Caught in His Gilded World

He slammed the fridge door behind him.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ he said, more harshly than he’d meant it to sound.

She finished wiping the plates and gave him a self-conscious smile. ‘I’m much messier at home.’

‘But you’re not at home.’

The smile faltered. ‘No.’

Send her upstairs now. His conscience was drumming it into him, but something primitive and a lot more persuasive was rushing hot and insistent through his veins. Knocking out the more civilised switches and allowing everything that was natural and male in him to take over.

His resolve was gone.

She was so lovely, in every way, and he knew how the night was going to unfold.

There would be no guest room.

‘Come here. I’ve got something for you.’

Pink colour zoomed up into her cheeks, which told him he wasn’t the only one feeling this, but she approached him, and Khaled was well aware that the hunter in him was responding to the fact she was a little skittish around him.

Her eyes fell on the bowl of dessert and then she lifted them with an almost guilty expression on her face.

Sex and food.

How was he going to resist this?

Without even thinking about it, he spooned some straight into Gigi’s lips.

She held it in her mouth and her lashes drifted down as she savoured it.

He felt it in his groin.

She swallowed.

He groaned silently.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked in a thickened voice, offering her another spoonful.

Those golden lashes came up. ‘Yes.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Still hungry?’

She nodded and reached for the spoon, but he held on to it.

‘Let me.’

She licked her lips and a coil of heat thrummed in his belly. But there was nothing salacious about her actions—she was just enjoying her food. And strangely enough he was enjoying feeding her, looking after her, making her happy.

‘No more.’ She refused her sixth spoonful, shaking her head, all that heavy auburn hair tumbling forward to frame her narrow face.

Bozhe moy, she was lovely.

He was playing with fire.

She leaned forward unexpectedly and reached out, caught the sway of his silver chain and cross, tangled it around her fingers.

It reminded him of how she’d tangled her fingers in his chest hair to drag him into their first kiss. She was doing it again.

His libido growled.

‘What’s this?’

‘My baptismal cross.’ His voice had deepened with arousal but also with pride in something he hadn’t always been proud of. ‘I was christened Aleksandr, after my father and the saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.’

‘Where did Khaled come from?’

‘My mother. When she came back to the village she thought it was politic that I be known by the name of her father, and his father before him. It was the only name I knew after the age of four.’

Strange how after all this time it still weighed on him.

‘I’m Catholic,’ she said, tracing the cross. ‘I don’t have anything so beautiful.’

‘I disagree.’ He brushed the line of her jaw with his fingertips.

Her expression was a speaking look of welcome. It would have been easy to lean down and capture her mouth with his.

It had been his intention.

But upstairs he’d had an intention, and Gigi’s little performance was still there in the forefront of his mind. If she needed seducing he shouldn’t be messing with her.

Gigi knew before Khaled moved that he wasn’t going to kiss her. She saw the decision in his eyes, in the way his jaw tightened, and although the air between them was thrumming she knew this man had a whole lot more self-control than she did—and if he’d made up his mind he wouldn’t be changing it.

Her heart sank as he turned away and said something about showing her to her room.

Right. Okay.

She probably wouldn’t see very much more of him after this. Tomorrow he would go back to being the guy in charge and she’d have to start thinking about her future, because the writing was on the wall.

Only right now they were alone together. His barriers were down and, although it might have been lack of sleep and all the excitement of the long day, she felt as if she might die a little if this was going to be it.

She already knew she was going to miss him when she went home, and that whatever happened with L’Oiseau Bleu she would never forget him. He was the sort of guy a girl would look back on a little wistfully and wonder What if? for ever.