heart. Reaching up, he freed her hair, and it spilled curling and golden round her shoulders.
He had said that he had had to endure surviving without the taste of her lips, the intimacy of her body against his… Gina didn't even know how to start telling him she felt the same. All she could do was demonstrate her wildly hungry feelings by matching him kiss for ravenous kiss, her hands as greedy for the touch of his skin as his for hers. His body was hard as iron beneath his flowing robes, his mouth a passionate burning brand that left her heart no choice but to be enslaved by him for ever.
Breathing hard, he broke off the kiss to cup her face between his hands. 'I must have you in my bed tonight… After this, can you still deny me?'
Thinking was hardly possible right then, while Gina's body still throbbed from the delicious intimacy of Zahir's passionate embrace, and her senses were frustrated at not having her craving for him completely fulfilled. But, like a serpent in paradise, an unhappy wounding thought reared its dangerous head and wouldn't be ignored.
'Release me.'
'What?' Confusion and not a little frustration filled his eyes.
'You have to let me go. I—I need to sit down for a minute.'
As soon as Zahir set her free Gina sank down onto the brocade couch, her mouth drying uncomfortably at the question that had reared commandingly inside her head—a question she desperately needed an answer to.
'Your sister told me today that you are soon to be married, She said it is to be an arranged marriage to an Emir's daughter. Is that true, Zahir?'
His glittering gaze considered her bleakly for a moment, then he spun away to pace the floor again. A couple of feet away from her he stilled. A shaft of sunlight beaming in through a narrow window alighted on the mane of long hair that spilled across his shoulders, and the copper lights deep within the fiercely glossy ebony strands glinted like dark fire. In her wildest dreams Gina couldn't have dreamed up a man more magnificent—or more unattainable.
'It is true… But what has that to do with us? I am not marrying her for her beautiful body, or her wit and charm, so there is nothing to be jealous about if jealousy is what you feel—not when you possess all those attributes in abundance. It is , as you say, merely an arranged union for dynastic purposes only. The arranged marriage is common enough amongst titled landowners in these part.'
'The last time you explained about that you hadn't found anyone suitable. Obviously things have moved on quickly since then?'
'Look…whether I marry this woman or not has nothing to do with what we share. Absolutely nothing! Why can you not see that?'
Capturing a strand of the bright hair that drifted round her shoulders, Gina coiled it round her finger, then let it spring free. 'Why can't I see that?' A soft, wounded sigh escaped her. 'Perhaps because I firmly believe that marriage should be one man for one woman, and that the relationship should have love as its foundation…not convenience or—or sex!' Gathering up her scattered papers from the cushion beside her, she pushed to her feet. 'If you'll excuse me, I must get on. I've promised to meet up with your sister again, and I need to pop up to my room for a book first.'
Zahir was back in front of her in an instant. A myriad of passionate emotions swirled and flickered in the silken depths of his long-lashed eyes. 'Know this…I do not ask you to become my mistress because I do not care for you. Even though you hurt me with your false promise to return, there is no other woman I desire or want to be close to but you, Gina.'
Biting down on her lip, she resisted the strongest urge to touch her hand lovingly to his high-contoured cheekbone. She hadn't forgotten that he'd recently been shot at and might have lost his life. 'I believe you, Zahir.'
'Then why shut me out as you clearly are doing?'
'Because even though you say you care for me, it's not enough to persuade me to either share your bed again or become your mistress. I don't want to play second fiddle to another woman, even though you might not hold her in high regard and your marriage would be just a formality…a convenience. I would be betraying my own integrity and hers if I