They looked at one another and Sienna started giggling.
‘So do I.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEREwas a huge fireplace, an ancient-looking kitchen, and a bed in the main upstairs room which looked exactly as it must have done a century before.
The bodyguards were settled in the cottage by the main gate, with a widescreen TV and the promise of a huge, no-questions-asked bonus, and Sienna and Hashim were finally on their own.
‘It is like stepping back in time,’ Hashim murmured, his black eyes fascinated as he glanced around him. ‘And it’s freezing.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She turned to him. ‘Can you light a fire?’
His smile touched on the arrogant. ‘Naturally.’
‘Well, then—over to you. I’m going to make us something to eat.’
But he shook his head. If they were playing honeymoon—which he rather imagined that they were—then there was something far more pressing than food or fuel on the agenda. ‘You want to eat food?’ he murmured. ‘Or to eat me?’
‘You are outrageous!’ she protested, but only halfheartedly, for his hands had slithered underneath her sweater and were making her nipples grow very hard indeed. ‘We…we ought to draw the curtains,’ she said breathlessly.
She went and yanked across the faded chintz and he came up behind her, skimming his hands down over her hips. ‘Mmm. I am pleased to see that you are wearing a skirt.’
‘Because my Sheikh does not like jeans,’ she said demurely, and closed her eyes as she felt him reach beneath it to graze his fingers over her searing heat.
‘You are ready,’ he observed, on a slight note of surprise.
‘I’ve been ready for hours,’ she admitted, hopping and almost stumbling in her eagerness to help him take off her panties.
‘So have I,’ he admitted huskily.
They only made it as far as the big, old-fashioned sprung sofa, where Hashim kicked off his trousers and then pulled her down onto his lap, guiding her slowly over his aching shaft before plunging deep inside her.
‘Oh!’ she moaned, as he filled her completely, moving her up and down until she thought that she could bear it no longer. Almost before she could believe it to be happening she felt herself begin to dissolve.
And Hashim felt it, too—shatteringly and simultaneously—and as her body began to convulse out its pleasure so did his follow, in almost complete harmony. And in those few last seconds before the power of it temporarily obliterated consciousness their eyes met, locked and held.
‘Sienna!’ he gasped as she began to shudder around him, and her name seemed to be torn from his soul.
‘Hashim!’ she breathed brokenly, her fingers digging into the rich silk of his skin.If only I could tell you how much I love you.
For a while they stayed just like that, Sienna still astride him, gazing down and stroking her hand along the rugged outline of his jaw.
‘What are you thinking?’ he questioned softly.
That what should never have happened had done so. That the falling in love was complete. That it was too late to stop herself and protect herself. And it had happened just at the time when she suspected it was all coming to an end.
‘You should never ask a woman something like that after making love to her.’
Not when she’s vulnerable enough to tell you something you won’t want to hear. She shivered a little as the flush of passion on her skin began to fade.
‘Better get that fire going,’ she said lightly, and climbed off him.
Escaping into the kitchen while he built the fire, she made soup from organic vegetables and served it with chunky wholemeal bread, and cheese which had come straight from the nearby farm. They quenched their thirst with elderflower water and then drank scented tea, sitting on a furry rug in front of the gradually roaring fire.
‘Do you like that?’ she asked.
‘Perfect,’ he said, but there was a sudden heaviness in his heart.