Michelle Reid Collection

‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Then you can have no objection to my escorting you down to the ballroom, can you?’ he tagged on very silkily.

Evie sighed, wishing that this day were already over and done with. ‘Raschid—’ she began wearily.

‘Raschid—nothing,’ he coolly cut in. ‘I have played my official role here today, to perfection. So have you. Now it is time to relax and begin enjoying ourselves.’

Relax—nothing. Evie parodied him inside her head. He was angry with her for avoiding him all afternoon and he was here to fight, not enjoy himself.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he enquired when she didn’t say anything.

‘Several,’ Evie answered dryly. ‘But I don’t think you’re in any mood to hear them.’

‘Wise girl,’ he commended. ‘Now be even wiser, and slip your delectable body into whatever it is you are wearing tonight before I decide that it may be more satisfying to toss you down on that excuse for a bed behind you and assuage my anger in other ways.’

‘Novel,’ she mocked, feeling some rather well known but unwanted sensations go chasing through her system at the prospect of his alternative. ‘But I am not walking out of this room with you, Raschid, with my mother standing guard only a few doors away. She would have my guts for garters.’

‘And I will have them for a noose which I will tie around your beautiful neck if you don’t walk out with me,’ he countered. ‘So, which will it be, Evie? Your mother’s pride or my pride? Take your pick.’

The direct challenge.

Evie sighed one of those sighs she’d caught herself doing a lot recently, and went to drop down on her dressing stool. ‘Don’t do this to me tonight, Raschid,’ she pleaded heavily. ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m really not up to it.’

‘I know the feeling,’ he grimly commiserated. ‘In fact, I am thoroughly annoyed with both you and your prejudiced family,’ he clipped out. ‘To the extent that if I am provoked any further today I may just disgrace myself by telling them all what I think of them!’

‘And that includes telling me, it seems.’ Despite his anger and her own depression, Evie found a rueful smile from somewhere.

‘Quite,’ he clipped. ‘So be sensible, Evie, and humour me unless you want to see an ugly scene erupt in the Beverley ballroom.’

He meant it too; Evie could see that in the grim cut of his mouth as he levered himself away from the door and walked across the room to the antiquated wardrobe, much as her mother had done several hours ago.

Only, the similarity ended with the opening of the wardrobe door. For Raschid took one look at the dress hanging there—and began to chuckle. ‘I knew you were brave,’ he grinned. ‘But not this brave.’

‘Brazen is the word my great-aunt Celia used,’ Evie informed him.

Turning with the dress over his arm, he laid it on the bed then came over to where she was sitting.

‘Up,’ he said firmly, curving long fingers around her upper arms to help her.

Then, because she looked so adorably pathetic with that miserable expression on her face, he bent his dark head and kissed her—and when all she did was sigh shakily into his mouth he deepened the kiss until the sighing stopped and she began clinging.

‘Now…’ he said when he eventually drew away again. ‘Do you dress yourself or do I do it for you?’

‘I don’t suppose you would consider letting me get through the rest of today in my own way?’ she suggested hopefully.

The dark head shook, his hands already dealing with the knotted belt around her waist.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when her robe fell open to reveal a flesh-coloured silk teddy that hardly hid what it was supposed to be covering. ‘Very seductive.’

Long, knowing fingers made a caressing journey from her tiny waist to the proud thrust of her breasts. His thumb pads teased her with little passes across the tight nubs of her nipples and a different kind of sigh escaped her, one that whimpered like an anxious kitten while her slender hips writhed as those teasing caresses made other parts of her stir into sweet, throbbing life.

‘I’ve missed that little sigh,’ Raschid whispered softly, his eyes possessive on her as he watched her sink into that sensual trance his touch always induced. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he added huskily.

‘I can tell,’ she sighed out pleasurably. He was very aroused—but then, so was she. They had not been together like this for two weeks now—a long time for them. ‘Kiss me,’ she groaned.

He responded quickly, hotly, hungrily, his mouth covering hers with a driving force that had her head snapping back on a slender neck while his arms crushed her tightly to him.

He was alive and wanting, his mouth urgent now as it kissed and sucked and licked and tasted its way across her cheek and jaw while his hands moved lower again, cupping her around her silky thighs before his fingers slid beneath the teddy and drew her hard up against him.

‘Raschid—’ she groaned as he set his hips moving against her in an age-old rhythm that set an equally old rhythm pulsing inside herself. ‘We haven’t got time for this.’

‘I can be quick,’ he murmured audaciously. ‘Five minutes and you will feel wonderful, I promise you…’

‘Incorrigible man,’ she scolded, then gasped when knowing fingers slid along her buttocks until they reached what they were searching for.

She was warm and she was moist and she was ready for him. She never could put up much of a resistance to him. Her hands jerked up, clutching at his arms for support as he captured her mouth with a kiss that tossed her into a world of frantic hunger.

‘Release me,’ Raschid pleaded hoarsely against her mouth.

Fingers trembling in their urgency, she did as he bade her, drawing down the zip on his evening trousers and releasing him from the silk shorts he wore beneath. He filled her hand, hard and throbbing, smooth as silk, such a potent source of power and pleasure that her control went haywire. It didn’t matter—not when it was so apparent that his control was no better. His heart was pounding, his breathing shot. Two red streaks across his lean dark cheekbones were underlining the ruthless intent burning in his eyes as he edged her backwards until the backs of her thighs met with the edge of the solid oak dressing table.

With a fierce sexual urgency he parted her white thighs and pressed his own taut brown ones between them. Then, with the deftness of experience, he released her lower body from the silk teddy and bent his knees so he could enter her cleanly.

His grunt of satisfaction as he felt her muscles close greedily around him was matched by her groan of pleasure. Her fingers were clutching his neck, her spine arching over his supporting arm so he could suck on her breasts through the teddy while he drove them both to a place beyond bearing.

And he was right. Five minutes later and she did feel wonderful, limp and languid, not a hint of tension or stress in her.

‘Now you look less like a haunted woman,’ he murmured softly, golden eyes darkened to polished bronze by sensual satisfaction as they viewed her.

‘And you look ridiculous with your trousers round your shoes,’ Evie countered tauntingly.

But he just grinned, all slashing white teeth and pure male arrogance. Even in a situation like this, Raschid knew he looked devastatingly sexy. He was still inside her, his hands holding her against the cradle of his lean hips while his eyes ran tenderly over her love-softened face.

‘I adore you, you know…’ he softly informed her. ‘If the world stopped turning at this precise moment, I could die a happy man.’

Evie almost told him then. Almost…Almost tested that statement with words that would surely make his world stand still. But—

No.

The need to get through what was left of today without causing a major disaster was paramount. So, ‘Your five minutes are up,’ she said, and felt his soft laugh vibrate in the very essence of her before he ruefully and reluctantly drew away.

He helped her to dress, smoothly drawing up the zip on the gold silk gown then standing back to watch her with darkly possessive eyes as she twisted up her hair, then sat down to replenish her make-up.

Getting up to slip her feet into the strappy gold shoes, Evie then turned towards him to announce she was ready. Seeing a question written in his love-sated eyes, she smiled her answer.

No more compromising for the sake of her mother. They would go down to the ball together and damn the consequences.

For this could be the last time she would be able to show herself in public with him like this.

Julian and Christina were dancing the first waltz when they entered the ballroom. The lights had been dimmed, and a single spotlight followed the bride and groom around while everyone was standing around the dance floor, thankfully too busy clapping and teasing the newly-weds to notice Evie and Raschid’s arrival.