scene in the film had been beautiful, but the love affair, like the Titanic, had been doomed from the first reel of the movie and, in an attempt to claw herself back to reality, she opened her eyes to find that the view had changed. That they were far from the shore.
Confused, she looked down to see a lacy ripple of white where the bow broke the surface of the water.
She stared down at it for a moment, trying to work out what was happening, then, as the water moving away from her made her giddy, she pitched forward, crying out, certain she was about to fall.
But Zahir’s hands were sure. He had her safe and, lifting her down, turned her so that she was facing him instead of the rush of water, drawing her close as she clung, shaking, to his shoulders, his arms around her as if he would never let her go while he murmured soft reassuring words against her hair, her temple.
She was still shaking, but not because she was afraid of falling. This wasn’t fear, this was something darker, more urgent, and, as she looked up, she knew he was going to kiss her.
Not the way he’d kissed her before. This was not like that sweet, sensuous, barely there kiss.
He’d held her as he’d danced with her.
This was something else. This wasn’t that light, floating touch as they’d slowly circled Berkeley Square. This was searingly close, a hungry, insistent need …
For the space of one, two, three heartbeats pounding in her ears, her head did its best to fight the seductive call to surrender, but by then her body had made a bid for independence and, overriding thought, reason, she was kissing him back.
No holds barred. No fooling. Minutes earlier she’d felt as if she were flying; this was the real thing.
Diana didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to carry her down to that stateroom and put that incredible bed to the purpose for which it had been designed.
Maybe he would have.
Maybe, like her, he was beyond reason and in another moment they would have been beyond recall. Instead they were shocked back to reality by a sharp shower of cold water.
She jerked back, gasping for breath.
Zahir, damn him, laughed. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, ignoring the water running down his face, instead wiping the spray from her cheeks with his thumbs.
‘All right?’ she demanded, her hair dripping down the back of her neck and trickling down inside her blouse. ‘What kind of dumb question is that?’
‘The “are you all right?” dumb question?’ he offered.
‘Fine!’ she said. Beyond the fact that she’d temporarily lost her mind. That it had taken the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to bring her to her senses. ‘I’m absolutely fine, if you overlook the fact that I appear to be at sea!’
‘Oh, that …’
‘Yes, that! Come and look at my new toy, you said. You didn’t say anything about putting to sea!’
‘Alan’s idea,’ he said. ‘But running away to sea suddenly has a lot to commend it.’
She refused to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate her.
‘I’m sorry if you had a fright. Are you very wet?’
‘Yes!’ she said crossly. Being jerked down from that kind of high would make anyone cross. Then, more truthfully, ‘No …’
‘Sure? You don’t want to stand around in wet clothes.’
How could she be sure of anything when she was standing this close to Zahir, her hands still clinging to his shoulders as if he were anchoring her to earth, his hands about her waist and everything in between … touching?
‘Any excuse to get me out of this uniform, huh?’
Yes, well, it was the obvious next move after that mind-blowing kiss. Especially when she was clutching at his shoulders so hard that she was screwing up the linen of his jacket.
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