Excitement, raw, wild and overpowering, took her by storm. With every fevered kiss she hung on the edge of desperation for the next, crushing her thrumming body into the hard, lean heat of him for the closeness that every fibre of her femininity greedily craved. Her hands swept up and found his broad shoulders, dug in there briefly to trace the hard stretch of his taut muscles beneath the rich fabric of his jacket before convulsively linking round his strong brown throat, her seeking fingers flirting deliciously with the luxuriant black hair at the nape of his neck.
With a stifled groan he suddenly tightened his arms around her as he lifted her up against him, kissing her breathless with an intense urgency that stoked the flames of her arousal to unbearable heights. She clutched at him, knotting her fingers into his thick, silky hair, for he was the only stable influence in a whirling vortex of violent passion. He muttered something rough against her swollen mouth, momentarily stiffening as if to withdraw, but she held him there, kissed him again with the same raw, answering hunger that he had chosen to awaken in her.
He drew her down, down onto softness and support, crushing her quivering length just as swiftly beneath his superior weight. As he sealed his long, muscular body to hers the heat of desire washed over her with such strength that she burned, her hips arching up, her legs torturously confined in the clinging cloth of her caftan. His hand closed round her breast and she gasped, shocked by sensation, instinctively straining her swollen, seeking flesh upwards to meet that possessive hold.
Razul dragged his lips free of hers, staring down at her with blazing golden eyes, his cheek-bones harshly delineated beneath his smooth, sun-bronzed skin as he snatched in a ragged breath. He loosened his grip, ran a torturous fingertip over the shamelessly distended nipple poking against the fine silk barrier, sending fire shooting to the very centre of the throbbing ache between her thighs. She closed her eyes in an agony of excitement and shuddered as if she were in a force-ten gale.
‘I cannot do this,’ Razul breathed with subdued ferocity, abruptly pulling back from her and yet carrying her with him, his strong hands grasping her arms as he tugged her upright again. ‘To do this is to shame you, and I will not have regrets between us. You will come to me as my bride or you will not come at all!’
He settled her down like a doll onto a low divan. Bethany didn’t know what had happened to her. Her entire body felt as though it had acquired a life of its own, and right now it was screaming with a clamouring dissatisfaction which was cruelly unwelcome. In short, she ached—ached for a physical completion which she had never desired in her life before—and she sat there, struck dumb by sheer horror as her mind fumbled up out of the darkness of complete shut-down to reason again. And yet she did not want to think...
‘I always knew that your desire would match mine,’ Razul confessed with rough satisfaction. ‘Now you must acknowledge that too and be grateful that my control is greater...though in truth it was not that which restrained my ardour...the doors are ajar.’
Be grateful? Bethany sat there in the burnt ashes of self-discovery, her fire ignobly doused by a bucket of cold reality. She had never endured such a tumult of agonised emotion. She was seized by shame and loathing for both herself and for him. ‘Fatima...’ she whispered strickenly, and hung her head, wondering how any man could possibly reduce her to such a level of selfish, mindless insanity.
‘What has she to do with us?’ Razul demanded with savage impatience. ‘Do not speak her name to me again!’
How could he talk like that? Nausea stirred in her cramping stomach. She was so unbearably ashamed of her own behaviour. How could she have forgotten Fatima for one moment? How could she have? Feverish tears scorched her lowered eyelids as she scrambled upright. ‘You must let me go!’
‘You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met,’ Razul condemned harshly, frustratedly. ‘Why can you not talk to me? Why do I still meet the same silence? Are you so prejudiced against my race that you cannot listen to your own heart?’
The charge of racial prejudice hit her like a final intolerable blow. Bethany shot him a look of bitter reproach and took off as if all the bats in hell were on her trail.
Strangled sobs were clogging her throat when she found Zulema waiting for her on the gallery above. She rammed them back with every atom of fierce discipline that she possessed and lifted her head high, concealing the agonising strain threatening to tear her wide open.
How dared he bring her here...how dared he subject her to such an intolerable situation? He was stirring up feelings from the past—angry, disturbing emotions which she had thought had been laid to rest. It was her pride which was hurting, she told herself. Her stupid, childishly irrational crush on him two years ago was a memory which now made her cringe. That she should be forced back into contact with him again was naturally a. nightmare of mortification. It was like returning to the scene of the crime.
Back in her palatial suite of rooms, she paced the floor, too frantically strung up to sit down. She knew what was really wrong with her. She was still reeling with shock from the physical response that he had extracted from her, was barely able to credit that that wanton woman in his arms had been her. After all, that kind of physical stuff had always left Bethany cold. Even in the grip of infatuation she had assumed that the reality of any closer contact with Razul would pretty much match her distasteful grappling experiences with other men. But now she had learned the shattering extent of her own vulnerability and she was disgusted with herself.
How could she have allowed him to touch her like that...how could she have? Maybe it was her own fault, she thought grimly. She was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin...but that had never bothered her, never caused her the least discomfiture or regret until he’d landed in her radius! She had never felt the slightest bit repressed until he’d awakened those grossly uncomfortable feelings of curiosity and awareness two years ago. Only now did she face the fact that she must have denied the physical side of her nature for far too long when a married man could put his hands on her and make her behave like a sex-starved wanton!
In two long years Razul had not forgotten her...why? Good old-fashioned lust and the challenge that she had foolishly made of herself. In England Razul had laid siege to her as though he had been conducting a military manoeuvre. She had been deluged with flowers and gifts of expensive jewellery. A couple of months on campus had taught Razul exactly what most Western women expected from an Arab prince. She had returned the jewellery. But when she had failed to be impressed, had he given up and returned to more appreciative admirers? No way.
Whatever Razul had to fight for was one thousand times more desirable to him than what came easily. His shrewd intelligence and resourcefulness had come into play as he’d focused more on the kind of woman she was. An exquisite Persian kitten had landed mysteriously on her doorstep. When she had worked late at the library an anonymously prepaid taxi would be waiting outside to take her home again. He had invited her to the opera and to external lectures instead of discos and nightclubs.
And she had kept on saying ‘no’, ‘sorry’, ‘no’ and ‘no’ over and over again, pleading pressure of work and other social engagements, never once saying, until the very last, ‘I’m not interested...I’m not attracted to you...I don’t like you,’ because those had been lies—the most outright lies she had ever told. And the terrible thing had been that Razul had known that she was lying and had been bitterly angered by her refusal to recognise the fierce attraction between them. That was why he had not forgotten her.
She covered her face with unsteady hands, feeling as though her whole being was in wild turmoil, and it terrified her. How the heck could he do this to her? What was it about him that he could still get to her to such an extent? She was appalled by her own inability to think straight. And when she looked back on the conversation that she had had with him in that courtyard she was even more unnerved by the peculiarities of her own conduct. She had sat there trailing her fingers in that fountain and actuall
y talking to him! Was that rational behaviour? Why hadn’t she demanded her freedom in terms which could not be ignored? Why hadn’t she threatened him...got him by the throat...and told him that he was a kidnapper?
Her head was spinning over these inconsistencies. Somehow she had to make Razul let her go. She focused on that dark, driven frustration of his last words to her. Surely his own instincts would do the persuading for him? Whatever response Razul had expected to his proposal, he had not received it. Indeed, she had the extraordinary suspicion that Razul had actually believed that she might be flattered that he should have gone to such incredible lengths to bring her to Datar, especially when his manoeuvres were accompanied by the assurance of wholly honourable intentions.
Honoumble? The human male didn’t come much more basic than Prince Razul al Rashidai Harun. She had severely dented his ego when she’d rejected him outright in England. So in that immeasurably arrogant, obstinate way of his he had put together what he saw as a winning package which no woman in her right mind could conceivably refuse...marriage! He was insane. Apart from the obvious fact that she absolutely loathed him, could he not see the vast gulf of understanding and cultural indoctrination which separated them...why did he refuse to see it? She wanted to scream and tear her hair out at the same time.
Without warning the bedroom door burst open. Startled, Bethany focused on the ravishingly beautiful brunette standing on the threshold. She was wearing a fabulous lemon brocade suit which shrieked designer sophistication. Huge, lustrous brown eyes set above exotically tilted cheek-bones zeroed in on Bethany, and the pouting red mouth twisted into a vicious line of rage.
‘I am Fatima...’
Bethany was paralysed by a clutch of emotions, but horror rose uppermost. Razul’s wife. She couldn’t have opened her shocked mouth had her life depended on it. She wanted a large dark hole to sink into.
Fatima surveyed her with raw loathing. ‘Hair the colour of carrots!’ she spat. ‘You ugly English bitch!’
This was no poor, weeping, tormented woman, Bethany noted dumbly. In fact, there wasn’t a sign that there had ever been tears on that remarkably beautiful face. There was a look of such simmering violence and uncontrollable fury that Bethany actually feared a physical assault.
‘You think you can take my place...but let me tell you what Razul will give you!’ Fatima ranted, stalking forward. ‘He’ll give you a fake marriage, not the real thing! Mut’a...you’re so clever, you should know what mut‘a means. It is a marriage contract for a day, a week, at most a month or two. It doesn’t even require a divorce! Men use it to take the woman they want and then toss her aside again!’
Bethany had only a very vague idea of what mut’a entailed, and even though it was totally irrelevant she found herself thinking that she had not known that Dataris recognised temporary marriage contracts. Such agreements could satisfy the strict conventions of a society which condemned sexual relations outside the bonds of matrimony. Sin and shame were thus avoided. Even a one-night stand could be deemed respectable if it observed the rules.
‘Fatima—’ Bethany began painfully
‘You are shocked!’ Fatima rejoiced in shrill interruption. ‘You are also stupid! King Azmir would never permit his son to marry a Western woman under any other circumstances!’
‘Fatima...please forgive me for the pain I have caused you just by being here,’ Bethany pleaded tautly, no longer able to meet the brunette’s eyes, so deeply ashamed did she feel, even though she had not asked for the ghastly situation she now found herself in. ‘And please believe that I have no desire to marry your husband—’
‘My—?’ Fatima screeched.
‘Razul refuses to allow me to leave the palace!’ Bethany didn’t want any more distasteful screeching and rushed in to interrupt.