is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence
Lynne Graham

Pregnant Brides

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

HIS royal highness, Prince Jasim bin Hamid al Rais, frowned when his aide told him that his brother’s wife was waiting to see him. ‘You should have told me that the Princess was here. My family always have first call on my time,’ he admonished.

Jasim was renowned in financial circles for the astute speed and strategy he utilised in the pursuit of profit in the Rais international business empire, and his employees had a healthy respect for their chairman. He was a tough employer who set high standards and accepted nothing less than excellence. His natural survival skills were honed to a fine cutting edge by a challenging family and palace politics. He was a tall, powerfully built man in his early thirties and he was possessed of a degree of dark, devastating good looks and potent masculinity that women found irresistible.

His French-born sister-in-law, Yaminah, was a small, rather homely brunette with a strained set to her rounded face that warned him that she was struggling to control her emotions. Jasim greeted the older woman with warmth and concern. To see her he was keeping a government minister waiting, but his smooth sophistication was more than equal to the task of hiding that fact and he ordered refreshments and asked her to sit down as if time were of no object.

‘Are you comfortable at Woodrow Court?’ His elder brother, Crown Prince Murad, and his family were currently using Jasim’s country house in Kent while they had a brand new English property built to order nearby.

‘Oh, yes. It’s a wonderful house and we are being very well looked after,’ Yaminah rushed to assure him. ‘But we never meant to put you out of your own home, Jasim. Won’t you come down this weekend?’

‘Of course, if you would like me to but, believe me, I am very comfortable in my town house. It is not a sacrifice to stay in the city,’ Jasim responded. ‘But that is not why you are here to see me, is it? I believe something may be troubling you?’

Yaminah compressed her lips, her anxious brown gaze suddenly flooding with tears. With an exclamation of embarrassment and a choked apology, she drew out a tissue and mopped at her overflowing eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be bothering you with this, Jasim—’

Jasim sat down in the sofa opposite her in an effort to make the older woman feel more at ease. ‘You have never bothered me in your life,’ he reproved her. ‘Why are you worrying about such a thing?’

Yaminah breathed in slow and deep. ‘It’s…it’s our nanny.’

His dark brows drew together in a satiric quirk that questioned her tragic tone of voice. ‘If the nanny my staff engaged to take care of my niece is not to your liking, sack her.’

‘If only it were so simple…’Yaminah sighed, shredding the tissue between her restless hands and staring down at it. ‘She is an excellent nanny and Zahrah is very fond of her. I’m afraid that the problem is…Murad.’

Jasim immediately became very still. His self-discipline was absolute and his lean, strong face betrayed nothing of his exasperation. His brother had always been a womaniser and his lifestyle had got him into trouble more than once. Such a weakness was a dangerous flaw in the future ruler of a small oil-rich and very conservative country like Quaram. Even worse, if Murad was targeting a member of his household right beneath his loyal and loving wife’s nose his behaviour had reached a new inexcusable low in his brother’s opinion.

‘I cannot sack the girl. It would infuriate Murad if I was to interfere. At present I believe it is only a flirtation but she is a very beautiful girl, Jasim,’ his sister-in-law murmured shakily. ‘If she leaves our employ it will only drive the affair out into the open and, you know, Murad really cannot afford to be involved in another scandal.’

‘I agree. The King has no patience left with him.’ His handsome mouth settling into a grim line, Jasim wondered in angry frustration if his parent’s weak heart would even withstand the stress of another upsetting outbreak of bad publicity and scurrilous gossip about his firstborn’s morals. Would his elder brother ever learn sense and restraint? Why could he never put the needs of his family first? The older man seemed unable to withstand temptation and, this time around, Jasim felt unnervingly responsible. After all, his people had hired the wretched nanny! Why hadn’t it occurred to him to order an embargo on appointing a young and beautiful woman?

His brother’s wife studied him anxiously. ‘Will you help me, Jasim?’

Jasim dealt her a wry look. ‘Murad will not accept advice from me.’

‘He is too stubborn to take advice from anyone, but you could help me,’ Yaminah told him urgently.

Jasim frowned, believing that she overestimated his influence with his brother. Murad had not been the heir to the throne of Quaram for over fifty years without acquiring a healthy sense of his own importance. While Jasim was very fond of the older man, he knew his brother was equally fond of getting his own way, even if doing so meant trampling on other people. ‘In what way might I help?’

Yaminah worried at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘If you were prepared to show an interest in her yourself, the problem would disappear,’ she declared in a sudden burst of enthusiasm. ‘You’re young and single and Murad is middle-aged and married. There can be no comparison and the girl is certain to turn her attention to you instead—’

Distaste at such a suggestion slivering through his lean, well-built frame and cooling his eyes to the darkness of a wintry night, Jasim raised his hands in a gesture that urged restraint and calm. ‘Yaminah, please be sensible—’

‘I am being sensible. Furthermore, if Murad thought you had a fancy for the girl, I’m convinced that he would step back,’ Yaminah asserted doggedly. ‘He has often said how much he wishes you would meet a woman—’

‘But not one on whom he has set his heart,’ Jasim was moved to insert drily.

‘No, you are wrong. Since that…er…unpleasant business with that Englishwoman you were with a few years ago, Murad has been sincerely troubled by the fact that you are still unmarried. He mentioned it only yesterday, and if he believed that you were interested in Elinor Tempest he would leave her alone!’ the older woman forecast with a vehemence that betrayed how desperate she was to win him round to her state of thinking.

His lean, strong face clenching, Jasim was tense. Indeed his bronzed skin had paled across his hard cheekbones, for the episode in his life that she was referring to was one he preferred not to recall. When the tabloid press had exposed the sleazy past of the woman he had planned to marry three years earlier, Jasim had experienced a degree of rage and humiliation over his own lack of judgement that he was in no way eager to recall. Ever since he had remained resolutely single and he now chose women only to warm his bed and entertain him. Lower expectations had led to much greater satisfaction, he acknowledged inwardly.

Although he had immediately discounted Yaminah’s dramatic request for his assistance, however, he remained troubled enough by her visit to want more information about the woman who was the cause of her distress. He instructed his aide to check out the nanny by questioning the staff who had hired her. The initial facts he received later that same morning were disturbing enough to fix his ebony brows into a brooding frown. He studied the small photo of Elinor Tempest: she had long hair that was a particularly vibrant shade of red, a creamy English rose complexion and exotic green eyes. Certainly, even though Jasim had never found that strange colour of hair attractive, his brother’s nanny was at the very least unusual and strikingly pretty.

Worryingly, however, Elinor Tempest had not won an interview for her job by appearing on the select list of trusted nannies advanced by the employment agency engaged for the purpose. Indeed, it was unlikely that the girl would ever have made it on her own merits as she was only twenty years old and had had little work experience. Evidently, Murad had personally put forward the girl’s name and insisted that she be interviewed. That startling fact put his brother’s relationship with the young woman onto an altogether more questionable level. Jasim was taken aback and angered by what he was finding out. How could Murad set up such a situation beneath his own roof? And what sort of young woman accepted a position from a libidinous married man and encouraged his advances? Was Yaminah wrong? Was Murad already sexually involved with his daughter’s nanny?

Repugnance engulfed Jasim. His strong principles revolted against such a sordid association in the vicinity of his innocent sister-in-law and niece. He had already learnt to his own cost that the royal status and oil wealth of the Rais family made both him and his brother targets for the most unscrupulous gold-diggers, eager to use their guile and their seductive bodies to enrich themselves. Murad had already suffered several blackmail attempts that had required police intervention. Yet, once again, his brother was recklessly running the risk of an explosive scandal, whose aftershocks would reverberate all the way home to Quaram and rock the very foundation of the monarchy.

There and then, Jasim reached a cool and snappy decision. When a crisis arose he liked to deal with it quickly. His firmly modelled lips compressed, he lifted his dark imperious head high. He would spend the weekend at Woodrow Court and size up the situation. One way or another, he would rid Yaminah’s household of this calculating little slut who was threatening everything that he held dear…

‘My word, what came over you?’ As Louise took in Elinor’s fashionable appearance her pale blue eyes rounded with surprise below her brown fringe. ‘You usually dress like somebody’s granny!’

Elinor winced at that blunt condemnation, her bright green eyes veiling. She supposed her lifelong reluctance to be bold in the fashion stakes dated back to her father’s poisonous attacks on any garment that outlined her curves or showed her knees. A university professor and an unrepentant intellectual snob, Ernest Tempest had always been a ferociously critical parent to his only child. Only now that she was living away from home was Elinor able to spread her wings and relax, but she was the first to admit that, but for the encouragement of a shrewd and attentive saleswoman, she would not even have dared to try on the garment, never mind buy it.

Elinor strove to recall the mirror reflection that had reassured her earlier that evening. The dress’s neat fit had seemed to emphasise her willowy curves but it did display a generous length of her shapely legs. Beneath her companion’s critical gaze, Elinor raised an uncertain hand to its glittering beaded neckline. ‘I just fell in love with it.’

Louise rolled her eyes and said drily, ‘Well, you can certainly afford to lash out in the fashion stakes these days. How is life in the royal family of Quaram? You must be stacking up the cash in an offshore account by now.’

‘You must be joking,’ Elinor hastened to declare. ‘And it isn’t money for jam. I do work extremely long hours—’

‘Nonsense! You’ve only the one kid to look after and she’s at nursery school,’ Louise protested as she thrust a tumbler full of liquid into Elinor’s hand. ‘Drink up! You’re not allowed to be a party-pooper at your own twenty-first birthday bash!’

Elinor sipped at the sickly sweet concoction even though it wasn’t to her taste. She didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with hot-tempered Louise, who was quick to see any form of alcoholic sobriety as a personal challenge. Both women had trained as nannies at the same college and remained friends afterwards, but Elinor was uneasily aware of the undertones in the atmosphere. It had taken months for Louise to find a decent job and she had very much resented Elinor’s good fortune in the same field.

‘How is work?’ Louise prompted.

‘The prince and his wife often go abroad or spend weekends in London and I’m left in full charge of Zahrah at Woodrow, so time off—or the lack of it—is a problem. In fact sometimes I feel more like her mother than her nanny,’ Elinor confided ruefully. ‘I attend everything on her behalf…even the events at her school.’

‘There’s got to be some drawback to all that lovely cash you’re earning!’ Louise commented tartly.

‘Nothing’s ever perfect.’ Elinor shrugged with the easy tolerance of someone accustomed to an imperfect world. ‘The rest of the staff are from Quaram and speak their own language, so it’s quite a lonely household to live in as well. Shall we get going? Our transport awaits us.’

When Prince Murad had realised it was her birthday, he had presented Elinor with free vouchers for an upmarket London nightclub and had insisted that she make use of a chauffeur-driven limousine to travel into London. The same vehicle would also waft her home at the end of the evening.

‘A twenty-first birthday only comes once in a lifetime,’ Zahrah’s father had pointed out cheerfully. ‘Make the most of being young. Time moves cruelly fast. On my twenty-first, my father took me hawking in the desert and instructed me on what I should never forget when I became King in his place.’ A wry expression had crossed the older man’s visage. ‘It did not occur to me then that thirty years on I would still be waiting in the wings. Not that I would have it any other way, of course; my honoured father is a very wise ruler and any man would struggle to follow his example.’

Prince Murad was a benevolent man, Elinor acknowledged reflectively. She admired the older man’s strong sense of the family values of love, trust and loyalty. After her mother’s death when she was ten years old, Elinor’s upbringing had conspicuously lacked such sterling qualities and she was still feeling the pain of that loss. If only her own father had had an ounce of the prince’s warm and kindly nature!

While Louise squealed with delight at first sight of the luxurious limousine, Elinor was thinking instead about her father’s lifelong lack of interest in her. No matter how hard she had studied, her exam grades had never been good enough to please him. He had often told her that he was ashamed of her stupidity and that she was a severe disappointment to him. Her decision to become a nanny had outraged him and he had called her ‘A glorified nursemaid, nothing better than a servant!’ The dark shadows of those unhappy years had for ever marked her and she often felt as if she had no family at all. After all, her father had remarried without inviting her to his wedding and seemed to prefer to act as if he were childless.

‘I was reading an article about Prince Murad in a magazine,’ Louise remarked. ‘There were hints that he has quite an eye for the ladies and that he’s had affairs on the side. Watch your step with the old boy!’

Elinor frowned. ‘Oh, he’s definitely not like that with me—he’s more sort of fatherly—’

‘Don’t be so naïve. Ninety-nine per cent of middle-aged men are lechers with young attractive women,’ Louise derided with a scornful smile. ‘And if you remind him of your mother…’

‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ Elinor interrupted in some amusement. ‘Mum was small, blonde and blue-eyed and I don’t look one bit like her.’

‘Whatever.’ Louise shrugged. ‘But if you didn’t remind him of your mother, why the heck did he offer you—a total stranger—the job of taking care of his precious daughter?’

‘It wasn’t quite as easy as you make it sound,’ Elinor fielded uncomfortably. ‘The prince put my name forward, but I went through the same recruitment process as everybody else that applied. He said he wanted to help me out because my mother once meant something to him. He also thought I’d be young enough to appeal to his daughter as a companion. And don’t forget that his wife only speaks Arabic and French, so my fluent French comes in very useful. I agree that getting the job was an extraordinary piece of good luck for me but there was nothing more sinister to it.’

Louise was still staring stonily at the younger woman. ‘But would you sleep with him—if he asked you?’

‘No, of course I wouldn’t! For goodness’ sake, he’s almost as old as my dad!’ Elinor objected with a shiver of distaste.

‘Now if it was his brother, Prince Jasim, you wouldn’t be shivering,’ Louise quipped. ‘There was a picture of him in the same article. He’s sex on legs: over six foot tall, single and movie-star handsome.’

‘Is he? I haven’t met him.’ Elinor turned her head away to look out of the limo at the well-lit city streets. Louise’s persistence and murky insinuations had annoyed her. Why were people always so willing to think the worst? Elinor would not have dreamt of working for Prince Murad and his wife if there had been anything questionable in the older man’s attitude towards her. Anyway, an unfortunate incident during her months of previous work experience had made Elinor very wary of flirtatious male employers.

‘A shame that the brother who’s going to be King one day should be short, balding and portly,’ Louise commented snidely. ‘Although plenty of women wouldn’t let that get in the way of their ambition.’

‘The fact that he’s married would be enough to deter me,’ Elinor replied very drily.

‘It’s got to be a shaky marriage though, with only a little girl to show for all those years he’s been with his wife,’ Louise insisted. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t divorced her when there’s no male heir for the next generation—’

‘But there is an heir—the prince’s younger brother,’ Elinor pointed out.

‘He has to be the real catch in the family, then.’ A calculating glint shone in Louise’s gaze. ‘But after three months you still haven’t met him, even though you’re living in his house with his relatives, so that’s not too promising.’

Elinor didn’t waste her breath pointing out that falling in love with an Arab prince hadn’t done her late mother, Rose, any favours. Rose had met Murad at university and they had fallen head over heels in love. Elinor still had the engagement ring that Murad had given her mother. The young couple’s happiness had proved short-lived, however, because Murad had been threatened with disinheritance and exile if he married a foreigner. He had eventually returned to Quaram to act the dutiful son and do as he was told, while Rose had ended up marrying Ernest Tempest on the rebound. The marriage of two such ill-matched people had proved deeply unhappy.

‘You haven’t got any foreign travel out of the job either,’ Louise reminded her sourly. ‘At least I got ten days out in Cyprus with my family.’

‘I’m not that fussed about travelling,’ Elinor heard herself lie, her irritation at her companion’s snide remarks and put-downs strong enough to make her wonder why she had bothered to maintain such a one-sided friendship.

In the exclusive club they were treated to free drinks on the strength of Prince Murad’s vouchers, which was just as well as they could never have afforded to pay the high bar prices. Elinor reminded herself that it was her birthday and tried to shake off the sense of disappointment that had dogged her all week.

Her job was a lonely one and she often craved adult company; she knew that she needed to make the most out of a rare night out. Although she had the use of a car, Woodrow Court was deep in the Kentish countryside and within easy reach of few attractions beyond a small town. Zahrah’s parents travelled a great deal and preferred to leave their daughter at home rather than disrupt her schooling. As a result, Elinor had found her own freedom severely curtailed, as when her employers were absent they expected their nanny to be in constant attendance on their child. Elinor was travelling back to Woodrow Court in a limo later because leaving her charge in the care of the household staff overnight was not an option the prince was willing to allow. Even so, after being exposed to Louise’s bitter comments, Elinor was no longer feeling deprived by the fact that she had been denied the chance of a girlie sleepover.

‘You’re already getting the eye,’ Louise sighed enviously.

Elinor tensed and refused to look in the same direction. She found socialising with the opposite sex a challenging and often humiliating experience. She was unusually tall and made six feet even in modest heels. Guys happy to chat her up while she was sitting down wanted to run once she unfurled her giraffe-long legs and stood up to tower over them. Men, she had learnt from her awkward adolescent years when she was frequently a wallflower, preferred small dainty women at whom they could look down and feel tall beside. She knew she had an attractive face and a good figure, but neither counted for anything against her ungainly height. While men noticed her, they rarely approached her.

Some hours later she said goodbye to Louise, who had picked up an admirer. Elinor, on the other hand, had experienced a particularly painful evening when a young man had come up to her table to ask her to join him and then snarled, ‘Forget it!’ the instant she’d got up and he’d realised in horror that he barely reached her shoulder. He and his mates had heckled her and sniggered for what remained of the night as if she were a freak at a sideshow. As a result, she had had a little too much to drink to power the nonchalant expression she’d been forced to put on to conceal her misery.

She heaved a deep-felt sigh of relief when the limo turned down the long, winding, tree-lined drive to Woodrow Court. It passed between the towers of the imposing arched gatehouse entrance into a gravelled courtyard that stretched the length of the magnificent Tudor house. It struck her that there were more lights burning than usual. She climbed out and the cool evening air went to her head as much as the alcohol had earlier. She sucked in a sustaining breath in an effort to clear her swimming head and struggled to negotiate a straight path to the front door that was already opening for her.

Her steps weaved around a little as she crossed the echoing hall. A man was emerging from the library and her attention locked straight on to him. He was a stranger and so absolutely beautiful that one glance deprived her of oxygen and brain power. She came to a wobbly halt to stare. Black hair was swept back from his brow, bronzed skin stretched taut over his high slashing cheekbones, arrogant nose and aggressive jaw line. There was something uniquely compelling about his lean, arrestingly handsome features. He had gorgeous eyes, dark, deep set and bold, and when he stepped below the overhead chandelier they burned a pure hot gold. Her heart started to hammer as if she were sprinting.

Jasim was not in a good mood. He had not been amused when he’d arrived for the weekend only to discover that his brother and sister-in-law and even his quarry were all out and unavailable, making his presence as an interested onlooker somewhat superfluous. ‘Miss Tempest?’

‘Er…yes?’ Elinor reached out a trembling hand to brace herself on the carved pedestal at the foot of the massive wooden staircase. He had a gorgeous face that inexplicably continued to draw her attention like a powerful magnet. She just wanted to stare and stare. ‘Sorry, you…are?’

‘Prince Murad’s brother, Jasim,’ he breathed, surveying her with forbidding cool, in spite of the powerfully masculine interest she fired in him.

He immediately wanted to know if she looked at his brother in the same awestruck way. Any man might be flattered by a woman looking at him with a wonder more worthy of a supernatural being. In the flesh, Elinor Tempest was, he already appreciated, a much more dangerous entity than he had ever imagined she might be. In a dress that hugged the sensual swell of her breasts and revealed her incredibly long legs, she was out-and-out stunning. Hair that had looked garishly bright in the photo was, in reality, a rich dark auburn and a crowning glory that hung in a luxuriant curling tangle halfway down her back. Only the finest emeralds could have equalled the amazing green of her eyes. With that spectacular hair, those wide eyes and a lush pink mouth set against flawless creamy skin, she was literally the stuff of male fantasy. It was a challenging instant before Jasim, universally renowned for his cool head, could concentrate his thoughts again.

‘You appear to be drunk,’ Jasim breathed icily, his stern intonation roughened by the disturbing hardening at his groin as his body reacted involuntarily to the sexually appealing vision she made.

Colour flared in Elinor’s cheeks. ‘P-possibly…er…a little bit,’ she stammered in great discomfiture, dragging in a long deep breath that made the rounded mounds of her breasts shimmy beneath the fine fabric of her dress. ‘I don’t usually drink much but it was a special occasion.’

Jasim was finding it a challenge to keep his attention above her chin. ‘If you worked for me, I would not tolerate you appearing in this state.’

‘Luckily I’m not working for you,’ Elinor flipped back, before she could think better of it. ‘Nor am I working at this precise moment. I’m on my own time. I had the evening off—’

‘Nevertheless, while you live beneath this roof I consider such conduct unacceptable.’

Elinor registered that he had drawn closer and that she actually had to tip back her head to take all of him in. He was very tall, she noted belatedly, at least six feet four inches, considerably taller than his older brother. In fact there was nothing about him that reminded her of Prince Murad, for Jasim was broad-shouldered and muscular in build. He carried not an ounce of excess weight on his lean, lithe physique. Of course, the two men were only half-brothers, she recalled, born to different mothers.

‘What if Zahrah was to wake up and see you in such a condition?’ Jasim demanded, meeting her intense gaze with his own and stiffening at the rampant response of his body to her encouragement. If that was how she looked at his brother, he totally understood how Murad could have been tempted off the straight and narrow. The ripe fullness of her soft pink mouth was a sensual invitation all on its own.

‘The nurse who has been with Zahrah since she was born sleeps next door to her. I think you’re being very unreasonable,’ Elinor told him tightly.

Jasim was staggered by that disrespectful rejoinder and decided that she was utterly without shame. Nor had it escaped his notice that she apparently had a limousine at her private disposal. That was a flagrant display of his brother’s special favour, which could only add weight to Yaminah’s worst fears. ‘Is this how you speak to my brother?’

‘Your brother, who is my employer, is a great deal more pleasant and less critical. I don’t work for you and I’m entitled to a social life,’ Elinor declared, her chin at a defiant tilt even though she could feel a tension headache building like a painful band of steel round her temples. Her self-esteem, already battered by the treatment she had earlier withstood at the nightclub, refused to bear any more in saintly silence. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to bed.’

Jasim only knew in that moment of red-hot outrage at her impertinence that he wanted to take her to that bed, spread her across it and make love to her until she begged him for more and ached from his passion. As he struggled to master the fierce desire threatening his usually rigid self-control he was shocked by the sheer novelty of a lust that powerful. No woman ever came between Jasim and his wits, not even the one he had once briefly planned to marry. But as he watched Elinor Tempest endeavour to mount the stairs without swaying and stumbling from the effects of the alcohol she had consumed, he knew that he would know no peace until he had bedded her and made her his.

Her foot, shod in a sandal with a thin slippery sole, slid off a step and she lurched back with a cry of alarm breaking from her lips as she clutched frantically at the solid balustrade for support.

‘Safety is yet another reason why you shouldn’t drink like this,’ Jasim breathed hatefully close, a splayed hand like an iron bar bracing her spine to prevent her from falling backwards down the stairs.

‘I don’t need your help,’ Elinor protested furiously, sliding off her shoes to ensure there were no further accidents and gathering them together in one impatient hand. ‘I hate people who preach…. I bet you say, “I told you so”, as well!’

The scent of her hair and her skin assailed Jasim in an evocative wave of sensuous appeal. She smelt like peaches and made him think of hot sunlight and even hotter sex. He was convinced that she would be a willing partner. Her style of dress and her behaviour had already persuaded him that she was far from being an innocent. Murad was much too trusting to be left at the mercy of his own lust and the manipulations of a rapacious youthful temptress. Elinor Tempest, Jasim decided, was a justifiable target for his calculating plan to bring about her downfall. Striving to keep the lid on his temper and his libido, he urged her upstairs.

‘All right…I’ll be fine now,’ Elinor muttered as she reached her comfortable bedroom. The defiance was steadily seeping out of her, for she was exhausted and her spirits were low. ‘You’ve been the perfect conclusion to a truly horrible birthday and now, please, I’d like to be left alone.’

Jasim subjected her to a measured assessment from the doorway. Alienating her was not a good idea. What had he been thinking of? Desire was pulsing through him and already as much entrenched there as the beat of the blood through his veins. He wanted her and once he took her to his bed Murad would turn his back on her. Taking her to bed would not be a sacrifice. Picturing her there with those flame-coloured curls loose and her eyes soft with longing offered him the prospect of a sweeter and more sensual pleasure than he had ever dreamt he might find in so premeditated an encounter.

Conservation needs had put the thrill of the hunt out of reach in Quaram and Jasim had long missed the excitement. He discovered that he could hardly wait for the satisfying conclusion of what promised to be a most enjoyable sexual game. It did not once occur to him that he might fail to get her into his bed—since he had never yet met with a refusal…

CHAPTER TWO

THE next morning, while Elinor showered, she turned clammy with horror when she recalled her dialogue with Prince Jasim. Alcohol had made an idiot of her! She should have been more careful about how much she’d drunk. But then it was six months since she had even tasted alcohol, she thought, biting anxiously at her lower lip. Furthermore she had been resentful about the fact that she couldn’t just have a couple of days off when she asked for them and a taste of youthful freedom.

But not so resentful that she wanted to lose her very well-paid job, she reflected worriedly, a job, moreover, which would add solid-gold appeal to her CV when she went off in pursuit of her next position. No, the very last thing she needed now was to get sacked for being cheeky to a prince! She hadn’t even called him ‘sir’ when she’d addressed him and she bit back a moan at the recollection. She was usually so sensible and polite. Why hadn’t she kept her tongue between her teeth? The truth was that she had been in a bad mood and the unhappy combination of his undeniable good looks and fanciability, followed by his cutting criticism, had proved the proverbial last straw. She already knew from hearing Prince Murad erupt when the smallest thing annoyed him that royal egos were eggshell thin and super-sensitive and royal tempers quick to ignite. Prince Jasim would never forgive her for being rude to him and he was certain to complain to his brother.

It was a Saturday and Zahrah had a riding lesson. While her charge was being taught, Elinor usually went riding as well since she was an accomplished horsewoman and the stables contained an enviable selection of mounts. She pulled on her shabby navy breeches, a lemon T-shirt and finally her boots. She was about to leave her bedroom when a knock sounded on the door. She opened it and was startled when a big basket of beautifully arranged flowers was presented to her by one of the manservants.

At first Elinor couldn’t believe the magnificent flowers were for her and she drank in the heady scent of the glorious pink roses with a blissful sigh before she detached the card envelope and opened it.

‘Happy belated birthday wishes and my apologies,

Jasim’

Elinor was stunned. He was apologising to her? He was even wishing her a happy birthday and giving her flowers? Her jaw was ready to crash to the floor in disbelief. She summoned up a misty image of him. As well as being more beautiful than any man had the right to be, Prince Jasim had impressed her as being arrogant, autocratic and very proud. He definitely hadn’t struck her as being the apologising type. In fact she had seen him more as the sort of guy who always had the last word and a disparaging one at that.

But obviously first impressions had been kind to neither of them the night before. It was the first time a man had given Elinor flowers and she was hopelessly impressed and pleased by the gesture because she really had had a lousy, disappointing birthday. Zahrah raced into the room. Bubbling with life, the four-year-old was a pretty child with a mop of silky dark curls and sparkling brown eyes.

‘Morning, Elinor!’ Zahrah carolled, giving her an affectionate hug. ‘Are you coming for breakfast now?’

They went downstairs and Elinor was about to head for the small dining room where she usually ate with the child when Ahmed, the major domo of the household, intercepted her. Zahrah acted as translator and informed Elinor that they were having breakfast with her Uncle Jasim today. They were ushered into the massive formal dining room.

Zahrah let out a yelp of excitement and bowled down the room to throw herself into Jasim’s arms. It gave Elinor a minute to compose herself as Jasim, having thrown down his newspaper, rose from the table to greet their arrival. In the full light flooding through the tall windows, his bronzed aristocratic face was startlingly handsome and once again she discovered that she found it virtually impossible to look away from him. He dominated the room with his powerful presence and she was hooked afresh by a fevered compulsion to study those lean classic features, still driven to try and work out what it was about them that repeatedly drew her attention. Her heart was already pounding, making it hard for her to breathe levelly. Then he smiled down at the child in his arms and the high-voltage force of his charismatic attraction hit her like a rod of lightning striking the ground.

‘Miss Tempest…’he murmured lazily as he swung out a chair beside his own. Clad in tailored riding gear, he looked outrageously elegant and sophisticated. ‘Please join us.’

Elinor had to force herself to walk down the length of the table to join him in a seat a good deal closer than she would have chosen for herself. She was flustered. Butterflies were fluttering in her tummy and she didn’t know what to do with her hands any more. She felt ridiculously like a schoolgirl, self-conscious and silly and awkward, all at the same time. ‘Thank you for the flowers. You were very generous,’ she muttered in a rush, keen to get the acknowledgement out of the way while Zahrah was busy chattering to Ahmed about her favourite cereal.

The brilliant ebony eyes screened by dense black lashes rested on her and she honestly thought her heart might stop beating altogether. ‘It was nothing.’

‘I owe you an apology…I was rude,’ she framed.

‘A novel experience for me,’ the prince purred like a sleek panther being stroked.

For a split second Elinor wanted to slap him rather than stroke him for not giving a more gracious response to her attempt to make amends. ‘Nobody ever answers you back? Or quarrels with you?’ she heard herself query.

‘Nobody,’ Jasim confirmed as if that was a perfectly normal state of affairs. He watched her glance up at him from below her feathery lashes, a delicate flush of colour on her cheeks, and thought what a class act she was putting on for his benefit. He could hardly credit that it was the same woman, for no hint of the strident, argumentative redhead he had met the night before was on show. Everything about her this morning from her show of apparent unease to her soft tone of voice and her girlish reluctance to meet his eyes shouted the kind of shy uncertainty and sexual innocence that was most likely to ensnare an older man. No wonder his brother was upsetting his wife over the scheming little slut, he reflected grimly. The act didn’t work quite so well on Jasim. But then he was rather more sophisticated than Murad and better attuned to the liberal sexual mores of Elinor Tempest’s age group. As Yaminah had doubtless intended when she invited Jasim for a weekend while she and his brother were elsewhere, Jasim intended to make full and immediate use of the clear field she had given him.

‘More coffee?’ Jasim snapped long brown fingers with a natural assumption of command that seemed to come as instinctively as breathing to him. On immediate alert, a servant surged forward with alacrity to refresh the coffee cups. Zahrah had been inclined to treat Elinor the same way, until Elinor had taught the little girl otherwise. Even so, Elinor had daily exposure to the reality that members of the Quarami royal family were one step down from Divinity in the eyes of those who waited on them.

‘Tell me why your birthday was horrible,’ Jasim instructed silkily, studying her with those stunning dark eyes and relaxing back into his chair with the confident air of a male awaiting the commencement of the entertainment.

A pulse beating somewhere at the base of her throat and her nerves reacting like jumping beans, Elinor had grown very tense. ‘That wouldn’t be appropriate, sir’

The dense black lashes lifted over frowning deep golden eyes. ‘I decide what is appropriate,’ he told her in immediate contradiction. ‘Talk.’

For an instant Elinor was astonished by that imperious command delivered with the absolute expectation of a male accustomed to instant obedience. It was a relief when Zahrah stole the moment with her nonsensical chatter.

‘You can explain later.’ Jasim delivered the reprieve over his niece’s downbent head. ‘I’m coming down to the stables with you and Zahrah.’

The prospect unnerved Elinor and she looked up at him again and froze at the hungry light in his measuring gaze before hurriedly glancing down at her coffee again. Shock decimated her appetite for her toast, while her tummy performed an enervating series of little somersaults. His close scrutiny might suggest that he found her attractive, but she could not believe that a prince could have developed a personal interest in her and scolded herself for letting her imagination take flight. Perhaps he was more like his kindly brother than she had appreciated and was simply keen to smooth over the unpleasantness of their first encounter.

Ahmed secured Zahrah in a child’s seat in the back of a glossy black Range Rover. Elinor climbed into the passenger seat and watched Jasim stroll round the bonnet. Even with his black hair tousled by the breeze he was as strikingly sleek and beautiful as a bronzed angel. She met his eyes through the windscreen and suddenly she was wildly, hopelessly aware of her own body. Her full breasts felt constrained inside her bra and an odd little clenching sensation low in her pelvis made her shift uneasily in her seat. She was shocked, for she hadn’t realised that being drawn to a man could be such a physical experience, that her body could feel as if it were all revved up for a race. Mortified colour mantled her cheeks. A lean brown long-fingered hand as wondrously well-proportioned as the rest of him depressed the handbrake and the engine fired.

‘Are you fond of horses?’ Jasim enquired.

‘I’ve been mad about them since I was a kid,’ Elinor confessed with a rueful laugh. ‘I started riding lessons at the same age as Zahrah. A neighbour kept stables and I used to go there and help out after school.’

‘Have you ever had a horse of your own?’

Elinor tensed and her face fell. ‘Yes, from the age of nine to fourteen. My father sold her then. He thought the time I spent with Starlight was interfering with my studies—’

‘You must’ve been upset.’

‘I was devastated.’ Elinor folded her lips, unable to find adequate words to explain just how shattering a blow that sudden loss had been to her. Her father had not even warned her of his intentions and she had not got the chance to say goodbye to the horse she’d loved. Starlight had also been her last link with her late mother and her only real friend, the one element in her wretchedly unhappy teen years that had kept her going through thick and thin. ‘But she was still a young horse and I’m sure she went to some other girl to be absolutely adored all over again.’

‘It sounds as though your father was very strict,’ Jasim remarked, keen to extract more information from her. He was not at all surprised that the very first thing she should tell him should be a sob story guaranteed to paint her in a sympathetic light.

‘Too strict. After that, I wasn’t allowed any interests at all outside school. It was a relief to leave home,’ Elinor admitted ruefully, thinking of the release of no longer having to live daily with constant wounding criticism and reproaches for her unacceptable exam results. Although greater maturity had enabled her to appreciate that she had simply been an average student rather than a completely stupid one, her father had made her feel like a hopeless failure at the tender age of sixteen years and her self-esteem had still to recover from his abrasive style of parenting.

Jasim’s sculpted sensual mouth tightened as once again she confirmed his suspicions about her true nature. He recalled the widening invitation of her expressive and artful eyes as she met his gaze, the revealingly taut points of her nipples that were currently showing through her T-shirt. She was certainly very responsive and he found her inability to conceal her reaction to him very, very sexy.

A decent parent, however, would naturally have sought to impose restrictions on so free-spirited a daughter, he reasoned, expecting to feel disgusted at the mounting proof of her probable promiscuity. Instead he tensed at the heavy arousal stirring at his groin and cursed the ready sexual heat that afflicted him in Elinor Tempest’s company. Only sexual satisfaction would take care of that problem and he had no intention of practising patience, nor even the suspicion that patience would prove necessary. Mindful of his niece’s presence, he concentrated on not thinking about how thoroughly Elinor would be persuaded to ease the demands of his high-voltage sex drive.

‘I’ll give you a tour of the stud farm,’ Jasim drawled.

As they were early for Zahrah’s lesson, Elinor made no protest and indeed her interest quickened at the prospect of a special viewing in the owner’s company, because although she often visited the stables to ride she had stayed away from the stud. It was a large impressive operation housed in immaculately maintained buildings, complete with all-weather gallops and paddocks, and it was heavily staffed. The manager hurried out of the office to greet Jasim. The resident vet and other senior staff soon joined them. Keen though she was on horses, the dialogue soon ranged beyond Elinor’s knowledge with talk of racing prospects and recent wins on the turf. Some way through it, she left to check that Zahrah’s horse was saddled up. The little girl’s instructor arrived soon afterwards.

‘Will you be taking Amaranth out?’ the groom asked Elinor then.

‘Yes, please.’ A huge smile on her face, Elinor went to greet the big brown gelding impatiently shifting in his box as he recognised the sound of her voice. She petted him and led him out. It had taken a month of regular visits for the head groom to trust her with the more lively mounts. The freedom to ride pretty much whenever she liked and without cost was yet another good reason why she wanted to hang on to her job.

In the midst of trying to disengage from his staff, Jasim saw her ride out and his ebony brows shot up. ‘You let the nanny ride Amaranth?’ he demanded in a tone of censure.

‘Elinor is well able to control him, Your Highness,’ the head groom responded. ‘She’s a terrific rider.’

At that moment Jasim received the perfect opportunity to see that truth for himself as she spurred the spirited gelding towards a fence, soaring over it with a grace and ease that impressed even him.

Elinor heard the thump of pursuing hooves and turned her head. On the back of his powerful black stallion, Mercury, Jasim was catching up on her fast. Her chin came up and she urged Amaranth on in a flat-out race across the lush rolling acres of parkland that made Woodrow Court such a paradise for a horse lover.

Jasim was stunned that she had the nerve to challenge him, for he had expected her to come to a halt and wait for him. He rarely rode in female company because women tended to cling to him like superglue and chatter and flirt continually, behaviour that interfered with his relaxation. In comparison, Elinor gave him the opportunity to chase her and he appreciated that her control of her mount and her skill were worthy of his respect.

Amaranth ran out of steam by the lake and Elinor reined him in and dismounted below some trees. Jasim was talking on a cell phone as he rode up on Mercury. He slid down to the ground with effortless grace and watched her remove her riding cap, releasing the piled up mass of her hair in a silken tangle of luxuriance and stretching in a movement that delineated every curve and ensured that her generous little breasts strained beneath her T-shirt. Although he was convinced it was a deliberate move to attract his attention to her body, that cheap little trick still worked on him. Indeed desire knifed through him, making him hot and hard within seconds. Conscious of the reality that the breeches would conceal nothing, he peeled off his cap and strode over to the edge of the lake, willing the tumult of his rampant hormones back under control. He was furious and knocked off balance by a loss of self-discipline that he had not experienced since the years of adolescence.

Elinor looked across the lake and rejoiced in the early summer lushness and the natural beauty of her surroundings. Although she sometimes felt isolated at Woodrow, she had no desire to exchange the countryside and the sense of well-being it gave her for the noise and buzz of the city.

‘You’re an excellent rider,’ Jasim murmured levelly.

Helpless amusement sparkled in her green eyes as she sensed that she had irritated him. ‘You’d have beaten me hollow on Mercury if I hadn’t had such a head start.’

His keen attention was welded to her. He wasn’t used to being teased and he was so bone-deep competitive that he was accustomed to coming first in every field of his busy life. Even his best friend could not have called him a good loser. Yet confronted by the captivating mixture of mischief and artless innocence that momentarily shone in her smile, his exasperation vanished. He was seeing, he told himself harshly, what his brother had to see in her. Even though it was undoubtedly a fake front put on to attract, it was also indisputably effective when a guy as cynical as he was about women started questioning his view of her.

Her skin warming below the intensity of his stare, Elinor drank in the fresh air and decided that being alone with Jasim in such circumstances was likely to cause the kind of talk that would only damage her standing in an old-fashioned household. ‘I’d better get back. Zahrah’s lesson will be over soon.’

‘Her nurse is coming down from the house to collect her. I’ve ordered refreshments for us…ah, there they are now.’

Her lower lip had fallen away from the upper as she turned to follow his gaze and saw an estate Land Rover trundling towards them across the grass. ‘You ordered refreshments for us…to be served out here?’

His satiric sable brows pleated. ‘Why not?’

His disregard of the obvious was superb and he managed to magnify her awareness of the huge inequality between them. She was also taken aback that he should re-organise her day by calling in her charge’s nurse to take care of her when she herself could perfectly have done so. After all, looking after Zahrah was her job. But her surprise had been replaced by pure amazement at his casual announcement that refreshments were to be served in the middle of the park at his request. He saw nothing strange in the indulgence, she realised, for, like his royal brother, expecting immediate fulfilment of his every command was as normal to Jasim as disappointment and compromise were to her.

Staff emerged from the vehicle at the double and an array of hot and cold drinks, china, glasses and snacks were laid out while an exquisite wool rug was spread across the grass. Elinor, who had dimly expected a picnic-style metal mug to be thrust into her hand, was nonplussed once again. Jasim drank only water. She watched his sensationally attractive face hollow as he drank and swallowed, noticed how the sunlight glimmered across his hard bronzed cheekbones and reflected off black hair that the breeze had ruffled into faint curls. Her throat felt tight. Seated on the rug while he lounged back against the tree with the pure animal fluidity that distinguished his every move, she sipped awkwardly at her coffee in its elegant china cup.

‘Now you can tell me why your birthday was a disappointment,’ Jasim decreed.

‘I hoped you would forget about that comment,’ Elinor confided.

Jasim flashed her a mocking smile that tilted her heart on its axis and made her feel so warm that she was momentarily afraid that she might spontaneously combust. Unable to take her eyes off him, she explained about the nightclub tickets, while wondering why his handsome bone structure seemed to tighten when she praised his brother’s kindness.

‘Murad is a very generous employer.’ Her admission was yet another nail in her coffin as far as Jasim was concerned, as he saw in it good reason for Yaminah’s concern. He could not credit that such favouritism could be innocent, or that its recipient had not deliberately flirted and coaxed her way into his brother’s notice and regard. He even understood why Murad had put a family limo at her disposal. His brother had naturally wished to ensure that she came back to Woodrow at the end of the evening.

‘Yes, but I’m not that fussed about nightclubs,’ Elinor admitted. ‘I never meet anyone anyway, I’m far too tall for most men—’

‘But exactly the right height for me,’ Jasim inserted softly, his dark accented drawl roughening the vowel sounds in a way that sent a responsive quiver down her taut spinal cord.

Perturbed by that personal comment, Elinor reddened. ‘Well, I find being this tall an embarrassment.’

Jasim stretched down a hand. ‘Stand up. Let me see you.’

Setting down her cup with a noisy rattle that betrayed her confusion, Elinor clasped his hand and he levered her upright. For a long timeless moment eyes as dark as liquid oil, richly enhanced by inky, spiky lashes of inordinate length, inspected her hectically flushed face. She leant her hips back against the tree trunk for support because her knees felt wobbly.

‘You have fabulous long legs,’ Jasim murmured, lean fingers brushing curling strands of rich red hair back from her brow. ‘Glorious hair and a mouth that is a temptation to any red-blooded man.’ His attention dropped in emphasis to the generous swell of her lips and so caught up was she in the power of the moment that she trembled. ‘From the first instant I saw you I wanted to kiss you—’

‘You were furious with me,’ she contradicted, even though she was locked to the allure of his gorgeous eyes.

‘It didn’t stop me wondering what you would taste like.’ Jasim was so close that she could barely breathe until he finally lowered his proud dark head to satisfy his curiosity.

It was a good few months since Elinor had been kissed. But never, ever had she been kissed as Jasim bin Hamid al Rais kissed her. His sheer passion blew her away. His tongue delved and dipped between her readily parted lips with sensual skill and explicit eroticism. A slow, almost painfully sweet ache awakened between her slender thighs and a slight gasp escaped her. Her nipples pinched into taut tingling buds that pushed painfully against the scratchy lace cups of her bra. Her hands clutched his shoulders to keep her upright. He rocked against her and she felt the raw urgency of his arousal and exulted in his response to her with an earthiness that startled her. All of a sudden she was finding out what it was to really want a man, and the strength of that longing shook her back into an awareness of what she was doing.

Almost the instant she reclaimed her sanity, she pulled away from him, turning to hide her face, shaking hands flying up to rake her hair out of her eyes and brush her swollen tingling mouth as if she still could not credit what she had felt. ‘Sorry, this isn’t right,’ she muttered unevenly.

Jasim went from surprise at the apparent rejection to bleak amusement at what he saw as a clever ploy by an experienced woman. There was nothing more tantalising to a man than a brief taste of forbidden fruit followed by a maidenly show of reluctance. He too preferred the thrill of the chase to an easy surrender, but the urgency of his arousal had almost persuaded him to forget the game of sexual entrapment he was engaged in playing.

‘How is it wrong?’

‘I work for your family…we’re worlds apart. How many reasons do you need?’ she retorted in a surge of grudging candour, for the last thing she wanted to do just then was make it easier for him to walk away from her.

Jasim decided to give her what he knew she must want—the encouragement to ditch her designs on his brother and concentrate on him instead. He went in for the kill with words that were the virtual antithesis of his usual cool, uncommitted approach to her sex. ‘I find you incredibly attractive and I am not a snob. My great-great-grandfather was a poor but proud man when he took the throne of Quaram. I have known many women but I have never felt like this before. We must explore what is between us.’

Her troubled green eyes switched back to him and clung to his lean dark features. She craved that visual contact and wanted to trust in what he had said, but at the same time she was terrified of getting hurt as her mother had been in a fairy-tale romance that had swiftly crumbled and led to a lifetime of unhappy comparisons and regret.

‘I don’t think your brother would approve and I value my job,’ Elinor framed uncertainly.

His shrewd dark-as-charcoal eyes glinted as he received what he deemed to be her most honest answer yet. Which brother was she to place her trust in? After all, she wouldn’t want to fall between the proverbial two stools and end up with neither man in tow. He reached down and closed his hands firmly over hers. ‘I promise you—you will come to no harm with me.’

And that heartening vow reverberated through Elinor while Jasim made easy conversation about horses on the ride back to the stables. Nothing but trouble could come from an ordinary person trifling with royalty, she told herself fiercely, but she could still taste him on her lips and she couldn’t help reliving the heady excitement of that stolen embrace. Zahrah was already with her nurse when Elinor reappeared and she saw the older woman note in surprise that Jasim was with her and stare. She wondered if her mouth was as swollen as it felt and she flushed brick red with discomfiture. He insisted that she travel back to the house with him, another mark of conspicuous favour that embarrassed her.

That afternoon, Elinor clung to her usual schedule and took Zahrah out shopping and then on to a newly released children’s film showing at the local cinema. As was usual on a Saturday, they ate a light supper in the nursery. She gave Zahrah her bath and tucked the little girl into bed afterwards with a fond hug. Too enervated to settle for an evening by the television, she put on her swimsuit, donned a towelling robe and headed downstairs to the indoor swimming pool. When Zahrah’s parents were in residence she didn’t like to use the facility unless she had Zahrah with her, but with the couple away she felt there was no harm in doing so. The pool complex was huge and spectacular, complete with a stunning waterfall and underwater jets, and a spa to one side of it.

Emerging from the lift, Jasim was impressed when he saw that Elinor was already waiting in the water for him. This was not a girl who let moss grow over an opportunity, or who was prepared to run the risk of a man losing interest from lack of exposure to her available charms. He watched her slide from the bubbling spa into the main pool, giving him a ravishing display of her slender but curvaceous body sheathed in tight purple stretchy fabric that left little to the imagination. The ripe swell of her firm little breasts and the heart-shaped femininity of her derriere were wonderfully visible and would have awakened any man’s appreciation. But Jasim resented the powerful pull she exerted over him and thought that the look of surprise and self-consciousness she then assumed at first glimpse of him was an award-winning effort. What an actress she was! How many other men had she practised her wiles on? Nobody knew better than Jasim that once a woman got a man weak with lust, she could convince him of virtually anything. Bitterness assailed him as he recalled his own past.

Elinor didn’t feel right staying in the pool when Jasim was in it as well. After all, it was his house and his pool and she couldn’t help worrying that the other staff would think she was throwing herself at their prince if they saw her there, daring to share the same water as royalty. She climbed out and pulled on her towelling robe.

Jasim swam over to the side and heaved himself out. Water streaming in rivulets from the taut contours of his lean bronzed body, he approached her and lifted a towel. ‘Why are you leaving?’

‘I just think it’s wiser,’ Elinor mumbled tautly, trying not to let her attention linger anywhere it shouldn’t while he towelled himself dry. She was grateful that he favoured loose shorts rather than body-hugging briefs.

Dark golden eyes smouldered over her and lingered on her pouting mouth. ‘For whom? You want me too. Don’t deny that this feeling is mutual.’

The very boldness of that statement struck hot colour into her face. She tied the sash on the robe with clumsy hands. He spoke with such terrifying confidence, and even though it scared her, his complete assurance drew her like a bonfire on an icy day. ‘But it’s not enough,’ she protested, still trying to get a grip on a situation that felt as though it were flying fast out of her control.

Jasim closed his hands round her narrow wrists and drew her firmly to him. ‘This is only the beginning…’

And she fell into the depths of the hot, hungry kiss that followed like a novice swimmer with a suicide wish as she sank deeper and deeper out of her depth. One feverish kiss led hotly into the next. He crushed her mouth with devastating urgency and her excitement rose and rose until she was shaking and shivering against him, her body on fire with her craving for more.

‘This is not the place for this, but you are irresistible,’ he breathed thickly against her reddened lips. Bending, he scooped her off her feet and carried her into the lift.

She had never been in the lift before, for it travelled only to the master bedroom to facilitate the early-morning swims that the owner of the house apparently enjoyed. He set her down beside the giant divan bed and pushed the loosened robe off her slim shoulders so that it fell in a heap round her bare feet. She looked up at him with sensually stunned eyes, the swollen contours of her strawberry-pink mouth like a magnet reeling him back down to her again.

‘We can’t do this!’ she exclaimed, pushed to the edge of panic by the intimacy of the bedroom. She thought she had been very naïve in failing to appreciate that he might expect her to go to bed with him without further ado.

He tugged her hand down to the front of his wet shorts where the fabric was moulded to the massive width and length of his erection. ‘Please…I won’t be able to sleep for wanting you.’

And Elinor could have withstood almost any other response but, even as he plunged her into agonies of self-conscious embarrassment, that roughened sensual appeal thrilled her to the core of her being and touched her to the heart. When had any man ever wanted her like that? When had she ever contrived to rouse such a storm of desire? Far more often than she cared to recall she had been made to feel freakishly tall and unfeminine. Meeting his smouldering dark golden eyes, she rejoiced in his need for her and suppressed the voice of reason urging caution and restraint at the back of her mind. Hadn’t she always been sensible and controlled? Was there any real harm in taking a risk for once? Especially when she was falling for him like a ton of bricks: she affixed to that last thought, eager to be daring and worthy of such a passion as his. This might well be the only time in her life when a man called her ‘irresistible’…

CHAPTER THREE

BEFORE Elinor could even register what Jasim was about, he had peeled down the top of her swimsuit so that the pale plump mounds of her breasts tumbled free. A low masculine growl of hunger escaped him when he saw the luscious and prominent protrusion of her rose-pink nipples. ‘You have the most wonderful body.’

He kneaded those tender tips with expert fingers and she cried out in shaken acknowledgement of the arrow of sensation darting straight down to the balloon of burgeoning heat expanding low in her pelvis. That fast she was in uncharted territory and at the mercy of the hunger he had unleashed inside her. She craved more and he was not slow to answer that craving. He brought her down on the bed and closed his mouth fiercely to a straining pink crest, taking it between his teeth and toying with the tender tip until her fingers formed into claws that raked the sheet beneath her hands. A frantic sense of swollen heat between her splayed thighs was sending up her temperature and threatening what little remained of her control. He touched her there where she was most tender of all just once while he played with her lush breasts and her spine arched off the bed in a reaction so strong it almost frightened her.

‘You’re too tense,’ he censured, wrenching her free of her swimsuit and rolling off the bed to remove his wet shorts.

Nerves and doubts immediately attacked Elinor again. Everything was going too fast for her and she was trying to work out how she could have allowed matters to go so far without seriously questioning what she was about to do. After all, sleeping with a man for the first time was a very big deal on her terms. Elinor stared at her first daunting view of a man unclothed. He seemed endowed out of all reasonable proportion to her untried body. The shameless burn at the heart of her felt as scary as it was exciting and she wondered feverishly if she was doing the right thing or simply letting passion and the joy of attracting so superlative a male go to her head.

Jasim looked down at her with an amount of pleasure that took even him aback. She looked like a goddess, he decided in awe, the fiery abundance of her hair the perfect complement to her full creamy curves. Never before had a woman made him ache with such ravenous hunger…no, not even Sophia had had that power. But he would never be vulnerable with a woman again or allow desire to overwhelm his judgement, he told himself with fierce confidence.

‘I want you now,’ Jasim confessed, coming down on the bed beside her, his lean powerful body taut with sexual impatience. Overwhelming desire made it an effort for him to recall that his primary motivation in taking her was to ensure she lost the power to lure his brother into an affair.

Just looking at his lean bronzed features, which were compellingly handsome and strikingly serious, Elinor felt her mouth run dry and her heart threatened to drum its way out of her chest. ‘I’ve never felt this way before,’ she whispered unevenly and held back the craven admission that feeling as she did just then was distinctly intimidating.

Immediately discarding that ingenuous assurance as a pre-planned sop voiced to stroke his male ego, Jasim bit back an appreciative sound of amusement and ravished her soft mouth afresh. Against her will, Elinor felt herself melt again. Her insecurities ebbed while every nerve ending leapt in helpless response to the scent and touch of him. He felt like living hair-roughened bronze next to her, hot and hard and strong. She had a delirious image of what it would feel like to have him inside her and was shattered at the leap of her body and the newly wanton direction of her thoughts.

Jasim rubbed the tiny bud below her mound and listened to her cry out her pleasure. She was swollen with arousal and as slippery as wet silk. With a forefinger he probed the delicate cleft and discovered that she was deliciously small and tight within. She gasped and winced and he marvelled at her theatrical ability. Of course, just like Sophia she most likely assumed that an Arab male would only properly value her if she pretended to be a virgin. Sophia had paid a small fortune to have her hymen surgically restored and he had been absolutely fooled by her masquerade, he remembered with deep bitterness.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elinor exclaimed, glimpsing the dark shadowed look in his brilliant eyes at the breathless peak of a rippling wave of almost torturous pleasure. His lovemaking enthralled her, but now she wondered if he had finally registered her lack of experience. Was that a turn-off for him?

‘Nothing could be wrong…’

‘I’ve never slept with anyone else,’ Elinor admitted awkwardly. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘How could it be, when you are about to honour me beyond all other men?’ The sardonic light in his gaze hardened at her careful last-minute assurance of her sexual innocence. Afraid that he might not get the message, she was leaving nothing to chance. He was wild for the hot, tight satisfaction of her body under his, but he would have preferred the cool self-restraint to tell her that she was a liar and that her shoddy, foolish pretence didn’t fool him for a moment.

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