‘How are you feeling?’
Raoul was awake! Colour burned up under her skin. Why, oh why had he insisted that she remain here with him? Still, she would have had to have faced him some time. Perhaps it was as well to get it over and done with now.
‘I… I’m fine, thank you,’ she said quickly, edging towards the edge of the bed. ‘In fact, I think I’d better go back to my own room, Saud might wake.’
‘No.’ His hand shot out, his fingers imprisoning her wrist. ‘Not yet. I’ve been lying here waiting for you to wake up.’
He had? Misgivings smote her. Why? So that he could lecture her again? Hadn’t it all already been said?
‘I’m sorry.’ Heavens, why was she apologising? He ought to be the one doing that. But then, of course, men did not expect to find themselves with an inexperienced virgin in their bed these days.
‘So am I,’ Raoul agreed evenly, ‘but what’s done is done. You must have been missing your boy-friend very badly, although he’ll hardly be gratified to learn what form your frustration took.’
Claire had to bite down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying. ‘I… I must go back to my own room,’ she protested again. She suddenly felt weak and shaky, and wanted to put as great a distance as possible between Raoul’s powerful body and her own frailer one. As though he read her mind he turned towards her, cupping her face with his free hand.
‘I’m sorry if it didn’t live up to all your maidenly expectations. It was quite a shock for me too, you know.’ He saw her expression and laughed derisively. ‘Oh yes, it isn’t exactly a turn-on to find the woman in your arms is crying with pain and not pleasure. Not unless you’re a sadist, that is, which I am not. Do you still want me?’
Claire could only stare at him, her disbelief showing openly in her eyes. He laughed again, his thumb rubbing slowly along her jaw. ‘But you did want me,’ he reminded her softly, ‘you told me so, and I wanted you.’
‘But that was…’
‘Before I hurt you?’ He bent towards heir and Claire could see the smoky flames burning in his eyes. ‘What happened was unfortunate, but it needn’t be a tragedy. I suppose I should have guessed, but your response to me was so complete that I took you for an experienced sensualist.’ He bent his head, capturing the frantic pulse beating at the base of her throat, and stroking his fingers along her flesh as though he enjoyed the vulnerability of her skin beneath them. ‘No… keep still,’ he told her when she tried to struggle. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
She moved, and anger suddenly blazed in his eyes. ‘Damn you,’ he swore suddenly, ‘have you any idea what it was like to see the fear and pain in your eyes? Why didn’t you tell me, you stubborn little fool? But I will see pleasure in your eyes, Claire,’ he added softly, ‘and before dawn pearls the desert sky. You will melt beneath my touch and murmur your pleasure against my skin.’
He pushed back the covers he had heaped over her, exposing the full length of her body to his probing gaze, his hands moving slowly over her skin. She wouldn’t respond, she couldn’t respond, Claire thought numbly. What was the point when it would only end in pain? But against her will his touch communicated a wanton need to her nerve-endings, his slow caresses stimulating a desire she was surprised she could still feel.
‘Touch me, Claire,’ Raoul murmured against her ear, nibbling the lobe with sharp teeth. ‘Wouldn’t you like to touch me as I am touching you?’
Of course she wouldn’t, but somehow she was, the tension expelled from her body on a soft sigh as his coaxing fingers drifted against her breast, stroking the rounded flesh gently so that Claire found it impossible to tell where acceptance ended and need began. So gradually that she was barely aware of what was happening, her body began to respond until it was no longer enough simply to lie in Raoul’s arms letting him caress her, she wanted to touch him too. His skin burned strangely beneath her lips, moist with a perspiration she hadn’t expected. The small satisfied sounds of pleasure he made as she touched him gave her the courage to go on, touching him more intimately, letting her tongue brush teasingly over his flat male nipples, half-exultant and half-shocked by his immediate response.
‘I think I was right first time,’ Raoul mutterd hoarsely, pulling away from her. ‘You are a sensualist.’ His fingers touched her thigh, moving along the tender inner flesh, his eyes locked on hers as he witnessed her involuntary response before she remembered her earlier pain and tensed in panic, trying to push him away, her heart thudding erratically until he moved, soothing her with light kisses until her fear was lost beneath a rising tide of need. Something was happening to her, something she hadn’t believed possible when she opened her eyes less than half an hour ago; and when Raoul’s hand returned to her thigh she only tensed momentarily, her fear forgotten as his tongue teased her nipples until her fingers tightened in his hair and she was abandonedly urging his mouth against her, her hands leaving his hair to clasp the smooth muscles of his back as he tugged gently on the aching peaks of her breasts.
Suddenly it wasn’t enough simply to feel the contraction and expansion of his muscles under her fingers, she wanted to touch and taste every part of his body. A wild, heated urgency flooded out fear, even when Raoul’s fingers stroked upwards, touching her intimately, making her gasp and tense and then relax beneath their knowledgeable caress. Her small teeth bit urgently into-his skin, feeling his shoulder muscles clench and his body harden, pleasure banishing fear as she strove to communicate to him the delight he was giving her.
‘Touch me. Kiss me, Claire,’ he muttered thickly, punctuating his words with hard kisses, taking her hand and placing it against his body, kissing her fiercely as a shudder of pleasure rippled through him.
Fear left her completely, the soft kisses she pressed against Raoul’s body eliciting a response that surprised and awed her.
‘You don’t even begin to know what you’re doing to me, do you?’ he demanded rawly, holding her slightly away from him. ‘This began as an exercise in showing you that making love doesn’t go hand in hand with pain, but when you touch me my body forgets you’re only one step away from being a virgin and knows only that the softness of your hands and lips against it is a sweet form of torture.’
He kissed her again, more deeply this time until she felt as though she were sinking into soft warm darkness, the coaxing stroke of his fingers against the most vulnerable, intimate part of her body making her tremble and ache, her hands making feverish forays against his skin until he groaned and pressed himself against her, his flesh hot and damp, his skin tasting salt beneath her tongue. But it was only when his caresses had elicited a rhythmic unfamiliar reaction from her body that he gave in to the urgent need she could feel in the hard thrust of his body against her, this time drawing her slowly against him, teasing her breasts with light tormenting kisses as his body moved fluidly against hers, slowly possessing it, urging her to touch and experience the pulsating life force of him, until her touch became surer and communicated to him the same rhythmic welcome as her body, his mouth closing hotly over first the hard peak of one breast and then the other as she moaned and moved urgently beneath him, encouraged by the soft words of praise he murmured in her ear and then by the hard demand of his mouth as he relinquished his control, abandoning it to the driving force of his body.
His fierce cry of pleasure was an unfamiliar and yet elemental sound exploding around them as she dissolved into a whirlpool of pleasure, unaware that she was calling his name until he kissed and soothed her, unaware of anything other than the experience they had just shared.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN Claire woke up she was aware of having slept well and deeply. She was alone but still in Raoul’s bed, and she leapt out, hurrying into her own room, her cheeks darkly flushed as she saw Zenaide waiting patiently for her, playing with Saud.
‘The Lord Raoul said to let you sleep,’ she said easily, ‘he also gave instructions that I was to prepare you for a journey. See…’ she indicated a case on the bed. ‘I have packed what he instructed.’
Claire’s eyes widened in appalled comprehension. Raoul was sending her away! She had betrayed her love to him and now he was sending her away from him. But what about Saud? Perhaps if she pleaded with him he would allow her to stay. What had happened was not entirely her fault. Her skin flushed delicately as she remembered her abandoned response to him. But he was the one who had encouraged that response. He had wanted her as much as she had wanted him, but now he was obviously regretting that wanting and wished only to be rid of her.
Saud beamed up at her, holding up his arms, and she bent down automatically to pick him up, tears suddenly blinding her as she realised that this was possibly the last time she would hold the little boy. What would the Sheikh say when he learned what Raoul had done? How would Raoul himself explain away her absence? But then it was easy for Muslim men to divorce women they no longer wanted, wasn’t it? Tired, muddled thoughts chased one another through her mind. Too proud to go to Raoul and beg him to allow her to stay, even for Saud’s sake, she numbly allowed Zenaide to bully her gently into getting bathed and dressed, glad that she had sent the younger girl to look after Saud when she saw the beginnings of dark bruises staining her skin—the unmistakable signs of the passion which had overwhelmed Raoul at the height of their love making.