ears to it and then closing his mouth as she placed her hand against his jaw, moved her mouth back to his, her lips eagerly showing him what she wanted.
She felt him stiffen, heard his indrawn breath and held her own, suddenly sharply aware of his hesitation. But as she leaned against him, her body still trembling, but no longer out of any fear other than that he might leave her, she looked into his eyes and saw the fierce, predatory look of male hunger glittering there, and felt a sweetly powerful sense of female triumph.
She kissed him slowly, and then waited, whilst her glance slid longingly from his eyes to his mouth. Like someone in a dream she reached up and traced its shape with the tip of her finger, and caught her own bottom lip between her teeth as she felt—and saw—the shudder that rocked him.
‘This isn’t a good idea.’ She heard him groan as he lifted her hand from his mouth and pressed a fiercely sensual kiss in its palm. Now his glance was on her face—and not just her face, she recognised as her heart gave a series of heavy, excited thuds when it dropped to her body.
‘Why not?’ she whispered dangerously back to him.
‘Because,’ he told her thickly, ‘if I touch you now… here… like this…’
Petra quivered violently as his hand barely brushed against her breast and then returned to cup it gently, whilst even more tantalisingly his thumb rubbed slowly across her taut nipple.
‘Then,’ Blaize was continuing huskily, ‘I shall need to touch you again and again, and then I will have to…’
Her flesh was melting like ice cream covered in the sensuality and irresistibility of pure hot chocolate, Petra decided, and what Blaize was doing to her was making her long to have his hands… his body against her own body. Her naked body…
The small sound of longing she made was smothered by the heat of his kiss. The sound of their mutually charged breathing filled the room, and then, disconcertingly, Petra heard the mood-destroying clatter of the fax machine. Automatically she tensed, just as Blaize released her and then stepped back from her.
‘That should not have happened,’ she heard him saying tersely as he turned his back to her. ‘It isn’t part of our deal.’
Not part of their deal! Chagrin, discomfort, shame and angry humiliation—Petra felt them all in an icy shock wave that brought her back to reality.
Stiffly she headed for the fax machine, more to give herself something to do than because she was anxious to read its message. When she eventually managed to get her gaze to bring it into focus properly, through the turbulence of her thoughts, it turned out to be merely a flyer from a local tour company, highlighting one of their special offers.
As she focused on the wavering print, willing herself not to turn round and look at Blaize, she heard the door to her suite quietly open and then close again.
Even though she continued to focus on her fax message Petra knew just from the feel of the air around her that Blaize had left.
Some time… one day, maybe… she would be glad that this had happened, she told herself fiercely. She would be glad that they had been interrupted and that he had left her! One day. But not now!
CHAPTER FIVE
MISERABLY Petra pushed her uneaten breakfast away and focused determinedly on the brilliantly sunlit scene beyond the windows of the hotel’s breakfast room.
She had decided to eat here this morning rather than on her own in her room, primarily because she had hoped that the busyness of having other people around her would take her mind off the events of the previous evening—and Blaize.
Blaize! Every time she thought about him—which was far, far too often for her own peace of mind, she was swamped by opposing feelings of longing and angry self-contempt, plus a sense of bewilderment and disbelief that she could have ever got herself in such a situation. How could she possibly want him?
Petra frowned as she glanced from the informal breakfast dining area into the hotel foyer, which this morning seemed to be filled with far more uniformed and slightly on edge-looking members of staff than she could remember seeing there before.
The waiter had come to clear away her virtually untouched breakfast, and to spend time before going to meet her aunt Petra walked over to study the board outside a small private office, advertising the trips organised by the hotel. One in particular caught her eye, and she read the details of it a second and then a third time.
An escorted drive into the desert, plus an overnight stay at an exclusive oasis resort where it was possible to experience the wonder and majesty of the desert at first hand! The desert… Quickly, before she could change her mind, Petra went into the office, emerging ten minutes later having made herself a booking. A full night away from Blaize should surely give her time to assess the damage her physical reaction to him was having on her moral beliefs and get herself back in balance again—give her some ‘time out’.
As she walked towards the foyer a subtle voice whispered inside her head that there was an even more reckless and dangerous way of stopping a conflagration in its tracks: namely fighting fire with fire. But by using what? Her own sexual need to destroy itself? As in not just giving in to it but actively encouraging it, fanning it into an inferno that would turn and destroy itself?
There was just enough time for her to go to her suite and tidy up before meeting her aunt. Petra smiled at the nervous-looking group of uniformed staff hovering close to the private lift that went to the penthouse suite.
‘Everyone looks very busy today,’ she commented.
One of the uniformed men rolled his eyes and explained in a semi-hushed whisper. ‘There is a meeting upstairs of the hotel owners.’
The hotel owners. Petra’s heart did a nervous little shimmy. Did that mean that Rashid had returned? And if he had how long would it be before he sought her out?
‘Mmm… it smells heavenly,’ Petra acknowledged with a smile as she sniffed the golden nugget of frankincense her aunt was holding out to her. They were in the spice market, where her aunt had haggled determinedly and very professionally for some spices before picking up the frankincense and offering it to Petra to smell. A little wonderingly now, Petra studied the nugget in her hand.
There was something really awesome about standing here in the new millennium handling something which had been familiar to people from civilisations so ancient it was barely possible to comprehend the time that separated them. There was something about this land that did that to a person, Petra recognised as she handed the nugget back to the robed vendor, nodding her head in agreement as her aunt suggested a cooling glass of pressed fruit juice.
‘I have some good news for you.’
Petra saw that her aunt was beaming, as she handed Petra her drink.
‘Your grandfather is feeling much better and he has asked me to invite you to visit him this afternoon.’
Petra almost spilled her drink. Was it merely a coincidence that her grandfather should invite her to visit him at the same time as Sheikh Rashid had returned to Zuran? Her body stiffened defensively.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I… I have other plans.’ Petra was proud of the way she managed to keep her voice so calm and cool, even though she was unable
