She gave a small gasp of shock as she stared into the darkness to where Rashid was sitting beside the bed.
‘Rashid!’
Immediately she struggled to sit up, ignoring the dull nagging ache from her shoulder as she clutched the bedclothes to her body, her heart thudding furiously.
‘You weren’t supposed to be coming back yet! What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think I’m doing here?’ he answered her grimly. ‘I received a message to say that you had been involved in an accident and that there were grave concerns that you could be suffering from concussion. Naturally I caught the first flight back that I could.’
‘You didn’t need to do that.’ Petra protested. ‘I’m perfectly all right… apart from a stiff shoulder,’ she added ruefully.
Whilst she had been speaking Rashid had switched on the lamp at the side of her bed.
Petra sucked in her breath as she saw him properly for the first time. She had never seen him looking so formidably severe, harsh lines etched from his nose to his mouth, his expression wintry and bleak.
‘I’m sorry that you had to come back—’ she began.
‘What on earth were you thinking about?’ Rashid overrode her apology. ‘Is marriage to me really so unbearable that you prefer to throw yourself under the hooves of a horse and be trampled to death?’
Petra stared at him, stunned by the bleak bitterness in his voice.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested. ‘There was a child… I simply acted instinctively, as anyone would have done.’
His frown deepened.
‘I hadn’t heard about a child, only that there had nearly been a terrible tragedy and that you had insisted on leaving the hospital even though there was concern that you might not be well enough to do so.’
‘I have a bruised shoulder, that is all.’ Petra told, him making light of her injury. The truth was that she was far more interested in discovering why the thought of her being injured had brought him all the way home from London than in discussing her very minor bruises with him.
‘When I spoke to the hospital the doctor said that he was concerned there was a risk that you might experience concussion.’
‘You came back because of that?’ Petra was openly incredulous.
‘He warned you that you should not be on your own,’ Rashid told her grimly.
‘He admitted that the risk was minimal and that he was virtually one hundred per cent sure that I would be okay. And anyway I’m not on my own—the staff—’ Petra began.
‘Are not here to keep a proper watch over you,’ Rashid interrupted her. ‘But I am.’
As he spoke he moved, and Petra saw how tired he looked.
‘Rashid, I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Look, why don’t you go to bed and—’
‘I’m staying right here,’ he told her flatly.
Petra sighed. ‘I promise you, there is no need. If I hadn’t felt completely well I would not have come back to the villa.’
‘That’s fine. But, like I just said, until I’m convinced that you’re okay I’m staying here,’ Rashid reiterated.
Petra sighed again, hunching her uninjured shoulder defensively as she told him tiredly, ‘Have it your own way, Rashid, but honestly there’s no need for you to stay.’
As he reached out to switch off the light Rashid instructed her flatly, ‘Go back to sleep.’
Quietly Petra moved her head. She could hear Rashid breathing, but she couldn’t see him sitting in the chair beside her bed. And then, as she looked across the bed, she saw him.
He was lying on his back on the bed beside her fast asleep.
The moon was up and full, casting a soft silvery light through the gauzy curtains of her room. Propping herself up on one elbow, she studied Rashid’s sleeping form. Watching him sleep and seeing him so vulnerable sent a huge wave of tenderness aching through her.
At some stage he had unfastened the shirt he had been wearing and the white fabric was a pale blur against the darkness of his skin. There was evidence of his long day in the dark shadow bearding his jaw, and her muscles tensed a little in female response to such evidence of his maleness. Before she could stop herself she was reaching out to touch his jaw experimentally with her fingertips, and she felt her tenderness give way to sharply spiked desire.
As her fingers started to tremble she snatched them away, curling them into a fist and imprisoning them with her other hand. But, although she had managed to stop herself from touching him, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, her love-hungry gaze fastening greedily on his mouth, his throat, the exposed flesh of his torso.
Now it wasn’t just her fingers that were trembling, it was her whole body! She could feel the hot urgency of her own desire seeping into every nerve-ending—seeping, flowing, flooding through her until it swamped her completely.
Rashid! Tormentedly she mouthed his name, and then jumped back as he stirred in his sleep, his eyes starting to open.
By the time he had fully opened them she had retreated to her own side of the bed and was lying defensively still as she tried to feign sleep.
‘Petra?’ She heard the anxiety in his sleep-thickened voice as he leaned towards her. His hand touched her throat, checking her pulse, monitoring its frantic race.
‘Petra, wake up,’ he was commanding her.
‘Rashid, it’s all right—I do not have concussion,’ she told him briefly, guessing what he was thinking, turning her head to look at him and trying to shrug off his hand as she did so.
But suddenly he had gone completely still, his hand lying against her throat with heavy immobility. His gaze was fixed on her breasts, naked and exposed by her inadvertent negligence in failing to pull the covers up over her body.
She knew immediately and instinctively that he wanted her, and she knew just as instinctively that he would keep to the promise he had made her on the day of their wedding not to force himself on her.
All she needed to do was to reach for her covers and turn away from him. If that was what she wanted…
And if it wasn’t? Hardly daring to acknowledge what was going through her mind, Petra held his gaze. She could feel the longing and need curling through her, gaining force and power, filling her until her whole body felt like a highly tuned instrument of desire, openly aching for his touch. She could feel her breasts swell and lift, her nipples tighten and ache, her belly sink in slightly against the desire flooding her sex.
Lifting her hand, she curled her fingers around his forearm, slowly caressing it, her eyes wide open as she gazed up into his.
She could feel the open tremor of his body at her touch, see the way he was fighting to draw
