Her voice sounded weird. It was going up and down, swinging all over the place. Was she crying? Or angry? Her face was still turned away from him, her eyes fixed on the opposite side of the room. On that damned wedding dress that was hanging on the wardrobe.
The sight of that damned dress now seemed to have developed the power to stab at him, right in the heart, twisting dangerously in his already uncomfortable conscience.
He had come here to stop the wedding. He had planned to tell Al Makthabi what she was really like. That she was only after him for his money. But when he had met her husband-to-be, he had soon realised that Adnan was nobody’s sort of a fool. And that the other man knew exactly what he was getting in Imogen O’Sullivan. The neighbours, the locals who lived in the village, regarded the two families—the O’Sullivans and the Al Makthabis—as the modern day equivalent of lords of the manor. They might believe in the fairy-tale love story of the two big houses joined together, but he knew more about them than that.
He’d told himself that if he’d seen one trace of love in Imogen’s face, one hint of that fairy-tale being true, then he would have turned and walked away. But he’d been all sorts of a fool to imagine he might see such a thing. He’d read the signs in her face, the look that said this wasn’t a wedding of love, with a bride so happy it shone out of her eyes. And what he had seen in Adnan’s face had not been love either.
But even before that had really sunk in, he’d known that whatever happened he couldn’t turn and walk away. Couldn’t leave Imogen behind and go back to the disturbing emptiness of the past few years when nothing and no woman had satisfied him.
After tonight he knew why. After tonight he knew that no one could ever make him feel as this woman did. No other woman could make him burn and hunger, the heat of need sizzling up every nerve and leaving him just a husk of a man.
‘He got to make his grandfather happy.’
‘Quoi?’
He had to drag his thoughts back from the burning paths they’d followed, forcing his mind to focus on what she’d said.
She’d shifted on the bed now, turning back towards him. Although she still held the sheet tucked tight around her, it did nothing at all to hide the sexy enticement of her body. If anything, it made matters worse, with the fine cotton stretched tight over the curves of her breasts. He could clearly see the darker pink of her nipples, the lift of the peaked tips pressed against their covering, and at her hips the fall of the delicate fabric was not enough to hide the shadow of dark hair at the juncture of her thighs. Even just to think of the way he had been buried in her body at exactly that point, with the warmth and moisture of her welcome enclosing him, had his penis stiffening in such a rush that he had to grab the sheets himself and pull them up over the heated evidence of the way he was incapable of controlling himself where she was concerned.
‘No need to be embarrassed.’ Imogen had seen his reaction and her soft voice, her faint smile, had even more of a damning effect on him.
‘Je n’ais pas honte,’ he growled, glaring a fierce rejection of her words straight into her face.
He wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed by the force of his reaction. It was what had brought them into this bed tonight after all. And it was a response that she shared totally. He’d felt her reaction to his touch, known the way her body melted under his, her spine arching up to press her softness against his chest, his thighs, his pelvis. He’d heard her soft cries of delight and the way they’d morphed into moans of hungry demand as their bodies moved faster and faster, coming together in one mind-blowing, overwhelming rush of release that had had them both collapsing back exhausted on the pillows, their breath coming in great heaving gasps.
He knew what he wanted from this woman and she knew what she wanted from him. But that was not enough.
Hell, no! He was not going down that path again. Not until he had some things sorted out. He had no doubt about his physical reaction to Imogen—and hers to him—but he’d been that way before and had burned with regret as a result.
‘Hell!’
It escaped him at the realisation that the hungry passion he’d felt for Imogen had had him in bed with her—inside her—without a pause for thought or even the idea of protection. He had brought condoms with him, damn it; he should have used them.