‘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.
With her hand resting in the crook of Raschid’s arm, Evie watched from the sidelines as gradually other couples began to join the newly-weds. Lord Beverley with his wife, Robert Malvern gallantly inviting Evie’s mother to dance.
‘Shall we?’ Raschid murmured.
‘Why not?’ she replied, but there was a lot of bravado in her tone and he arched his sleek black eyebrows at her as he drew her into his arms then danced off with a lightness of foot that secretly made her breathless.
‘You’re good at this,’ she remarked, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so she didn’t have to see the kind of looks they would be receiving.
‘It is expected of a dashing Arab prince,’ he blandly mocked himself. ‘I can jive too, and I’m not bad at the Gay Gordon.’