will. I have immense patience.’
That quiet confidence took Faye wholly aback and froze her to the spot. ‘You’re crazy…’
A slight smile curved his lips. ‘You’re scared.’
‘Like heck I am…I’m just fed up with all this nonsense!’
The smile acquired amusement, veiled eyes resting on her slight, taut frame with an intimate intensity she could feel as surely as if he had touched her. ‘I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t sleep, not even after a couple of cold showers. I knew you were mine then.’
‘But you…you hate me!’ Faye slung back at him in vehement protest.
‘Hate? Too strong a word.’ Tariq strolled closer like a hunter set on closing in for the kill but doing so at his own leisure. ‘Is that why you look sick with fright? Is that fertile imagination of yours throwing up images of gothic whips and chains? Do you really think I would inflict a single bruise on that perfect skin of yours? You’ll cry out with pleasure, not pain, in my bed.’
Faye was so mortified by that assurance, she whirled away from him. It was a mistake. He closed his arms round her and turned her back to him. With one hand, he loosened the clasp at the nape of her neck and cast it aside. Gazing down at her with scorching golden eyes, he threaded long fingers through her long pale blonde hair and tugged her head back in a gentle motion.
‘Tariq—’
‘You want me.’ A lean hand pressed to the shallow indentation of her rigid spine and curved her into intimate contact with his long muscular thighs.
Suddenly it was a challenge to talk and breathe at the same time. She stared up at him, trying to hold herself rigid but awesomely conscious of the all-pervasive strength of his powerful physique. ‘No—’
‘You’re trembling—’
‘I’m cold!’ Faye scarcely knew what she was saying any more. That close to Tariq, her mind was a sea of confusion and her own physical reactions took over.
‘Cold?’ Tariq lowered his proud dark head, his breath fanning her cheek, the evocative timbre of his low-pitched drawl sentencing her to stillness. ‘Who are you trying to fool?’
Feeling weak as water, Faye mumbled, ‘Please…’
‘Please what?’ Tariq brought his wide sensual mouth within inches of hers and somehow made her lips part in invitation, her very breath catching in her throat, her slender length instinctively stretching up to his to get still closer. ‘Tell me, please, what?’
The scent of him enveloped her like a sneak invasion by an aphrodisiac. So familiar, so special, so…him. Her nostrils flared, head spinning on a released flood of sensuous recall from the past, heat forming in her pelvis, breasts lifting and swelling within the constriction of her cotton bra. It was as if her whole body were burning and melting from inside out, a blind sense of fevered anticipation enthralling her, pitching her high.
‘What?’ Tariq prompted soft and low, even his dark sexy voice sending a darting quiver of hot response through her.
‘Kiss me…’ The instant she actually yielded and formed the words, Tariq released his hold on her.
She staggered back on cotton-wool legs, ill-prepared for staying upright without his support. She blinked like a woman wakening from a disorientating dream.
‘As a people we prefer to keep intimacy behind closed doors,’ Tariq murmured smooth as silk. ‘This office is too public but there is no greater privacy available than that within the harem quarters at Muraaba.’
Faye pressed an unsteady hand against her tingling lips as if she might quiet the sheer craving which still held her taut. ‘Harem quarters—?’
‘To be a mistress in Jumar is no sinecure and no ticket to freedom or excess. To be my mistress is, above all, to be an invisible woman,’ Tariq said with a regretful sigh. ‘To live behind high walls and locked doors and centre your whole being and your every thought on the man in your life because he truly will be all that is in your life. Say goodbye to the world that you know for the foreseeable future.’
Faye was slower to recover from that near embrace than he had been. She had only just reached the point of dying a thousand deaths over the recollection of how she had swayed against him, reached up to him on tiptoes of yearning, begged for his kiss like a brainless programmed doll. He had made her want him. With effortless ease and within seconds. She was devastated by that discovery.
‘On the other hand, since an aversion to me would not appear to be a sticking point…’ Tariq surveyed her with the predatory gaze of a hawk ‘…you may well be inconsolable when I get tired of you.’
‘Harem…you think you’re going to put me in a harem?’ Faye parroted in a wobbly voice. ‘Are you out of your mind to suggest such a thing?’
Tariq lounged back against his polished desk. ‘Very much in it. Furthermore, since I cannot trust you, your brother will not walk free from his prison cell until you have moved in—’
‘Tariq—’
He made an unapologetic play of studying the slim gold watch on his wrist. ‘I’m afraid your time is up. Unfortunately, I have other people waiting to see me. A car will now convey you to my home—’
‘Now?’ Frowning in absolute disbelief, Faye just gaped at him.
‘Your hotel room was cleared within minutes of your departure from it. Having been informed that your brother may soon be released, your stepfather is already waiting at the prison. You will see neither of your relatives again until our arrangement comes to an end.’
Faye attempted to swallow but the lead weight of incredulity sat like a giant rock at the foot of her throat. ‘You’re not serious…you can’t be serious about any of this stuff—’
Tariq strode past her and opened the door for her departure. He gave her a lethal smile that tied a cold hard knot inside her. ‘How much of a gambler are you?’
Faye turned pale.
‘And how well do you think you ever knew me?’
CHAPTER THREE
FAYE saw a stone bench sited near the side entrance. From there, she could see the now familiar limousine waiting outside. To take her to the Muraaba palace? Or to the airport? Her choice, wasn’t it? Essentially, she was free as a bird. Sitting down, she tried to calm her seething thoughts.
How well do you think you ever knew me? A body-blow of a put-down from the male who had almost destroyed her. In spite of her attempts to suppress it, angry bitterness welled up inside Faye and she laced her trembling hands together. Was it her fault that her stepfather was a con artist? Her own mother had died penniless but for the roof over her head. Within weeks of Tariq’s defection, Adrian had decided their childhood home should also be sold.
‘OK, sis?’ It had been a rhetorical question.
Adrian had had no desire to hear that his sister’s heart had been breaking at the prospect of losing her home. Nor had he wanted to be reminded that she had hoped to set up a riding school
