a harsh voice. ‘Tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you.’
Lexie’s breath stopped in her throat. Her muscles locked as she met his gleaming gaze with a challenge she couldn’t hide.
‘Say no—or take the consequences.’ This time he spoke more gently.
Wordlessly she lifted a hand to his cheek.
Half smiling, he teased her with kisses on the corners of her willing mouth. An inarticulate little sound from her made him smile, but in answer to her wordless plea he deepened the kiss, and his arms clamped her against the lean strength of his body.
The tension between them was now revealed for what it was—a fierce sexual charge that hungered for this, for more…
Rafiq lifted his head to tilt hers back, so that he could kiss the length of her throat, stopping only a fraction above the neckline of the prim silk shirt she’d bought half a world away in Illyria.
Lexie’s heart literally jumped; she was sure she felt it move in her breast, then settle back into place before he said against her skin, ‘You have the mouth of a siren.’
His faint accent intensified so that he sounded exotic—almost barbaric. ‘And you kiss like one. Where did you learn that?’
‘I don’t—I don’t think you learn to kiss,’ she parried breathlessly, aware only that she couldn’t let him see how much that final caress had shattered her once-safe world.
One black brow arched. ‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.
And he kissed her again, mercilessly stoking the craving that ate into her, a wild, primal longing for union, a desire that burned hotter and even hotter until she was aching, her body poised and eager, her mind clouded as though with drugs.
Alarm bells rang. When he lifted his head and let his gaze slide downwards, she realised that her inner turbulence was physically revealed; her breasts had peaked, demanding a satisfaction only Rafiq could give her.
Shocked, she pulled back. For a second she thought he was going to keep her in his arms by force, but then he gave a twisted, rather sardonic smile and let her go.
‘No,’ he stated rather than asked.
‘Dinner must be ready.’ Although her voice was hoarse and uneven, she met his gaze steadily, without flinching.
His laughter held no amusement. ‘Indeed, and one should never keep the servants waiting. This way.’
He extended his arm. After a moment’s hesitation Lexie laid her fingertips on it, feeling the slow flex of his muscle beneath them with a voluptuous thrill—half forbidden desire, half fear.
This was dangerous, she warned herself silently as they walked across the great hall.
‘You are afraid of me?’ His tone was aloof, at odds with the penetrating look he sent her.
‘No,’ she said rapidly. ‘Of course not.’
The person she was terrified of was herself. She appeared to have no resistance to Rafiq’s particular brand of potent masculinity, and her abandon startled and dismayed her.
Stiffly, her voice as brittle as her tight-strung body, she said, ‘I don’t normally make a habit of kissing near strangers like—like that.’ The last few words rushed out. Aware that she’d probably revealed more than she wanted him to know, she straightened her shoulders and stared straight ahead.
‘I guessed as much.’
His worldliness shattered what remained of her composure. Was he insinuating that she was transparently inexperienced?
Well, she was, she thought stoutly, and what did it matter whether her untutored response to his kisses had told him so?
He finished with forbidding emphasis, ‘And you need not worry—I do not force women.’
‘I… Well, I’m sure you don’t,’ she said warily, then stopped when she saw where he was leading her. ‘Oh—oh! Oh, how lovely.’
They’d gone up one floor and through a small salon that opened out into air lit by lamps, their warm glow illuminating a wide, stone terrace, and a row of arches on the seaward side that were latticed with stone delicately carved into flowers and leaves. Shrubs and trees cooled the terrace and shielded it from prying eyes. At one end a lily-starred pool surrounded a roofed pavilion, connected to the terrace by a stone bridge. Behind floating, gauzy drapes, Lexie discerned the outlines of furniture.
‘Another whim of yet another besotted ancestor,’ Rafiq explained with a touch of irony. ‘He rescued his wife from a corsair ship; she loved to swim, and he loved to join her, so he built this pool and made sure it couldn’t be overlooked.’
The kisses they’d exchanged suddenly loomed very large in Lexie’s mind. Was he indicating…?
A sideways glance at his face banished that vagrant thought. He wasn’t even looking at her, and it was impossible to read anything from his expression.
Rafiq looked down and caught her watching him. His lashes drooped, and she asked too hastily, ‘Why was she on a corsair ship? Was she a pirate too?’
He stopped by the bridge. ‘She was the daughter of the British governor of a West Indian island, snatched for ransom, but the captain found her appealing enough to keep her. When the Caribbean got too hot for him, he fled to the Indian Ocean. She waited until they approached Moraze, intent as they were on plunder, then managed to wound her abductor severely enough to escape and swim ashore.’
Startled, Lexie looked up from her contemplation of the water lilies. They weren’t growing in the pool, as she’d first thought, but had been cut and floated on the water, a medley of white and palest yellow. Their scent teased her nostrils. ‘She must have been a very resourceful woman.’
Her companion showed his teeth in a smile that held more than a hint of ruthlessness. ‘I come from a long line of people who did what they had to do to survive,’ he said evenly. ‘Some weren’t particularly scrupulous, or even likeable; some embraced revenge without compunction if it served their plans. She hated her captor.’
A little shiver snaked down Lexie’s backbone, and memories of her father’s actions clouded her eyes. ‘Very few people can claim to have only saints in their lineage.’
He smiled cynically. ‘Agreed.’
‘So what happened to the governor’s daughter after she swam to Moraze?’
‘My ancestor found her hiding on shore. She told him of the corsair’s plans, and with his men he captured the ship, killing the man who’d abducted her. Apparently she and my ancestor quarrelled furiously for several months, then astonished everyone by marrying.’ This time Rafiq’s smile showed real amusement. ‘They had a long and happy life together, but they were not a peaceful couple.’
‘I’m glad she found happiness after such an ordeal,’ Lexie said. ‘As for peace, well, some people find peace boring.’
‘Are you one of them?’ he asked, indicating that they should cross the bridge.
Lexie frowned. It sounded like a throwaway question, yet somehow she sensed a thread of intention, of significance, in his words that made her feel uneasy and dangerously vulnerable. Was he exploring her personality, or just keeping the conversation alive?
Almost certainly the latter, common sense told her, and yet…
Because the silence threatened to last too long, she set out briskly across the bridge. ‘As a vet I don’t like too much excitement—it tends to involve going out in the middle of the night in filthy weather to deal with sick, very expensive animals and their frantic owners! But I certainly enjoy variety.’
There, that was innocuous enough, surely? She didn’t want to get into anything heavy here. Although they’d kissed—and he’d seemed to enjoy those kisses—she wasn’t going to let herself fall into the trap of believing they’d meant anything more to him than the superficial response of a virile man to a woman of the right age to mate.
A woman whose instant arousal, she thought with a burning shame, must make it obvious she found him irresistible.
But then, he’d be used to that response—it probably happened in every female who set eyes on him.
And to quench the flickering embers of desire she’d better stop this train of thought right now. So she asked, ‘What about you?’
‘I enjoy moments of peace,’ Rafiq said, his tone giving nothing away. ‘But I think a life of unalloyed tranquillity and harmony could become tedious after a while. I relish a challenge.’
