He was good with words and good with clients. A childhood spent honing the art of subterfuge had served him well in the business he had chosen. His rise to the top had been made with almost seamless ease. His prediction that digital technology was the way forward had proved unerringly correct. He had formed his own small company and before long a much bigger agency had wanted to buy his expertise. He had expanded and prospered. He’d discovered that wealth begot wealth. And that being rich changed nothing. That you were still the same person underneath, with the same dark and heavy heart.
‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,’ he said dismissively, because thoughts of the past inevitably brought with them pain. And he tried not to do pain. Didn’t he sometimes feel that he’d bitten off his allotted quota of the stuff, all in one large and unpalatable chunk? He gave her a long, cool look. ‘So if the interrogation is over, Leila, you might like to think about what you want to do today.’
Leila stiffened, her enjoyment of his story stifled by the sudden closure in his voice. Was this what all men did with women? she wondered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed a tiny T-shirt and a pair of panties. Tell them just enough to keep them satisfied, but nothing more than that? Keep them at arm’s length unless they were making love to them?
But she knew all this, didn’t she? None of these facts should have surprised her. She’d seen the way her father had treated her mother. She’d seen how quickly women became expendable once their initial allure had worn off. So why the hell was she grasping at rainbows which didn’t exist?
She tugged on the T-shirt and pulled on her panties before walking towards the window, suddenly unenthusiastic about the day ahead.
‘Why don’t you surprise me?’ she said flatly. ‘Since you’re the man with all the ideas.’
She didn’t hear the footfall of his bare feet straight away. She didn’t even realise he was following her until his shadow fell over her and she turned round to meet the tight mask of his face. She could see the smoulder of sexual hunger in his eyes, but she could see the dark flicker of something else, too.
‘What kind of surprise do you want, Leila?’
She could feel the beat of sexual tension as it thrummed in the air around them. He was angry with her for probing, she realised—and his anger was manifesting itself in hot waves of sexual desire. She told herself that she should walk away from him and that might make him realise that sometimes he treated her more like an object than a person. But she couldn’t walk away. She didn’t want to. And didn’t they both want exactly the same thing? The only thing in which they were truly compatible...
She met the smoulder of his gaze and let the tip of her tongue slide along her bottom lip. ‘If I tell you then it won’t be a surprise, will it?’
‘My, how quickly you’ve learnt to flirt,’ he observed softly, his eyes following the movement hypnotically. ‘My little Qurhahian virgin hasn’t retained much of her innocence, has she?’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ she returned, ‘because a wife who lacks sexual adventure will quickly lose her allure. The women of the harem learn that to their peril.’
Her assertion seemed to surprise him, for his eyes narrowed in response. His gaze drifted down to where the tiny T-shirt strained over her aching nipples.
‘You are dressed for sex,’ he said huskily.
She tilted her chin. ‘I’m hardly dressed at all.’
‘Precisely.’
He took a step towards her and backed her into the sitting room towards the L-shaped sofa which dominated one side of the room, and Leila felt excited by the dark look on his face, which made him appear almost savage.
She could feel the leather of the sofa sticking to her bare thighs as he pushed her down on it, and her heart began to hammer in anticipation.
‘Gabe?’ she said, because now he was kneeling on the ground in front of her and pulling her panties all the way down.
But he didn’t answer. He was too busy parting her knees and moving his head between them and, although this was not the first time he had done this, it had never felt quite so intense before.
‘Gabe,’ she said again, more breathlessly this time as his tongue began to slide its way up towards the molten ache between her legs.
‘Shut up,’ he said roughly.
But his harsh words were not matched by the exquisite lightness of his touch, and she couldn’t help the gasp of pleasure which was torn from her lips. Her eyelids fluttered to a close as she felt the silkiness of his hair brushing against her thighs. Her lips dried as the tip of his tongue flickered against her heated flesh and she groaned.