The Sheikh's Undoing

han ever—like a Technicolor character who had just wandered into a black and white film.

He moved over her, and she drew in a deep breath of anticipation. She knew his body so well, and yet she was a stranger to his thoughts. Should she tell him now? When they were physically just about as close as it was possible to be without—

‘Oh!’ she moaned as he entered her. Too late, she thought fleetingly, as sweet sensation shot through her body and the familiar heat began to build. Take this pleasure that you weren’t expecting and give him pleasure in return. Let him see that there can still be sweetness and joy. And then maybe, maybe …

‘God, you’re tight,’ he moaned.

‘It’s because you’re so big,’ she breathed.

‘I’m always big,’ came his mocking boast.

‘Bigger, then.’

But words became redundant as he began to move inside her, his mouth on hers as she met his every powerful thrust with the welcoming tilt of her hips.

It was the most bittersweet experience of her life. Amazing, yes—because sex with Tariq always was—but tinged with a certain poignancy, too. She was aware that things were different between them now, that nothing had been resolved. Aware too of what she still hadn’t told him. And all those facts combined to heighten every one of her senses.

She felt her climax growing. The beckoning warmth which had been tantalisingly out of reach now became a blissful reality. She felt the first powerful spasm just as he gave his own ragged cry, his movements more frantic as her arms closed around his sweat-sheened back. And she was falling, dissolving, melting. Past thinking as the world fell away from her.

Minutes passed, and when she opened her eyes it was to find Tariq leaning on one elbow, his hooded eyes enigmatic as he studied her.

‘Amazing,’ he observed after a moment or two, a finger tracing down the side of her cheek as she sucked in a deep breath of air. ‘As ever.’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t ring me, Izzy.’

‘I could say the same thing about you.’ She looked straight into his eyes. ‘Did you think I would?’

His mouth quirked into an odd kind of smile. He’d thought that her cool evaluation of their relationship having run its course had been a clever kind of bargaining tool. Had she realised that no woman had ever done that to him before? That the tantalising prospect of someone finishing with him was guaranteed to keep him interested? ‘Of course I did,’ he replied truthfully.

Isobel shifted restlessly. The warmth was ebbing away from her body now, and she knew she couldn’t put it off much longer. Yet some instinctive air of preservation made her want to gather together all the facts first. ‘Why did you come here today, Tariq?’

He smiled. ‘I thought I’d just demonstrated that—to our mutual satisfaction.’

Her own smile was tight. So that had been a demonstration, had it? In the midst of her post-orgasmic glow, it was all too easy to forget his arrogance. ‘For sex?’ she queried. ‘Was that why you came?’

‘Yes. No. Oh, Izzy—I don’t know.’ He shook his head and gave a reluctant sigh, not wanting to analyse the powerful impulse which had brought him to her door today. Couldn’t she just enjoy the here and now and be satisfied with that? ‘Whatever it is, I’ve missed it.’

‘If it’s just sex you can get that from plenty of other women,’ she pointed out.

‘Then maybe it isn’t just sex,’ he said slowly. He lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers and she was caught in the brilliant ebony blaze of his eyes. ‘Maybe what I should have said is that I’ve missed you.’

Isobel’s heart missed a beat, and all the wistful longings she had suppressed as a matter of survival now came bubbling to the surface. ‘You’ve said that before,’ she whispered. ‘When you’ve come back from a trip.’

‘Yes, I know. But it was different this time—knowing that you weren’t going to be here. Telling me that it was over made me realise that I could lose you—and I don’t want to.’

Her heart crashed against her ribcage. ‘You don’t?’

‘No.’ He brushed his lips over hers. Back and forth and back and forth—until he could feel her shivering response. ‘What we have together is better than anything I’ve had with anyone else. I’m not promising you for ever, Izzy, because I don’t think I can do that. And I haven’t changed my mind about children. But if you think you can be content with what we’ve got …. Well, then, let’s go for it.’

His words mocked her. Taunted her. They filled her with horror at what she must now do. Let’s go for it. That was the kind of thing a football coach said during the half-time pep talk—not a man who was telling you that you meant something really special to him. And Isobel realised what a mess she had made of everything. Despite her determination not to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she had ended up doing exactly that. She had hitched her star to a man who was unavailable. In Tariq’s case it wasn’t because he was married but because he was emotionally unavailable. And in a roundabout way he’d just told her that he always would be.

I haven’t changed my mind about children.

So now what did she do?

Feeling sick with nerves, she sat up, her unruly curls falling over her shoulders and providing some welcome cover for her aching breasts.