Heather Graham (24 page)

“Please!” she gasped again, and she was curling to him, dragging at his hair, his shoulders, pulling him back into her arms. And though she wouldn’t look at him, her fingers played along his back like butterfly wings and her lips were hungrily against his shoulders. She nipped lightly, she kissed him, following his shoulder to his neck, his neck to his broad, hair-roughened chest, his chest to his chin, to his lips. He held his lips melded to hers and reached for his belt buckle, delighted when he found her fingers already there. Fire raged through him at her touch, like wave after wave of hot volcanic lava. Together they divested him of jeans and briefs and clung together, deliriously locking together in that first complete touch of flesh against flesh. And then her fingers, delicate fingers, feminine fingers, soft and yet demanding, were running feverishly over him, exploring his back, his chest, his hips. Responding to his soft-spoken commands, finding the blazing desire that was wonderful, uniquely hers and hers alone, beautiful and fulfilling in itself because she had elicited its ardent growth.

The scent of jasmine was on the air, soft and subtle, and it mingled with the breeze and the provocative, sweetly unique scent that was her special essence.

He suddenly groaned deeply and grasped the golden tendrils of her hair, holding her face between his palms as he brought them back full-length upon the bed. “Oh, Alexandria …” he whispered, and she had never heard her name spoken with such command or with such tenderness. Never had she been held so masterfully, coaxed into such vibrant, needing response. Never had she been so swept away that all that mattered was the man, the sensation, the beauty and the awe.

But he was fighting for logic, fighting to worry. “I have to protect you,” he whispered, but not even words could dim the silver desire that swept through her.

Life was strange, she thought with a fleeting poignancy. Not long ago she had protected herself, because of Wayne. She was not with Wayne, and yet she had found this rare wonder—Dan. And then she was thinking no more, because she couldn’t bear the interruption against the beauty of sensation.

“No,” she murmured huskily, “I take pills.”

Not even for that murmur could she stop tasting him. She spoke in gasps as her lips hovered, touched and hovered again over his. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and arched high against him, yearning for him to fill the hungry void within her, to ease the delicious and desperate need.

But still he wouldn’t take her. The jet of his eyes was surely that of the devil’s in the moonlight.

“You are not being forced into a bargain,” he told her hoarsely.

Alex pressed her face into the curve of his neck, unable to look at him. She moaned and murmured brokenly, “Surely that is—obvious. Why are you doing this to me? You must know …?”

He couldn’t bear the soft reproach of her voice, yet he had to see her eyes. He caught her face between his hands and smiled tenderly as he gently drove his knee between her legs and situated his weight between them, entrapping her.

“Yes,” he said softly, “I know. I had to make sure that we both knew.”

And he embraced her with all the tenderness in the world as his masculinity breached all her barriers, a thrust as hard and full and certain as his arms were tender. She cried out at the shuddering impact, unwittingly digging the crescents of her nails into his shoulders. He shuddered himself and held still, frightened that he had hurt her.

“Alex …”

“Oh, Daniel …”

Her silk and ivory legs twined around him and he felt the sweetest of embraces. And he was free. The dam of restraint broke with the tidal wave of desire, a storm that was both fury and peace. Flesh burned and melded to flesh while their souls flew to the cadence of the ages.

And with each thrust of velvet, Alex lost a little more of her mind, of her heart. Within her, he touched her heart. He was as real and as strong as the earth, and yet he lifted her beyond it, taking her further than she had ever been before. And while she relished him—the length of him, the fingers that threaded hers, holding them on either side of her, the electric current of life and vital masculinity that created spontaneous fire within her—she also soared, aware that their fires had risen to meet and diminish the light of the moon, of the stars.

It was a little bit like dying, yet while taking part in that dying, finding a sunburst of life more vibrant than any known.

The fire reached a glorious peak, sizzled in rapture. Molten heat washing through her, through him, mingled and filled her even as she began the sweet descent back to silken sheets. And even those moments, following the precious few of incredibly brilliant ecstasy, were beautiful as she had never known them before. Because she had never heard her name shouted so hoarsely yet triumphantly, demandingly, tenderly. Neither had she ever been held with such reverence, filled still as the molten rivers of their abandon warmed her, nor held so tenderly, so consumingly.

And still nothing mattered. Only the beauty of the night, the air of silver essence, the breeze that cooled them.

The man who held her was tender as only a man of strength could be tender, still giving, telling her even now, with the heat of passion passing, that she was beautiful, stunning … perfect.

There was a lot to be said; neither attempted to talk. They simply lay entwined, glistening flesh against flesh, savoring the sweetness of the aftermath. And in time fulfillment, satisfaction and complete, exhausted contentment took their toll, and they slept.

Alex awoke with a slight start, wondering only momentarily why she was naked and yet so wonderfully warm.

He was curled against her back, his arm draped around her and his hand casually nestled against her waist.

The moonlight still filled the room with its magical touch of silver.

Alex moved very carefully, certain that he would wake with very little provocation. She froze when she felt him begin to shift, then shifted quickly and pressed her warmth against his again. She didn’t want him waking—not yet.

She wanted to think, but more than that, she wanted to study him, every line, every nuance—the man, the awesome, perfectly toned animal that lay within that man. Somehow she wanted to attempt to explore his heart and mind through his face, and also to gorge herself upon the length of contours and angles and flesh and muscles of the man who had given her such intense ecstasy while demanding and taking with such a contrast of strength and tenderness that she had never felt so wondrously feminine.

He might have been a bronze statue in the moonlight, she thought. That shimmering glow captured the bulge of his muscles that seemed so trim and fluid when he was awake, moving with his constant vitality. He was lean, but built like solid rock. She smiled slightly as she thought that he was beautiful—and that he would probably be quite indignant to hear himself so described.

But he was. Long and trim and yet sinewed, the mounds and indentations of his shoulders, arms and back were clearly delineated by light and shadow. His buttocks were firm, shaped very nicely, and his thighs, too, were hard but nicely shaped. Sleep gave his appearance a certain peace, a youthfulness, but it couldn’t hide the energy that created the fluid grace of his body.

She glanced with fascination at his hands. The nails were clipped short and were meticulously clean. Little tufts of dark hair curled over the fingers, before and after the knuckles. The fingertips were lightly callused, which was to be expected; he didn’t sit at a desk. He lived what he reported. They were, she thought with a little ripple of remembered pleasure, wonderful hands. The veins were blue against the sun-dark color of his skin, covered again by a light smattering of jet-black hair. They were long hands, she decided assessingly, actually broad too, but appearing slender because of their length.

He shifted slightly and draped a leg over hers again, and she held her breath and quickly closed her eyes. But she heard his deep breathing and opened her eyes again, studying his chest. Beneath his collarbones the curling dark chest hair was lush and rich. It tapered along with his waist to a single slender line and flared again below his waist. With his leg cast over hers, she couldn’t follow the vision any farther. It didn’t matter. It was ingrained within her memory.

He was beautiful, physically superb. And with a touch of feminine ego, she thrilled with the knowledge that he had been hers, and that whatever came, whatever the future brought, she would have the precious memory of their time together.

Tonight had surpassed deals; it had gone beyond her own consciousness. It rent her mind with confusion, because she couldn’t believe she could have fallen out of love with Wayne, and yet she was, admittedly, more than a little bit in love with Dan D’Alesio. Fantasy? Perhaps. He was an enigma, he was strength; he was the man who had ridden across the desert upon a black stallion to sweep her into his arms. He was a force larger than life, and it was impossible not to be swept away.

Yet at the same time she had to hold on to a piece of reality. She had to go to Egypt; she had to find her father.

And he would be with her. All the way. In that she trusted him implicitly. And no matter what they found, he would be there with her, whether they would share triumph and joy or the pain of discovery if something had happened to Jim. She couldn’t accept that possibility; she had to have faith. And right now she had to step back to earth. She had left the desert behind; she would also eventually leave Egypt behind. She would be back, of course; Egypt was part of her life. But that other part of her life would take over again, the part that was simple, uneventful. She would rise in the morning, fight the traffic on Michigan Avenue, spend the day secluded with co-workers and fragments of a civilization long dead.

And perhaps she and Wayne could put the pieces of their lives back together. It was strange, but it didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. In fact, at the moment she really couldn’t remember his face. It was probably much more aquiline than the countenance she stared upon now. Wayne’s nose was perfectly straight. It did, admittedly, lack the character of the slightly crooked one before her.

Even in sleep Dan D’Alesio emitted character. And even in sleep his jaw was firm and strong, his lips nicely sensual, his dark brows and lashes full of intrigue and fascination.

Yes, she was in a little bit of love, maybe more than she cared to admit. But hadn’t that been what she was afraid of all along? Neither had been able to deny the sexual tension that had rippled between them, but even when she had envisioned the most barbaric tortures for him, she had had the insight to be afraid. Because it would be too easy to care too much.

She didn’t want to deny tonight. Neither did she want to deny anything else that could come between them. But she was going to die a little bit again when it was over, because he would eternally hold a piece of her heart, and a piece of her soul. She would never be able to see moonlight again without remembering him, without recalling again and again this night of soft breezes from the Persian Gulf and exotic, magical enchantment within the mosaic palace of an Arabian sheikh. Even silk. The feel of silk would remind her; a scent of sandalwood and musk upon the air. … And yet. Brown so deep it became midnight, flashing with fire, with sunlight. … With sparkling amusement—as it was now.

How long had he had been watching her watching him, she wondered with a surge of panic.

“I do hope I pass muster!” he said with a laugh, securing her chin when she would have dipped it low to avoid the probing gaze of his eyes. “Well, I have to be better than Haman, don’t I?”

Alex raised her lashes and met his eyes. “Certainly,” she said a bit primly, but adding an impish taunt she couldn’t resist, “But that doesn’t say much. A baboon would be preferable to Haman.”

Dan laughed and ruffled her hair and pulled her tightly against him. “Thanks a lot. I’m better than Haman—but on a level with a baboon. Ah, well, such is life!”

Her face rested against his chest, and she liked the rich, warm scent of him and the way his hair tickled her cheek. She liked everything about him, about the moment, and she wished desperately that she could capture time and store it in a bottle to relive over and over again. She would have imagined that she would feel awkward; she didn’t. She loved being with him, feeling his arms around her, casual and yet secure, so intimate, so … natural. He was a rogue in his way—he had tossed her rather crudely out of his Cairo hotel room—but even if he were the devil, surely even the devil deserved his due.

Devil, rogue, prince of the desert—he was also her Rock of Gibraltar, and though she would never let him know, she would hoard greedily all that fate allotted them.

He stroked her cheek softly, and his voice was husky when he spoke. “I think I’ll be a little more gallant. You do by far outshine any beauty ever to reign in the finest of harems. And I thank you, with all of my heart, for tonight.”

Alex frowned at the sound of his words, trying to twist to read his eyes. She would never have expected such a poetic statement from him, and she couldn’t quite believe that he meant his pretty compliment. But then she also didn’t want to believe that he was quite so tender, or quite so demanding, with every woman.

Before she could seek his eyes, he sat up, bringing her with him. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find a bottle of champagne in the ice box. Want some?”

“I—yes, thank you, I suppose so.”

Alex was a little surprised to see him jump easily from the bed and walk silently out of the bedroom to the salon. A bit self-consciously, she ripped the covers from beneath her and dragged them up to her chin as she waited for his return.

He did return with champagne, and two chilled glasses. He seemed completely at ease with his nudity as he sat on the bed, smiled at her and twisted the cork. Alex jumped slightly as the cork popped and Dan lithely moved backward to keep a short gush of the frothing champagne from spilling over the sheets.

“Love champagne,” he murmured, licking his thumb absently, “but not on the bed.” He handed Alex the glass, and as she instinctively reached for it, she lost the barrier of silk she had drawn between them.