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so tagged on an acceptable label to it.
It felt real. As real as the rain on her face, or the wind streaming through her hair when she galloped along the hard desert sands.
The feelings she had for him felt as powerful and as constant as the sun. Feelings she had to spend most of her time fighting. She found herself wanting to shower his skin with tiny kisses and to stroke away the deep grooves which sometimes creased his brow when he was deep in thought. To pull his beloved dark head to her breast—to comfort and to love him, as well as to gently run her fingers through his ruffled black hair.
I love him, she thought helplessly. I love him with a power which makes the rest of life seem inadequate.
She tried to talk herself out of it, telling herself that she had simply become bewitched by the unbelievable position in which she found herself—of being the prince’s lover. Beneath her supposedly practical, horsey exterior—perhaps she was really one of those women who were secretly swayed by wealth. Who liked all the fine things which money could buy. The hot water running from the shiny taps. The pure silk robes. The best horses to ride, and food served on golden plates.
Maybe she wasn’t so down-to-earth as she’d always thought, but was secretly entertaining unrealistic dreams about her future. Was she contemplating what it might be like to be a permanent fixture in the life of her sheikh?
But even as she allowed the thoughts to filter into her mind, Eleni knew that they did not represent the person she really was, or what she really felt deep inside. If Kaliq turned around and told her that he was going to turn his back on all his royal riches and privilege—wouldn’t she more than happily take his hand and walk off into the unknown future with him? In fact, didn’t part of her long for just such an unlikely scenario? Knowing that would be the only way for her to have any kind of future with him.
But, in reality, there wasn’t going to be a future.
Pleasure overtook him and Kaliq groaned as his seed spilled into her mouth, then he pulled her up to lie on top of him as she licked her lips like a kitten. ‘Who taught you to do that?’ he shuddered.
‘You did.’
‘What else did I teach you?’
‘This.’
Boldly, she leaned over and planted her lips on his and he could taste his own muskiness on her mouth as she kissed him so sweetly that it felt uncomfortably close to poignant. He certainly didn’t remember teaching her to do that. Kissing was something he always kept to a minimum. It brought up feelings he had pushed away or long forgotten. Kissing was almost too intimate—far more intimate than sex itself. Too close to emotion and he didn’t do emotion. And yet…
He lay back against the rumpled bedsheets—and, for once in his life, remained passive to the soft ministrations of her mouth. Just this once he would allow her a moment of tenderness and allow himself to become tangled in its dangerous web.
Just for a moment, he kissed her back—without restraint or reservation—a soft warmth beginning to heat the blood in his veins as he did so. With a moan of delight she wrapped her arms and her legs around him and deepened that silent kiss.
On and on that sweet kiss continued, until he moaned her name softly into her mouth, and as the sound of the phone jangled loudly on the bedside table Kaliq pulled away from her with something approaching relief.
‘I thought you told Zahra you didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone,’ blurted out Eleni before she could stop herself, aware that the tantalising spell had been broken.
His black eyes glittered out a distinct warning—sending out the unspoken message that it was not her place to question him. ‘It is obviously someone who’s insisting on speaking to me. Which must mean one of my brothers.’ Raking his fingers through his ruffled black hair, he lifted up the receiver and listened.
‘Oh, it’s you, Zakari,’ he said drily. ‘Are you disturbing me? Well, yes—as a matter of fact, you are.’ He fixed his gaze on Eleni’s bare and rosy breasts and his eyes narrowed. ‘Would you like to call back later? No, I thought not.’ He listened for a few moments, and then gave an odd kind of smile as he replaced the phone.
‘Is everything… okay?’ asked Eleni.
He yawned and stretched his arms above his head. ‘That depends on how you feel about the imminent arrival of my elder brother.’
‘Sheikh Zakari?’ Eleni’s eyes widened in horror as reality began to close in like a vice clamping around her throat. ‘You mean he’s coming here?’
‘Apparently. He’s been in London speaking to some diamond expert, heard that I was in the country and has decided to call in for dinner.’
Eleni sat bolt upright, her hair tumbling down over her breasts, her heart beating out a frantic rhythm. ‘Then I will hide myself away until he is gone!’
Kaliq looked at her. At that moment she looked uniquely lovely—all flushed and rumpled from an afternoon in bed but with that natural grace and elegance which was all her own. Someday soon she would no longer be his lover, but in the meantime it seemed a little unnecessary that he shouldn’t be able to feast his eyes on her while he still had the opportunity. And suddenly an audacious idea occurred to him.
‘Why not stay and meet him for yourself?’ he questioned slowly.
Eleni blinked at him in disbelief but his words only reminded her of her situation. That she was nothing but a lowly servant and Calista’s most powerful man was coming for dinner! She meet Zakari! Was Kaliq out of his mind to suggest such a thing?
‘Meet the Sheikh Zakari? But I could not possibly do that!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because… because he is the king and he will not approve of a lowly stable girl having… having…’ she searched around wildly for the right word—because surely relationship was far too presumptuous a term ‘… sex with his younger brother.’
It was a curiously insulting and bald little phrase for her to have used, Kaliq thought, with a flicker of irritation. ‘I wasn’t planning to announce it over dinner,’ he said sarcastically.
‘N-no. No, of course not,’ she stumbled, aware that now she had been presumptuous.
‘Of course, we could always play a little game,’ he suggested carelessly.
‘A game?’ Eleni looked at him suspiciously. ‘What… what kind of game?’
The black eyes glittered. ‘Look at how relaxed you have become in my company,’ he murmured. ‘So why not see how far your undoubted talents can stretch. Do you think you can play hostess for me while I entertain my brother for dinner?’
She stared at him. ‘But surely he would not approve of a… stable girl playing hostess to the ruling family!’ protested Eleni.
‘Then don’t tell him. Imply that you’re a Calistan noblewoman—perhaps the daughter of one of our diplomatic staff. Be vague. I can assure you that he will not be interested enough to pursue the matter.’
‘But is that not… dishonest?’ questioned Eleni uncertainly.
Kaliq’s lips curved. ‘Less dishonest surely than hiding you away with the rest of the staff as if you are nothing at all to me.’
She could read the challenge in his black eyes. But I am nothing to you, she reminded herself—and the painful understanding helped make her mind up. In bed at least, she was his equal—so why not grab at this chance to pretend she was equal in all ways? An evening of make-believe. For once she could pretend to be a real princess. A glimpse of the life she would never get a chance to lead.
Wasn’t this an opportunity to banish her feelings of inferiority once and for all—to prove that she was as good as her Kaliq? And wasn’t there a wistful corner of her heart which longed for