shooting down her spine and made her go back for more. Her heart raced and her body quivered against the hard, masculine promise of his. He pried her lips apart for the erotic plunge of his tongue. Her tummy flipped with sheer excitement. She could not withstand her need to touch him. Her hands slid beneath his jacket to trace the warm, hard contours of his powerful chest beneath the fine shirt.
Rashad raised his head, luxuriant ebony lashes lifting to frame golden eyes alight with hunger. He eased her dress off her narrow shoulders and let it slide down to her feet in a heap. She was startled, for she had not realised that he had already unzipped the garment. Suddenly feeling very exposed in her flimsy bra and briefs, she wrapped her arms round herself.
‘Don’t embarrass me by acting as though you are shy,’ Rashad derided, long brown fingers enclosing her wrists to uncross her arms again. Such pretence from her hit the rawest of nerves and his annoyance with her was intense. ‘I hate anything false. Fake modesty leaves me cold. Why would I even want you to be a virgin?’
Tilda jerked back from him in a defensive movement.
Why would I even want you to be a virgin? That scornful demand faded the pink from her cheeks. He recognised the hollow light in her clear eyes and, disturbed by that awareness, he reached for her again, determined to break through her resistance.
‘Did you think that pretence is what I want from you?’ Rashad demanded in a roughened undertone. ‘It was not my intention to cause you pain. But this time I want only what is real from you.’
Tilda was shaken that he had noticed that he had hurt her feelings, because she had believed she was better at hiding her feelings. He framed her face with his lean hands and took her mouth with ravishing sweetness and spellbinding sensuality. She stopped thinking and let her response take over. He curved her slender, unresisting body to his, drinking in the scent of her creamy white skin and the telling unsteadiness of her breathing. Lifting her onto the bed, he stood back to discard his tie and unbutton his shirt.
Her limbs felt heavy where they lay on the crimson silk spread and there was a liquid heat burning low in her belly. She could not take her eyes off the light golden slice of male torso he had revealed: muscle rippled across the solid wall of his chest as he took off the shirt, and black whorls of hair dusted his pectorals and arrowed down in a silken furrow across the flat slab of his stomach. Her mouth ran dry.
Rashad surveyed her with smouldering appreciation and the mattress gave under his weight. Tilda rolled away. Rashad laughed and hauled her back to him with easy strength. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her thickly, tasting her luscious mouth again, dipping his tongue between her parted lips with a dark sensuality that left her trembling. ‘You want me, too.’
She shut her eyes for fear that he could read that truth there. The tiny moments when he wasn’t touching her were already a torment. Like a doll, she was incapable of independent action and it was the very strength of her desire for him that kept her trapped. He pressed his hard, sensual mouth against the tiny pulse going crazy below her collar-bone and she gasped and arched her narrow spine. He pulled her back against him to unclasp her bra. A groan of male satisfaction sounded in his throat when her small, high breasts tumbled free. He teased the swollen pink peaks with skilful fingers, before he bent over her and used his mouth to toy with the straining buds. Every bitter-sweet sensation darted straight as an arrow to the hot damp pulse between her thighs and increased the ache there.
‘Rashad … oh, please …’
Rashad looked down at her with heavily lidded eyes, lashes so long they almost hit his superb cheekbones. Somewhere outside he heard the sharp crack of rifles releasing a hail of bullets and he frowned.
‘What’s that?’ she mumbled breathlessly, her fingers delving into the luxuriant depths of his black hair.
‘Someone has probably got married and the guards are showing their appreciation.’ Although that was the most likely explanation, Rashad was tense as only a former soldier could be in such circumstances. Then he heard the drone of aircraft. As he leapt off the bed and snatched up his shirt a jet flew overhead. Barely twenty seconds later, he heard the heavy whop-whop of more than one helicopter approaching.
‘Rashad? What’s happening?’ Tilda prompted apprehensively.
‘Get dressed.’ An urgent knocking sounded on the door. The noise was almost drowned out by the ear-splitting whine of another jet flashing over the palace.
Rashad answered the door.
‘Please forgive the intrusion, Your Royal Highness,’ a senior manservant delivered anxiously, ‘but I have been asked to inform you that the Prime Minister is about to arrive. He most humbly requests an audience with you.’
Every scrap of colour in Rashad’s lean, strong face ebbed. He turned the colour of burnt ashes, because he could only think that something had happened to his father. For what other reason would the Prime Minister come to see him without having organised the visit in advance?
‘Rashad?’ Tilda pressed worriedly.
Rashad looked through her as if she had suddenly become invisible. At speed he donned his tie and jacket. ‘Do not on any account leave this room, or speak to anyone, until I return.’
CHAPTER SIX
RASHAD had only got as far as the landing when he recalled his mobile phone, which he had switched off, and he immediately put it on again. He cursed the selfish streak of recklessness that had caused him to ignore the phone’s demands barely thirty minutes earlier. Almost immediately, the ringtone sounded again and he answered it. Informed that his royal parent was waiting to speak to him, he was bewildered.
‘My son,’ King Hazar boomed on the line as if he were addressing a packed audience chamber, ‘I am overjoyed!’
‘You are in good health, my father?’ Rashad breathed in astonishment. ‘Of course.’
Rashad was still shaken by the fear that had seized him. ‘Then, why has the Prime Minister flown out to the desert to speak to me?’
‘The occasion of your marriage is of very great importance to us all.’
Rashad came to an abrupt halt at the head of the stone staircase. ‘My … marriage?’
‘Our people do not wish to be deprived of a state wedding.’
‘Who said that I was married, or even getting married?’ Rashad managed to ask in as level a voice as he could muster.
‘A journalist contacted your sister, Kalila, in London and showed her a photo taken at the airport. Kalila contacted me and e-mailed that picture of Tilda for us all to see. She is very beautiful and a magnificent surprise. I should have sat up and taken more notice the day I heard you were having the old palace refurbished!’
Rashad was thinking fast and realising that so many facts were already out in the family and public arena that he could not simply dismiss the story out of hand. He had been frankly appalled by the presence of the paparazzi at Heathrow—the rumours must have been flying around about his relationship with Tilda before he’d even got his jet off the ground in London! So much for discretion and privacy! He was even more taken aback by his father’s hearty enthusiasm at the news that his son had married a woman he had never met.
‘When you proclaimed that Tilda was your woman and required no visa, old Butrus almost had a heart attack
