was it about her that had this effect on him? Tariq wondered savagely. At no time in the whole of his life had he wanted to take hold of any woman and kiss her until the only words her lips could frame were his name and a plea for more.
Hold me…touch me…make me yours. Gwynneth could feel the words pounding through her veins with every thud of her heartbeat, filling her mind and her senses. So much so that she felt as though they were written into her flesh. Her angry pride fought with the liquid heat of her desire and was overwhelmed by it as it flooded over the rigid barriers trickling through every tiny hole it could find to reunite in a fast-flowing surge that took her across the no man’s land that was the space between them and into the heat zone of Tariq’s body. She could sense the command going from his brain to his muscles to lift his arms so that they could enfold her. And once they had…
There was a ringing sound inside her head. No, not inside her head. The noise was coming from the mobile Tariq was lifting to his ear as he turned away from her. Who was calling him? A woman? Something previously unknown and darkly dangerous ripped at her emotions.
‘Where are you? You were supposed to be at the marina ten minutes ago.’
‘I’ve been delayed,’ Tariq answered, looking briefly at Gwynneth and wondering how much she was being paid to spy on him as well as go to bed with him before he added coolly, ‘Chad will understand why when I explain.’
‘You’d better hope he does. Otherwise you’re going to be in big trouble. Get yourself down here, double-quick.’
There was no time for him to argue with Gwynneth. Nor to do anything else with her either. Like what? There wasn’t anything he wanted to do with her.
Liar, an inner voice goaded him as he opened the kitchen door. He ignored it as he paused to warn her, ‘Remember what I told you. When I get back I don’t want to find you here. If you are, you know what you can expect.’
CHAPTER FOUR
GWYNNETH tottered over to the table and sank down thankfully into one of the chairs. Her legs felt boneless, her heart was racing, her forehead was damp with sweat and her mouth was dry. Classic signs of fear—or sexual excitement.
What on earth was happening to her? A man—a stranger—a naked stranger—walked into her bedroom, and instead of screaming for help she went to bed with him. That same man accused her of being a prostitute and she still let herself be aroused by him. Let herself? Since when, in the whole of this nightmarish scenario, had what purported to be the thinking, reasoning part of her had any say in anything? Why hadn’t she insisted on him listening to her? Why hadn’t she made him understand just how wrong he was?
She would have to inform the young man who was trying to help her what had happened. Well, at least some of what had happened, she amended mentally. Why hadn’t she insisted on him, her co-owner, giving her his name? That way at least she would have had something concrete to pass on to the authorities. Was he the rightful owner of the apartment or was she?
She looked for her handbag. It was on the worktop. She found the card the young official had given her and tapped his phone number into her mobile.
He answered her call almost immediately. Introducing herself, she asked anxiously if he remembered their meeting, exhaling in relief when he assured her that he did. Quickly she told him what had happened.
‘You say this man claims that he too is the owner of the apartment?’ the young official questioned.
‘That’s what he said,’ Gwynneth confirmed unhappily.
‘We have no record as yet of anyone else lodging a claim against this apartment,’ he assured her.
‘So that means that I am in the clear to stay here, does it?’ Gwynneth pressed him.
‘Certainly,’ he agreed promptly. ‘We know that your apartment block is one of those involved in this unfortunate fraud, but as yet no one else has come forward to claim ownership of your particular apartment. However, as I explained to you, that does not mean another potential owner does not exist,’ he cautioned.
‘But until they actually present themselves to you and make a legal claim the apartment is notionally at least mine?’
‘You are certainly free to make use of it until such time as we have ascertained who in fact does own it,’ he corrected her gently.
Well, at least that meant that she didn’t have to give in to his bullying, Gwynneth reassured herself later, in an attempt to quell the anxiety that was causing her to feel so on edge.
He might believe he had the upper hand, with his threats to tell the police about her and have her deported, but he was the one who was going to look foolish when he was forced to accept the truth. And she was going to make sure that he did accept it, Gwynneth decided vigorously. No matter what it took. No way was any man going to be allowed to make the kind of assumptions about her he had made, without her defending herself from them.
It felt bittersweet now to look back on her waking moments this morning and her dread that he might have realised how new she was to everything they had shared, and that from that he might have thought that he was something—someone—special. Ridiculously, she had even begun her defence against that. How naïve she had been, believing that all she had to protect herself from was a choice between two fears: one, that she had inherited her father’s sexuality, the other that somehow or other in touching her flesh he had also touched her heart. She had thought then in her naïveté that nothing could be worse than being forced to defend herself with one of these two choices. But now she knew better.
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