His Defiant Desert Queen(36)

The massage was supposed to be the start of something. A preliminary to foreplay. She’d expected more. The feel of his fingers working knotted muscles, made her imagine his fingers doing other things...

She’d lay on the massage table knowing that soon he’d touch her, and it wouldn’t be just relaxing, but exciting. Stimulating.

She couldn’t help daydreaming during the massage, couldn’t help fantasizing.

She’d entertained the fantasies, too, because surely she’d need them for the next thing. Sex.

But there had been no next thing.

Just the deliciously long massage by a man who obviously had quite a bit of expertise, and then a good-night.

Most cordial of him. If she’d gone to a spa she’d expect him to be waiting on the other side of the door with a lovely chilled glass of lemon water for hydration purposes. But she wasn’t at a spa. She’d expected the massage to...deliver...

It hadn’t.

The sheikh knew exactly what he was doing.

Turning her on, leaving her high and dry, leaving her wanting more.

Jemma would have something to say to Mikael Karim in the morning.





CHAPTER NINE

IT TOOK HER a long time to fall asleep the night before, and when she woke in the morning, it took her a long time to want to leave her bed.

The massage hadn’t just stirred her body, it’d somehow stirred her emotions. She woke up feeling unsettled. Undone.

Mikael had promised her that he’d make her happy in their eight days together, but she felt far less comfortable and optimistic now than she had yesterday before he’d carried her across the threshold of the Chamber of Innocence.

But maybe it was this room, she thought, her gaze sweeping the white marble chamber. It was too formal and too cold.

Too lonely, too.

She hadn’t imagined that the eight nights of pleasure would start with her sleeping alone. She understood why he’d done it—he was trying to put her at ease—but it was isolating here in this room. The cold marble and silk panels might appeal to someone else, but not to her.

She grabbed her pillow and hugged it. She suddenly missed her family very much and that was saying something because Jemma had been independent for years.

When she’d moved to London at eighteen, her sister Victoria had teased her, saying Jemma would never last in London, and predicted that she would be back within a matter of weeks.

Victoria was wrong. Jemma had never returned, and it had actually been surprisingly easy to leave her family. Maybe it was because as the youngest, she’d grown up watching the others move on and move out. By the time she’d reached her teens, it was just her, and her mom, and her mom was ready for freedom, too.

And London had been a good fit. Once Jemma had moved there, she’d found it easy to embrace her new life, seizing every opportunity, taking every decent job, whether home or abroad. She liked to travel, was comfortable in hotel rooms, didn’t mind the long hours, either. Being the youngest, and having to learn to entertain herself, proved beneficial. Jemma was self-reliant. She told herself she needed nothing, and no one.

But that wasn’t true, either.

Of course she needed people. She needed good people, loving people, people who wouldn’t abandon her the moment things got difficult.

A knock sounded on her door and it opened to reveal Mikael, dressed in casual khaki trousers and a white linen shirt, with a scrap of hot orange fabric in his hands.

“For you,” he said, carrying the sheer tunic to her where she lay in bed.

She blinked at him, this new him, still finding it difficult to reconcile the intimidating sheikh with this very sexy man who looked as if he’d be incredibly comfortable without anything on.

Her hands shook as she unfolded the tunic. The neckline was again jeweled and bundled in the center was a tiny blood-orange bikini.

“We’re swimming?” she asked, lifting the bikini top, and noting that the silky cups looked very small.

“Only if you feel like it. We’re having breakfast outside in the center courtyard, next to the pool. It’s already hot today. You might want to swim.” He gazed down at her. “You don’t have to wear the suit, either. I wasn’t sure how comfortable you’d feel swimming naked.”

Heat rushed to her face. She grabbed the tiny bikini. “I’ll wear the suit, thank you.”

* * *

It was a very lazy, self-indulgent day. Jemma felt as if she were on holiday at a luxurious resort. She’d been in and out of the pool a couple times to cool off, but now she stretched out on a plush lounge chair, sunbathing, while Mikael lay on a lounge chair next to her, reading.

She couldn’t help sneaking glances at him every now and then, astonished to see him in swim trunks. Astonished by his abs, and his long muscular legs, and the thick biceps. He was nothing like the sheikh she’d met three days ago. He seemed nothing like a sheikh at all.