Hot-Blooded Husbands

She fell into it. She just let the wave close over her head and let him drown her in the heat of his passion, the power of his arms and the hunger of his kiss.

‘Bed?’ he suggested against her clinging mouth.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, then fed her fingers into his hair and her tongue between his ready lips. A groan broke low in his throat; it was husky and gorgeous; she tasted it greedily. A hand that knew her so very well curved over her thighs, slid up beneath her wrap, then cupped her bottom so he could bring her into closer contact with his desire. It was all very hot and very hungry. With a flick of a few scraps of silk they could be making love right here against the yacht’s rail and in front of however many unseen eyes that happened to be glancing this way.

Hassan must have been thinking similarly because he suddenly put her from him. ‘Bed,’ he repeated, two dark streaks of colour accentuating his cheekbones and the fevered glitter in his eyes. ‘Can you walk, or do I carry you?’

‘I can run,’ she informed him candidly, and grabbed hold of his hand, then turned to stride off on long slender legs with his husky laugh following as she pulled him behind her.

Back in their stateroom, now magically cleared of all evidence that they had eaten, they parted at the end of the bed, one stepping to one side of it, one to the other. Eyes locking in a needle-sharp, sensual love game, they disrobed together, climbed into the bed together and came together.

Hot, slow and deep, they made love into the night and didn’t have to worry about empty spaces in between because one loving simply merged into another until—finally—they slept in each other’s arms, legs entwined and faces so close on the pillows that the sleep was almost a long kiss in itself.

Leona came awake to find the place beside her in the bed empty and felt disappointment tug at her insides. For a while she just lay there, watching the sunlight seeping in through the window slowly creep towards her across the room, and tried not to let her mind open up to what it was bringing with it.

After a night built on fantasy had to come reality, not warm, like the sun, but cold, like the shadow she could already feel descending upon her even as she tried to hold it back for a little while longer.

A sound caught her attention. Moving her head just a little, she watched Hassan walk out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, his sun-brown skin fashioned to look almost like skillfully tanned leather. For such a dark man he was surprisingly free of body hair, which meant she could watch unhindered each beautifully toned muscle as he strode across to one of the concealed doors in the wall and sprung it open at a touch to reveal a wardrobe to provide for the man who had everything. A drawer was opened and he selected a pair of white cotton undershorts, dropped the towel to give her a glimpse of lean tight buttocks before he pulled the shorts on. A pair of stone-washed outer shorts followed. Zipped and buttoned, they rested low on a waist that did not know the meaning of spare flesh to spoil his sleek appearance. A casual shirt came next, made of such fine white Indian cotton she could still see the outline of his body through it.

‘I can feel you watching me,’ he remarked without turning.

‘I like to look at you,’ Leona replied. And she did; rightly or wrongly in their present situation, he was a man to watch whatever he was doing, even fastening buttons as he was doing now.

Shirt cuffs left open, he turned to walk towards the bed. The closer he came the faster her heart decided to beat. ‘I like to look at you, too,’ he murmured, bracing his hands on either side of head so he could lean down and kiss her.

He smelt clean and fresh and his face wore the smooth sheen of a wet razor shave. Her lips clung to his, because she was still pretending, and her arms reached up so she could clasp them round the back of his neck. ‘Come back to bed with me,’ she invited.

‘So that you can ravish me? No way,’ he refused. ‘As the wise ones will tell you, my darling, too much of a good thing is bad for you.’

He kissed her again to soften the refusal, and his mouth was smiling as he straightened away, but as his hands reached up to gently remove her hands she saw the toughening happening behind his eyes. Hassan had already made contact with reality, she realised.

With that he turned away and strode back to the wall to spring open another set of doors which revealed clothes for the woman who wanted for nothing—except her man. And already she felt as if he had moved right out of her reach.

‘Get up and get dressed,’ he instructed as he walked towards the door. ‘Breakfast will be served on the sun deck in fifteen minutes.’

As she watched him reach for the door handle the shadow of reality sank that bit deeper into her skin. ‘Nothing has changed, Hassan,’ she told him quietly. ‘When I leave this room I won’t be coming back to it again.’

He paused, but he did not turn to glance back at her. ‘Everything has changed,’ he countered grimly. ‘You are back where you belong. This room is only part of that.’ Then he was gone, giving her no chance to argue.

Leona returned to watching the sun inch its way across the cream carpet for a while. Then, on a sigh, she slid out of the bed and went to get herself ready to face the next round of argument.

In another room not that far away Hassan was facing up to a different opponent. Ethan Hayes was standing there in the clothes he had arrived in minus the bow tie, and he was angry. In truth Hassan didn’t blame him. He was wearing a bruise on his jaw that would appal Leona if she saw it, and he had a thick head through being encouraged to imbibe too much alcohol the night before.

‘What made you pull such a crazy stunt?’ he was demanding.

Since Hassan had been asking himself the same thing, he now found himself short of an adequate answer. ‘I apologise for my men,’ he said. ‘Their…enthusiasm for the task got the better of them, I am afraid.’

‘You can say that again.’ Ethan touched his bruised jaw. ‘I was out for the count for ten minutes! The next thing I know I am stuck on a yacht I don’t want to be on, and Leona is nowhere to be seen!’

‘She’s worried about you, too, if that is any consolation.’

‘No, it damn well isn’t,’ Ethan said toughly. ‘What the hell was wrong with making contact by conventional methods? You scared the life out of her, not to mention the life out of me.’

‘I know, and I apologise again.’ Not being a man born to be conciliatory, being forced to be so now was beginning to grate, and his next cool remark reflected that. ‘Let it be said that you will be generously compensated for the…disruption.’

Ethan Hayes stiffened in violent offence. ‘I don’t want compensation,’ he snapped. ‘I want to see for myself that Leona is okay!’

‘Are you daring to imply that I could harm my wife?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’ Ethan returned in a tone deliberately aimed to provoke. ‘Overenthusiasm can be infectious.’

Neither man liked the other, though it was very rare that either came out from behind their polite masks to reveal it. But, as the sparks began to fly between the two of them, this meeting was at risk of being one of those times. Leona might prefer to believe that Ethan Hayes was not in love with her. But, as a man very intimate with the symptoms, Hassan knew otherwise. The passion with which he spoke her name, the burn that appeared in his eyes, and the inherent desire to protect her from harm all made Ethan Hayes’ feelings plain. And, as far as Hassan was concerned, the handsome Englishman’s only saving grace was the deep sense of honour that made him respect the wedding ring Leona wore.

But knowing this did not mean that Hassan could dismiss the other man’s ability to turn her towards him if he really set his mind to it. He had the build and the looks to turn any woman’s head.

Was he really afraid of that happening? he then asked himself, and was disturbed to realise that, yes, he was afraid. Always had been, always would be, he admitted, as he fought to maintain his polite mask because, at this juncture, he needed Ethan Hayes’ cooperation if he was going to get him off this boat before Leona could reach him.

So, on a sigh which announced his withdrawal from the threatening confrontation, he said grimly, ‘Time is of the essence,’ and went on to explain to the other man just enough of the truth to grab his concern.

‘A plot to get rid of her?’ Ethan was shocked and Hassan could not blame him for being so.

‘A plot to use her as a lever to make me concede to certain issues they desire from me,’ he amended. ‘I am still holding onto the belief that they did not want to turn this into an international incident by harming her in any way.’

‘Just snatching her could do it,’ Ethan pointed out.

‘Only if it became public property,’ Hassan responded. ‘They would be betting on Victor and myself holding our silence out of fear for Leona’s safety.’

‘Does she know?’ Ethan asked.

‘Not yet,’ Hassan confessed. ‘And not at all if I can possibly get away with it.’

‘So why does she think she’s here?’

‘Why do you think?’ Hassan countered, and gained some enjoyment out of watching Ethan stiffen as he absorbed the full masculine depth of his meaning. ‘As long as she remains under my protection no one can touch her.’

Ethan’s response took him by surprise because he dared to laugh. ‘You’ve no chance, Hassan,’ he waged. ‘Leona will fight you to the edge and back before she will just sit down and do what you want her to do simply because you’ve decided that is how it must be.’

‘Which is why I need your support in this,’ Hassan replied. ‘I need you to leave this boat before she can have an opportunity to use your departure as an excuse to jump ship with you.’

He got it. In the end, and after a bit more wrangling, he watched Ethan Hayes turn to the door on a reluctant agreement to go. And, oddly, Hassan admired him for trusting him enough to do this, bearing in mind the year that had gone before.

‘Don’t hurt her again.’ Almost as if he could read his thoughts, Ethan issued that gruff warning right on cue.

‘My wife’s well-being is and always has been of paramount importance to me,’ Hassan responded in a decidedly cooler tone.

Ethan turned, looked him directly in the eye, and for once the truth was placed in the open. ‘You hurt her a year ago. A man gets only one chance at doing that.’

The kid gloves came off. Hassan’s eyes began to glint. ‘Take a small piece of advice,’ he urged, ‘and do not presume to understand a marital relationship until you have tried it for yourself.’

‘I know a broken-hearted woman when I see one,’ Ethan persisted.

‘And has she been any less broken-hearted in the year we have been apart?’

Game, set and match, Hassan recognised, as the other man conceded that final point to him, and with just a nod of his head Ethan went out of the door and into the capable hands of the waiting Rafiq.

At about the same time that Rafiq was escorting Ethan to the waiting launch presently tied up against the side of the yacht, Leona was slipping her arms into the sleeves of a white linen jacket that matched the white linen trousers she had chosen to wear. Beneath the jacket she wore a pale green sun top, and she had contained her hair in a simple pony-tail tied up with a green silk scarf. As she turned towards the door she decided that if she managed to ignore the throbbing ache happening inside her then she was as ready as she ever could be for the battle she knew was to come with Hassan.

Stepping out of the stateroom, the first person she saw was a bearded man dressed in a long white tunic and the usual white gutrah on his head.

‘Faysal!’ Her surprise was clear, her smile warm. Faysal responded by pressing his palms together and dipping into the kind of low bow that irritated Hassan but didn’t bother Leona at all simply because she ignored it. ‘I didn’t know you were here on the boat. Are you well?’ she enquired as she walked towards him.

‘I am very well, my lady,’ he confirmed, but beneath the beard she had a suspicion he was blushing uncomfortably at the informal intimacy she was showing him.

‘And your wife?’ she asked gently.

‘Oh, she is very well,’ he confirmed with a distinct softening in his formal tone. ‘The—er—problem she suffered has gone completely. We are most grateful to you for taking the trouble to ensure she was treated by the best people.’

‘I didn’t do anything but point her in the right direction, Faysal.’ Leona smiled. ‘I am only grateful that she felt she could confide in me.’

‘You saved her life.’

‘Many people saved her life.’ Daring his affront, she crossed the invisible line Arab males drew between themselves and females and reached out to press her hands against the backs of his hands. ‘But you and I were good conspirators, hmm, Faysal?’

‘Indisputably, my lady.’ His mouth almost cracked into a smile but he was too stressed at having her hands on his, and in the end she relented and moved away.

‘If you would come this way…’ he bowed ‘…I am to escort you to my lord Hassan.’

Ah, my lord Hassan, Leona thought, and felt her lighter mood drop again as Faysal indicated that she precede him down the steps she had taken a tumble on the night before. On the other side of the foyer was a staircase which Leona presumed led up to the deck above.

With Faysal tracking two steps behind her, she made her way up and into the sunlight flooding the upper deck, where she paused to take a look around. The sky was a pure, uninterrupted blue and the sea the colour of turquoise. The sun was already hot on her face and she had to shade her eyes against the way it was reflecting so brightly off the white paintwork of the boat.

‘You managed to make Faysal blush, I see,’ a deep voice drawled lazily.

Turning about, she found that Faysal had already melted away, as was his habit, and that Hassan was sitting at a table laid for breakfast beneath the shade of a huge white canvas awning, studying her through slightly mocking eyes. Her heart tried to leap in her breast but she refused to let it. ‘There is a real human being hiding behind all of that strict protocol, if you would only look and see him.’

‘The protocol is not my invention. It took generations of family tradition to make Faysal the man he is today.’

‘He worships you like a god.’

‘And you as his angel of mercy.’

‘At least he felt I was approachable enough that he could bring his concerns to me.’

‘After I had gently suggested it was what he should do.’

‘Oh,’ she said; she hadn’t realised that.

‘Come out of the sun before you burn.’

It was hot, and he was right, but Leona felt safer keeping her distance. She had things to say, and she began with the one subject guaranteed to alter his mellow mood into something else entirely. ‘I was hoping that Ethan would be here with you,’ she said. ‘Since he isn’t, I think I will go and look for him.’

Like a sign from Allah that today was not going to be a good day, at that moment the launch powered up and slipped its ties to the yacht.

Attention distracted, Leona glanced over the side, then went perfectly still.

Hassan knew what she was seeing even before he got up to go and join her. Sure enough, there was Ethan standing on the back of the launch. As the small boat began to pick up speed he glanced up, saw them and waved a farewell.

‘Wave back, my darling,’ he urged smoothly. ‘The man will appreciate the assurance that all is well.’

‘You rat,’ she whispered.

‘Of the desert,’ he dryly replied, then compounded his sins by bringing an arm to rest across her stiff shoulders and lifting his other to wave.

Leona waved also, he admired her for that because it showed that, despite how angry she was feeling, she was—as always—keeping true to her unfailing loyalty to him.

In the eyes of other people, anyway. He extended that statement as the two of them stood watching Ethan and his passage away from them decrease in size, until the launch was nothing more than an occasional glint amongst many on the ocean. By then Leona was staring beyond the glint, checking the horizon for a glimpse of land that was not there. She was also gripping the rail in front of them with fingers like talons and wishing they were around his throat, he was sure.

‘Try to think of it this way,’ he suggested. ‘I have saved us the trouble of yet another argument.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘WE HAVE to put into port some time,’ Leona said coldly. She twisted out from beneath his resting arm then began walking stiffly towards the stairs, so very angry with him that she was quite prepared to lock herself in the stateroom until they did exactly that.

Behind the rigid set of her spine, she heard Hassan release a heavy sigh. ‘Come back here,’ he instructed. ‘I was joking. I know we need to talk.’

But this was no joke, and they both knew it. He was just a ruthless, self-motivated monster, and as far as she was concerned, she had nothing left to—Her thoughts stopped dead. So did her feet when she found her way blocked by a giant of a man with a neat beard and the hawklike features of a desert warrior.

‘Well, just look what we have here,’ she drawled at this newly arrived target for her anger. ‘If it isn’t my lord sheikh’s fellow conspirator in crime.’

Rafiq had opened his mouth to offer her a greeting, but her tone made him change his mind and instead he dipped into the kind of bow that would have even impressed Faysal, but only managed to sharpen Leona’s tongue.

‘Don’t you dare efface yourself to me when we both know you don’t respect me at all,’ she sliced at him.

‘You are mistaken,’ he replied. ‘I respect you most deeply.’

‘Even while you throw an abaya over my head?’

‘The abaya was an unfortunate necessity,’ he explained, ‘For you sparkled so brilliantly that you placed us in risk of discovery from the car headlights. Though please accept my apologies if my actions offended you.’

He thought he could mollify her with an apology? ‘Do you know what you need, Rafiq Al-Qadim?’ she responded. ‘You need someone to find you a wife—a real harridan who will make your life such a misery that you won’t have time to meddle in mine!’

‘You are angry, and rightly so,’ he conceded, but his eyes had begun to glint at the very idea of anyone meddling with his life. ‘My remorse for the incident with the abaya is all yours. Please be assured that if you had toppled into the ocean I would have arrived there ahead of you.’

‘But not before me, I think,’ another voice intruded. It was very satisfying to hear the impatience in Hassan’s tone. He was not a man who liked to be upstaged in any way, which was what Leona had allowed Rafiq to do. ‘Leona, come out of the sun,’ he instructed. ‘Allowing yourself to burn because you are angry is the fool’s choice.’

Leona didn’t move but Rafiq did. In two strides he was standing right beside her and quite effectively blocking her off from the sun with his impressive shadow.

Which only helped to irritate Hassan all the more. ‘Your reason for being up here had better be a good one, Rafiq,’ he said grimly.

‘Most assuredly,’ the other man replied. ‘Sheikh Abdul begs an urgent word with you.’

Hassan’s smile was thin. ‘Worried, is he?’

‘Protecting his back,’ Rafiq assessed.

‘Sheikh Abdul can wait until I have eaten my breakfast.’ Levering himself away from the yacht’s rail, he walked back to the breakfast table. ‘Leona, if you are not over here by the time Rafiq leaves you will not like the consequences.’

‘Threats now?’ she threw at him.

‘Tell the sheikh I will speak to him later,’ he said, ignoring her remark to speak to Rafiq.

Rafiq hesitated, stuck between two loyalties and clearly unsure which one to heed. He preferred to stay by Leona’s side until she decided to leave the sun, but he also needed to deliver Hassan’s message; so a silence dropped and tension rose. Hassan picked up the coffee pot and poured himself a cup while he waited. He was testing the faith of a man who had only ever given him his absolute loyalty, and that surprised and dismayed Leona because, tough and cold though she knew Hassan could be on occasion, she had never known him to challenge Rafiq in this way.

In the end she took the pressure off by stepping beneath the shade of the awning. Rafiq bowed and left. Hassan sent her a brief smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You didn’t have to challenge him like that,’ she admonished. ‘It was an unfair use of your authority.’

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘But it served its purpose.’

‘The purpose of reminding him of his station in life?’

‘No, the purpose of making you remember yours.’ He threw her a hard glance. ‘We both wield power in our way, Leona. You have just demonstrated your own by giving Rafiq the freedom to leave with his pride intact.’

He was right, though she didn’t like being forced to realise it.

‘You can be so cruel sometimes.’ She released the words on a sigh. To her surprise Hassan countered it with a laugh.

‘You call me cruel when you have just threatened him with a wife? He has a woman,’ he confided, coming to stand right behind her. ‘A black-haired, ruby-eyed, golden-skinned Spaniard.’ Reaching round with his hands, he slipped free the single button holding her jacket shut, then began to remove the garment. ‘She dances the flamenco and famously turns up men’s temperature gauges with her delectably seductive style.’ His lips brushed the slender curve of her newly exposed shoulder. ‘But Rafiq assures me that nothing compares to what she unleashes when she dances only for him.’

‘You’ve seen her dance?’ Before she could stop herself, Leona had turned her head and given him just what he had been aiming for, she realised, too late to hide the jealous green glow in her eyes.

A sleek dark brow arched, dark eyes taunting her with his answer. ‘You like to believe you can set me free but you are really so possessive of me that I can feel the chains tightening, not slackening.’

‘And you are so conceited.’ She tried to draw back the green eyed monster.

‘Because I like the chains?’ he quizzed, and further disarmed her.

It wasn’t fair, Leona decided; he could seduce her into a mess of confusion in seconds: Ethan, the launch, her sense of righteous indignation at the way she was being manipulated at just about every turn; she was in real danger of becoming lost in the power he had over her. She tried to break free from it. From her chains, she recognised.

‘I prefer tea to coffee,’ she murmured, aiming her concentration at the only neutral thing she could find, which was the table set for breakfast.

The warm sound of his laughter was in recognition of her diversion tactics. Then suddenly he wasn’t laughing, he was releasing a gasp of horror. ‘You are bruised!’ he claimed, sending her gaze flittering to the slight discolouring to her right shoulder that she had noticed herself in the shower earlier.

‘It’s nothing.’ She tried to dismiss it.

But Hassan was already turning her round and his black eyes were hard as they began flashing over every other exposed piece of flesh he could see. ‘Me, or the fall?’ he demanded harshly.

‘The fall, of course.’ She frowned, because she couldn’t remember a single time in all the years they had been together that Hassan had ever marked her, either in passion or anger, yet he had gone so pale she might have accused him of beating her.

‘Any more?’ he asked tensely.

‘Just my right hip, a little,’ she said, holding her tongue about the sore spot at the side of her head, because she could see he wasn’t up to dealing with that information. ‘—Hassan, will you stop it?’ she said gasping when he dropped down in front of her and began to unfasten her white trousers. ‘It isn’t that bad!’

He wasn’t listening. The trousers dropped, his fingers were already gently lifting the plain white cotton of her panty line out of the way so he could inspect for himself. ‘I am at your feet,’ he said in pained apology.