‘What did you think of the dancing?’
His voice was amused, and his eyes half-hidden by his lashes. They were walking towards the terrace with the pavilion and the pool, and she could feel that forbidden, intoxicating anticipation chipping away at her control.
‘It was very sexy,’ she said firmly. ‘And amazingly athletic! At times I thought they might dislocate their hips.’
He threw his black head backwards and laughed, the sound full and unforced. ‘Did it give you the desire to try it?’
‘I know my limitations,’ she said. Curiosity drove her to ask, ‘Can you do it?’
‘Every Moraze-reared person can dance their version of our national dance,’ he said gravely. ‘Our nurses teach us it in our cradles—or so they say.’
They walked across to the pavilion, its translucent draperies floating languidly in the sea-scented breeze. A moon smiled down, silvering everything in a soft, unearthly light—the pool, the white-and-pink water lilies, the shimmering expanse of gauze that surrounded them and shut out the world.
Lexie swallowed something that obstructed her throat and said chattily, ‘I think you’d probably need to learn it in the cradle to be able to do it without falling over or making a total idiot of yourself. And constant practice must be necessary to give your hips and legs that flexibility.’
‘Don’t be so wary—I am not like the dancers at the hotels who sometimes lure tourists onto the sand to show them how very lacking in flexibility their hips are. And to dance properly you need drums and music.’ He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming and intent. ‘But I would like to teach you,’ he said deeply.
‘Teach me what?’
LEXIE swallowed again, her throat closing. He was talking about dancing, not making love. He didn’t even know she was a virgin, and she had no intention of telling him.
In a voice she barely recognized, she said, ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to learn—to dance, that is.’
‘You’re very graceful, so I’m sure you have a natural aptitude,’ he said, his smile cool and subtly mocking.
‘I don’t know about that.’ This banter with its tantalising undercurrents was new to her. Nervously she glanced away, eyes widening as she saw that the table had been set with trays of small delicacies and what was clearly a bottle of champagne.
‘I thought we should toast your stay on Moraze,’ Rafiq told her. ‘I noticed that you didn’t drink anything stronger than fruit punch at the party, but I’m hoping to tempt you with some champagne.’
Lexie knew she should refuse. In this magical glimmer of moonlit enchantment, any sensible woman would make sure her brain was in full control.
But then a sensible woman would have seen danger in the prospect of an evening with Rafiq, and would have pretended a fragility she didn’t feel. And once at the party, no sensible woman would have allowed herself to be carried away by the erotic rhythms and hypnotic drumbeats of the dancing, the whirl of colour and the open sensuousness.
And even a halfway-sensible woman would have avoided any sort of post-party drinks, and said a briskly cheerful goodnight at the door of her room before shutting said door firmly on him.
All right, so she wasn’t sensible. She certainly wasn’t going to walk back to the arid, lonely refuge of her bedroom.
To the crackle and heat of bridges burning behind her, she said, ‘I’m easily tempted,’ adding hastily when she realised what she’d implied, ‘To champagne.’
Colour burned across her cheekbones and she fought back embarrassment, holding her head high and her smile steady.
One black brow lifted to shattering effect. Without saying anything, Rafiq turned to ease the top off the bottle. Instead of a pop it emitted a soft sigh—of satisfaction?
Don’t even think about satisfaction! Small sips, Lexie promised herself as he poured the sparkling wine into long, elegant flutes. She’d take tiny little sips, at long, long intervals…
And when she got back to real life she’d remember this evening—this whole stay on Moraze—without regret. Instead she’d feel gratitude that the man who summoned those reckless, dangerous impulses from her was a man of honour and integrity.
‘So,’ Rafiq said calmly, handing her a glass, ‘We drink to your continued good health.’
After one tiny, wholesome sip, she said, ‘Oh, that’s superb wine.’
‘It is French, of course. Moraze produces some excellent table wines, but for champagne we rely on France.’ He set his glass down. ‘I’m glad you like it.’
Lexie made the first comment that came into her head. ‘New Zealand makes good wines too.’
‘Indeed it does. I have drunk a very supple, subtle Pinot Noir from the south of the South Island, and some extremely good reds from an island off the coast of Auckland.’
‘Waiheke. It has its own special microclimate.’
Her innocuous words were followed by silence, far too heavy with unspoken thoughts, unbidden desire.
Desperately Lexie broke it. ‘I’m no connoisseur, but I do like the wines made in Marlborough from Sauvignon Blanc grapes. In the north of the North Island, where I live, wine growers are also trying out unusual varieties of grapes to see which cope best with the humidity and the warmth.’
Oh, brilliant, she thought in despair. Talk about banal!
‘Shall we stop fencing?’ Rafiq suggested, his amused tone laced with another emotion, one that sent shivers of excited recognition through her.
‘I wasn’t aware we were,’ she lied, hoping she sounded crisp and fully in control.
He held out his hand for her glass, and when after a moment’s hesitation she handed it over, he set it beside his own on the low table. The moonlight glimmered on his white shirt, lovingly enhancing the breadth of his shoulders, the narrow waist and hips, the arrogant angles and planes of his features. Whenever she’d ridden a roller coaster she’d felt like this: both exhilarated and terrified.
‘Of course we were,’ he said, straightening up to smile at her. ‘We are like swordsmen, you and I, continually duelling for advantage. But it is time to bring an end to it.’
Once again her stomach did that flip thing. A hot rush of sensation drove away memories and common sense. When he looked at her like that she was aware of nothing but the drumming of her heart in her ears, and the relentless heat of desire building like a storm through her. Honey-sweet, potent as the strongest rum, powerful and frightening, it shook her to the core.
Eyes dilating endlessly, she watched his smile harden, and her breath locked in her throat at the slow slide of his hands up her arms.
‘Your skin is finer by far than the silk you’re wearing. For this whole interminable evening I have been wanting to touch it,’ he said in a low, harsh voice, and bent his head to kiss the place his fingers had caressed.
Sharp as joy, acute as pain, pleasure shot through her at the touch of his mouth. When he slid his hands across her back and pulled her against him, she sighed his name and met his seeking, demanding kiss with open passion.
It ended too soon. He lifted his head and looked at her, green eyes glittering, and in a tone that was almost angry said, ‘That is the first time you’ve allowed yourself to say that.’
Somehow the simple act of pronouncing the two syllables that made up his name was almost more intimate than the kisses they’d exchanged. ‘You’ve never told me I could,’ she