Magnates: Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence. Lynne GrahamЧитать онлайн книгу.
banished her pallor, accentuating the jade-green brilliance of her eyes against her flawless skin. Her tumbled Titian curls were equally vibrant and drew his eyes against his will. His gaze dropped to the dewy pout of her mouth and then to the tantalising swell of the lush breasts that stirred with her ragged breathing. Strong and insistent desire surged with ravenous force through Jasim’s lean, powerful length.
‘Don’t you dare look at me like that!’ Elinor warned him, fully aware of the tension building in the atmosphere and the wicked coil of heat already forming low in her pelvis.
‘You’re my wife,’ Jasim drawled. ‘And I haven’t been with a woman since I was last with you.’
Elinor was stunned by that information, while the intimacy of the declaration cut through the distance she was trying to achieve and made her face burn with hot colour. She had believed that their marriage was a mere formality on his terms and had not expected him to stay faithful during their separation. Indeed she had assumed he would divorce her. While she had struggled with a body made clumsy and weary by the later stages of pregnancy, she had miserably pictured Jasim wining, dining and bedding more sophisticated women, turning their heads with his charisma as he had once turned hers. The knowledge that he had practised celibacy just as she had was, nonetheless, a sudden source of immense satisfaction to Elinor. It would have been quite a challenge for him to rein in that high voltage sex drive of his, she reflected sourly, reluctantly prompted to recall the one night she had spent with him.
‘I knew I’d find you,’ Jasim intoned in husky addition.
‘I’d like to see Sami now,’ Elinor said eagerly, desperate to escape the charged atmosphere and the wickedly potent sexual images she was already struggling to wipe from her thoughts. She wondered if that was what she hated most about Jasim: his ability to transform her into a sexual creature, alien to the sensible self that she had long known and depended on. But her body was indifferent to such fine principles and she was painfully aware of the hollow ache at the heart of her and the slick moisture gathering there in a response that she could not seem to suppress.
Engaged in watching the wild fluctuation of colour in her cheeks, Jasim was amused until he wondered if she was faking a show of shy unease to impress him. After all, a husband who appreciated her would be much more easily manipulated than one who saw through her wiles. But his suspicions about her true nature no longer added up as neatly as they had once done. Surely a gold-digger would never have walked out on a marriage to a male as wealthy as he was and stayed away without failing to launch a lucrative alimony claim? Of course, she had had a very valuable diamond ring to sell, but she had not netted sufficient funds from that to enable her to survive without seeking employment. The modest office job she had taken didn’t fit his cynical view of her either, he acknowledged, while he questioned how deep her attachment to Sami really ran. Did she really love his son? Or was Sami simply a weapon to be used?
He accompanied her upstairs to a room outside which a nurse sat on a chair ready to instantly respond to the little boy’s first cry. Zahrah’s needs had been equally well catered for, Elinor remembered. Sami was fast asleep in an abandoned sprawl. Elinor looked down at her sleeping son with a lump forming in her throat. Sami was unaware of the struggle of wills created by his very existence. The very thought of losing him terrified her. In such a short time Sami had become the centre of her world and the very reason she lived. Her eyes stung and she blinked rapidly. Sami, she was convinced, was infinitely more deserving of her love and loyalty than any man would ever be.
‘How can we possibly resolve this?’ she asked Jasim painfully.
‘We have only two options. I take Sami to Quaram alone or you accompany us there as my wife,’ Jasim proffered smoothly, a light hand at her spine urging her back towards the stairs again.
‘You believe that those are the only options I’ve got?’ Elinor exclaimed in a tone of angry rejection as they reached the hall.
A manservant pressed wide the door of the library where Jasim invited Elinor to take a seat. ‘Of course, if you chose to remain in London where you could discreetly lead your own life, I would naturally compensate you for giving Sami into my care. You would be a very wealthy woman,’ Jasim informed her, determined to test the level of her attachment to their son.
Elinor glowered at him in disbelief. ‘You honestly believe that I might be willing to sell my son to you?’
‘It’s your decision and sell is an unnecessarily emotive word,’ Jasim replied softly.
‘No, it’s a word as offensive as your offer. I gave birth to Sami, I brought him into this world purely because I loved and wanted him. I will never give him up to anybody else’s care and, believe me, no amount of money will make me change my mind!’ Elinor proclaimed heatedly.
Jasim strode forward and closed his hands round hers. ‘I am happy to hear that assurance. Naturally Sami needs his mother. You must come to Quaram with me—’
Elinor winced, her brow furrowing as she tried and failed to slide her hands free of his without making a production out of it. ‘Does it have to be with you? I mean, maybe I could travel out to Quaram and stay somewhere and you could see Sami as often as you liked—’
Jasim frowned. ‘I will not even dignify that foolish suggestion with an answer.’
‘Well, if I ask foolish things that irritate you, whose fault is that?’ Elinor demanded between gritted teeth. ‘You’re the guy who set out to charm me and who hauled me off to bed where you didn’t use protection!’
‘Haven’t we got beyond the stage of hurling recriminations yet?’ Jasim demanded, smouldering dark golden eyes welded to the bewitching vivacity of her lovely face and the inner glow of emotion that she could not hide. ‘Let us leave the anger behind and move forward. I live in the present and when I look at Sami I do not see a mistake, I see the future of my family—’
‘But what about when you look at me?’ Elinor slung helplessly. ‘I’m a mistake who doesn’t belong in your world!’
A lean masculine hand curved to her hip to ease her closer. Against her stomach she felt the hard swell of his erection and the insistent strength of his potent masculinity. ‘I think you belong,’ he breathed huskily.
‘That’s just sex!’ Elinor proclaimed, so full of emotion and frustration she could almost have burst into tears. Her heart was pounding, her mouth bone-dry.
Jasim pinned her to him in that intimate connection with impatient hands. She trembled, fighting the magnetic draw of him as well as the treacherous weakness of her own body. Stunning topaz eyes held hers and a breathtakingly beautiful smile tilted his beautiful mouth. ‘You like sex too, aziz.’
Her skin burned beneath that confident pronouncement and she had to still an instinctive protest. She wanted more from him than his body, and even as she surprised herself by thinking that thought she wondered where her hatred had gone and loathed herself more than she had ever loathed him. ‘We would need a lot more than that to make a marriage work,’ she said tightly.
‘Stay with me tonight,’ Jasim urged, his breath stirring the vibrant curls on her pale brow. ‘Let’s make a new beginning.’
All atingle inside and out and with goose bumps marking her skin in response to the strong deep tone of his rich dark drawl, Elinor pulled free of his hold before her self-control wavered and let her down again. Once burned, twice shy, she rhymed inside her head. Sex was not that important to her, sex could not be that important to her that just the sound of his voice sent receptive shivers down her spine. ‘That’s out of the question.’
‘I have to fly home within forty-eight hours,’ Jasim imparted gravely. ‘My father’s health is very poor and I can’t stay abroad for much longer. I must have your answer quickly.’
The speed with which he had snapped back into businesslike mode had taken Elinor aback. But then what more had she expected from him? Persuading her to accompany him home to Quaram was an easier option for him in the short term than trying to wrest custody of