Had he read her mind?
‘Don’t stop?’ He looked up from his decadent position between her thighs, and smiled. ‘I have no intention of stopping, but I am hungry to feel my skin next to yours, habibi. And while you are almost naked—I am not.’
She didn’t want him to move—terrified that any movement would shatter this precarious magic—but she had little choice except to lie there and watch as he stood up and began to strip off. His shirt was silk and so were his boxers and they floated to the ground like fine gossamer. Livvy’s mouth dried as his body was revealed. His dark skin glowed like richest gold and the deep shadows cast by the flickering firelight emphasised his physical perfection. A hard and rippling torso, with powerful arms and muscular legs that seemed to go on forever. Narrow hips and rock-hard buttocks. Even the powerful evidence of his arousal wasn’t as daunting as it should have been because by now Livvy was alive with a need that had been buried inside her for so long that she felt she would die if he didn’t make love to her.
Her heart was pounding as she stared at his erection, but when he reached down into the pocket of his trousers and drew out a condom, she felt a flutter of misgiving. Did he always carry protection with him? Did he take it for granted that there would always be a willing woman lying waiting for him like this? She thought about the women who sometimes used to accompany him to the stables—those models and actresses with their suede boots and miniskirts and real fur. For a moment she wondered how she could possibly compare to those glamorous creatures, until she forced the dark clouds of insecurity from her mind. Maybe there was always an accommodating female wherever he went—like a sailor having a woman in every port—but this wasn’t about convention, was it? She’d done all that stuff and look where it had got her.
She thought about the heartache of the past and the struggle her life had been for so long. She stared over Saladin’s shoulder as he slithered her panties off and moved over her. Outside the world was white and still and silent, apart from the distant ticking of a clock. Time was passing, but they were completely alone and this moment would never come again. And she had to seize it—to grab it—and to hell with the consequences.
Yet once before she had blinded herself to the truth. She’d buried her head in the sand and allowed herself to be treated like a fool by the man she’d been engaged to. Was she going to repeat that pattern of behaviour all her life—to run away from what she was afraid to face?
‘Saladin,’ she whispered as he rubbed his thumb over her clitoris. ‘There’s something you should know.’
‘The only thing I need to know is whether you like...this...’
She closed her eyes. Like it? She imagined that even a marble statue would have squirmed beneath his questing finger, but that wasn’t the point. The words came out in a bald rush—but what other way was there to say them? ‘I’m a virgin.’
His fingers—which had been working rhythmically against her heated flesh—now stilled. He raised his head to look at her, his eyes full of disbelief—but there was something else in their depths, too. Something she didn’t recognise. Something dark and tortured. Something that scared her.
‘Is this some sort of joke?’ he demanded in a strangled kind of voice.
Wondering what had made him look so bleak, Livvy shook her head. ‘It’s no joke,’ she said. ‘Why would I joke about something like that? It’s the truth. I might not be very proud of it—but it’s the truth.’
He rolled away from her and she noticed that his erection had diminished. ‘How can this be?’ he bit out. ‘You are nearly thirty years old. You were engaged to be married. I know what Western women are like. They lose their innocence early and they take many lovers!’
His crass generalisations dispelled some of her insecurity and made Livvy start to claw back some dignity—something that wasn’t particularly easy when she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Did she dare walk over to the sofa where the soft woollen throw she kept for cold winter nights was folded? Too right she did—because staying here completely naked was making her feel even more vulnerable than she already did. On shaky legs she rose to stand, aware of his heated gaze following her as she walked over to get the blanket and brought it back to the fireside. But as she
wrapped it around herself and sat at the other end of the rug, she became aware that his erection was back. And how. Hastily averting her eyes, she turned to throw a log into the neglected fire.
‘I hate to ruin your prejudices, but not all women conform to the stereotypes you’ve just described,’ she said. ‘The law of averages suggests that there will be some older virgins as well as young ones.’
Saladin’s mouth thinned with displeasure, thinking that there couldn’t have been a more inappropriate moment for her to try to dazzle him with statistics, and he was amazed she should even dare try. He felt the heavy throb of his heart. He had wanted sex. Simple, uncomplicated sex with a willing woman. He didn’t want someone with issues or baggage. He didn’t want someone who, with her purity, had stirred up memories he had locked away a long time ago. For he had only ever slept with one virgin before, and that virgin had been his beautiful wife. Pain and guilt clenched at his heart as he stared at her.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said coldly.
‘You don’t have to. I’m...’ And suddenly he saw the uncertainty that flickered across her pale and freckled face. ‘I’m sorry if I led you on.’
An unwanted but persistent point of principle made him shake his head. ‘We led each other on,’ he said heavily. ‘But it is true that you have left it a little late to drop this particular bombshell.’
Awkwardly, she shrugged. ‘Do you want to get dressed?’
Saladin shook his head. What he wanted was to be back where he’d been less than five minutes ago, not stuck in the middle of some damned conversation! ‘I don’t believe it,’ he breathed. ‘I thought it was the custom in the West to have sex before marriage—and you were on the very brink of marriage. So what happened?’
‘It’s difficult to put into words.’
‘You don’t seem to have had much problem with words so far.’
She shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. ‘I think I was born in the wrong age,’ she said slowly. ‘I was a tomboy who loved messing around in the countryside. I climbed trees and used to make dens with the boys from the village. I never had posters of pop stars on my walls like all the other girls in my class. I was more interested in horses—horses were my life. In fact, everything was just like one of those old-fashioned children’s stories, until my mum died.’
‘That must have been hard,’ he said.
She shrugged again and suddenly he thought she looked much younger than nearly thirty.
‘Lots of children lose their mothers,’ she said. ‘But not so many have a father who was left feeling very vulnerable. A rich widower who became perfect marriage fodder for the kind of woman commonly known as a gold-digger.’
‘I have some experience of that breed myself,’ he observed wryly. ‘So what happened?’
She shrugged. ‘He fell for a busty blonde with a penchant for diamonds and couture and then he married her. My father was a country gentleman and this house had been in his family for generations, but his new wife preferred luxury travel and sailing in sunny waters on a lavish yacht. She was the kind of woman who would buy an entire new wardrobe before every trip—and we weren’t the sort of family who had a lot of ready cash. Most of it was tied up in the house. Would you...?’ Again, she licked her lips. ‘Would you like a blanket, or something?’