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She had to touch.
Throwing caution to the wind and giving in to the primal need that made her skin burn, her bones ache with need, she reached out a hand at last…
And encountered his hand reaching for her at the same time.
Their fingers met, touched, and it seemed to Abbie that sparks flew in the air, fizzing between them like fireworks. But then those long bronzed fingers tangled with hers, twisting together, holding tightly, drawing her closer to him with an irresistible strength. Abbie knew she had to give in to the need that swamped her, dark waves of sensuality breaking over her head as she almost fell against him and his mouth came down to claim hers.
The kiss that Malik had been imagining since the moment he had first seen her was far more in reality than it had ever been in his mind. The soft feel of Abbie’s lips against his own was like setting a match to the tinderdry brushwood of the hunger that was just waiting to burst into flames, flaring savagely through the whole of his body, making him burn with need. The taste of her on his own mouth, his tongue, was like the most potent aphrodisiac, driving him to plunder the soft interior as she opened to him, yielding in the same moment that she demanded more.
And he would give her more. He wanted this woman so much it was like a thunder in his head, pounding at his thoughts, obliterating all sense of reality. He forgot where he was and why he had come here, the mission he had set out to achieve. All he could focus on was the soft, feminine body in his arms, the tender mouth that opened under his, the hands that clung…
‘You’re beautiful…’
Her fingers were making a path up his arms, stroking their way over his shoulders, tangling in his hair. The faint scrape of her nails over the sensitive skin of his scalp made him drag in a raw, shaken breath before crushing her closer, taking her mouth yet again. His own hands had found the elastic band that fastened her long blonde hair back and tugged it loose, tangling hard in the silken strands, holding her just so—so that he could kiss her exactly the way he wanted to.
And she wanted it too.
There was no resistance in her supple body, no stiffening or drawing away; instead, she pressed closer than ever, the fine bones of her pelvis cradling the heat and hardness of his erection. Each tiny movement she made stoked the fire of need, making it flare higher and hotter and fiercer than ever before.
‘I want you…’
He barely recognised his own voice, barely understood the language he spoke, it was so hard and thick and rough with the hunger that tortured him. His accent was harsher than ever before and for a moment it crossed his mind that she might not be able to make out a single word he had spoken.
But the woman in his arms simply sighed and muttered something against his mouth, something so muffled and indistinct that he was forced to wrench his lips away from hers. He tugged her head back with his imprisoning grip on the blonde length of her hair to look down into her passion-flushed face, seeing the sensually glazed eyes, the swollen mouth.
‘What?’ he demanded, needing to hear the words in spite of the evidence his eyes were giving him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said…’
But she didn’t even trouble to finish the sentence, reaching up instead to fasten one arm tight around his neck and drag his head down to her again.
‘Yes…’
It was a sigh against his mouth again—or a moan. A sound of surrender? A sound of demand?
He didn’t know and he didn’t care. This wasn’t a time for words, for talking, but for action. And the action that his hotly aroused body demanded was that he take this willing and wanton woman hard and fast—and now!
With his mouth still on hers, his hands locked in her hair, he half walked, half carried her backwards, moving awkwardly, stiff-legged, supporting her in his arms, dodging furniture by instinct rather than sight until they came hard up against the wall with a thump that drove the breath from her body on a gasp that went straight into his mouth.
Swallowing down the shaken breath, Malik cupped her face in both his hands, tilting it again to get just the right angle to kiss her hard and long, taking the sweetness from her mouth and feeling it intoxicate his already fizzing senses, heat his blood even higher.
‘Yes!’ he muttered against her lips. ‘Yes! You’re mine. I knew that from the first moment—’
The words broke off, raw breath rasping in his throat as he felt her hands push between them, tugging at his tie, pulling it loose at his neck, her fingers seeking the warm flesh beneath, raking it hungrily.
‘Abbie…’ Her name was just a rasp, a sound, barely a real syllable of a word.
‘Malik…’ Her voice was no better. It shook on his name, coming and going like an untuned radio. ‘Malik…’
He crushed her against the wall, unable to get close enough, to feel her warmth and softness against every part of his body. He wanted to spread her out beneath him, to tear her clothes from her body, to feel her heat and tightness enclose his aching sex. But at the same time he didn’t want to move away from her for even those few seconds it would take to get them both into that position.
Moving would mean ending that delicious pressure of body against body, heat against heat. It would mean breaking away from the hungry, demanding caress of her hands, the way that her fingers fumbled and snatched at the buttons of his shirt, seeking out the flesh beneath, tugging lightly, tormentingly at the curls of dark hair she found there.
But he had to touch her. Just the caress of her mouth, the feel of her body beneath the thin cotton blouse, was nowhere near enough. He needed—yearned for—the sensation of skin on skin. Of hot flesh burning into flesh, the heady perfume of arousal reaching into the air and stimulating already strained senses to breaking point.
‘Abbie…’
With a rough movement he jerked her into a slightly different position, holding her captive against the wall as he brought his hands down over her thighs, reaching out and grabbing the hem of her skirt, pulling it roughly upwards, rucking it over her hips, exposing the soft skin of her legs.
The soft bare skin, he noted on a sound of surprised satisfaction, feeling the silky smoothness beneath his greedy fingertips. Just skin, not the appalling synthetic scratch of tights—just skin, soft as heated velvet, enticing as hell. Just Abbie.
And just Abbie was all that he wanted.
Her hands had found his skin, buttons were wrenched open, his shirt pulled out of the way until it was skin on skin at last and a sigh broke from her on a gasp of contentment. Her fingers smoothed over his chest, tangling for a brief moment in the curls of body hair before that wandering touch curved over his shoulders, finding the tension in his muscles, then slid down his back, along each vertebrae as far as she could reach.
And Malik needed to touch too. The pressure and heat of body against body just weren’t enough. A pressure and heat was building inside him too, rising to boiling point, creating a sensation inwardly that was like some violent volcano that was about to blow. And he would explode if he didn’t touch her.
Muttering thick-tongued endearments in his native language, he pushed the clinging skirt even higher. The feel of his fingertips on her hot flesh sent sensations like the shock of a bolt of lightning right through him and he felt the shudder that shook her. The same shudder that tormented his own hungry body.
He heard her moan softly—or was it his own voice he heard? He had no idea but the next moment his mouth captured hers, plundered deep, but then was wrenched fiercely away when just to kiss no longer satisfied. He needed to go further, explore deeper, taste more of her. And she understood totally, arching her neck into his caress, mutely inviting him to take what he wanted.
‘Yes…’
It was a sound of yearning, of encouragement, of pure need. One that made an answering need kick hard at him low down in his body.
The ridiculous apron was always in the way. Fastened tight around her waist, about her neck, it hindered every move he tried to make. But by throwing it upwards from below, he had access to the heated core of her. To the lilac-coloured, flimsy bit of nothing that guarded the centre of her femininity. The frivolous bit of silk was such a contrast to the severely practical and sensible outerwear that it brought a shaken laugh into his throat, making him catch his breath in shocked response.
‘So this is what you have hidden away under this absurd uniform. This is what the real woman wears. I like it—more than like it.’
He could feel the heat of her even from this distance, feel the moisture that betrayed her hunger. The scent of her aroused body filled his nostrils, obliterating all thought, driving him wild.
And her kisses drove him wilder. Fierce, urgent, demanding little kisses that pecked at his cheek and neck like an insistent, hungry bird. Her hands didn’t seem to know where they most wanted to be—in his hair or over his shoulders or down his arms. The jacket he wore was skimmed off, dropped to the floor, discarded carelessly. More buttons were wrenched undone, his shirt was tugged from his waistband, her fingers…
Oh, by Allah, her fingers were unstoppable, probing lower, seeking, touching, caressing…
‘Abbie,’ he groaned, but whether in encouragement or in protest at the impossibility of actually doing anything here and now, he didn’t know. ‘We can’t. We must—We—’
But a wild shake of her head denied his words, not giving him the chance to continue.
‘Kiss me,’ she demanded. ‘Kiss me!’
He would do more than kiss her! So much more!
Her breasts were tight against his chest, the hard points of her nipples communicating the sharpness of the arousal she made no attempt to hide. He wanted to get his hands on those richly curved mounds, to touch—to feel—to taste…
But first he had to get past the bib of that damned apron. The appalling flowered cotton was there between him and what he wanted so much—but not for long! With a muttered curse he wrenched at it, pulling hard at each shoulder. The thin cotton straps snapped without much difficulty, ripping apart the worn seams.
At last!
Hands shaking with hunger, with the urgency of need, Malik tugged at the buttons halfway down the prim white blouse, pulling them open roughly. The small opening he made was just enough to let him push his fingers in and touch the warm, swelling softness of one exposed breast. At the feel of his caress Abbie choked some incoherent, wordless sound of response, her eyes closing ecstatically, her mouth blindly seeking his.
Another button popped free from its restraint and now he could get his whole hand underneath her blouse. He cupped the softness of one breast, feeling its heat through the silk and lace confection of her bra. The nub of her nipple pushed into his palm in wanton demand and the ache of desire between his legs was almost unbearable.
He had to have her. Had to…
But, even as he closed his hand around her heated softness, his ears caught the sound outside the room that broke into and shattered the sensual delirium that had him in its possession.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’LL leave that with you then…’
The voice sounded out in the hallway, coming clearly through the barely closed door. Calm and decisive and totally shattering to the heated mood that gripped the pair of them.
‘We’ll sort it out later.’
A male voice.
James Cavanaugh’s voice.
His host’s voice.
The voice of the man he had come here to negotiate with.
What the hell was he doing?
Dazed, shaken, blinking like a man dealing with the aftermath of a blow to his head, Malik lifted his eyes to lock with Abbie’s silver gaze. He found that she too had frozen into immobility, her eyes wide and staring straight at him. She looked glazed, unfocused, not seeing anything, and her head was tilted slightly to one side as if she was straining to hear.
‘Cavanaugh…’ he managed, his voice croaking roughly.
‘My—’
She swallowed hard, unable to continue to form the words.
‘Your boss.’
Malik nodded, understanding the embarrassment she would feel at being caught like this—especially with the important visitor that the family must want to impress and please as much as possible.
Your boss?
It took the space of a couple of uneven breaths for the words to penetrate the buzzing haze of shock that filled Abbie’s mind, and even when they did finally hit home they made no sense at all.
Your boss!
He thought that she worked for…
But then the sound of movement from behind the door, the sound of footsteps in the hallway, froze the thought in her mind, leaving instead room for her to grasp at a realisation that was far more stunning, more shocking.
Her father was outside in the hall.
And he was coming back.
Her father was crossing the hall, coming back, heading for the library, coming back to his guest…
He would open the door, would look across the room and he would find…
He would find her here, like…
With the instinct of panic her hand went to the gaping front of her blouse, fingers spread wide to cover the exposed white skin, the delicate flesh still slightly reddened by the touch of Malik’s hard fingers.
‘Here…’
Already Malik was moving, acting—taking charge. Already his behaviour was totally back under control—the control she had completely, abjectly lost without a hope of finding again.
He was tugging down her skirt, smoothing it over her hips, along her thighs, his movements brusque and—that damn word again!—controlled. He didn’t seem aware of the way that his touch, so cool and calm, distant as a doctor’s, made her want to cry out in shock and loss as it came so close to the spot where the throbbing tension of need even now held her in its grip. The sting of arousal still pricked at her breasts, demanding appeasement. The whole of her body felt like a long moan of protest at the way that the pleasure it had been seeking had been so brutally snatched away, leaving her lost and desolate.
‘Fasten yourself up.’
Malik’s tone was brusque, his curt words a cold command. His eyes were hard as jet without any trace of the burn of warmth that had been in them before. The man who had called himself ‘just Malik’ was gone and the person that Abbie thought of as The Sheikh was back and wholly in control.
He was busy tidying himself as he spoke, quickly and efficiently fastening the buttons her fingers had tugged open, tucking his shirt back into his trousers, smoothing his hand over his tousled hair.
‘I said, fasten yourself up!’
It was an order and a sound of reproof all in one and the cold disapproval in the black gaze that swept over her cut straight to her heart.
She had been lost, adrift on a sea of passion so intense that it had taken over her mind and driven all rational thought from it. The sensation had been so devastating that she was having trouble focusing on anything else. But Malik was icily, unemotionally back in control in the space of a heartbeat, and it was obvious that nothing at all had touched him in the way that it had affected her.
‘Do you want Cavanaugh to find you here like this?’
‘N-no…’
She could only manage a whisper, her voice refusing to obey her. So were her fingers as she fumbled with her disordered clothing, the sense of panic at the thought of her father finding her like this making matters worse.
‘Abbie!’
Her name hissed through Malik’s teeth in a sound of total exasperation and he reached for her again. Perhaps his intention was only to help; perhaps he meant to do what she couldn’t manage and pull things back together again, but that wasn’t the thought that crossed Abbie’s mind.
‘No!’
Remembering only the burning pleasure that those hands had brought her just seconds before and not knowing whether she most longed for a repetition of it or feared it utterly, she reacted on total instinct. An instinct that was even closer to the panic she had barely been able to control.
‘No—I—I have to go!’
There was one way she could avoid any confrontation with her father, ensure that he didn’t know what had been happening in his absence. There was a side door on the far wall of the library, one that led out of the room in the opposite direction to that in which her father was approaching.
True, it also led to the conservatory from which the only way back into the house, without retracing her steps, was to go out into the garden and come in again by the kitchen door. But at least she would have a few moments in which to draw breath. Everyone was inside so she would have time in which to pull herself together, both mentally and physically.
How could she have let this happen? How could she have lost all control, all sense of self-preservation so completely as to forget just who this man was and why he was here?
