Page 45 of Desert King's Forbidden Temptation

She shivered. ‘Says the man with the gun.’

‘He can’t come into the cabin,’ Tariq pointed out. ‘You’re perfectly safe.’

‘And if he’s still there in the morning?’

‘He won’t be.’

‘You sound way more confident than I would be.’

‘It’s not my first night in the cabin.’

She turned a little, but it was a mistake, because their faces were so close, and this brought them closer. It almost brushed their lips together. She sprung back a little, jabbing her hip on the kitchen bench in the process. ‘Did the tiger wake you?’

‘I wasn’t asleep.’

‘It’s two in the morning.’ She’d checked the time before scrambling into the lounge room.

‘I wasn’t tired.’

Eloise tried not to read into that statement. She tried not to hope he might have been thinking about her.

‘And now I’m wide awake.’

They stared at each other across the small space between them. Every breath was painful. Every moment she resisted him was an agony.

A moment later, there was a familiar sound—the striking of a match—and the candle was relit. His eyes lifted to hers, boring into her, his face set in tense lines as he studied her as if looking for an answer.

She stared back, confounded and confused.

He stepped forward, and she held her breath. He reached out, slowly, eyes on hers, until his fingers connected with her bare shoulder, then ran lower, catching the fabric of the caftan and pulling it higher, back into place. She swallowed past a lump in her throat.

‘It’s too big,’ she explained unnecessarily.

He dipped his head, agreeing, but also, moving closer. ‘Just a little.’

The thing swum on her.

‘If you were not working for Elana, what would you be doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, wondering why the question hurt so badly.

‘There must have been something you wanted to do, before coming to Ras Sarat.’

She contemplated that. ‘As a child, I wanted to be a dancer.’

‘You are very graceful.’

She smiled softly. ‘I loved it. I would dance for hours and hours. I think it was a form of escapism. My ballet teacher used to let me stay and help her, even after my lesson had finished. Mum and Dad frequently forgot to pick me up anyway, so Miss Melanie would drop me home afterwards. I could dance for hours and hours and never get tired of it.’

‘You didn’t pursue it professionally?’

‘It’s not an easy job to get,’ she pointed out. ‘But in any event, once my parents died, my great aunt raised me, and she didn’t approve.’

‘Of dancingorhorses? The philistine,’ he said lightly, but his body was so close, and she saw the disapproval on his face. He was trying to make her feel better, but he was angry.

‘I know. What a neglected childhood.’

He lifted a hand to her shoulder again, touching her through the fabric of the caftan, a frown on his face. ‘You should have been able to keep dancing.’

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