Rose shrugged the slippery silk impatiently over his shoulders and let it flutter to the ground.
‘You don’t need them,’ she told him.
Black eyes iced instantly at the implication. ‘What don’t I need?’ he questioned softly.
She met his gaze without flinching. ‘Condoms. We won’t need them.’ She hesitated. Surely she wouldn’t have to spell it out for a man of the world such as this?
‘Why not?’
Apparently she did.
‘I’m on the pill,’ she said bluntly.
‘No!’ His mouth formed the denial as if he had been stung.
‘Yes,’ she insisted quietly.
His heart pounding with an unendurable jealousy, he tightened his grip on her. ‘So this is the way of Western women, is it?’ he demanded. ‘Always prepared, is that so? Just in case?’
‘Don’t be so hypocritical, Khalim,’ she answered with dignity. ‘I happen to be on the pill because my periods were heavy and irregular—’
‘Your periods?’ he demanded incredulously.
She guessed correctly that women did not speak of such matters with Khalim. So they were allowed certain intimacies with him such as sex, were they? But nothing in the way of real intimacy. Of women as they really were. Well, she had taken him on his terms; now let him take her on hers. She tried to make allowances for his upbringing and his culture. ‘It’s a very effective remedy,’ she explained patiently.
‘And also very convenient if you happen to just want to fall into bed with someone?’ he scorned.
She wrenched herself away from him and fixed him with a withering stare. ‘If you believe that, then you can get out of here right now, and don’t bother coming back!’
He could see from the fire in her blue eyes that she meant it, and he forced himself to draw a steadying breath. ‘I shouldn’t have said that—’
‘No, you’re right—you shouldn’t!’ Her breathing came fast and rapid and indignant. ‘How many lovers have you slept with in your life, Khalim?’
‘You dare to ask me that?’ he questioned dangerously.
‘I’ll bet it’s a whole lot more than I have—which is precisely two!’
He flinched again and his mouth hardened. How dared there have been another before him? How dared there! ‘Two!’
‘Yes, two. Actually not terribly shocking considering that I’m twenty-seven years old and have grown up in the kind of culture I have! I have never gone to bed with anyone indiscriminately! Can you look me in the eye and honestly say that you haven’t, either?’
He stared at her, torn between fury and admiration. His beautiful, logical Rose! Applying the same rules of life for her as well as him! He bit down the pain of jealousy and a slow light began to glimmer at the back of the black eyes.
‘You have never actually been to bed with me either, have you, sweet Rose?’ he murmured, taking her unresisting hand and raising it to his lips to kiss it. ‘And I think that is a situation which we should remedy now, with all seemly haste.’
How powerful he looked. How masterfully dark and virile and proud. Rose wondered half wildly whether she should have prevented him from scooping her up into his arms and carrying her over to the low mattress. A victor with his spoils, she thought weakly.
But then she was the victor, too. Because to have provoked that look of sensual promise coupled with a barely restrained impatience to make love to her was the most potent sensation she had ever encountered.
She let the last of her misgivings go as he laid her down on the embroidered coverlet, tugging at the silk cord which bound his loose trousers so they fell to the floor.
My heavens, but he was aroused! Darkly and magnificently aroused. Her mouth began to tremble as he slid her cotton trousers all the way down her legs and tossed them aside with an impatient disdain.
‘Khalim,’ she gasped as he came to lie beside her, his arms snaking possessively around her waist while his eyes burned down at her like smouldering coal.
‘What is it, sweetest Rose? You want me to kiss you now?’
It was exactly what she wanted—the touch and the warmth and the security of his lips caressing hers. So that for one mad and crazy moment she could imagine that it was not lust which made this kiss such magic, but fool herself into thinking it was something as elusive and as precious as love.