One Night in the Orient Read online

  Against her skin he murmured, “I’d like this to go too.”

  She nodded, holding her breath until it was efficiently removed.

  Nick looked down at the gentle curves he’d revealed. His eyes darkened and he said in a voice as rough as sandpaper, “You are exquisite.”

  Lost in a haze of desire, Siena went under. She arched into his kiss, her body urgent and pleading, and Nick’s arms tightened around her, bringing her against his lean hips so that she felt the full, vehement thrust of his male energy against her most sensitive part.

  Siena gasped for breath, then released a long, half-sobbing moan. His mouth took hers again, delving deep into her sweet depths, transmuting desire into the fierce intensity she craved.

  He lifted his head and almost soundlessly said, “Do you want this?”

  All she could think of was to repeat his assertion on the dance floor. “I want.”

  She shuddered with excitement and pleasure when his lips traced a path to her breast before closing over the eager, burgeoning tip.

  Nick slid his hands down to cup her breasts and, too soon, further on again to her narrow waist. His touch was sure and gentle; some taut inner part of her began to relax, letting her enjoy with sensuous pleasure his slow, confident exploration of her body.

  And then he pushed her remaining garment down, and further down, until it was peeled away from her.

  Enraptured by the progress of those knowing fingers, Siena forced her eyes to stay open. Without volition, her hand splayed out across his chest, pale against the iron muscles there. Awe filled her when she felt them flex against her palm.

  Delicately he probed, found the centre of her desire. Her breath quickened.

  His touch was like an explosion, a sunburst of sensation that swirled through her, brilliant and unbearably good, and much—too much—more than she could cope with.

  “Nick …”

  The word came out softly on a sigh, the merest breath of delight and anticipation, echoing her unspoken conviction that she could let herself go with him wherever he took her.

  With Nick she felt utterly safe.

  Safe? As though that small, unromantic word was some sort of precious talisman, her body arched into a bow when the first wave of ecstasy broke through her. Her hands clenched on him, eagerly demanding, and she cried out, wondering and triumphant while she rode those waves until they eased, leaving her dreamy and lax in his arms.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered, still lost to everything but the fading transcendent delight that held her prisoner.

  Nick bent a searching look onto her face. In a raw voice he demanded, “Is this your first orgasm?”

  Turning her head into his chest, she fought a strange reluctance to answer.

  He lifted her chin and searched her flushed face with glittering eyes. “Tell me, Siena,” he insisted, with formidable determination.

  “Yes,” she whispered finally.

  Siena didn’t expand; five years before he hadn’t realised she was a virgin and he’d been angry afterwards. Nothing since then had compared to the rapture she’d just felt.

  He said nothing for a few seconds. Secure in his arms, she mourned as the rapture sank into a delicious, lazily sensuous aftermath.

  “How do you feel now?” he asked.

  Pulling away, she risked a glance at his face. It revealed nothing, the expressionless mask firmly back in place.

  Chilled, she said, “Good. I mean, great.” Calm down, she ordered, and took a deep breath. “Why do you ask?”

  His voice was carefully neutral. “I wondered if you’d like to stop there.”

  Siena looked blankly at him, but asked in her turn, “Would you like to?”

  And held her breath until he said, “No.”

  “Oh, good,” she said fervently.

  Nick’s laughter was low and unforced. “Then we’re both in agreement.”

  He bent his head and kissed her again, making himself master of the soft depths of her mouth. To her rash exhilaration the smouldering embers of her desire flared into flames again.

  This time it was even more … more everything, she thought, as he acquainted her with pleasure points she hadn’t known existed and with skilful patience led her on a long, infinitely fulfilling path to the moment when at last he eased over her and into her.

  Wide-eyed, she stared at him. He was so controlled, she thought with a frisson of unease.

  “All right?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.” How could he discipline his reactions like that? Hers were headstrong and intoxicating and utterly irresistible.

  And why was he asking? Surely he understood by now that she was neither fragile nor the inexperienced virgin he’d taken so long ago?

  At last he moved again, muscles flowing as he pushed further, easing into her with such subtlety that she could have screamed with delicious, erotic satisfaction when finally he took full possession.

  Wild appetite rioted through her, tightening every nerve in her body. She made an odd little noise—half-grunt, half-plea—and allowed sensation to vanquish her completely until she realised he was about to withdraw. Instinctively she clenched her inner muscles.

  “It’s all right,” he soothed, and slid his arms beneath her shoulders to support himself on his elbows. He looked down at her and his mouth curved in a faint, humourless smile. “There—is that what you want?”

  Slowly, almost gently, he moved again, and Siena said on a long, indrawn breath, “Oh, yes, please …?” letting the words trail away in a sigh of sheer delight.

  She could feel his leashed strength, the almost violent command he was exerting over himself, and again wondered if he was afraid he might hurt her. The thought was unbearable.

  Gripped by that savage, demanding tension, she arched into him again. Although he resisted her voiceless plea, almost immediately his control snapped, and he thrust as though he would never get enough of her.

  The desperate, primal hunger rioting through Siena welcomed and matched his unrestrained passion. Now that she knew what lay ahead she gave herself up to the waves of exquisite sensation until at last she reached that other dimension where rapture was all she could feel—a rapture that ravished the thoughts from her mind and hurled her into a sated, almost stunned oblivion.

  Nick immediately followed her into that place; his climax gave depth to her own, and together they rode the storm until at last it eased into blissful fulfilment.

  Siena said, “No!” when he rolled over onto his side, but he ignored her and scooped her so that she came to rest stretched out on top of him.

  “All right?” he asked, his voice rough.

  “So very all right,” she said huskily into his shoulder, and bit his skin there, relishing the salt tang of it, the musky male flavour. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.”

  As soon as she said the words she wished she hadn’t. The first time they’d made love had been wonderful but there had been pain, and she hadn’t reached the earth-shaking peak she’d just experienced.

  Now, she thought with an odd sinking feeling in the region of her heart, now she knew.

  And she’d never be the same again.

  In Nick’s arms she’d been utterly transported into a new and different dimension, where the only thing that mattered was the sensation he summoned from her unaware body.

  But it had been stupid—and dangerous—to let him see that. Although with his experience he’d probably have recognised her wild behaviour for what it was—a primitive, unthinking pleasure so entirely new to her she couldn’t check or hide her emotions.

  Perhaps she should have tried for the casual sophistication he no doubt expected from his lovers. It wouldn’t have worked; she’d been so lost in the moment she’d been unable to fake anything at all.

  “I didn’t realise you were—” he paused, before finishing abruptly “—unawakened. I must have been damned clumsy that first time.”

  His tone was so flat she didn�
�t know what he was thinking. Or feeling. Regret for not sticking to friendship? Was he—oh, horrors!—concerned about how this would affect her parents? She cringed at the thought.

  Worse still, had her passionate response made him warily wonder if she might be falling in love with him?

  That last humiliating thought made up her mind. Cheerful insouciance—that was what he was used to from her, so that was what she’d give him now.

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, hoping she sounded properly free and easy. “And, no, you weren’t clumsy. It was—great. All and more than I hoped for. Just not as great as this time.”

  His face still sombre, he said, “I felt like a roué after that. I was furious with myself for not realising you were a virgin.”

  “Nick, it’s all right. According to my friends and every woman’s magazine I’ve ever read it’s far from uncommon.” She met his eyes and managed a smile. “I should be thanking you for showing me there’s a lot more to this sex business than simple pleasure.”

  Not a muscle in his big body moved. A twist of something strangely like fear raked through her at the glittering sliver of green beneath his lashes.

  And then he smiled, and she should have been able to relax. “Oh, you haven’t learnt anything yet,” he drawled. “With a little encouragement I can do so much better than that.”

  She stiffened, and his arm tightened around her—not in threat, but certainly with the unspoken implication that she was there until he chose to let her go.

  “You’re angry,” she blurted.

  “And you’re perceptive.”

  It wasn’t a sneer, but it came too close. “Not very,” she said, steadying her voice, “because I don’t have the faintest idea of what’s made you angry.”

  To her intense relief he laughed with real humour. Her intimation of an oncoming storm was so completely banished she could almost convince herself she’d misread the situation.

  He let her go, but only to cup his hands around the sides of her face and bring her head down until their mouths were separated by nothing more than a whisper of air.

  Hers was warmed with his breath when he murmured, “Forget it. You must remember that I can be moody.”

  “I don’t—” But her refutation was kissed into oblivion.

  Soon seduced into surrender, she sighed and gave herself to him.

  Much later, alone in the big bed, she wondered. It hadn’t been an empty boast when he’d said he could do better, but now she was no longer lost along the wilder shores of passionate ecstasy she wished he hadn’t been in such complete control, playing her like a virtuoso.

  Uneasily she moved, feeling the slight tug of muscles unaccustomed to the exercise they’d endured. It was almost as though he’d been proving something.

  To her? She drew in a breath and let it sigh out again. Presumably.

  So why did she have the weird feeling he might actually be trying to prove that mysterious something to himself? He’d always been so self-contained, even when he was a serious twelve-year-old. At first, with the innocence of childhood, she’d believed he didn’t like their family. It was only later she’d realised that his cool self-discipline was armour.

  Against what?

  She’d never known—never would know. Just as she would never understand what went on in his brilliant brain, rarely be able to identify the emotions he hid so successfully.

  However, she did understand that he was probably regretting the change in their relationship to lovers.

  And lovers was the wrong word, she thought, gripped by a stabbing regret. This was a one-night stand, not a love affair. Not even an affair.

  One day she might be able to truly be grateful to him for showing her how incandescent lovemaking could be.

  Tears clogged her eyes, and she turned over and tried desperately to summon some innocuous thoughts that would let her woo sleep.

  Nick stared at his newly shaven face, cursing silently and at length. He had a long day—an important day—ahead of him, and he needed every brain cell he possessed.

  Unfortunately far too many of them were occupied with processing voluptuous memories of the previous night. He’d barely slept, and now wherever he looked he seemed to register only Siena’s delicious shock at her first complete orgasm.

  Not her last, he thought with unwelcome satisfaction, before swearing out loud and turning away from the mirror. Of course he couldn’t indulge in an affair with her. She was on the rebound from what had clearly been an unsatisfactory relationship—sexually, anyway, and probably in other ways.

  And the fact that her fiancé had chosen Gemma over her wouldn’t be helping.

  He should never have made love to her. God, only on the plane he’d vowed not to touch her again—a resolution he’d abandoned the minute he’d succumbed to temptation and asked her to dance.

  Grimacing, he turned away from the mirror. Somehow she had power over him—an innocent power, because she didn’t recognise it. Even if she had, it wouldn’t be important to her.

  He recalled his swift, shattering fury when she’d made it clear she regarded him as nothing more than a means to an end.

  “I should be thanking you for showing me there’s a lot more to this sex business than simple pleasure …”

  Possibly, he thought with black humour, he was the one who needed to discard illusions.

  Had she really loved the idiot who hadn’t even noticed that he didn’t turn her on?

  And what was she going to do when she arrived back in Auckland?

  Any sensible man would send her off in the jet this morning by herself. He swore again, but even as he went out to eat breakfast with Siena he knew he’d be going to New Zealand with her.

  Of course she was already up, looking fresh and unaffected by their torrid night together, although the smile and greeting she bestowed on him were a little forced.

  He should have been relieved. He was not. “I’m looking forward to the museum,” she told him chattily. “Is this an all-day meeting you’re embarking on?”

  His broad shoulders lifted slightly. “No. We’ve been talking for months, and yesterday negotiations started in earnest. It won’t get to any signatures yet, but there will be a statement for the press, and a resolution to continue talks. In this part of the world everything takes time and you need to establish trust.”

  She gave him a speculative look. “Do you enjoy it still? I can see that at the beginning there’d have been enormous excitement and stimulation in setting everything up and watching it begin to grow, but how about now? Do you still feel the same elation?”

  Nobody had ever asked Nick that before. He knew she noted his surprise, and said with more frankness than he had intended, “Mostly. And people’s livelihoods rely on me getting the job done.”

  “I suppose it’s a bit like having a child,” she said thoughtfully. “Once you’ve made the decision to have one, you have to look after it until it’s old enough to care for itself. You can’t just abandon it. Anyone who sets up an organisation must feel the same way.”

  “Some parents have no difficulty in abandoning their children, emotionally if not physically,” he said cynically. And some were forced to—his own mother for one.

  A thought struck him. “I hope you’re not trying to suggest there’s a possibility—?”

  Colour flaring through her exquisite skin, she broke in hotly, “Of course not! Really, Nick, I’m not an idiot! Just as I’m prepared to bet you’re not going to inform me now you’ve got some vile disease!”

  For the first time that morning Nick laughed. “I don’t, so you can relax.”

  “I don’t need to relax because I knew perfectly well you wouldn’t have—I mean, we wouldn’t have made love if you had …” Her voice tailed away and colour pinked her silky skin.

  He was surprised and oddly elated by her declaration, but his voice was hard when he said, “You should never take anything so important on trust.”

  “Nick, I know you. Or ar
e you trying to tell me that no woman can trust any man?”

  “Probably.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to go. Enjoy your day.”

  “You too.”

  But he was conscious of her gaze on him as he left the suite, and spent a few minutes wondering just what she was thinking before forcibly changing the direction of his thoughts to the negotiations ahead.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN she heard Nick arrive back at the suite Siena tensed, but pride and a strong sense of self-preservation stopped her from turning to greet him in case her radiant face gave her away.

  It was just as well. In a cool, uninvolved tone he said, “Everything packed?”

  “Yes.” Of course she hadn’t expected anything like joy at the sight of her, but even a mild pleasure would be better than this dampening neutrality.

  No, she corrected herself, it would not. Mild pleasure would be insulting. And nothing had changed; when had she ever seen Nick unable to master his emotions?

  But as they went through the final formalities of leaving she found herself wondering just what was going on behind the handsome, arrogant mask of his features. What was he feeling?

  Regret, possibly. He might even be wondering how on earth he’d managed to get himself into this situation.

  No, not Nick. He always knew exactly what he was doing.

  In the car on the way to the airport he asked, “Have you let your sister know you’re coming home early?”

  “No.” Shamed, she realised she’d barely thought of Gemma these past few days.

  When he didn’t answer she enlarged, “She’ll still be in Australia. Why do you ask? I’ll catch a shuttle from the airport—”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll take you,” he said curtly. “Where are you living now?”

  “When I gave up my job I also gave up my flat. While Mum and Dad are away I’m staying at their place. If Gemma’s back in New Zealand she’ll be there too.”