“Squeeze for forward,” she repeated.
“If you need her to stop, pull gently on the reins and she’ll know what you mean. To turn, swivel your upper body in the direction you want and this will send your signal down the reins to her.” He swung up onto Muzaffar and they left the stable yard at a sedate walk.
She found the first few minutes terrifying. Azizah seemed so high, so huge, so unsteady. Laurel joggled backward and forward, although the gentle horse was only sauntering along. Even Azizah seemed surprised by her squeaks of dismay. She swung her big head around and glanced back with her luminous fringed eyes.
“Hold tighter. Don’t let her turn,” Rafiq reminded.
They walked the horses out across the sand and down through a grove of palms to a sparkling rush-edged lake. Two white birds flapped out of the greenery and honked their disapproval at being disturbed. Azizah danced a step or two sideways, and Laurel leaned lower and clung on.
“I’m getting better,” she called with delight once the mare was steady again.
Rafiq looked across at her, enjoying her reaction. How long since he’d felt so carefree? When had he last seen such a mixture of trepidation and excitement as he now saw in her vivid blue eyes?
Suddenly his undercover work seemed just a little less important, and the constant adrenalin high he’d lived for years revealed itself as a weary necessity rather than an exhilarating rush.
But his desire for vengeance still burned deep and hot.
He turned the horses back toward the stables after twenty minutes or so.
“Already?” she asked.
“I’ll put you in Malik’s good care,” he said. “He taught me to ride—now he can help you. His English is adequate for such instruction.”
Laurel’s spirits fell a little. She’d been enjoying the time so much she didn’t want to stop. Malik had been kind to her earlier, bringing her the magazines, and showing her to the comfortable lounger under the Casuarina tree—but his face was so savage, his nose as curved as an eagle’s beak, his silver beard bristling—that she’d felt far from at ease with him.
“And what are you going to do?”
“Ride like the wind.”
Rafiq’s white teeth gleamed in his dark face, and she could sense his anticipation. Her breath hitched as he adjusted the head cover over his face and transformed himself to a man from ancient times—mysterious and fierce. Now she could see only the hard glint of his eyes.
He was thrilling.
A few seconds later he whirled the gleaming black horse around, and with an exultant and spine-tingling yell galloped off at high speed. Laurel watched until he was a dot in the distance and then she became Malik’s obedient pupil.
~♥~
That evening, dressing for dinner presented more of a challenge. Laurel had stowed away all her beautiful new clothes once the riding lesson was over. She’d queried why the light level in her bedroom was lower than Rafiq’s, and felt unsophisticated when he twirled a dimmer switch and corrected the problem. But how the fabrics glowed under the brighter lights!
Underwear was easy—the sheer black half-cup bra and tiny matching panties with bows of pale pink ribbon had made her catch her breath the moment she’d unwrapped them. She checked her reflection in the big mirror. Yikes—she needed a bit more than half a cup, but half a cup was all that existed. My cups runneth over, she thought with a giggle. So—something more concealing on top...
Eventually she settled for a long tiered peacock-blue skirt with little strings and fringes of iridescent beads that swished and swung as she moved, and a matching tunic top with a modest v-neck and beaded buttons down the front.
There were backless gold sandals, and she’d discovered a velvet bag containing a generous heavy handful of chains and other baubles which she feared were the real thing. She sorted through them and chose a pair of glittering drop earrings. Definitely more suitable for the King’s house than last night’s shirt and bath-towel ensemble.
She finger-combed her newly washed hair and investigated the expensive travel kit of cosmetics and perfumes she’d found in one of the bags. Shyly she made her way out toward the kitchen.
Yasmina became extremely voluble at Laurel’s renovated appearance. There was much broad smiling and eye rolling and ai-ai-ai-ing, and then she dashed away and returned with a hairbrush. She motioned Laurel to sit and proceeded to brush out her hair.
Rafiq’s deep voice intruded only seconds later.
“The ideal job for me,” he said, directing a few more words at Yasmina and taking over. “I thought your hair was beautiful the moment I saw it. So long and pale—so different from mine. How could I forget to buy you a hairbrush?”
“Our hair is black and white, like the horses,” Laurel said.
“So you are Azizah, and definitely ‘precious’. But will I, Muzaffar, be ‘victorious’?” came his query from behind her.
“I didn’t mean that,” she protested. “You know I didn’t.”
“But perhaps I did?” She heard the amusement in his voice as he continued to run the brush through her hair, lifting the long strands to dry in the warm air. “I stroked your beautiful hair in the van so you might feel soothed,” he confessed, “but it was for my own pleasure, too.”
“It didn’t soothe me,” she murmured. “It scared me witless. I had no idea what plans you had for me. And you kept touching me and touching me—my hair, my arm.”
“I always had your best interests at heart, Laurel. You were like a small scared animal I planned to somehow rescue.”
“And you did. I owe you my life.”
The brush continued to run over her scalp and down through her hair in dreamy strokes. It felt utterly luxurious and cosseting. No-one had ever brushed her hair like this. Foster parents had sometimes given it a rough toweling when she was young. Hairdressers waved a dryer at it when she had her ends trimmed. But this sensuous pleasure was seriously arousing. Her whole body became super-aware of his attention; of his hands, of his supple torso so close behind her, of his spicy cologne and husky voice.
“What a shame,” he said, “that your hair will get wet again when we swim tonight.”
So he really meant it? He expected her to put on the bikini or the swimsuit and go down to the lake with him?
“I could tie it up,” she said, managing to find a nonchalant tone from heaven knows where.
“Or I could brush it dry again for you...?”
“I suppose you could,” she replied, knowing that her voice would become a great deal less steady if she thought of his body half naked and his hands in her hair—or more likely on her skin.
As though reading her mind, he lifted her long tresses with the brush and pressed a soft kiss onto her nape. The touch of his lips sent shivers of anticipation rocketing down her spine.
~♥~
Laurel’s indrawn breath made him smile and close his eyes. She’d be delicious if coaxed gently and surely to abandon herself to him. Already she’d demonstrated she was a truly sensual being—her response to his kiss in the stables had been instinctive and generous, and now she was sighing with pleasure as he brushed her beautiful hair.
As compensation for the hideous kidnapping and the horrible exhibitions by her foster brother, Rafiq was willing to proceed with infinite restraint, melting her caution, allaying her suspicions, drawing her ever closer to desiring him. He imagined craving and confusion warring in her vivid blue eyes... until the craving won and he advanced another step.
She was exquisite—a true test of his manhood because of her vulnerability and desperately low expectations. Taking a woman to his bed was pleasurable, yes—but withholding his own pleasure to give and give and give to her until she screamed for him; that was the ultimate challenge—and his ultimate reward as well.
“Perhaps the swimming’s not a good idea?” she suggested.
His dream punctured... his plan shattered.
“The swimming,” he murmured, bending to kiss her nape
a second time, “is an excellent idea. The moon will be full, the water in the lake has been warmed by a long day’s sun, and we can take all the time we want to enjoy ourselves. There’s no need for an early start tomorrow.”
He kissed her a third time—brushing his lips a little lower to where her neck met her tunic collar—and was rewarded by definite trembling. His spirits rose. Taking her by storm would be easy, but taking her by stealth would be sensational.
He swept the brush through her hair several more times, and laid it aside as Yasmina approached.
“I have set two places at the big dining table, My Lord Rafiq.”
“Thank you, Yasmina. Will you serve in five minutes?”
“I will, My Lord. And your lady is very beautiful in her new clothes.”
He inclined his head and smiled.
“Come,” he said to Laurel, holding out a hand for hers. “Yasmina’s decided we look fit for the formal dining room tonight.”
“We certainly didn’t last night,” she replied. “Me in your shirt, you in no shirt.” She rose to stand, and he pulled back the chair for her. As she turned, she got her first proper look at him and her mouth fell open. Black tuxedo, snowy white dress shirt, velvet bow tie.
“Rafiq!”
“Laurel...” His eyes danced with merriment as he enjoyed her surprise. “The Lodge deserves a little grandeur.” He surveyed her slowly from top to toe, noting her touches of makeup, her long drift of hair against the regal clothes he’d provided, her small feet in the jeweled golden sandals.
The desire to possess her streaked through him sharp as a sword. Smokey hunger flared in his eyes, replacing the merriment in a split second. His former resolution slipped a notch or two; she was so bewitching he wanted her on any terms at all. Could he bear to wait?
He enclosed her hand in his and led her through the house to the softly lit dining room.
“Yasmina is matchmaking,” he said, amused, as he surveyed the romantic table setting with its bowl of fragrant red roses and flickering candles.
~♥~
“Between the jailer and his captive?” Laurel queried, trying to put some distance between them. If she’d thought him gorgeous the night before, now he was magnificent. The candlelight cast dramatic shadows over his imperious face. His eyes were blacker than ever, and the mouth she’d initially thought so cruel looked softer now, and warm. He tugged her hand and unbalanced her—she thudded against his chest and into his arms.
“You are not my captive,” he grated. “But if that’s what you want to think, then consider it this way.” His mouth descended upon hers and she felt exactly how soft, exactly how warm his lips were.
He kissed her with ravishing thoroughness—slowly and deeply. She had no idea quite when she parted her lips for him, or when she welcomed his tongue to answer her explicit invitation to slide against her own, or how her hands came to be clenched in his hair, pulling him down greedily so she could sink deeper and deeper into the passion sweeping through her.
His hands smoothed down over her back and away.
“Now who is the captive?” he demanded against her lips. And Laurel was devastated to find his arms were held wide open, and it was she who was holding him, clinging to him, demanding and desperate... wanting their embrace to last long enough for her to sample all his flavors and textures, all his strength and fiery determination, all his pride and tradition and potent male magic.
Gasping, she pushed away. He wrapped his arms back around her instantly, pulled her hard against him, and then fisted his hands in her hair.
“I am not your jailer—you come to me of your own free will,” he whispered beside her ear. His hot breath scorched her neck. Then he set his teeth delicately into her earlobe and sucked at the earring threaded there. The combined assault of teeth and tongue had her entire nervous system re-ignited in an instant.
“Let me go!” she exclaimed, not wanting him to release her in the slightest. She’d never felt like this before. The previous night in his bed seemed tame by comparison. Last night there’d been the pretence of keeping her safe, but this embrace flamed with long fiery banners of danger. She was surrounded by heat and light; her senses were being re-arranged into one long stream of wanting.
He chuckled and let his lips slide away from her ear. “Let you go? Only for now, Laurel,” he murmured. “Only for now.”
He drew out a dining chair and waited for her to seat herself, then shook one of the starched napkins from its folds and laid it across her lap as though he was an attentive waiter. His fingers caressed her thigh as he moved the white damask into place.
He seated himself at the head of the table, at right angles to her. Yasmina had set the two places at one end of the polished expanse of timber. His long legs stretched out and locked around one of her ankles. “Mine again,” he said.
And she couldn’t protest or struggle free because Yasmina arrived at that instant with the first of several delicious courses.
~♥~
“Tell me about your home,” he suggested once they were alone again and eating. He forced himself to turn down the pressure so his seduction could proceed in tiny increments, building with infinite slowness until he’d made the very air around them hum with breathless wanting.
“My home? I don’t have one,” she said with a defensive little shrug. “I was fostered with different families and did my childcare training as soon as I was eligible.”
She cast her eyes down to the tablecloth and he saw the spiky shadows of her long lashes on her cheeks. She’d tinted her eyelids a gentle shade of aqua. Makeup, or her own delicate blue veins?
“They arranged for me to live in a student hostel for a while, and then I shared an apartment with three other girls and worked in different homes in Wellington. Which is a beautiful city—built on hills all around a circular harbor with two quite big islands. But the harbor entrance can be dangerous for shipping when there’s a gale blowing—and there often is.” Her face softened, remembering. “I mostly tied my hair back, out of the wind.”
“I like it loose—as you have it tonight.”
He reached over and curled his fingers around and around one of the strands until she had either to lean close to him, or complain he was hurting. He kissed her softly on her cheekbone and released her just as slowly by letting her hair slide back through his fingers. Laurel drew away with a small sideways glance at him, confused as to whether she was supposed to stay close.
“And New Zealand?” he asked, as though the devastating caress had never happened. “I hear it’s very fertile.”
“A lot of grass,” she agreed faintly. “Millions of sheep. Thousands of cows. Butter and cheese. Nothing like here at all. No sandy desert.”
Her descriptions came in the briefest bursts as she stumbled to find suitable words to describe her homeland. “Lovely beaches,” she added. “More coastline I think than anywhere else in the world.”
“But it is not a big country, surely?”
“Small. Long and thin. It must be ‘more coastline for its land area’, or something. Stop doing that...”
“Stop doing what? I’m doing nothing.” He set down his fork and looked innocently at his empty hands.
“Rubbing my ankle.”
“Like this?” he asked, increasing the pressure of his legs around hers.
“Yes. Stop it.”
“But you like it.”
“Yes. No. Not while I’m eating.”
“But you’re hardly eating at all, Laurel,” he said with soft amusement.
“Because you’re doing that to my leg. It’s very distracting.”
“Rubbing your ankle is distracting?” His eyebrows lifted with a brief suggestive twitch. “What if I was rubbing you here?” One of his hands disappeared below the splendid table top.
“No!” she gasped, before his fingers had even made contact.
“Where did you have in mind?”
“Nowhere. Nowhere at all.”
“Bu
t that was such a definite ‘no’, you must have been imagining somewhere?”
She sat frozen, staring at him like an animal caught and held in a car’s headlights. His hand finally settled warmly on her knee, and his finger and thumb started making small circles through the slippery fabric of her skirt.
“No…” she groaned.
“Not there?” He licked the corner of his mouth. “Not good? Perhaps there’s too much of this in the way?” He started to draw her skirt upward, gathering it slowly, slowly, into his palm.
Yasmina’s soft footfall approached down the hallway and he laughed at Laurel’s horrified expression and finally released the fabric.
The servant set down the next course and took their entree plates away.
~♥~
What must she have thought, Laurel agonized? Surely she’d seen, even in the soft candlelight, that Rafiq’s arm had not been decently on top of the table? That it was most indecently underneath, doing heaven knows what? But maybe Yasmina was used to him bringing women here so he could flirt and make love to them in privacy?
She was already so warm and flushed that it didn’t seem possible to blush any hotter at that thought. And then his strong fingers resumed their slow circular massage—this time against her bare skin.
She forked up some pilaf from the plate in front of her, determined to show him his caresses were having no effect. No effect apart from causing her ears to buzz, and her eyes to glaze over, and her brain to turn to mush... No effect except raising the tiny hairs on her arms and neck so they quivered and prickled as though inviting his hands to smooth them down again...
He forked up some pilaf of his own and chewed, returning his eyes to hers as he ate.
“It’s good?” he asked.
“Delicious,” she confirmed, hoping he meant the food and fearing he did not.
His slight smile came again. His fork descended into his dinner and his fingers crept a short distance up her thigh and then down to her knee.
She almost grabbed them back.
“Please... don’t...” she said in a choked voice.