a kiss onto her trembling lips. ‘That’s better. Mmm. That’s much better. Let’s go to bed.’
‘Now?’
‘Sure—why not? Dinner isn’t for hours.’
His body was close. Close and warm and overwhelming. ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ she said weakly.
He pushed himself even closer. ‘I know it wasn’t. But, in answer to your unspoken and rather sweet question, the answer is yes, I want to go to bed and make love to you. Again. But if you’re tired…? He tilted her chin upwards, dazzled by the lost, dazed look in her blue eyes.
Tired? She had never felt more awake nor more on fire in her life. She stared into his face. The tawny hue of his skin was shadowed by the sculpted cheekbones and the faint darkening around his jaw. His lips parted a fraction and she touched her fingertip to them, tracing a line around them, biting back a wistful sigh. She wished that the doors of the palace could be boarded up and the two of them locked in here for ever, because she recognised that she had fallen in love with him, without rhyme or reason, nor even the comfort of having known him first as a friend.
She lowered her lashes, afraid that he might be able to read the emotion in her eyes, terrified that it would send him running—as surely it would. ‘No, I’m not tired,’ she murmured.
He gave a low laugh of delight, loving the way she gave him that demure little look even while the tension which was shivering over her body told him that she was feeling anything but demure.
He reached out and untied the knot of the belt at her waist, so that the robe fell open. He slid his hand inside, to cup her breast, its sinful weight resting in the palm of his hand, and felt the swift spasm of desire so strong and so intense that it was close to pain.
He was almost beyond words. Again. He shook his head, as if doing that would make clear some of the confusion making it spin. One touch and he was lost—or was that simply because he had been fighting her since they had arrived in Maraban? Surely it was just his appetite made keener by deprivation, rather than some dark, erotic power exerted by Lara, who could switch from wanton to demure and then back again?
‘Come on,’ he said huskily. ‘Let’s lie down before I fall down.’
‘Not again! You really are a fallen man, aren’t you?’ she teased, because somehow it was easier to keep it light than to struggle with the enormity of how her feelings for him had just crept up and changed irrevocably. She wound her arms around his neck and looked up at him.
‘I’ll show you just how much, shall I?’ he questioned softly, and picked her up and carried her through to the bed.
They slid between the Egyptian cotton sheets and he ran his fingertips lightly over her.
‘Do you realise we’re in bed properly together, at last? No sofas, no stables and no baths.’ He gave her a look of mocking query. ‘Isn’t this how most people tend to do it, Lara?’
She doubted it. That was her last sane thought as he moved his hand between her legs. Surely it couldn’t feel this good for other people? Surely they had just invented something new—just him and her? And could it just get better and better, like this? she asked herself afterwards in disbelief, as wave after wave of pleasure racked through her body once more.
Don’t analyse; enjoy. Pretend it’s a dream from which you’ll never waken.
From that day on it felt like a honeymoon—without the declared love and the wedding, of course, but the days had about them a dreamy and blissful quality which was how she had always imagined a honeymoon to be. No worries and no reality. Lazy mornings and long, beautiful nights. And if Lara was acutely aware that it couldn’t last for ever, that the sands of time were running out for what was only ever intended to be a short stay, she didn’t confront it. Sometimes it was easier to hide from reality than have to face it.
Darian was no longer up at the crack of dawn to go to the stables, but Khalim still took them both out riding straight after breakfast each morning. Darian improved day by day—he was like a sponge, soaking up every single thing that Khalim told him and then fearlessly putting it into action.
‘He will beat me yet,’ Khalim sighed to Lara the first time Darian galloped, giving an exultant little whoop as he did so, and looking more carefree than she had ever seen him.
She nodded. ‘Probably.’ But he has me beaten already, she thought. Certainly my resolve not to fall in love with him.
‘You are in love with him?’ probed Khalim quietly, uncannily seeming to echo her thoughts. But then, he was a very perceptive man. He watched and he observed and he allowed instinct to guide him.
‘Khalim!’ She turned to him, knowing that her cheeks had grown pink. ‘You can’t possibly ask me a question like that.’
‘I can ask anything I like—for I am the Sheikh!’ he teased, but then his eyes unexpectedly softened. ‘I think that you are, Lara. It is there for all to read when you are watching him and he cannot see you.’
‘And Darian?’ she questioned, her heart pounding, afraid of what she might hear. ‘What do you see when he watches me?’
‘I see a wary man,’ said Khalim truthfully. ‘He looks at you as I would a spirited horse who was perplexing me!’
Which was an ironic comparison when she stopped to think about it. ‘Did he…did he say anything to you of what went on between us…before we arrived here?’
Khalim shook his head. ‘He is a man who keeps his own counsel. He told me nothing, though some of it I have guessed.’ He smiled. ‘Do not worry yourself, Lara—these things have a habit of working out in the way that fate intends them to. Give it time.’
But it was borrowed time, and she did not know how long it would last. How long before this suspended state would be broken into by the demands of real living?
And then her question was answered. She saw the end in sight and a slow, waking dread came to life inside her.
They were waiting in the dining room when Khalim swept in. Only for once he did not dismiss the retinue which always accompanied him. His face was unusually stern, and Lara saw Darian’s eyes narrow, as if he sensed that something was wrong.
‘I must go to Dar-gar,’ Khalim said immediately.
‘Is it Rose?’ questioned Lara at once. ‘Is the baby all right?’
Khalim shook his head. ‘Rose is fine and so is the baby,’ he said gently. ‘Though I have been away from her too long. No, my police have brought me news of a divisive element which is growing within the city walls, and my place is there.’ He turned to Darian. ‘You will accompany me?’
‘Of course.’
Darian had agreed without hesitation, without even thinking about it for a moment, thought Lara sadly. But her sadness was for what might have been—for shouldn’t she be joyful that Darian had a place here, that Khalim needed him, wanted him beside him to face the adversities as well as enjoy the pleasures of being ruler?
Darian had changed, even in the short time they had been here. It was perfectly plain to see if you looked properly—though maybe up until this moment she hadn’t wanted to, or dared to.
Here in Maraban his presence seemed even more dominating than it had the first time she had seen him. He exuded an indefinable air that was much more than the power he had attained through his own successful career as a businessman. It was something which went deeper than that, and it was all to do with his royal blood. She had thought it when she had met him, and it was even more evident now. Maraban had released something in him, and in so doing it had bound him to the place for ever.
Darian belonged here, Lara recognised with a sinking heart. He did not need to wear the flowing robes of Khalim for anyone to be able to tell that at heart he was a true sheikh.
She had seen him discover a part of himself here which had