Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

Her eyes travelled upwards. Wide trousers were tucked into the boots, a dark cloak flung back from broad shoulders.

‘Miss Gordon!’

‘Raschid!’ Awareness shivered through her. Was this it? Was he going to tell her that she was going home?

She forced herself to look up into his face. His expression was forbidding, his mouth tight, although whether with distaste or anger she could not tell.

‘I was on my way to the stables when I saw you here.’

Felicia gritted her teeth, willing him to get to the point. Tears were not very far away, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that after today she would probably never need to endure his anger again. Oddly, it brought her no relief.

‘What were you doing in the pool?’

She stared at him. ‘Do I have to have your permission before I can swim now?’

His glance impaled her, sending sharp splinters of apprehension through her trembling body. Her wrap was on the other side of the pool, and she glanced helplessly at it, wishing for its admittedly frail protection against the steely thrust of his eyes.

Even the doves seemed to have ceased their endless cooing and in the unnerving silence she felt sure he must hear the frightened thudding of her heart. His eyes searched her face, looking for she knew not what, and then, as though satisfied, he smiled coolly.

‘I have been looking for you. I wish to speak to you.’

Of course he did. He wanted to gloat over Faisal’s defection, no doubt.

Head held high, she refused to let him see how she felt. ‘I’ll go and get changed, and….’

He forestalled her, his touch on her deceptively light. ‘I think not. What I wish to say to you requires privacy, and where better than here in the seclusion of this courtyard, where none will disturb us, since it is my own private domain.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘YOURS?’

The word trembled between them, as Raschid inclined his head in sardonic acknowledgement.

‘In my country, Miss Gordon, a woman does not flaunt herself unclad before male eyes—but I have already told you this. This pool and courtyard are part of my own private quarters—but then I’m sure you know that already.’

What on earth was he accusing her of now? Despite his suave manner Felicia had the distinct impression that he was battling with overpowering rage, and yet she could not understand why this should be so.

‘I’m sorry if I intruded into your private domain,’ she apologised stiffly, but he swept the words aside, his mouth twisting contemptuously.

‘Oh, come, you can do better than that. It seems that I owe you an apology for the other night, and opportunist that you are, I’m sure you are aware that I would have to seek you out to tender it. Where better than here, where we could not be disturbed; where the enticement of your unclad body can tempt my instincts to overrule my common sense? I am a man as any other, Miss Gordon, and no more immune than they to the charms you so provocatively display, in that apology for a swimsuit.’

A note of iron had entered his voice as his glance burned over her, but it was lost on the girl standing at his side, filled with a growing indignation and longing only to be free of the smooth voice and its hateful insinuation. She forgot about Faisal and his letter, and why she had assumed that Raschid had sought her out, and demanded,

‘Are you suggesting that I deliberately came down here to entice you?’ Incredulity sharpened her normally soft voice, but Raschid seemed unaware of her heated cheeks and flashing eyes. His mouth curled cynically.

‘Are you suggesting that you did not?’ He shook his head. ‘There is no need for pretence between us, Miss Gordon.’ He lowered his head suddenly, grasping a handful of half damp hair and twisting it round his hand, imprisoning her.

As she struggled his grip tightened inexorably, propelling her towards him until there was nothing between them but the flimsy barrier of her swimsuit, and not even that where it plunged seductively to reveal the taut thrust of her breasts.

Her muffled protest was lost. She could feel the heat coming off Raschid’s skin. She arched desperately away from him, but his strength was the greater and her tired muscles were forced to concede victory and allow him to draw her slender body against the hard length of his own. Muscle for muscle he overpowered her, her body losing its fight to reject the punishing familiarity of his. His shirt was open, allowing him to hold her captive against his golden skin, her senses swimming with the emotions she was fighting to control.

Useless to protest that she had never been held so close to any man before, or that the intimacy he was forcing upon her with the hard arrogance of his body was a violation of her innocence, because she knew he was beyond all reason.

As his hands slid the straps of her swimsuit from her shoulders she cried a protest, embarrassed colour flooding her cheeks as he stepped back to look down at her unprotected body. Her hands went instinctively to shield her breasts, but he grasped her wrists, looking his fill until her skin was on fire with rage and humiliation.

‘Charming, but not necessary,’ he drawled, plainly amused. ‘Faisal may have been deceived by that air of mock modesty, but you waste it on me, Miss Gordon.’

‘Miss Gordon!’ Felicia swallowed mounting hysteria. Dear God, he had the audacity to treat her body as though it were just another of his possessions, and yet he still called her ‘Miss Gordon’!

Stiff as a figure of marble in the circle of the arms Raschid clamped round her, she tilted her own head upwards to meet the sardonic mockery she knew would be written in his eyes.

‘You have a strange way of apologising, Sheikh Raschid!’ She was trembling with fury, but he barely spared her flushed face a glance; his eyes rested on the fragile bones of her shoulders, his mouth traced a downward path that spelled destruction to her self-control.

‘You think so?’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps I consider that whatever reparation was necessary has been made.’

‘You think I wanted this?’ Furiously she tried to push him away, but his hands curled into her shoulders, hauling her against him to lie defeated against the hard wall of his chest, her heart pounding in terror as his mouth swooped, capturing her defenceless lips and subjecting them to merciless plundering as they closed stubbornly against him. Relentless pressure forced them to part. Above her his eyes glittered as harshly as the pitiless sun in the sky, reminding her that soon she would be gone; that soon he must receive Faisal’s letter and then there would be no more moments such as these…. Then she would never know the harsh mastery of his embrace….

As though someone had murmured ‘Open Sesame’ her body yielded, melting against him, her fingers curling into the warm darkness of the hair matting his chest. He muttered something, the blood beating up under his skin, and then she was crushed against him, moulded to his body, her mouth parting willingly to allow him full licence to savour its inner sweetness.

She neither knew nor cared what she was betraying; all that mattered was this moment, this stolen sweetness, which she would cherish for the rest of her life, the feel of Raschid against her bitter-sweet as she acknowledged that only passion stirred him. It stopped her in her tracks. Appalled by her response, she tried to push him away, her fingers trembling against bruised lips.

‘Let me go!’ She backed away, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes as she slid her swimsuit straps back over her shoulders. While she was unable to deny the cathartic effect of Raschid’s lovemaking, he seemed completely unmoved by the incident. He leaned his long length against a stone pillar, his smile cruel as he surveyed her distressed state.

‘Why the charade?’ he asked coolly. ‘You invited, I accepted. Not to have done so would have been churlish, as I’m sure you will agree.’

She invited! She had done no such thing. She told him so, half stammering with anger.

‘No? You weren’t hoping I would succumb to your charms and agree to your betrothal to Faisal? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of your visit?’ His lip curled. ‘I am not a complete fool, Miss Gordon. If that was not the reason for your momentary acquiescence, then what was? I doubt my nephew would be very pleased to learn of the methods you adopt to gain my approval. What was in his letter, I wonder, to force you to such desperate measures? He wouldn’t be growing tired of you, would he?’

‘If he had I’m sure you would be the first to know about it,’ Felicia parried, her mouth dry. So he had not heard from Faisal, but she had no doubts that his behaviour was deliberately designed to humiliate and denigrate her into giving in and returning home. She was only surprised that he had not tried bribing her into giving Faisal up, but perhaps treating her in this way afforded him some sort of satisfaction. Punishment for daring to aspire to marriage to a member of his family.

‘One more thing,’ he cautioned as she turned away. ‘You will not run crying to Zahra of this. I do not want her birthday spoiled.’

Had he so little opinion of her that he thought she would do that, knowing how much Zahra thought of him?

She let a little of her scorn show in her voice.

‘We have a saying, evil be to him who thinks evil. I wouldn’t dream of hurting Zahra. I’ve grown very fond of her.’

‘An emotion which plainly does not extend to include me.’

His audacity took her breath away. What did he expect when he treated her like some amoral gold-digger?

‘An emotion which could never extend to include you,’ she retorted. Never, never must he be allowed to think her momentary surrender sprang from anything other than a calculated intention to win him round to her cause. She could only hope that before he discovered that that cause had been lost long before she responded to his kiss, she would be gone, and she would not have to endure his amused contempt when he finally realised the truth.

During supper Zahra was rather subdued. Raschid had been particularly scathing about her harem outfit, she told Felicia, adding that she found her uncle changed of late, less inclined to show humorous indulgence, his temper sharper.

‘When I asked him why Faisal could not come home for my birthday, he really snapped my head off. He and Faisal have never got on,’ she admitted. ‘Raschid thinks Faisal should be more conscious of his duty.’