LITMIR.BIZ

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without this.

      ‘Wait!’ he commanded, and reached down to pull a packet of condoms from the pocket of his trousers.

      ‘I’m…I’m on the Pill,’ she said, her voice shy, which in itself was madness in view of the intimacy of their naked bodies.

      Golden eyes glittered. ‘Let’s just be sure, shall we?’ he murmured, and slid one on.

      Lara felt heat suffuse her cheeks. He was only being safe and sensible, the way she would have wanted and expected him to be, but it made her feel as if this was just…mechanical instead of special. Part of her wanted to pull her clothes back on and run away, but he had started to kiss her again, and the sweetness of his lips made flight impossible and unwanted.

      ‘Lara!’ Darian groaned as the hard, flat planes of his body met her moist and giving heat, bending his mouth to hers. Their lips met and fused and a strange warmth filled him. What the hell was she doing? What game was she playing that could have him feeling like this?

      All she was doing was holding him in her arms, her hips rising up as if to invite him inside, and suddenly he knew he could wait no longer.

      The last of her doubts fled as she felt him tremble because helplessness in such a strong man could be very potent. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, as if she had read his mind. ‘Oh, yes.’ But he was already entering her, plunging deep, deep inside her, and she gasped with delighted pleasure.

      He heard the sound she made and felt a wild and exultant kind of joy, steadying himself as he began to move. She moved in harmony with him, and he watched the rapture flower and bloom on her face.

      Lara’s breath caught in her throat. It had never been like this. Never. So… Her eyes snapped open and she saw the dark and golden man who moved above her with such sweet and piercing precision. How could she be this close? This soon? This…?

      ‘Darian!’ It was a sigh and a cry laced with a sense of wonder.

      But he was a silent lover. There was no response at all bar the silken touch of his skin and the feel of him moving inside her—the sudden brilliant gleam from his eyes was the only sign that he had heard her. She had to bite back words of passion, because even though they were joined so intimately there were some things you didn’t do. And telling a man like Darian that you thought he was the most wonderful lover was one of them. And then she was past thought…past caring…

      Holding back until he thought it might kill him, he looked down and watched her until the instinctive and frantic arching of her back set him free. He let his seed spill into her with a spasm of pleasure which seemed to go on and on and on, and when it was over he felt as though she had robbed him of something. Taken something from him which he had not been ready to give.

      They lay there, spent, in shuddering silence for a moment or two, and a tiny sigh escaped from her lips.

      ‘Oh, Darian,’ she whispered, and, turning her head, she kissed his shoulder. But he didn’t move, didn’t answer, just lay there like a statue made of flesh and bone and blood—and that was when the doubts came flooding back, startling her out of her post-coital haze, and she closed her eyes in despair.

      What had she done?

      Lara knew that regret was a waste of time emotion, but it washed over her in a great wave, leaving her shivering and cold in its wake. What in God’s name had she been thinking of? To have sex with a man so quickly—and not just any man—this man. And she still hadn’t asked him the most important question of all.

      She licked her dry, parched lips. ‘Darian?’

      Darian gazed at the ceiling. Usually he felt restless, not dazed like this. He would jump up, make coffee, perhaps play a little music. Indulge in physical activity which put a distance between him and a woman, and that was the way he liked it. A bout of sensational sex should be seen in context, as nothing more nor less than just that.

      But tonight felt different. His limbs didn’t want to move and sleep was tempting his heavy eyes as his heart slowed into a regular pounding beat. It was as if he’d landed in a warm, safe place and didn’t want to leave it.

      He fought it, and yawned. He would offer to take her home now. It was always the acid-test—how the woman reacted. Like a cool, emotionally independent woman or like a clinging little girl. The moment you let a woman stay the night she started moving in her toothbrush and leaving pairs of panties around the place—marking her territory. Though when he stopped to think about it he wouldn’t mind the tiny little scraps of nonsense which Lara wore lying anywhere. In fact, he’d preferably like her wearing them, so that he could slowly remove them and…

      ‘Darian?’ Lara said again, as she felt him begin to harden against her, and she wondered if he could hear the worry in her voice.

      ‘Mmm?’ He had been about to pull her into his arms again, but something in her question, something in her body language made him tense, and instinctively his features became shuttered. ‘Yes, Lara?’

      She sensed just as much as she saw his mental retreat. It was there in the yawn, the way he hadn’t been tender, or kissed the top of her head, or told her that it had been amazing. But there were still things she needed to know. She had allowed herself to be seduced, and in so doing she had momentarily veered off course, but she needed to know one thing above all else.

      ‘How old are you?’

      Darian was rarely surprised by a woman, particularly after he had just had sex with her; women tended to be predictable in their reactions to fast physical intimacy—they either acted as if you were about to start choosing the ring, or they started asking unanswerable questions like, Do you still respect me? But this was the last question he had been expecting.

      Was it a Why aren’t you married yet? kind of question? And would other inevitable questions follow—like why had he never settled down before and didn’t he ever want children? The last drop of pleasure evaporated in an instant, like rain splashing onto a sunbaked pavement. ‘Thirty-five. Why?’

      She felt the walls close in, and it had nothing to do with the odd, cold note which had entered his voice.

      Thirty-five!

      Which made him exactly the same age as Khalim. Or, rather, it probably made him older—because surely Khalim’s father would not have had a lover straight after he was married? And the repercussions of that just didn’t bear thinking about.

      Suddenly something which had been almost abstract was brought into harsh and painful reality, and she knew that this was a responsibility too much to bear alone.

      She had to tell someone, but it could not be Darian.

      Not yet.

      She ran her fingertips over his chest, her blood running icy-cold in her veins.

      ‘I think I’d better go home now,’ she said.

      He only just resisted a sigh of relief. ‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll get dressed and then I’ll drive you.’

      ‘I can get a taxi.’

      ‘I said I’d take you,’ he said, in a tone which broached no argument.

      Lara thought that she would have preferred to take a cab, alone with the reality of what a huge mistake she had just made.

      Because the fact that he hadn’t tried to talk her out of leaving told its own story.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      THERE was a click on the line and Lara waited, as she had been waiting on and off for the past two days—but of course it was never going to be an easy matter to get through to Prince Khalim of Maraban. Despite the fact that phone lines to the mountain kingdom were notoriously unreliable, and the fact that she counted herself as his friend, Lara was pragmatic enough to realise that no one ever really became close to such a powerful and enigmatic figure. Certainly not close enough to just pick the phone up, get connected immediately and say Hi!

      And

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