A Diamond for the Sheikh's Mistress

He’d lavished her with gifts, yes, but she’d never seemed as enthralled by them as other women had. She’d get embarrassed, or try to convince him she didn’t need whatever trinket he’d given her. When he’d given her underwear she’d blushed—and just thinking of that now made his body hard.

He went over to the window to look out broodingly. In the aftermath of their last bitter argument he’d summed their relationship up as nothing more than an elaborate act. Kat had been canny enough to try and secure a permanent position in his life before revealing the skeletons in her closet. In a way, with her coming from the background she had, he couldn’t really blame her for developing such survival instincts...

He heard the bedroom door open and turned around to see her emerging, dressed down in a plaid shirt and faded jeans. Sneakers. Her hair was loose, the luxuriant waves tumbling around her shoulders, and his blood leapt. He realised that he preferred it like this—darker. It made her beauty somehow more dramatic, mature.

She was pulling a wheelie suitcase behind her and she caught his look and said defensively, ‘I’m not staying. This is full of the accessories I told the stylists I’d bring from home.’

The uncomfortable assertion that she really wasn’t playing hard to get made Zafir’s skin prickle. He walked across the room and saw how she tensed visibly, her hand clutching the handle of the suitcase. It made something deep inside him roar like an animal. He knew this woman intimately. He’d been her first lover...the first man to bring her to orgasm...

A sense of extreme exposure that he wanted her so much—so much that he’d brought her back into his life and precipitated all these questions—propelled Zafir forward until he had both Kat’s arms in his hands. He barely noticed the suitcase fall to the side because she was no longer holding it.

She was looking up at him, two spots of pink in her cheeks, her eyes huge and wary. Gold and green.

Something dark rose up inside him and he couldn’t hold it back.

‘How many have there been, Kat? How many men have you lain down for and fooled into believing that you’re just a regular woman? Did they know who they were sleeping with? That the woman with her legs wrapped around their hips was really—’

‘Stop it.’

Kat was as rigid as a board under his hands. ‘How dare you? Who I have or haven’t slept with is none of your business. I don’t want the sordid details of your lovers, who I’ve no doubt you made sure met your exacting standards of moral integrity.’

Zafir’s pulse thundered as Kat’s sweetly evocative scent tantalised him. The only woman he wanted was glaring at him and shooting gold sparks from her eyes.

He forced out through the hunger raging in his blood, ‘Quite frankly, I’m a lot less fixated on moral integrity this time around.’

A shiver ran through Kat’s body and Zafir felt it.

‘There is no this time. This is just a job for me—that’s all. I’m not interested in anything else.’

Everything in Zafir rejected that, and he lifted one hand to cup Kat’s delicate jawline. Just the silken brush of her hair against the back of his hand had his body hardening all over again.

‘Why are you denying this, Kat? Whatever is between us, it’s mutual. And it’s even stronger than before.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not mutual.’

‘Liar,’ Zafir breathed, as every part of his body went on fire with an urgent and undeniable desire to prove Kat wrong. And along with that desire he felt something much more dangerous: emotion.

To block it out, deny it, Zafir cupped his hand behind Kat’s neck and drew her to him until he could feel the length of her willowy body pressed against his.

Her hands came up between them to his chest. The wariness and anger was gone, to be replaced by something far more like panic. And why would she be panicky unless he was about to prove her very wrong?

‘Zafir, what are you doing?’

His blood was pounding. ‘I’m proving that once a liar, always a liar...’

And then he bent his head and covered Kat’s mouth with his, and for the first time in eighteen months the roaring savage heat inside him was momentarily soothed.

Under the intense carnal satisfaction to be tasting her again was that emotion and a kind of relief. As if he’d found his way back to some place he’d been looking for. It was so profound and overwhelming that for long seconds Zafir didn’t even deepen the kiss—he just relished the sensation of Kat’s soft, lush mouth under his.

And then she made a soft mewling sound and Zafir fell over the brink of his control and hauled Kat even closer, kissing her deep enough to see stars.

Time stood still. The earth might have stopped rotating. All Zafir was aware of was the feel of Kat’s curves against his body, the stiffness of his arousal cushioned against her soft belly...and the desire to stop at nothing until he was deeply embedded between her legs and she was crying out his name as her climax sent them both into orbit.

It took a second for Zafir to realise that Kat had torn her mouth away and was pushing against his chest, breathing heavily enough for him to feel her breasts move against him. He almost growled. He felt feral.

She pushed hard and dislodged Zafir’s arms, stumbling slightly as she stepped back. Her eyes were molten, her mouth was swollen and her cheeks were flushed, and the only thing keeping Zafir from reaching for her again was the knowledge that he’d already exposed himself.

‘I do not want this, Zafir. I won’t deny that the attraction between us is still there—’