Wrapped In Pleasure - Brenda Jackson [83]
She was gazing up at him with astonishment and then he watched as she drew in a ragged breath as the magnitude and the power of what they’d just shared threatened to overcome her. When she began shivering he reached out and pulled her closer into his arms.
This was the woman he had looked upon marrying with disdain, and with a degree of regret that made him inconsolable. When his father had summoned him to the palace and said he wanted him to be wedded by his fortieth birthday, which meant he would have to take her as a wife by the end of the year, it seemed he would finally become the ultimate sacrifice for Mowaiti.
He was a man who had been single a long time. He was set in his ways and he enjoyed women. Experienced women. And the very thought that he would have to marry a woman who was young, inexperienced and didn’t possess any of the skills and aptitudes on the ways to please a man had nearly driven him into a depressed state.
His life, as he’d known it, was taking a turn for what he considered the worse. He had left the country to visit Whispering Pines, the huge ranch in Texas owned by his good friend and occasional business partner, Jake Madaris. Rasheed had needed the time alone to accept the changes that would take place in his life and had stayed in seclusion at Whispering Pines for a little more than a week.
He glanced down at Johari and pulled in a deep breath, not certain as to what to say now. This was not supposed to be happening to a man of his stature, distinction and eminence. His reaction to a fiancée, one who had been promised to him for twenty-four years, baffled him. He was well aware that some men thought highly of their wives, some even fancied themselves in love, but he knew such a thing wasn’t possible for him.
He had no intention of ever truly settling down with one woman or falling in love with one for that matter. Such a thing was not even a consideration. He enjoyed his mistresses immensely. He liked the attention they gave him, the pleasure they delivered to him. He was hard-pressed to believe one woman was capable of replacing all of that…no matter how sweet her lips tasted.
What he needed to do, and what he would do, was to focus mainly on seducing Johari to his will. She would discover that he was a force to be reckoned with, and a defiant, rebellious, wild and reckless wife was one that he would not tolerate.
He shifted his attention back to her when she slowly pushed out of his arms, tilted her head back and looked at him. He saw the considering frown settle first on her forehead before slowly moving down her face then to her lips. Lips he had just thoroughly kissed. Intimately claimed.
“We should not have done that, Monty.”
Her words, spoken in a soft, panic-filled voice, gave him pause. “And why not?” He wondered if she had failed to notice that although she had taken a step back, his arms remained wrapped around her waist in a very possessive hold.
She stared at the buttons on his jacket before lifting her gaze back to him. “Because I am promised to another.”
His brow lifted in mock surprise. “You’re engaged?”
“Yes.”
He freed one hand from around her waist to lift her hand. After glancing at it, he looked back at her. “No ring?”
“In my country such a thing isn’t needed.”
“Maybe it should be,” he decided to say. “In this country unless a woman wears some visible sign of a man’s intent, she is not off-limits.”
“But that is not how things are where I am from.”
“And where are you from, Jo? You never did say,” he countered.
She shivered again just seconds before saying, “And I can’t say. It matters not.”
Her eyes once again returned to the buttons on his jacket, but this time he reached and lifted her chin so their eyes could meet. “Keep your secrets, just as long as you know that no matter how much you might regret kissing me, I don’t regret kissing you.”
He then checked his watch. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and holding it firmly. “I need to get you