LITMIR.BIZ

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to her blouse. Fair skin could be a terrible disadvantage. Her thoughts were literally written all over her face.

      But he couldn’t help wondering what other parts of her body might redden in response to his presence. Nipples blushing like ripe berries. The delicate flower of her sex a pink rose inviting him to taste its nectar, beckoning him to bury his face in its soft petals—

      He cleared his throat loudly and rustled his newspaper. “Pardon me. Something in my throat.” Mercifully his dark skin did not betray the sudden flush of heat surging though his body.

      He was rock-hard, straining painfully against the zipper of his pants. He regretted removing his jacket, but if he rose to retrieve it from the seats on the other side of the aircraft, his situation would be very evident. Only the Wall Street Journal prevented his lust from being clearly visible to its instigator.

      Why on earth did this woman have such an appalling effect on him? He felt like a man who’d wandered lost in the desert for months without water then stumbled across a glittering oasis. He gasped with hunger and thirst that had nothing to do with food and drink.

      He’d not been celibate for the past decade. Women flung themselves at him on a regular basis, and sometimes he took what they offered. They had their needs, he had his. The enjoyment was mutual, the parting inevitable. Some of them sought a rich beau to pamper them, some of them an exotic lover to walk on the wild side with.

      He could give them what they wanted without giving up anything of himself.

      None of them saw the man inside. The simple man humbled by the poverty of his spirit. The lonely soul who had learned at the hands of his father that love and affection were crimes to be met with harsh and lasting punishment.

      He was no longer capable of love and the knowledge did not even pain him anymore.

      Well. That little train of thought had taken care of his erection nicely.

      He flipped the page of his newspaper and sneaked a sidelong glance at Sara.

      She’d fallen asleep?

      Good.

      He felt genuine relief for her. It would be far better for her to sleep quietly through their return to earth. The jolt of the landing would be a rude enough awakening.

      Some of the client sites they visited had runways that tested the skill of the most experienced pilots. The site they were traveling to was remote, a new field, the runway probably still dusted with freshly turned soil. Even he sometimes became alarmed at the sight of rocky, uneven terrain rising up to meet the plane at high speed.

      Quietly, he laid his newspaper aside. He didn’t want its crinkling to rouse her from her peaceful slumber.

      And she did look peaceful. Her delicate lashes rested against her cheeks. She did not wear mascara and her lashes were a soft, dark gold color, like the soil of his homeland.

      Her cheeks were still flushed with pink, and her lips parted, moist, as if she’d just licked them.

      And maybe she had.

      What dreams danced in her head that caused her face to shimmer with a secret smile? A smile that didn’t play upon her lips or sparkle in her closed eyes, but that lit her features with an inner radiance and made them glow with enchantment.

      He didn’t feel anything so mundane as lust for her at this moment. Her loveliness was a balm to his spirit.

      And he respected her business acumen. She displayed an astonishing knack for putting clients at ease, for explaining complicated concepts without blinding business people with science, the way he tended to. He knew he often came off as pompous and standoffish. He wondered if she saw him that way. Probably. And she was probably right.

      On their relatively short acquaintance he could see that Sara was a remarkable woman in many ways. A woman who deserved to be treated with respect. And as a mark of his respect he would not take advantage of her attraction to him.

      Or his attraction to her.

      He was a grown man. He could control his base instincts, rein them in the way he reined in the potentially dangerous power of the stallions he rode. She was a valuable employee. And he would do well to remember that when his primal urges threatened to get the better of him.

      “Oh, God!” Jolted awake by a loud bang and a sudden jarring sensation, Sara couldn’t remember where she was. “Did we crash?”

      “No.” Elan’s eyes were on her as she opened her own. “We’ve landed. We’re on the ground.”

      The plane shook and rattled, jarring Sara’s rigid body as the wheels shuddered along the crude runway.

      “Did I fall asleep?” Stupid question. Of course she had. Though how on earth that had happened she couldn’t imagine. A response to sensory overload, perhaps? “Don’t answer that.”

      Elan didn’t look as if he had any intention of answering. Casual chitchat wasn’t his style. An odd memory of singing with him crept into her consciousness. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.” Must have been a dream. Weird. And in her dream the singing was his idea. Weirder.

      In a rush it all came back to her. Her humiliating display of terror as they’d boarded the aircraft. The way she’d practically hyperventilated as they taxied along the runway. How she’d clung to him as if he were a life raft in the open ocean.

      She braced against her seat as the plane ground to an abrupt halt.

      “Thank you.”

      She didn’t know what else to say.

      He merely nodded, folded his newspaper, and placed it in his briefcase.

      Noise from the drilling rigs assaulted her ears as their driver parked the Jeep. She strained to hear Elan as he jumped out and beckoned her to follow. He strode toward the drilling site, enthusiasm evident in his energetic movements.

      The heady aroma of crude oil filled the air. A phalanx of beam pumps stretched into the distance, rocking in a steady rhythm, pulling the oil from its age-old hiding place beneath the barren soil.

      The oil field was a fairly recent discovery and Al Mansur Associates had bid aggressively for the contract to develop it. Sara had jumped at Elan’s suggestion that she come see it.

      But now as she stood amid the clamor and bustle of the job site, a twinge of apprehension twisted her gut.

      She knew the theories behind supply and demand, soil mechanics, flow ratios. She understood drilling from a technical and economic standpoint. But now she wasn’t sure she wanted to see exactly how the earth was plundered and forced to give up its secrets and riches.

      Elan introduced her to the site foreman and they left their papers and briefcases in his office trailer. They donned safety glasses, hard hats and earplugs before he led them across the sandy soil and up a flimsy metal ladder onto a rig about to begin drilling.

      The driller in charge gave Sara a stern list of warnings about where she could and couldn’t stand, what to watch out for, the possibilities for injury if a piece of equipment broke or came loose, or the potential for a blowout if they found a shallow pocket of gas beneath the soil. By the time he’d finished, her nerves jangled as if she stood on a massive bomb that might explode at any moment.

      She positioned herself as close to the giant drill as she dared. As it revved into action she imagined the dinosaur-like grinding teeth gnawing their way down through the rock below. Elan came and stood beside her, watching her reaction as the platform shook and shuddered with the movements of the machinery.

      “This is my favorite part,” he said, shouting over the motors.

      “Typical male!” she shouted back.

      Elan looked confused for a second then a slow smile spread over his face. He leaned toward her, as if to say something, so she removed her earplug, nerves jumping.

      “You have a naughty mind.” His lips brushed against her skin

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