Sheikh's Castaway by Alexandra Sellers Read Free Book Online Page A

mountains.
    â€œMore rain,” he said, with deeply felt satisfaction.
    Then they sat under the yacht’s shady awning, opened the picnic and spread out the little dishes of bulghur salad, imam bayaldi, houmous and a dozen other enticing concoctions.
    The scent of richly spiced succulence rose delicately on the soft wind that blew over them, bringing the welcome rain clouds closer. Noor sighed luxuriously. She felt a sense of perfect physical well-being, bathed in a sensual glow that was the product of the heat, the sea, the food…and Bari’s long muscled body, Bari’s eyes.
    He wanted her.
    He had wanted her from the moment they met; he’d never tried to conceal that. That was why she had told him she was a virgin right at the beginning. She always told the men she dated, sooner or later, but with Bari it had to be sooner. Only with my husband, or my future husband, she’d said, the very first time he kissed her.
    He had nodded, but she’d seen the muscle clench in his cheek, and his black eyes had burned hot enough to scorch her. And for the first time in such a situation she had felt the coil of something that might have been regret. For the first time she considered whether her friends—who talked about sex as if it were a great adventure to be undertaken with any man who looked like a promising travel companion—might be right.
    Maybe he’d seen that momentary doubt. Something had flickered in his eyes then, as if he’d known he was the man who had the power to change her mind. Noor steeled herself to resist an onslaught, but in the days that followed Bari had never tried to wear her down, verbally or physically.
    Other men had tried to undermine her, taking her to the brink and then insisting on her passion and theirrights, but that treatment only fuelled her determination. Bari kissed her once, the kiss that so shifted her inner certainty that it had provoked her instant declaration of her status. After that, he hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t caressed her, hadn’t complained…only his gaze had been given the freedom of her body. His eyes, not his mouth, had tasted the curving lips that had been made for kissing; his eyes had pierced her, as intimately as any thrust of his body, leaving her melting for more. His eyes, not his voice, told her what desire was in his blood.
    She couldn’t argue with a smile that faded and turned to a look of almost angry possession. She couldn’t argue with the tightening of the generous mouth, the clenching of his strong, dark fist as he struggled against passion. And she couldn’t resist when he insisted on seeing her, day after day, though it was an unnamed torment to them both.
    She told herself his self-control was a relief to her, that she was glad his powerful desire didn’t lead him to try to undermine her resolve. But in the long, hot Eastern nights, when she awoke in her solitary bed remembering Bari’s eyes in lamplight, or the touch of his hand as it guided her and then lifted from her skin, slowly, weighted by deep reluctance, when her body was filled with yearning and a betraying wish that he had not lifted his hand, but had tightened his hold, had insisted on possession, was here beside her in the bed, to reach for and embrace—then what she felt was something that was almost regret.
    The breeze grew stronger under the shadow of the awning, and brushed her forehead with the cool promise of rain.
    â€œDo you think the drought is really over?” she asked. It had already rained twice in two days, and the wholecountry was rejoicing as if this relief, too, could be laid at the new Sultan’s door.
    He looked at her. “Yes,” he said, his voice creating another sensation on her skin. “The drought is over. It has been long, yes? Too long.”
    There was a silence as she pretended not to understand him.
    â€œAre you hungry, Noor?”
    Noor nodded wordlessly and reached out