His Christmas Captive (3 page)

He let out a
hollow laugh, but he could not seem to help the way he drifted closer to her,
as if compelled. She did not move away.

"Your
investigator," she said. She swallowed. "You mean your aide.
Safir."

"He is a
loyal employee," Rafi said darkly. "Far better than I deserve. He
dared to tell me the truth about you when I refused to see the evidence before
me."

"Let me
guess," she said in a tone he could not quite read—one both bitter and
very nearly amused, at odds with the turmoil in her coffee-colored eyes.
"A cocktail waitress must be in want of a wealthy husband, and any one
will do."

Ignoring her
words, he reached out and traced the line of her collarbone, a hard
satisfaction moving through him when she shivered in response. She pulled her
wrap tighter around herself as if she were cold, but he knew better. Whatever
her plans, whatever her schemes, she could not have been prepared for this fire
that raged between them—this wild, maddening rush.

He had stayed
away because he could not keep his hands off of her when he was near her. She
was temptation incarnate. Tonight, with her blond curls piled on her head, she
looked beautiful, and all he could think about was tasting the elegant line of
her neck. He wanted to peel the layers of her clothing from her magnificent
body and bury himself within her, again and again and again. When he touched
her, he didn't care that he was Rafi Qaderi and she was nobody. He didn't care
that she had altered the course of his life.

He only
wanted her. Here, now.

And this
close to her, he could not think of a single reason why that was a bad idea.

"You
have bewitched me," he muttered harshly in his own language, well aware
she would not understand the words. And then, yielding to the very same urge
that had brought them here in the first place, he took her mouth with his.

***

Rafi's kiss
was hot, slick.

Perfect.

She should
push him away. She should denounce him and the horrible things he thought about
her. She should tell him the truth.

But Lucy
could not bring herself to do any of those things. She was awash in sensation.
The way he pulled her into his arms, pressing her against the enticing wall of
his chest. The way he angled his head for a better fit, tasting her, teasing
her, making her whole body hum with approval and need.

She loved
him.

It was that
simple. That disastrous. She loved him and he hated her, just as she would no
doubt hate herself when this was over—when she was left to reflect on the fact
that she was so weak, so easy, that she could listen to him say such ugly
things about her and then let him kiss her as if he had every right.

But it had
been so long. And oh, how she ached for him. For this. All the long, lonely
days and nights seemed to disappear like smoke. All the agony, the pain and the
terrible truth of what had happened to her seemed less bright, less vicious,
when he kissed her like this.

As if he felt
the same wild fire, the same mad connection.

As if he were
as helpless to control it as she was.

As if he'd
missed her, missed this, too.

It was that
last thought that finally penetrated the fog and forced Lucy to take a step
back. One hand flew to her mouth and she could only stare at him while her body
objected to the space she'd put between them. Her breasts felt too heavy, too
full. Her heart shuddered against her ribs. And low in her belly, she ached.
Burned.

But he hadn't
missed her, had he. He had believed whatever poisonous things Safir had told
him. He would have been content to stay away on his endless business trips
forever—would have done so, in fact, had she not claimed she needed him here,
that it was an emergency. He'd had no intention of ending these months of
punishment. He'd had no intention of coming back at all.

"Do you
think you can just kiss me and it will be as if none of this ever
happened?" she asked. She wanted to sound tough, strong, but her voice was
barely a whisper.

"There
is no pretending it didn't happen," he said darkly. His gaze was trained
on her mouth and she could not help the surge of heat within her. "But why
not celebrate the one thing we ever did well? Surely we should take our
compensations where we can. We have so little else."

"We have
nothing," she said, surprised at her own voice. How clear it was. How little
it shook. "You will leave tomorrow morning and who knows when you'll be
back. In six months? A year?" She tossed her head. "You can't abandon
me with so little regard for me and then expect me to fall into your bed at a
moment's notice!"

"Expect?
No." His fingers brushed her cheek, traced the shape of her mouth.
"But why deny this passion when we are both in the same room?"

"Because
it is the biggest lie of all!" Lucy cried. She jerked her head from his
clever fingers and moved away from him, toward the door. "And it doesn't
matter, anyway. This time, I'm the one leaving, and I won't be back at all. You
can count on it."

"Lucy…"
He said her name but she didn't know if it was to plead with her or to curse
her.

Not that it
made a difference, she told herself fiercely. She needed only to survive the
night. In the morning Rafi would be gone, she would be on a one-way flight back
to reality and she would finally be able to breathe again.

She just had
to make it through the night.

Chapter
Five

When Lucy
woke the next morning, tucked away in one of the lesser bedrooms—behind a
locked door to be safe as much from herself as from him—the world outside her
window was pure white.

Snow fell
inexorably from above, just as it must have been falling throughout the night
because the usually breathtaking view was entirely obscured. She could not see
six feet from her window, much less into the great valley below.

There was a
terrible sinking sensation in her belly and a quick check of her messages
confirmed her fears. Her car could not make it through the snow and all the
flights had been canceled.

She wasn't
going anywhere. And neither was Rafi.

She dressed
quickly and then made her way through the house. Even today, she was unable to
walk through the grand halls without marveling at the Qaderis' power, their
grace and consequence. It was evident in the richly appointed rooms, the
banquet halls, even the smallest vase upon an incidental table—everything was
clearly precious. Ancient. Part of the great sweep of Alakkul's history.

Except for
her. She was nothing but the cocktail waitress whom Rafi believed had trapped
him into marriage.

It was no
wonder her stomach twisted when she walked into the breakfast room and found
him sitting there, lounging back in one of the elegant chairs with a steaming
cup of coffee in one hand and his brooding gaze directed out the windows.

The fire
crackling away in the nearby fireplace was nothing next to the heat of his gray
eyes when he turned them on her. Lucy froze.

"You're
still here," she said stupidly even though she'd known he would be. Was
she distraught? Or relieved?

He only
gestured toward the window and the snow that continued to fall, silent and
impassable. The roads in these mountains were treacherous at the best of times;
it would be days before they'd be cleared, and then only once the snow stopped
falling.

But her mind
reeled away from what that must mean. For both of them.

It was almost
funny, she thought from some kind of distance, her gaze trapped in his far
darker one. She'd gone to so much trouble to get him here and now that he'd be
stuck here for some time—now that they were
both
stuck here—she wanted
no part of it.

"It
looks as if your wish has come true," he said with an edge in his voice,
as if he blamed her for the snowfall on top of everything else. "I will be
here for Christmas after all. You must be thrilled."

Thrilled,
Lucy thought as her heart fluttered wildly and her throat clenched tightly, was
not at all how she would describe her feelings. She swallowed and told herself
to pull it together. He lounged there at the end of the table, looking
impossibly big and dangerous, but she assured herself it was just nerves and
nothing else that swelled and contracted within her, sharp and rhythmic, making
it hard to breathe.

"Christmas
is in three days," she said. She forced a bland smile. "Anything can
happen."

* * *

It was the
longest day of his life.

Rafi found
himself in the old library later that afternoon, swirling his drink in a
crystal tumbler as he scowled into the fireplace. He felt restless. Hunted. As
if she were right there with him, crowding him. An itch he could not reach,
that would not leave him be.

She had
avoided him for hours, yet he was as wild as if she'd had him naked in their
bed, begging for her touch. He, who had never begged. He, who was more and more
convinced that she possessed some supernatural power that enslaved him to her
whenever he was near her. Even if she was only under the same roof.

With a growl
of impatience, he tossed back the remainder of his drink and slapped the
tumbler down on the mantelpiece. He raked his fingers through his hair. This
enforced seclusion was clearly making him insane. He was supposed to be back in
Germany by now, talking contracts and profit margins. Not…trapped here. With
her.

He had hardly
slept the night before. Being near Lucy made him edgy. As if he were suddenly
made entirely of angles. He'd tossed in his magnificent four-poster bed, unable
to sleep, images of Lucy haunting him. Taunting him and teasing him.

He remembered
that first delicious night. As he'd watched her work, he had been blindsided by
the maelstrom of lust and need she had stirred within him. He had hardly known
what he'd been doing, but he'd waited for her at the club until her shift was
over and then taken her back to his hotel. She'd gone with him eagerly,
seemingly as dazed by their connection as he was. The instant the doors of the
hotel's lift had closed behind them, he'd had his hands on her rich curves and
his mouth on hers. He'd urged her legs around his waist and pressed her to the
wall within moments of entering his hotel suite. He remembered the fierce,
incomparable joy of that first slick entry, right there against the wall. He
remembered her soft cries, the look of wonder on her face.

And that had
only been the beginning.

Now, as the
snow fell outside, he tortured himself with images of that first long night and
the holiday he'd coaxed her into taking with him afterward.

I'll take you
to Paris,
he'd said, and he'd done so, but it had hardly mattered where they
were. They might as well have stayed in Manchester for all they'd seen of the
City of Lights. He had no memory of the weather or anything else. It might have
been a heat wave or a blizzard. Rafi hadn't known and hadn't cared. But he
remembered her body in perfect detail. Every freckle, every curve. He knew the
texture of her nipples against his tongue and the sweet weight of her astride
him, riding them both into oblivion.

He'd thought
he'd known
her
just as well.

"Even
the great Rafi turns out to be fallibly mortal," his cousin Adel had
teased him in a family meeting not long after Rafi's quick wedding—and not long
after the phone call that had ripped his heart to shreds. "I would never
have believed it possible."

"We are
not all of us destined to wed the future Queen of Alakkul, should she ever be
found," Rafi had replied, forcing a smile. He was known for his cool head,
his unshakable resolve—and yet he had fallen for the oldest trick imaginable? A
temptress and a liar?

"A
beautiful woman should be a prize, Rafi," Adel had replied, his gaze too
calm, too knowing. "Not a curse."

But Rafi did
not believe it. Would not let himself believe it—and he was certain his cousin,
who had given over his life to his duty and the glory of their country, was
only being kind.

It still
filled him with a kind of rage, sharp and deep.

But that, he
knew, was not the true reason he despaired of himself.

How could
Lucy have betrayed him in every possible way—ruined him and shamed him, tricked
him and used him—and he still wanted her this much? Even now, when betrayal and
bitterness twisted inside of him and fused into something darker, something
hotter, he wanted her.

It was lucky
his cousin was meant to be king and not him—because he would no doubt walk away
from a throne for this woman, just as he had walked away from all he held dear,
all he'd believed to be true about himself.

He remembered
with perfect clarity when he'd realized he was nothing like the man he'd always
thought he was. It had been during another meeting in another hotel in another
interchangeable city somewhere in Europe. His aide had been reading out his
messages in his usual bland tone. The standard petitioners for the Qaderi
fortune, the regular communications from people such as the family doctor and
the senior housekeeper and the usual sheaf of messages from Lucy.