Читать книгу Australia: In Bed with a Sheikh! - Emma Darcy - Страница 18

SARAH DIDN’T BOTHER knocking. Nothing was going to stop her from having a showdown with Tareq. She opened the library door and marched in, breathing fiery determination.

Peter Larsen swung around, opening a clear view of his employer friend, seated at the splendid mahogany desk he favoured. Sarah ignored the trusted trouble-shooter, her gaze fastening directly on the sharp blue windows to Tareq al-Khaima’s unfathomable soul.

“I want to talk to you. Alone. And without delay,” she stated, unshakably intent on getting her own way. Tareq was not going to dominate this encounter!

He rose from his chair, languidly unfolding to his full height, insufferably confident of controlling everything. “Thank you, Peter,” he said, not the slightest trace of any acrimony in his tone. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Of course there was no cause for Tareq to be upset by the indiscretion, Sarah savagely reasoned as Peter Larsen took swift leave of them. the bargain had been struck and there was no going back. Tareq was sitting pretty on whatever he was sitting on. Except he wasn’t sitting anymore. He was strolling around the desk. By the time the door behind Sarah was closed, he was propped casually against the front edge of the desktop, perfectly at ease.

The urge to smash his smooth facade raged through Sarah. How many deceptions was he juggling in the super-clever mind behind that handsome face? The feeling of being a pawn in a game she was not allowed to see put a violent edge on her churning emotions.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to cover up criminal activity,” she hurled at him. “If I’d known my father was intentionally cheating you, I would not have come to you at all.”

“But you still would have wanted what you did achieve, Sarah,” came the perfectly chosen pertinent reply. “Your father given a chance to redeem himself, and the security of the children assured as far as it can be.”

In other words, everything else should be considered irrelevant. Sarah dug in her heels. “And just how far have you gone to achieve that, Tareq? How far do you go to get what you want?” she demanded heatedly.

He replied with calm logic, completely unruffled. “I find that people usually listen to reason when the profit and loss are laid out to them. Irrefutable facts do have impact.”

“You withheld facts from me,” Sarah pointed out, her eyes flashing resentment at his cavalier way of doing what suited him with her.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said with heart-twisting simplicity. “You were innocent, Sarah.”

But she was hurt, hurting non-stop from his keeping things from her and his arbitrary withdrawals that drove her into a deep trough of frustration. This confrontation wasn’t really about her father. It was about attitude and honesty and the direction of this journey they were supposed to be taking together.

“I’m not a child, Tareq,” she protested. “I’d rather be faced with the truth than be protected from it.”

The moment the words were out, Sarah was struck by the realisation that Tareq had been treating her like a child all along, a grown-up one to some extent, but still to be indulged and protected as though she were a complete innocent.

“What good would it have done?” he asked.

“I don’t need you to make judgments for me. Nor decisions,” she retorted, smarting over how many things had been arranged for her—without discussion—by her self-appointed keeper. “It’s so intolerably patronising!”

“Sarah…” he chided.

“Don’t use that tone of voice to me,” she exploded, hating the sense of being relegated to some lesser level of understanding. “What right do you think you have to take over my life as though you know best?”

That stopped him from giving his soothing little smile. His eyes glowered, some dark emotion climbing over sweet reason. “I have tried to do my best by you, Sarah,” he growled. “If you don’t appreciate it…”

“Why don’t you try appreciating I can think for myself?” she retaliated, cutting off his self-serving argument, finding it so intensely provocative, she stormed off around the room, savagely muttering, “Doing his best for me. Doing his best. Doing his best.”

It didn’t matter that it was probably true. It was what a parent said to a child. Her frustration with their relationship boiled over. She glared at him—this man who held himself back from her while subtly laying siege to her heart—and the need to strip him of his formidable control clawed through her.

“You obviously see me as a little girl to be pampered and given treats,” she mocked, her hands flying around in scornful gestures. “Never mind that I’m twenty-three years old and a hardened survivor. I’m probably still twelve in your mind.”

That straightened him up from the desk and whipped some tension through him. A primitive satisfaction zinged through Sarah. She wished she could rip his clothes off, get right down to the naked truth of how he felt about her. The remembered image of his almost-bare physique played through her mind, stirring a wanton excitement, a wild desire to goad him into action, any action that involved touching.

“You are being ridiculous!” he said tersely.

“Am I? You don’t credit me with a woman’s needs, a woman’s feelings, a woman’s desires. ‘Don’t play with fire, Sarah,’” she mimicked. “Just stand by and watch the sophisticated grown-ups like Dionne Van Housen play with it because they understand it and you don’t.”

His face darkened with an angry rush of blood and Sarah exulted in having reached and plucked a sensitive chord. It flashed through her mind she wasn’t being completely fair, but she was on a wild, non-stop roller-coaster, her nerves screaming with frustration, heart pumping with rushes of adrenalin, thoughts careering down the track he had chosen for her, the track that kept her at arm’s length from him.

“Then there was Washington,” she plunged on, gesticulating with mocking emphasis as she interpreted his actions. “Trotting me out like a young debutante, protecting me from other men, saving me from any little awkwardness, watching over me like a father.”

His mouth compressed.

To Sarah, it denoted she’d hit the nail on the head and she heedlessly hammered it further, furious he’d denied her the maturity she knew she could lay claim to. “You even dictated when I should go to bed, saying goodnight when it suited you. Same in New York. And here, of course, you’ve had the relief of adult company with Peter Larsen. It’s a wonder you haven’t given me dolls to play with.”

“Are you quite finished with this absurd tantrum?” Tareq demanded, his eyes glittering with barely suppressed anger.

Tantrum…

The word stopped Sarah in her tracks. She shuddered in revulsion. A child threw tantrums. She had delivered a tirade of truth. Close enough to truth anyway. For Tareq to interpret it as a tantrum…

She drew in a deep breath. Her eyes stabbed him with daggers of pain as she made the only decision she could make. Then with all the passion of her womanhood, she replied, “I’m finished with you, Tareq. Since you treat me as though I haven’t reached the age of consent, our bargain is null and void and I am out of here!”

Having flung down the gauntlet she turned her back on him and marched to the door.

“Wait!” he thundered.

“What for?” she flung back at him, throwing out dismissive hands. “I don’t need another father. I’ve already had three. Between them they’ve done a fine job of ripping away any innocent illusions I might have had about life, so you don’t have to worry about me being hurt. Henceforth I am a cynical woman of the world who doesn’t believe in anybody.”

She twisted the knob and pulled the door open. Before she could step out of the library an arm reached past her and slammed the door shut. Startled, she did nothing to stop the strong brown hand from dropping to the knob and activating the locking device. Her mind grasped the consequence though, and in the next instant she was whirling around to contest it, rebellion rampaging through her heart.

“I will not be your prisoner!” she yelled, her hands slamming against Tareq’s broad chest in violent rejection of any more domination from him.

“Shut up!” he retorted fiercely.

The shock of it snapped her eyes up to his.

“You want raw truth?” he demanded, his voice harsh, his nostrils flaring, the windows to his soul revealing chaotic conflict. “I’m a man with a man’s needs. And those needs don’t come wrapped in finer feelings. How ready are you to accept that, Sarah?”

Dark turbulence enveloped her, sucking the strength from her mutiny, swirling around her thwarted desires, fanning them into a ferment of need, tearing at the feelings that had made being with him a torment, transforming them into something more intense, overwhelming, flooding her with a warm, liquid weakness, and she knew she would accept anything of him. Anything…

Somehow he saw what was happening to her, recognised it, and his arms swept her strongly against him, and the tremulousness inside her gathered a hunger for his strength. She pressed closer, her hips against his, needing, wanting, her hands sliding up over his shoulders, around his neck, her breasts pushing into soft, no hard, harder contact with the pulsing wall of his chest, pursuing the need, the want as a whirlwind of beating, throbbing sensation travelled through her.

The storm in his eyes was rent by a blaze of blue lightning, electrifying the air, tingling her skin, her lips, jolting her heart. Her mouth fell open, gasping for breath. Her mind seized on the image of his face, his beautifully sculptured face, coming nearer, nearer to hers. Her fingers raced into his hair, clutching, grasping, pulling his head nearer still. Every atom of her energy was focused on drawing him to her, reaching into him.

Then his mouth covered hers, softly at first, gently, tenderly, holding back the fire she’d seen and sensed and invited, but the heat of his lips, the caress of his tongue, the excitement of touch and taste whirled her into a passionate searching for all he would give of himself. Her whole body seemed to soar with exultation as he abandoned softness, driven to a wild exploration that eclipsed hers with its ardent, urgent hunger to know, to feel, the wanting a sweet, fierce, nearly desperate need, crying out to be satisfied more fully, more deeply.

Kissing was not enough. Kissing was an anticipatory intimacy, a tantalising promise, a binding beginning to the journey towards the togetherness she craved.

He moved her back against the door, holding her there between his thighs, the burgeoning thickness, hardness of his arousal stroking across her stomach in a rhythmic swaying as his mouth continued to devour hers, the need of a man implicit, raw, demanding to be met. His hands moved quickly, skilfully, stripping her of blouse and bra, dragging off his shirt, freeing flesh to meet flesh, heated with feverish excitement.

Then he was kissing her breasts, his tongue circling the nipples, teasing them into needful erection, and Sarah threw back her head, arching to push for more acute sensation, the need of a woman surging through her, concentrating fiercely on the hot attachment of his lips, sucking, dragging an intense stream of pleasure through her body, her flesh pulsing to his pumping mouth, his hands stroking her thighs, rolling down her trousers, fingers smoothing her stomach, thrusting through moist curls to the core of heat, cupping it, taking possession of the wet softness.

Sarah closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sweet chaos of sensation, forgetting everything, all sense, all caution, all care, wanting only to feel. She had no idea how Tareq accomplished the rest of their undressing. Her entire physical existence was turned inwards to the hunger he fed with his skilful touching, the seductive, exquisitely pleasurable invasion of hand and mouth.

Only when he picked her up and carried her did she realise she was naked, both of them naked, and the sensuality of skin against skin was another wonderful intimacy. He lay her on the soft Persian carpet in front of his desk and she feasted her eyes on him as he knelt over her, such powerful maleness poised to mate with her, and her body was crying out for him, longing to feel him there in the place that was made for him.

She lifted her arms and he came into them, kissing her mouth, slowly, tenderly, as she felt him pressing against her, beginning to fill the opening to her charged, innermost self. Her whole body quivered in waiting. She moved, urging him on, thrusting for the fullness of him inside her. His hands slid beneath her, holding, moulding her buttocks and she felt him enter, slowly pushing further, growing, and she had the amazingly voluptuous sensation of opening before him, spilling the essence of herself around his passage, muscles pulsing, drawing him in.

She heard herself cry out sharply when he stopped. But it was only a pause to negotiate a barrier neither of them wanted. A pinprick of pain and it was past, trailing in the wake of deep, deep pleasure as he sank into ecstatic union with her, and she curled her legs around him to hold him in, savouring the sense of him being captured, possessed by her, a prisoner enveloped, held in a sea of intense bliss.

His mouth took hers in a long passionate entanglement, making the possession his, and she surrendered to it, letting him do as he willed because it didn’t matter. Only the togetherness mattered. And he led her on a journey she had never taken before, a wild, plunging ride of ever-increasing excitement, rising to an exhilarating peak, falling only to rise again, on and on, a tumult of sensation, tumbling endlessly, spreading out into ever-widening, powerful circles, faster, faster, drawing her into a vortex that spiralled towards a brilliance she couldn’t quite reach.

Frantically she thrust at him, pulling him with her, needing his help, arching her body to drag him into it, a fierce compulsion driving her, driving him, and there was thunder in her ears, white-hot needles piercing her body, painplea-sure screaming for release, and she needed it, needed it, him with her, riding the crest of…and there it was, an explosion of exquisite sweetness bursting through her like a supernova, and she was floating in an incredible free fall, swimming in waves of love, her heart thumping a paean of joy, her mind filling with the wonder of it, her body sinking into blissful quiescence.

She opened her eyes and Tareq was looking at her, drinking in the soft glow of her repletion, knowing he had put it there, a tender triumph in his eyes. “This I can give you,” he said, his voice low, throaty, husking over feelings that were inexpressible.

Gently he stroked her cheek, traced the desire-swollen fullness of her lips, kissed them, kissed her eyelids shut again. Then with a long, hissing sigh, he gathered her to him, lifting her as he moved aside to lie on the carpet, using his body to cushion hers, holding her to the warm closeness of intimate contact.

He stroked her hair, her back, languorous caresses that kept her sensually aware of both herself and him. Sarah was lost to everything else. He was her world. She rose and fell to the rhythm of his breathing. The drum of his heart echoed her own. She wanted for nothing. He had given, was still giving, more than she had ever imagined he would.

“Is it enough?” he asked, his voice oddly strained.

It stirred her sluggish mind out of its comfortable haze of pleasure. He had fulfilled her needs, but she simply did not have the experience to know if he was completely satisfied. What if she had been hopelessly inadequate in returning his lovemaking? Should she have been more active towards him instead of being so utterly enthralled by her own feelings? Did he feel short-changed?

“Do you want more?” she asked in reply, her heart fluttering at the thought she had failed him.

His hands splayed possessively over the pit of her back. He gave a funny little laugh. “More and more and more. I would take all you would let me have, Sarah. Until there is no more.”

She smiled, comprehending that he was pleased with what they’d shared and he was looking beyond the moment, further down the path they had taken today.

“Yes,” she agreed, anticipating the filling in of all that had been missing in her knowledge of him. “I want that, too.”

He sighed, his whole body relaxing underneath hers. “So be it then,” he murmured. His arms enfolded her, wrapping her tightly to him as he turned them both onto their sides. His eyes locked onto hers, a glitter of purpose in their dark blue depths. “You stay with me of your own free will,” he stated, commanding her assent.

“Yes,” she answered, thinking he was dismissing the hostage arrangement and making it a purely personal decision to stay with him, not for her father, not for Jessie and the twins, for herself alone, because she wanted to. “Yes,” she affirmed more emphatically.

The glitter flared into the all-consuming blaze of desire she had seen weeks ago when he had challenged her willingness to accept it. Now it was unleashed on her and she revelled in it, meeting his mouth, kissing him as avidly as he kissed her, sealing the new bargain between them.

She didn’t realise that being lovers was all he had in mind, didn’t realise the pact she’d just made had limits, didn’t realise promises would not be given because too much stood in the way of their being kept.

She loved him and felt loved by him.

It was more than enough.

At this moment in time.