tourist strolling through Istanbul’s ancient marketplace, famed for selling spices and dried fruits and a thousand different kinds of tea. Just another wide-eyed tourist, even if she did come complete with blond hair and blue eyes and red jeans that hugged her curves like a second skin.
Not that he was interested.
It was mere curiosity that slowed his footsteps as she lifted her camera to take a photograph of a shop hung with glass lanterns of every imaginable design and colour; nothing more than curiosity that kept him watching as the stallholder took advantage of her stillness, holding out a plate of his best Turkish delight for her to sample. She took a faltering step backwards when she realised she hadn’t gone unnoticed, murmuring apologies and shaking her head, setting the messy knot of blond hair at the back of her head and its loose tendrils dancing, but the plate followed her retreat, the eyes of the seller joining in his entreaties for her to just have one tiny taste.
Kadar’s feet faltered at the stall opposite—it wasn’t his usual but he was curious, he told himself, and this shop would do—and ordered the dates he had come to buy for Mehmet, before looking over his shoulder to see whose will was stronger, the stallholder’s or the tourist’s. The vendor had her attention now, all the time smiling, a toothy smile in a crinkled face as warm as it was persuasive while he continued to engage her, plucking countries from the air as they did here, guessing where she was from—America? England?
As if knowing when she was beaten, the woman gave in, and said something he couldn’t make out, but the owner grinned and assured her exuberantly that the Turkish people loved Australians, as she plucked a piece from the plate before her and raised it to her lips.
A long way from home, he registered vaguely, his attention diverted as he handed over a large note in exchange for his dates and was asked to wait a few moments while someone fetched his change. He didn’t mind. It was no hardship waiting. The tourist had a mouth worth watching. Her lips were lush and wide and still wearing the shadow of a smile as she popped the sweet into her mouth. A moment later her smile was back in full force, her blue eyes wide with delight and, even surrounded by bright displays of every dried fruit imaginable, every sweetly scented tea and vat of brightly coloured fragrant spice, still she lit up the vaulted marketplace like a lantern.
He felt that smile in a kick of heat that stirred his loins and turned his thoughts primal.
It was a long time since he’d had a woman.
It was a while since he’d felt himself tempted.
He was tempted now.
His eyes scanned just long enough to be sure there was no hint of a partner lurking nearby, and no sticker on her jacket to indicate a tour group nearby ready to swallow her up and spirit her away.
She was alone.
He could have her if he wanted.
The knowledge came to him with the certainty of one who had rarely been turned down by a woman who was available, and after being propositioned by plenty who were not. It wasn’t arrogance. Call it history or call it experience, the percentages were in his favour, nothing more.
She was still smiling, her face animated. She was like a burst of sunshine and colour amidst a sea of black winter coats and dark headscarves and she was ready to buy, already reaching into her bag.
He could have her...
And that same unerring certainty that told him he could take her assured him that she would be worth the taking.
Oh yes, she would be worth it.
He could picture himself lazily peeling away the layers that covered her, one by one. Slowly unzipping and stripping away the leather jacket that lovingly hugged her breasts and moulded to her waist, before peeling away those shameless red jeans from her long legs. What layers remained would be similarly discarded until she was revealed, in all her fair-skinned splendour, and then he would unwind the honey-blond hair behind her head and let it tumble down over her shoulders to curl and whisper against breasts plumped and peaked and ripe for the taking.
Her mouth would taste sweet, like the Turkish delight that she’d sampled, and her blue eyes would be dark with heat and she would smile with moistened lips and reach for him...
He could see it all.
He could have it all, and it was all within his grasp...
Then, as if she was aware she was being watched—almost as if aware of what he was thinking—her eyes fell on him—eyes not just blue, he realised in that moment, but vividly so, almost the colour of lapis lazuli itself. As he watched they darkened, like stone heated over flame, almost as if she recognised him, almost as if she was responding.
She blinked once, and then again. He watched her smile slide away then, even as her eyes turned smoky with recognition as they kept that connection across the bustling marketplace.
Until the stallholder alongside her said something that snagged her attention and she blinked again, and this time turned away. A shake of her head and wave of her hand later, and she was practically fleeing from the market, leaving the disappointed vendor wondering how his in-the-bag sale had gone so wrong.
A tap on his own shoulder saw Kadar presented with his change and an apology for making him wait.
He accepted both the same way as he accepted her vanishing act.
Philosophically.
Because he wasn’t interested.
Not really.
After all, he did have plans to visit Mehmet.
Besides, he told himself again, with maybe just a pang of regret, he wasn’t looking for a woman. Especially not one who would flee like a startled rabbit.
He left the rabbits to the boys who liked to chase.
In his world, the women came to him.
* * *
What the hell had just happened?
Amber Jones stumbled blindly through the market, past shops with their displays of dried fruits and spices and all manner of bright and beautiful souvenirs, ignoring the calls and the banter from stallholders on either side as she passed. Because everything was fuzzy. Nothing was distinct or clear, the sights and sounds of the market that she’d found so fascinating just minutes ago now all a blur. All because she’d been blindsided by a man with golden skin and whose eyes had burned bright like a brazier at midnight.
A man who’d been watching her through those heated eyes.
It had been more than any niggling prickle of awareness—it had been a compulsion that had made her turn her head to catch him staring—and she’d felt the gaze from his dark eyes like a rush of heat—a darkly heated wave that had sent a ripple of promise down her spine and collected in a hot swirling pool deep down in her belly.
Why had he been watching her?
And why had she seen sex in the dark depths of his eyes?
Hot sex.
Jet lag, she thought, searching for logic to lend explanation
