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He drew his head away from her and frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know. This feels so...’ Awkwardly, her words trailed off. She could pretend that nothing was wrong but she remembered what he’d said in the car. That the truth could hurt, but lies could hurt even more. And if she kept piling on layer after layer of fake stuff, her life would be reduced to one big falsehood. In a marriage such as theirs—wasn’t the truth the only way to safeguard her sanity? ‘So cold-blooded,’ she said.
‘You’re nervous?’
‘I guess so.’
‘You weren’t nervous last time.’
‘I know.’ She licked her lips. ‘But last time felt different.’
‘How?’
‘Because we weren’t thinking or analysing. There was no big agenda. No frightening future yawning ahead of us. It just...happened. Almost like it was meant to happen.’
For a moment she wondered if she’d said too much. Whether that final sentence had sounded like the hopeless yearning of an impressionable young woman. The truth was all very well, but she didn’t want to come over as needy.
He stroked his hand down over her cheek and moved it round to her neck. His grey eyes narrowed and then suddenly he dug his fingers into her hair and brought his mouth down on hers in a crushing kiss.
It was the kiss which changed everything. The kiss which ignited the fire. All the pent-up emotion she’d kept inside for weeks was now set free. And suddenly it didn’t matter that Gabe had warned her about having ice for a heart because, for now at least, he was all heat and flame and maybe that was enough to melt him.
She clung to him as his mouth explored hers, and he began to pull the pins from her hair. Silken strands spilled down around her shoulders, one after another. She could feel them tickling her back as they fell. Cool air was washing over her skin as he unclipped her bra and her breasts sprang free.
He stopped kissing her and stood for a moment, just observing her. And then, very deliberately, he reached out and cupped a breast in the palm of his hand, his eyes not leaving her face as he rotated his thumb against the nipple.
‘Gabe,’ she said indistinctly.
‘What?’ The thumb was replaced by the brush of his lips as he bent his head to the super-sensitive nub, and Leila closed her eyes as pleasure washed over her. Her senses felt raw and alive—as if he’d just rehabilitated them from a long sleep. She reached towards his shirt buttons, but the effort of undoing even one seemed too arduous when his hand was skimming so possessively over her waist and touching the bare skin there.
With a low laugh which sounded close to a growl, he freed the last fastenings of her dress and let it slide to the ground.
Stepping out from the circle of concertinaed silk, she looked up at his dark face, and something about his expression made her heart miss a beat. All her doubts and fears were suddenly replaced by something infinitely more dangerous. Something which had happened the last time she’d been in this situation. Because wasn’t there something about Gabe Steel which called out to her on a level she didn’t really understand? Something which made her feel powerful and vulnerable all at the same time.
He was a cool English billionaire who could have just thrown her to the wolves. Who could have rejected his child and made her face the consequences on her own. But he had done no such thing. He had been prepared to shoulder the heavy burden of responsibility she had placed upon his shoulders. Gabe Steel was not a bad man, she decided. He might be a very elusive and secretive one—but he was capable of compassion. And wasn’t she now better placed than any other female on the planet to discover more about a person who had captivated her from the start? Couldn’t she do that?
Her torpor suddenly left her as she reached towards his shirt and began to slide the buttons from their confinement. Her confidence grew as she felt his body grow tense. She could hear nothing but the laboured sound of his breathing as she opened up his shirt and feasted her eyes on the perfection of the golden skin beneath.
Bending her head, she flickered her tongue at his tight, salty nipple and she felt a sharp thrill as she heard him groan. She had never undressed a man before—but how difficult could it be? She tugged the charcoal jacket from his shoulders and let it fall on top of her discarded wedding dress. The shirt followed—so that now he was completely bare-chested, like those men she’d seen fighting for coins in one of the provincial market squares outside Simdahab.
Undoing the top button of his trousers, she was momentarily daunted by the hardness beneath the fine cloth, which made unzipping him awkward. But his fingers covered hers, and he guided her hand down over the rocky ridge, and Leila’s heartbeat soared, because that shared movement felt so gloriously intimate.
With growing confidence, she dealt with his socks and shoes—and he returned the favour by easing her out of her panties and stockings.
Before long, they were both completely naked, standing face to face next to the bed. His hands were splayed over her bottom and her breasts were brushing against his chest. She could feel his erection nudging her belly and the answering wetness of her sex as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
‘Are you sure we can’t be seen?’ she whispered.
‘Why, is that your secret fantasy?’ he questioned, pushing her down onto the soft mattress. ‘People watching and seeing what a naughty princess you can be?’
Leila said nothing as his mouth moved to her neck and he moved his hand between her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the stroking movement of his fingers. But even intense pleasure could not completely obliterate the sudden troubled skitter of her thoughts. Was this what playboy lovers enjoyed most, she wondered—to share fantasies? Didn’t he realise that she was still too much of a novice to have any real fantasies?
His eyes were dark as he moved over her, but she could see the sudden tautness of his mouth. She wondered if he was wishing that this were just uncomplicated sex. That he was not tied to her for the foreseeable future, and that there was not a baby on the way.
‘Is something wrong?’ she whispered.
‘Wrong?’ he echoed unsteadily. ‘Are you out of your mind? I’m just savouring every delicious moment. Because for the first time in my life I don’t have to worry about contraception. I’ll be able to feel my bare skin inside you—and it’s a very liberating feeling.’
His description sounded more mechanical than affectionate but Leila told herself to be grateful for his honesty. At least he wasn’t coating his words with false sentiment and filling her with false hopes. And why spoil this moment by wishing for the impossible, instead of enjoying every incredible second?
Tipping her head back, she revelled in the sensation of what he was doing to her.
The way his lips were moving over hers.
The way his fingers played so distractingly over her skin, setting up flickers of reaction wherever they alighted.
The way he...
‘Oh, Gabe,’ she breathed as she felt him brushing intimately against her.
Slowly, he eased himself inside her, the almost-entry of his moist tip followed by one long, silken thrust. For a moment he stilled and allowed her body to adjust to him.
‘I’m not hurting you?’ he questioned.
Hurting her? That was the last thing he was doing. She was aware that he fitted her as perfectly as the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle which had just been slotted into place. She had never felt as complete as she did in that moment, and wouldn’t the cool Gabe Steel be horrified if he knew she was thinking that way?
‘No,’ she breathed, shaking her head. ‘You’re not hurting me.’
‘And does it feel—different?’
She met the smoky question in his eyes. ‘Different?’
‘Because of the baby?’
Would it terrify him if she told him that yes, it did? That it felt unbelievably profound to have his flesh inside her, while their combined flesh grew deep in her belly. Much too profound for comfort. She pressed her lips against the dark rasp of his jaw.
‘I don’t really have enough experience for comparison,’ she whispered.
He tilted her face upwards so that all she could see was the gleam of his silver gaze. ‘That sounds like a blatant invitation to provide you with a little more.’
‘D-does it?’
‘Mmm. So I think I’d better do just that, don’t you?’
She gasped as he began a slow, sweet rhythm inside her. Her fingertips slid greedily over the silken skin which cloaked his moving muscles. Eagerly, she began to explore the contours of his body—the power of his rock-hard legs and the taut globes of his buttocks.
She felt part of him.
All of him.
She felt in that moment as if anything was possible.
‘Gabe,’ she moaned, her body beginning to tense.
His mouth grazed hers. ‘Tell me.’
‘I c-can’t.’
‘Tell me,’ he urged again.
‘Oh. Oh!’
Gabe felt her buck beneath him in helpless rapture. His mouth came down hard on hers as her back arched, his fingers tightening over her narrow hips. He became aware of the softness of her belly as he pressed against her and then he let go—spilling his seed into her with each long and exquisite thrust.
For a while he was aware of nothing other than the fading spasms deep within his body and a sense of emptiness and of torpor. Automatically, he rolled away onto the other side of the bed where he lay on top of the rumpled sheet and sucked mouthfuls of air back into his lungs. His eyelids felt as if they’d been weighted with lead. He wanted to sleep. To sleep for a hundred years. To hold on to a sensation which felt peculiarly close to contentment.
But old habits died hard and he fought the feeling and the warm place which was beckoning to him, automatically replacing it with ice-cold logic. All he was experiencing was the stupefying effect of hormones as his body gathered up its resources to make love to her again. It was sex, that was all. Surprisingly good sex—but nothing more than that. How could it ever be more than that?
Meeting her bright blue gaze, he flickered her a non-commital smile.
‘What a perfect way to begin a honeymoon,’ he drawled.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_a349b479-1ae7-5f58-9471-72b6c89944c2)
IT WAS A honeymoon of sorts.
Leila supposed that some people might even have considered it a successful honeymoon. With time and money at his disposal, Gabe set about showing her a London she’d only ever seen in films or books—and the famous city came to life before her eyes.
They visited Buckingham Palace and the famous Tower where two young princes had once been imprisoned. They took a ride on a double-decker bus, which thrilled Leila since she’d never been on public transport before. They went to galleries and museums and saw some of the long-running West End shows.
He showed her a ‘secret’ London too—a side to the city known only to the people who lived in it. Restaurants with flower-filled courtyards which were tucked away behind industrial grey streets and intimate concert halls where he took her to hear exquisite classical music.
And when they weren’t sightseeing they were having sex. Lots of it. Inventive, imaginative and mind-blowing sex, which left her gasping and breathless with pleasure every time. She told herself she was lucky—and when she was kissing her gorgeous new husband, she felt lucky.
But while she couldn’t fault the packed schedule Gabe had arranged for her, sometimes it felt as if she were spending time with a tour guide. Sometimes he was so...distant. So...forbidding. She would ask him questions designed to understand him better. And he would find a million ways not to answer them. He would change the subject and ask her about growing up in Qurhah. And although he seemed genuinely interested in her life as a princess, sometimes he made her feel as if she was a brand new project he was determined to get right.
He remained as enigmatic as he’d done right from the very beginning. She had married a man who kept his thoughts and feelings concealed and inevitably, that made anxiety start to bubble away beneath the glossy surface of her new life.
It was only during sex that she ever felt on the brink of a closeness which constantly eluded her. When he was making love he sometimes looked down at her, his face raw with passion and his eyes flaring with pewter fire. She wanted him to tell her what it was that kept him so firmly locked away from her. She wanted to look within his heart and see what secrets it revealed. But as soon as his orgasm racked his powerful body, she could sense him distancing himself again.
Oh, he would hold her tightly and bury his lips against her damp skin and tell her that she was amazing. Once he even told her that she was the best lover he’d ever had. But to Leila, his words seemed empty and she was scared to believe them. As if he was saying them because he knew he ought to say them, rather than because he meant them.
She would lie there hugging her still-trembling body while he went off to take a shower, forcing herself to remember that she was only here because of the life growing inside her. A life so new that sometimes it didn’t seem as if it were real...
One morning they were lying amid a tumble of sex-scented sheets after a long and satisfying night of lovemaking, when she rolled onto her stomach and looked at him.
‘You know, you’ve never even told me how you made your fortune.’
He stretched out his lean, tanned body and yawned. ‘It’s a dull story.’
‘Every story has a point of interest.’
He looked at her. ‘Why do you ask so many questions, Leila? You’re always digging, aren’t you?’
She met his cool gaze. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t keep asking if you actually tried answering some of them for a change.’
She could see the wariness in his eyes, but for once she refused to be silenced or seduced into changing the subject. Even if their marriage wasn’t ‘real’ in the way that Sara and Suleiman’s was—didn’t her position as his wife give her some kind of right to know? To find out whether, beneath that cool facade, Gabe Steel had a few vulnerabilities of his own?
‘So tell me,’ she murmured and dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder. ‘Go on.’
Gabe sighed as he felt her soft lips brushing against his skin. He had never planned to marry her. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. Reluctantly, he had taken what he considered to be the best course of action in circumstances which could have ruined her. He had done the right thing by her. Yet instead of showing her gratitude by melting quietly into the background and making herself as unobtrusive as possible, she had proved a major form of distraction in ways he had never anticipated.
From the moment she opened her eyes in the morning to the moment those long black lashes fluttered to a close at night, she mesmerised him in all kinds of ways.
The way she rose naked from the rumpled sheets—a tall, striking Venus with caramel skin and endless legs. The reverse-heart swing of her naked bottom as she wiggled it out of the room. The way she slanted him that blue-eyed look, which instantly had his blood boiling with lust.
But he knew that women often mistook a man’s lust for love; and that lust always faded. In the normal scheme of things, that wouldn’t matter, but with Leila it did. He couldn’t afford to let her fall in love with him and have the all too predictable angry outcome when she realised it wasn’t ever going to be reciprocated. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to start thinking that he could feel things, like other men did. She was the mother of his child and she wasn’t going anywhere. He might not have wanted to become a father, but he was going to make damned sure that this baby was an enduring part of his life. Which he guessed was why he found himself saying, ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
‘Tell me how you first got into advertising,’ she said. ‘Surely that’s not too difficult.’
‘Look it up on the internet,’ he said.
‘I already have.’ She remembered how she’d checked him out before that fateful meeting in Simdahab. ‘And although there’s lots of stuff about you winning awards and riding motorbikes and being pictured with some of the world’s most beautiful women—there’s not much in the way of background. Almost as if somebody had been controlling how much information was getting out there.’ She stroked her finger down his cheek. ‘Is that down to you, Gabe?’
‘Of course it is.’ His response was economical. ‘I’m sure your brother controls information about himself all the time.’
‘Ah, but my brother is a sultan who rules an empire and has a lot of enemies. What’s your excuse?’
She saw the flicker of irritation which crossed his face—a slightly more exaggerated irritation than the look she’d seen yesterday when he’d discovered a dirty coffee cup sitting on the side of his pristine bathtub and acted as if it were an unexploded bomb.
‘My excuse is that I try to remain as private as possible,’ he said. ‘But I can see that you’re not going to let up until you’re satisfied. Where shall I begin?’
‘Were you born rich?’
‘Quite the opposite. Dirt poor, as they say—though I doubt whether someone like you has any comprehension of what that really means.’
His accusation rankled almost as much as his attitude, and Leila couldn’t hide her hurt. ‘You think because I was born in a palace that I’m stupid? That I have no idea what the vast majority of the world is like? I’m surprised at you, Gabe—leaping to stereotypical judgements like that.’
‘Ah, but I’m an advertising man,’ he said, a smile curving the edges of his mouth. ‘And that’s what we do.’
‘I think I can work out what dirt poor means. I’m just interested to know how you went from that to...’ the sweeping gesture of her hand encompassed the vast dimensions of the dining room, with its expensive view of the river ‘...well, this.’
‘Fate. Luck. Timing.’ He shrugged. ‘A mixture of all three.’
‘Which as usual tells me precisely nothing.’
He levered himself up against the pillows, his gaze briefly resting on the hard outline of her nipples. He felt the automatic hardening of his groin, wondering if that sudden flare of colour over her cheeks meant that she’d noticed it, too.
‘I left school early,’ he said. ‘I was sixteen, with no qualifications to speak of, so I moved to London and got a job in a big hotel. I started in the kitchens—’ He fixed her with a mocking look as he saw her eyes widen. ‘Does it shock my princess to realise that her husband was once a kitchen hand?’
