whilst his hand smoothed its way down her back, coming to rest well below her waist, Petra acknowledged that she had perhaps been over-confident about her ability to control her body’s physical reaction to him.
He was a practised seducer, she told herself in her own defence. A man who had perfected his seduction technique on an unending stream of women…
‘Relax… We’re supposed to be lovers, remember…’
‘I am relaxed,’ Petra told him through gritted teeth.
‘No, you aren’t!’ he corrected her. ‘You’re petrified that I’m going to do something like this to you…’
As he finished speaking he slid his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck, gently tugging her head so that his lips could graze along her throat and then nibble tormentingly against her ear. Just the feel of his breath made her whole body quiver in shocked delight as his thumb tracked the betraying pulse beating increasingly fast at the base of her throat.
‘Have you any idea how very, very much I want you…?’
The throaty words he whispered against her mouth caused Petra’s eyes to widen—until she remembered that he was simply acting… playing the part she was paying him to play.
‘Shall I take you back to your room and show you how much? Remove the clothes from your delectable sexy body and stroke and kiss every inch of it before—’
Petra gasped as he reached for her hand and told her rawly, ‘Feel what you’re doing to me…’
She tried to pull free but it was too late. He was already placing her hand against his body, and she could feel the heavy thud of his heart against her palm.
‘Come closer to me,’ he said, drawing her deeper into his embrace, and then whispering, ‘Closer than that! So close that I can pretend I have you naked in my arms, your silky skin next to mine…’
Petra knew that the heat filling her could not be blamed on the lack of air in the room, but stubbornly she refused to acknowledge what was really causing both it and the shivery, achy, tight pangs of longing that were running riot inside her body, inciting a rebellion she was terrified she might not be able to control.
Somehow she managed to put enough distance between them, to raise her head and tell him huskily, ‘I want to leave.’
‘So soon? It’s only just gone midnight?’
Petra could feel her panic increasing. If he kept her here on the dance floor, holding her the way he was, for very much longer—It was all very well for her brain to know that he was simply acting, but her body seemed to be finding it almost impossible to differentiate between fact and fiction. It was responding to him as though… as though… she… actually wanted him!
‘It’s been a long day, and my aunt will probably be telephoning me early in the morning to update me on my grandfather’s condition!’
‘I thought you weren’t interested in his health.’
‘I’m not,’ Petra denied immediately. ‘It’s just…’
Blaize had released her now, and was standing in front of her searching her face with far too sharp a gaze. Instinctively Petra wanted to hide herself—and her feelings —from him—to protect herself from something, someone she was rapidly coming to realise might potentially offer a far more serious threat to her future happiness than she felt comfortable acknowledging.
Why was he affecting her like this? After all, he wasn’t the first male she had danced intimately closely with, or been kissed by; he was not even the first male who had caused her to want him! She might not as yet have had a lover, but she knew what it was to feel desire, to feel emotionally drawn to someone. She had gone through all the normal early teenage crushes on a variety of male icons, from popstars to football heroes, and she had even fancied herself in love a couple of times. But this was the first time she had been so powerfully and intimately aroused that she felt in fear of not being able to control those feelings!
‘It’s just what?’ Blaize prompted her, breaking into her anxious thoughts.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Petra replied, stubbornly shaking her head.
‘Very well, then. If you’re sure you want to leave, and you’re not just making an excuse to escape from my arms because you’re afraid that you might enjoy being there too much…’
Petra glared at him, outwardly angry but inwardly horrified by his insouciant comment. He was probably just testing her… teasing her, she reassured herself. After all, he couldn’t possible know what she was feeling… could he?
‘Oh, I could never do that,’ she told him firmly, giving him a carefully manufactured smile as she added sweetly, ‘After all, I’ve never liked crowds!’
She had expected her put-down to silence him, but instead he simply demanded softly, ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that the space within your arms is crowded with the women who have already been there,’ Petra answered him forthrightly.
However, instead of being abashed, Blaize simply shrugged and told her carelessly, ‘I am thirty-four years old. Naturally there have been… relationships…’
It was on the tip of Petra’s tongue to tell him that it wasn’t his ‘relationships’ she was referring to, but the other women whom she suspected had paraded in and out of his life—and his arms—in an unending and highly impermanent line. But instead she simply shook her head and started to walk away from him.
He caught up with her by the door, just as the doorman and his uniformed attendants sprang into action—almost as though they were royalty, Petra thought as she stepped onto the red carpet which led from the restaurant door to the pathway and the car park and canal.
‘I think I’d rather be driven back,’ Petra announced hurriedly. There was no way, in her present vulnerable mood, that she wanted to share the intimacy of a moonlit gondola ride back to her hotel with Blaize!
She had half expected him to talk her out of her decision, but instead he simply raised his hand to summon one of the waiting buggies.
Their silent return to the hotel was somehow more unnerving for Petra than even those moments on the dance floor. She couldn’t understand how it was that a man in Blaize’s position, who behaved as he did and who was after all being paid by her, could somehow manage to be so convincingly autocratic and superior!
Once inside the hotel, as he pressed the bell for the lift for her, Blaize told her firmly, ‘The more obviously we are seen in public together, the better. So tomorrow I suggest that we make arrangements to that end. There are several organised trips we could take together.’
‘Organised trips?’ Petra interrupted him, frowning. ‘But surely it won’t be enough for you to simply be seen with me by my fellow visitors? We need to be seen together by people who are known to Rashid.’
‘Zuran is a small place. I am sure that our… friendship… will soon come to his ears,’ Blaize replied as the lift arrived.
He stepped into it with her and pressed the button for her floor.
‘You don’t
