Had she shrugged it off as easily as he’d discarded his tailored black coat and handed it to the owner who was busy fawning all over him—or simply because of it? Because what lay beneath would blur the edges of any protest. A soft dove-grey knitted sweater lovingly skimmed a chest that could have been carved from stone. Nice, she thought, having to drag her eyes away in case they lingered too long, suddenly feeling warm. She unzipped her jacket, and peeled it from her arms, laying it on the chair next to her. The scarf at her neck came off next, tugged out from behind her neck and making her messy knot even messier as more ends worked free. She put a hand to her head, hoping it didn’t look as messy as it felt. And then she looked up and stilled when she saw him watching her, his expression deep and unfathomable, and she felt hot and bothered and confused and muddled all over again. ‘What’s wrong?’
Nothing was wrong. It was all going exactly the way he’d imagined it. Except she’d been the one to peel the jacket from her arms, not him. But just as he’d imagined, he liked what he saw underneath.
He liked it very much.
Her breasts filled the fitted scoop-neck top to perfection without overfilling—without under-filling, for that matter—and he ached to run his hand down the side of her while she lay naked next to him on his bed, down that delicious slope of ribcage to the sudden dip of waist and up the jut of hip to thigh. He longed to drink in her contours through the seeking palm of his hand.
As soon he would.
Their meals arrived and he raised his glass of sparkling water to her, managing a smile over the demanding pulse of need in his groin. ‘Nothing is wrong,’ he said, even liking the way that knot of hair behind her head was slowly unravelling, those ends floating free or dancing around her face and catching in the light as she moved her head. Bewitching. It would be no hardship spending the night with her.
Just one night.
It had been no selfless act to guarantee she’d stay out of harm’s way. He’d keep her so busy in his bed, she wouldn’t have time to make trouble. And then he’d wave her goodbye on her tour, turn his back and walk away. And if she chose to get into trouble again, if she chose to mess with Turkish law by taking home a souvenir or two, it wouldn’t be on his watch. She would be the tour guide’s problem then.
Perfect.
‘In fact,’ he added, pulling out a smile from his arsenal that he knew from experience women couldn’t resist, ‘I could not be happier with the way things are turning out.’
Ripples of warmth spread through her at his words, at the heat in his eyes and the slow, sexy smile that spoke of the pleasures of the flesh, reaching places and stirring sensations that made her muscles clamp under the table.
And she so wanted to be bold and brave and confident, like the Amber of old she’d promised herself she’d be, but she was breathless and dizzy and way out of her depth.
His smile grew wider, sexier. His eyes grew dark and burned with intent. ‘All I hope,’ he added, ‘is that you have a good appetite.’
He wasn’t talking about lunch. She swallowed. It was disarming. Unnerving. Because she wasn’t out of her depth at all. She was drowning in the shallows. Merely trying to hold a conversation with this man was like being tossed by a wave and having to fight foam and sand and salt to work out which way was up and grab a lungful of air for an instant of respite before the next wave rolled her over again.
‘I’m famished,’ she managed on a whisper, and suddenly she wasn’t talking about lunch either.
He gestured towards her plate. ‘Please, eat. Enjoy.’
His invitation was a welcome respite, except she’d chosen too much, she realised, for the meal before her was enormous. A glossy red capsicum stuffed fat with meat and rice nestled alongside chicken with okra and a fluffy mountain of white rice on the side. It looked amazing. It smelt amazing. And even though she would have quite happily forgotten all about her meal if he’d suggested they leave and satisfy a different and more demanding hunger, it was a very welcome second best.
As it was, she put a forkful of the rich meat and rice to her lips and closed her eyes as the flavours exploded on her tongue and was in heaven.
‘Good?’ he asked, and she opened them to see him watching her, his eyes spiced with heat, reminding her all over again of that moment when their eyes had connected and held in the Spice Market.
‘Better than good,’ she said, feeling suddenly self-conscious. ‘Was it that obvious?’
‘Don’t be embarrassed. I like the way you enjoy what you eat. I like what it says about you.’
Her throat went dry. She took a sip of water, relishing the cool slide of it down her throat, while his eyes didn’t leave hers, before asking the question uppermost in her mind. ‘What does it say about me?’
‘That you are a passionate woman. That you take pleasure in the senses and are not afraid to show it. I like that.’
Sensation careened down her spine. Nobody had ever talked to her as this man talked. Nobody had ever told her that she was a passionate woman. Not even Cameron—thinking back, she wasn’t sure passionate was a word he’d possessed in his vocabulary.
But while she was unschooled in knowing how to respond, she knew exactly what the man opposite was doing. He was seducing her, as good as stroking her body with his words, stoking her need with every loaded syllable. ‘Who are you?’ she said, putting her fork down, thinking the only way she could keep herself anywhere near the surface and oxygen in this mad, tumbling sea was to stop being on the defensive and to try to establish a foothold on the conversation.
‘I have told you my name.’
She nodded. ‘That may indeed be true, but I don’t think it answers my question. Because, you see, you have me at a disadvantage. You heard all my details during that police interview. You know where I live, you know my date of birth, you know everything about me. And yet I know nothing about you.’
‘Everything?’ His eyes flicked over her, lazy, almost insolent. ‘I am sure there are secrets still to be discovered.’
‘Stop doing that.’
‘What?’
‘Stroking me with your words.’
Across the table, he smiled. ‘Cats and women. I thought they were both made to be stroked.’
She kicked up her chin and smiled back. ‘True. Cats, like women, like to be stroked when it suits them, but when they’ve had enough, the claws come out.’
She’d been expecting another one of his quick comebacks. What she wasn’t expecting was laughter. A deep rich laugh that caught her unawares and shifted the boundaries of the box she’d put him in.
Arrogant and powerful and darkly magnificent, this was a man who could shrug off her arguments and pull her defences apart and set her blood to simmering, all with just a few well-chosen words or a glance from the heated furnace glowing behind his eyes.
There’d been no place for laughter in that picture.
But now there was laughter.
And she liked it.
She
