Read Online The Desert Prince's Mistress by Sharon Kendrick - Free Book Online Page B

with him tonight. The prickle of anticipation he had felt—that here was a woman who might make him fight a little—had been replaced by the much more familiar feeling of slightly jaded anticipation, but not jaded enough to stem the rising tide of desire.
    ‘Some wine?’ he drawled.
    Lara turned round. He had removed his jacket and he looked relaxed, almost domesticated. Behind him, the brightly illuminated room looked like the stage-set of a play, with he the hero of the piece.
    Or the villain.
    Her heart thudded. ‘I thought you promised me coffee?’
    ‘I did. But how about a little wine first? You hardly drank a thing in the restaurant.’
    A faintly bored note came into his voice, as if her inference that he was trying to push alcohol on her was offensive.
    ‘But I’ll go and make coffee if you’d prefer.’
    ‘No. Actually, I’d love some wine,’ she said truthfully. Perhaps wine might make her stop feeling like a womanwho had never been invited into a man’s home before. She wasn’t such an innocent! She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them up and down her bare arms. ‘Brrrr! It’s freezing.’
    ‘Go inside. Make yourself at home.’
    She felt his eyes on her as she made her way back into a sitting room which was a byword for luxury. This was crazy, she thought. She had spent her life being watched, sometimes on stage and sometimes by the camera, and usually she managed it with aplomb—easily becoming the person the director wanted her to be.
    And maybe that was the problem here—that she was being herself. Only she was discovering an unwelcome and unfamilar nervousness in the company of a man who intrigued and attracted and disturbed her, compounded by what she had read in the letter.
    Darian followed her into the room, tipping just a tiny amount of the rich red wine into two crystal glasses while she sat down primly on one of the giant leather sofas.
    He noticed the way she pressed her knees tightly together as he handed her the glass. Did she always do this? he wondered. Send out such beguiling and conflicting messages? She had agreed very quickly—too quickly—to come home with him, and there was a not-so-subtle subtext to deals like that. If you didn’t want a man to make a pass at you, then you did not go back to his apartment late at night on a first date.
    Darian was used to knowing the score. To women quickly and blatantly letting him know that they wanted him. It happened so frequently that it was just par for the course, as natural as breathing for him—he had never had to fight for a woman in his life, though sometimes he had idly wondered what it might be like to have to do so.
    He was instinctive enough to know that the attraction between he and Lara was mutual, but only up to a point.Because now there was a wariness about her, almost a shyness, which seemed to contradict her innate sensuality. And mystery and contradictions were always fascinating, he acknowledged with a slow ache of awareness as he sat down on the sofa—just far enough away not to threaten her, but close enough to smell the soft scent of lilac which drifted from her pale skin. Close enough to touch…
    Lara sipped her drink, but her throat felt tight and she had to force down a mouthful of the smooth, rich wine. ‘Lovely,’ she remarked politely.
    ‘So where were we?’ He put his glass down on the coffee table and half turned to look at her, a small smile playing around the edges of his mouth. ‘Ah, yes, your tender heart was melting at the thought of my underprivileged upbringing.’
    With a shaky hand she put her glass down next to his. ‘Don’t make fun of me.’
    ‘Is that what I was doing?’ he murmured.
    ‘That or patronising me,’ she answered quietly. ‘You don’t have to talk about your childhood if you don’t want to.’
    Liar! Liar! But her words had exactly the desired effect. By telling him he didn’t have to talk, he immediately began to relax—although had she known that