The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate HardyЧитать онлайн книгу.
would seem so.’
‘For how long?’
‘Until it’s safe to leave.’
‘Surely someone like you could call for a helicopter,’ she objected. ‘I can’t believe that the sheikh of Jazratan, with all his power and influence, is stuck in the snow in the English countryside.’
He smiled, because this was something else he wasn’t used to. People usually did everything to entice him to stay because they loved the cachet of having a royal in their presence. They didn’t stare at him with a mulish expression on their face, not bothering to hide their wish to see him gone. ‘Anything is possible,’ he mused. ‘But you wouldn’t want me to put one of my pilots at risk, would you, Livvy—just because having me around makes you feel uncomfortable?’
She licked her lips, as if his soft tone had temporarily disarmed her—which was precisely what he intended it to do.
‘You don’t make me feel uncomfortable.’
Their eyes met.
‘Well, then,’ he said softly. ‘There isn’t a problem, is there?’
She glared at him and Saladin felt a heady sense of triumph. Surely she must realise by now that that resistance was futile?
‘Just so you know,’ she said, glancing up at the wall clock, ‘I have things to do and I can’t stand around entertaining you all day.’
‘If this is what you term as entertainment, I’m happy to pass.’
She slanted him a furious look. ‘I have to work on the assumption that the weather is going to clear and that my guests will be arriving on schedule.’
‘So let me help you.’
Livvy put down her cup with a clatter. ‘How?’
‘Are there logs that need chopping?’
‘You chop logs?’
‘Yes, I chop logs, Livvy. Or do you think I lie around on silken cushions all day doing nothing?’
‘I have no idea. I hadn’t given your daily routine a moment’s thought.’
Exaggeratedly, he ran his hand slowly down over his biceps. ‘You don’t get a body like this by just lying around all day.’
‘That’s the most outrageous boast I’ve ever heard!’
He smiled. ‘So? Logs?’
‘A man from the village chops them.’ She got up from the table. ‘But you can bring some through to the drawing room from the big pile in the storehouse if you like. That would be very helpful. And if you’d like to light the fire, that would also be helpful.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I’m decorating the Christmas tree.’
She flung the words out like a challenge.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Something at which I am a complete novice, which means you can order me round to your heart’s content. I’m sure that will give you immense pleasure, won’t it, Livvy? You seem to enjoy taking control.’
He watched as she appeared to bite back what she was about to say. She looked as if she wanted to tell him to go to hell.
‘I suppose you can hold the ladder for me,’ she said, and he almost laughed as she bit out the ungracious response.
Half an hour later he found himself gripping the sides of a ladder while she hauled dusty boxes from the loft and handed them to him. Saladin stared down at different labelled boxes bearing the words Baubles and Tinsel with the sense of a man entering uncharted territory. He had never decorated a Christmas tree in his life—it wasn’t a holiday they celebrated in Jazratan—and unexpectedly he found he was enjoying himself.
From his position at the foot of the stepladder, he was able to study the slender curves of Livvy’s body, and from this angle her jeans certainly looked a lot more flattering. Every step up the ladder hugged the denim against the curve of her buttocks and outlined each slender thigh. His gaze travelled up to the back of her neck, which was pale and dusted with a few freckles. He wondered if she had deliberately put her hair into that topknot, knowing he would want to remove the single clip that held it in place. So that it would tumble around her shoulders like a fall of flame, the way it had done last night...
Last night.
He swallowed as she leaned out to attach a sparkly silver ball to the end of a branch, his hands again gripping the sides of the ladder—not quite sure which of them he was keeping steady. He’d lied to her about sleeping well because the truth was that he’d barely slept at all—especially when he’d realised she’d meant what she said, and that she wouldn’t be sharing a bed with him. In the silence of his icy room, he’d kept reliving their fireside kiss—thinking how unexpectedly erotic it had been. His fierce hunger for her had taken him by surprise—because nobody could deny that she was a very unassuming creature—but just as surprising was her determination to resist him.
At first he’d thought she was joking. Or that she was playing the old, familiar game because women often believed that a man was more likely to commit if they played hard to get. He gave a cynical smile. But if that was her plan then she was wasting her time, because there would be no commitment from him other than the guarantee of pleasure. His mouth hardened and his heart clenched with pain. He had walked that path before and he would not be setting foot on it again.
‘Could you hand me that angel, please?’
Angel? Livvy’s voice broke into his uncomfortable thoughts and Saladin picked up the figure she was pointing to—a plastic doll wearing a crudely sewn dress. A tiny ring of tinsel wreathed the flaxen hair, and she was holding a foil-covered matchstick, which he assumed was meant to be a wand.
‘Homemade?’ he ventured wryly, as he held it out towards her.
She hesitated before giving a brief, sad smile. ‘I made it with my mum.’
That smile touched something deep inside him and he found himself wanting to kiss her again, but her rapid ascent up the ladder was clearly intended to terminate the conversation, and maybe that was best. Yes, definitely for the best, he told himself. Instead, he forced himself to concentrate on the way she brought the bare tree to life by heaping on the glittering baubles and tinsel while the fire crackled and spat. It was one of the most innocent ways he’d ever spent a morning, and Saladin was overcome by an unexpected wave of emotion, because wasn’t it captivating to find a woman whose main focus wasn’t sex? How long since he’d been in the company of a female who was behaving with restraint and with decorum? Not since Alya, he thought—and a wave of guilt washed over him as he made the comparison.
‘Be careful,’ he growled as she began to back her way down the ladder.
‘I am being careful.’
But suddenly, he was not. He was giving in to what he could no longer resist. He caught hold of her as she made that last step and his hand closed over hers, and to his surprise she didn’t pull away from him. She just stared at him as he turned her hand over and raised it slowly to his lips, his tongue snaking out over her palm to slowly lick at the salty flesh.
‘Saladin,’ she whispered, but he could see that her eyes had darkened.
‘Don’t talk anymore, because I’m going to kiss you,’ he said, his voice deepening with sudden urgency. ‘But you already know that, don’t you, Livvy? You know that’s what I have been longing to do since I got up this morning.’
As a stalling device it was pathetic, but Livvy said it all the same, lifting her gaze to the bare ceiling. ‘There’s supposed to be mistletoe,’ she whispered.
‘Damn the mistletoe,’ he ground out as his head came down towards hers.