at all. You’ve done nothing wrong, Lina. On the contrary, it’s good seeing you enjoying yourself.’ He smiled down and watched as her expression grew dazzled.
Satisfaction, sweet, sharp and hot, spiked through him. A satisfaction he shouldn’t feel but couldn’t kill.
* * *
An hour after midnight, Lina leaned out over her balcony railing, staring beyond the capital to the vast starry sky. She inhaled the dry, slightly perfumed air of Halarq and felt a glow of excitement and happiness.
Sleep was beyond her. She felt like Cinderella after her ball. She’d attended a royal dinner party and instead of feeling out of place had met kind, interesting people. The conversation as much as the delicious food, the gold plate and crystal and the stunning setting made it a night to remember.
Especially when, before dinner, Sayid Badawi had stood beside her. In his robes, he’d been commanding yet urbane, charming yet with that tangible air of power. When his gleaming eyes rested on her she felt a quake of reaction like an earth tremor. At first she’d thought him angry, that she’d overstepped some rule of royal etiquette. But then he’d smiled...
Did he know how she came alive when he stood close? When he singled her out for conversation? How heat streaked through her, melting her, softening her body as if it ripened ready for his possession?
Perhaps he did for he hadn’t lingered. Instead he’d borne off the friendly American to discuss trade.
Lina turned back into her room, pausing to soak up the atmosphere. Still she wasn’t used to the suite’s luxury. From the massive marble bathroom with its collection of fragrant bath oils beside the sunken tub to the lavishly appointed bedroom and sitting room, everything was exquisite. There were crystal perfume bottles, exquisite hand-woven carpets so thick you sank into them, and vases of fragrant roses, a rare delight in a desert kingdom.
Yet she couldn’t settle. On impulse she marched to the dressing room where her belongings took up a tiny corner of the space. Quickly undressing, she put on her swimsuit and grabbed an oversized towel.
On one side her suite gave out onto a long, leafy courtyard that she hadn’t explored. She’d been too busy with her new role, and too addicted to long soaks in the huge bath, to venture far. But she’d glimpsed a swimming pool at the far end.
Lina stepped barefoot onto warm flagstones. As always, there was no sign of life from the other rooms surrounding this garden. She was the only guest.
The sweet scent of jasmine filled her nostrils. Faint luminescence came from the stars and a myriad of tiny lights twining through the shrubs.
Lina smiled. It was a private fairyland.
She stepped into a patch of darker shade. Just ahead the underwater lights of the pool broke the darkness. The soft aqua glow of the water beckoned enticingly. Lina was pulling pins from her hair, shaking the heavy tresses from her face, when a sound made her stop.
Splashing.
Not a fountain but the rhythmic slap of flesh cleaving through water.
Curious, Lina moved forward, peering between the shrubs. For a second she saw nothing but the ripple of light across the water. Then a dark head came into view, a long arm arcing out of the iridescent aqua and down again. Wide shoulders and a sinuous curve of spine. Another, tighter curve of flexing bare buttocks then long legs with a lazy kick that nevertheless propelled the tall body with enviable speed.
Lina sucked in a hiss of air, her hand belatedly slamming over her mouth to stop the sound. Dismayed, she stepped off the path, stumbling into a bush and snapping twigs.
There was only one person this could be. One person so at home in the palace that they’d swim here naked.
Only one person with those sublimely beautiful masculine proportions.
Somehow she’d blundered into Sayid Badawi’s private garden!
She’d known there’d been a mistake when she was installed in those elegant rooms. More than once she’d thought the corridor leading to her suite was familiar from that night years ago when she’d sat by the Emir’s bed. Till logic told her she imagined it. How could she remember one corridor from all those in this sprawling place?
Her heart hammered against her ribs and a chill skipped down her spine. She couldn’t let him find her here, invading his privacy.
Lina spun on her foot and stifled a gasp as something hard dug into her sole. She wasn’t on the path any more. Worse, her long hair snagged on the bushes. Tiny twigs grabbed, refusing to release her.
She breathed slowly, tamping down panic as she fought to free herself. She couldn’t hear splashing now, probably because her hammering pulse blotted out every other sound.
Finally, free of clinging plants, she got back on the path. She took a single step towards her rooms, then someone grabbed her upper arms and hauled her against a hard, dripping wet body.
‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Sayid’s voice was rough, every sense on alert.
He’d noticed movement in the shadows beyond the pool and instinct screamed a warning. Instinct that had, in the past, saved him more than once.
He’d swum to the end of the pool, vaulted out and prowled silently through the darkness to circle the silent watcher, approaching not from the lighted pool but the darkened garden.
A soft grunt of expelled air sounded as he hauled the intruder against him. An even softer body collided with his, a face against his chest, one smooth leg slipping against his.
What the—?
Swiftly he checked for weapons. Nothing. Just the extraordinary realisation that his intruder was female.
He peered down, making out the pale oval of an upturned face and a cascade of dark hair. Silky hair that draped over his chest and arm like a seductive blanket.
But it was the body against his that focused his thoughts. A curved, taut female body that seemed in the first instant of surprise to be unclothed. He moved a hand to her hip and found it covered in fabric that clung like a second skin. His fingers curved reflexively.
‘You can let me go.’ The voice, shaken but clear, came from near his collarbone.
Sayid identified that voice instantly. ‘Lina? What are you doing here?’
He’d spent the evening trying to wrench his thoughts from the sight and sound of her, vibrant and beautiful in that clinging dress. Eventually he’d decided to work off his restlessness with exercise, only to find her, impossibly, here, in his private domain.
He breathed deep and felt the press of lush breasts against him. She was no schoolgirl any more. This was a woman, her body seductively ripe.
His body knew it. With her plastered against him and her breath feathering his nakedness, a weighted tension gathered in his loins. A clamouring rush of testosterone quickened his blood.
It
