Page 37 of Out of Office Nights
‘And you can slay whatever demons need slaying back in Cartana?’
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t tense as before. And the bleakness, while making another appearance, wasn’t as acute. ‘Look at us, so in sync.’ The merest hint of cynicism pulsed through his gruff words.
We’re in this…together.
A heady sentiment, exposing her to more earthy, elemental cravings, making her sway towards him, a soft moan escaping her.
He freed her glass from her clutches with minimum effort. She felt every octave of the deeper moan released from her throat when his fingers spiked into her loosened hair and gripped it tight. When he used the firm hold to nudge her close.Closer.
‘What do you want, Sabeen?’ It was a firm demand that dared her to meet him without fear or pretence. To be bolder in seizing her desires.
And what she wanted, above all else, was to relive that first and only kiss. Ignoring the imprudence hovering in the distance, she embraced the risky abandon ofmore. ‘I want you to kiss me,’ she whispered. Then more firmly, ‘Now.’
The smug surprise in his eyes was doused almost immediately by a blaze of lust when he grunted. And swooped. Seizing her mouth with his in a fiery assault that made her gasp and part her lips eagerly beneath his. Firm and luscious and reigniting her memory, Teo’s kiss was indescribable. Ravening.
His tongue swept between her eager lips, unhurried, decadently savouring her, sliding over the tip of hers, sending arrows of lust straight to her core. A disgraceful little whimper left her throat, her fingers scrabbling against his chest as she surged closer. Need built as he took his time in sating her. With an impatient groan, she dragged him closer, eliciting a dark chuckle before he deepened the contact.
In some infuriating part of her mind, she understoodwhywomen fell all over themselves for him. He could so easily slide beneath one’s skin, take residence, carve his very will on one’s soul. A sorcerer with every potent spell at his disposal.
One of those spells could mean her risking so much more than a handful of a few moments’ pleasure. That warning finally tore through the dizzying effects of their kiss, spoiling the soup of bliss drowning her.
She pushed him away, almost resentful when he so easily let her go to retreat to the far end of the sofa, his hooded eyes slowly turning pensive as his arms returned to the top of the seat in a picture of regal indolence.
If not for the reddened swell of his sensual lips, and the very visible bulge between his legs, she would’ve thought the last few minutes was a fever dream conjured up by her overheated imagination.
‘That was… That shouldn’t have happened.’
There. This was the perfect opportunity to draw the line she’d been faintly sketching, firm and resolute, in the sand. To stand, hurry to the other room, reclaim her things and leave. But her body refused to move. Her mind rebelled against detaching herself from this magic.
‘Shouldn’t it?’
She shook her head to clear the lust fog gripping her. ‘I got carried away…’
‘With the intoxicating possibilities available to you?’
Her gaze flicked from her twisting fingers to his face, down his body, lingering where it really shouldn’t. ‘Whatever those are shouldn’t include…this.’ She waved a hand over him, a gesture almost comical in its frantic insistence.
But she wasn’t laughing. She knew where giving in to one’s senses too conclusively led. Without perception or discernment and far too trusting, the way she’d been with Nathan. She wasn’t going back there again, even if this Playboy Prince was proving to have far more appealing depths than she’d ever imagined.
Theirs was a collaboration with an end goal of rebirth and redemption. She would do well to remember that.
He opened his mouth. And suddenly she was afraid. Terrified that he would ascribe some perfectly reasonable meaning to this too.
‘Please don’t trot out some cliché that it’s for my own good or it’s part of my journey or whatever,’ she griped.
‘No,tesoro. I’ll let you marinate in that beautiful chaos all by yourself. What I was going to say is that dinner is ready.’ His pointed glance over her shoulder snapped her gaze to the door, just in time to see the housekeeper disappearing.
‘Are the staff trained to be ghosts?’ She cringed at the husky disgruntlement in her voice.
‘Hmm,’ he offered noncommittally. He rose, held out his hand.
She rose on her own, not trusting herself to touch him again so soon.
Wryly amused, he led her outside and around the villa to the largest terrace next to the pool, where a feast awaited them on the pristinely laid table. Sabeen hastily pulled out her own chair before he could, earning herself a less amused glance.
She accepted the glass of Château Latour Bordeaux just to curb the incessant tingling in her hands. Then she pre-empted him when he sent her a probing look once their fragrant chickenrfissawas served and cleared her throat.
‘You’ve pushed and prodded enough. It’s only fair that you answer a few questions too.’
