Exotic Affairs(56)

He still held her hips tightly between his two hands; Evie used her own hands to begin urgently dealing with his clothes. As far as she was concerned, he was wearing too many; impatient fingers tossed the nightdress to one side then began pushing his jacket from his shoulders before yanking at his tie.

In all their two years she had never longed for him as much as she was longing for him right now, and it showed in the small growl of triumph she made against his mouth as the tie came free.

Shirt buttons then began popping without a care to how they came free. He wasn’t helping her—which only incited her urgency. The shirt came to rest around his elbows with his jacket, trapped there by the hands he still had clamped to her hip bones.

Evie didn’t care; she had warm, tight skin to touch at last, and a wonderful hair-roughened breastplate to reacquaint herself with. Her mouth wrenched itself away from his so it could go and taste that newly exposed flesh.

On a tormented groan, Raschid suddenly burst into action. He freed his arms from his trailing clothes, reached for her, pulling her hard against him, his hot mouth homing in on tight, tingling nipples that set her whole body singing.

How long had it been since they’d been together like this? Five weeks?

It showed in the violence of their breathing, in the urgency with which they began to devour each other. He sucked so hard on one of her nipples that she actually whimpered—then laughed because she had missed his mouth on her like this so very badly.

Breathing gone haywire, bodies hot, emotions locked into a raging frenzy. When he dragged himself to his feet, Evie rose up with him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

His mouth found hers again; she clung to him, her breasts pressing against him in open provocation. But when she dropped her hands to the waistband of his trousers his reaction was so unexpected that it thoroughly stunned her. Picking her up in his arms, Raschid turned and dumped her on to the bed.

‘No!’ he ground out, jerked right away from her, then spun on his heel to bend and snatch up the discarded nightdress, which he tossed at her before bending to snatch up his shirt.

‘Wh-what do you mean—no?’ she gasped, barely able to believe he really meant what he was implying here!

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to become so carried away. But we must not,’ he added tautly. ‘I made a vow…’

‘A vow?’ Evie repeated shrilly, beginning to shake all over in reaction. ‘What kind of vow?’

‘Cover yourself,’ he commanded roughly.

Having recently devoured her with his eyes, he was now looking anywhere but at her, his dark face a mask of bone-gripping tension. Evie knew that look. He was hurting, and at this precise moment she was glad he was hurting!

‘What kind of vow?’ she angrily insisted.

‘A vow to Allah,’ he confessed. ‘That I would treat you with respect.’

‘I’ve got news for you, Raschid,’ Evie informed him, grimly dragging the nightdress over her trembling flesh. ‘This doesn’t feel like respect, it feels like rejection!’

He winced as if she’d hit him, but it didn’t stop that wonderful chest Evie had just eagerly exposed for herself from disappearing behind snowy white linen.

‘That is because you misunderstand my motive,’ he explained, bending to retrieve his jacket and his tie next. ‘For too long I have undervalued your importance to me. It is a sin I am determined to put right.’

‘What sin?’ she demanded bewilderedly. ‘The sin of wanting to make love to me?’ She sounded so damned offended that his mask of a face seemed to turn to iron.

Yet he nodded his dark head in sombre confirmation. ‘And the sinful lack of understanding as to what our relationship was doing to your pride, your self-esteem and your reputation.’

‘Is this explanation supposed to make me feel better?’

‘It will, when I’ve finished,’ he said, dragging his jacket back on.

He didn’t look so elegant now, Evie noted caustically, with half the buttons on his precious shirt missing! ‘Then by all means please go on!’ she invited. ‘For I find myself completely enthralled by all of this—humility!’

He muttered something she didn’t catch—an Arab curse aimed at sarcastic females, she suspected.

‘I exposed you to mockery, humiliation and danger,’ he nonetheless continued. ‘I stood by and watched your own family shun you at your brother’s wedding. I witnessed the whole party freeze in horror when you caught Christina’s bridal bouquet! I then watched you stand alone by a moonlit lake and toss those damn flowers into the water as if you were tossing away all hope for you and me!’ His chest heaved on an angry rasp of air.