In Bed With a Stranger (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HEY
stepped down from the plane into a rose and indigo evening. Sophie almost hadn’t wanted the flight to end, but it was impossible not to feel excited when she’d looked out of the window and seen Marrakech below. ‘The Red City’, they called it, and in the light of the dying sun it was easy to see why.

A
porter went ahead of them into the terminal building with their luggage while Nick waited on the tarmac to say goodbye. He and Kit shook hands, agreeing that Kit would be in touch to arrange a return flight, then he turned to Sophie.

‘Enjoy Morocco.’ He grinned.

‘
I
will.’ She already was. The air was as warm and thick as soup, and as spicily fragrant. She breathed it in and impulsively reached up and gave him a quick hug. ‘Thank you for bringing us.’

In the airport building Kit went to change money and she looked around, her pulse quickening as she listened to the unfamiliar languages filling the magnificent and curiously cathedral-like space. She loved travelling, and this was the feeling she always got in a new place—a sense of promise, of discoveries waiting to be made and adventures yet to be had.

‘Ready?’ he asked huskily.

Their eyes met and she nodded, torn between the desire to
rush to the nearest hotel with him, and the urge to get out and explore the city that lay tantalisingly just beyond the soaring criss-crossed pillars of the terminal building.

Kit walked ahead of her, stuffing the wad of dirhams he had just exchanged into the back pocket of his jeans. Sophie’s throat dried with instant lust, and along with it the glib warning she was about to give him about the danger of pickpockets. No one would mess with Kit.

A car from their hotel was waiting for them, sleek and gleaming amongst the battered, dusty taxis. The driver got out, nodding respectfully at Kit as he came round to open the door for them. Smiling shyly, Sophie slid into the car while Kit spoke to the driver in rapid, fluent French and tipped the porter who had brought out their bags.

Another gush of desire crashed through Sophie, and she leaned back against the seat, inwardly outraged at her own weakness as Kit got in beside her. She was the girl who’d always prided herself on her independence, her ability to go anywhere and do anything on her own, and here she was being treated like some fragile princessy type, cosseted from the need to take control of anything.

God, it was sexy though. As the car moved through wide streets that, despite the lateness of the hour, were still choked with vehicles, freed from the need to be responsible she felt deliciously reckless. Maybe it was too much free champagne on the aeroplane. Or maybe it was just Kit—the intoxicating effect of his strength and assurance. His
masculinity
. Not to mention his knee-weakening gorgeousness and the memory of what he’d done to her earlier with the chocolate spread …

‘Djamaa El Fna.’ Kit’s husky voice close to her ear half roused her out of her thoughts, half plunged her deeper into them. ‘Marrakech’s famous square.’

Suppressing a shiver of longing, she turned to look out of the window. The dusk was lit up with the strings of lights swinging beneath the canopies of stalls, and the flames from
braziers. Wreaths of smoke blurred the lights into orbs of brightness, which highlighted the faces of the stallholders and gave the scene an atmosphere of theatre. Even from inside the car Sophie could smell roasting meat and spices and hear a rapid, frantic drumbeat. It seemed to reach down inside her, echoing the primitive, restless thud of her own heart.

She turned to Kit. His face was shadowed, but the lights from the square made his eyes gleam like beaten silver.

‘Let’s get out,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I want to see it.’

Kit said something to the driver and the car pulled to the side of the road. Sophie had reached for the door handle and was opening the door before the car had even stopped.

It was like nothing she’d ever seen or experienced before. The rhythm of the drums shimmered down her spine, making her hips move instinctively as she moved forwards. She could feel herself smiling as the heat of the night melted bones that felt as if they’d been frozen for a long, long time. From behind Kit hooked an arm around her neck, drawing her back against the hard wall of his body.

‘Slow down, gypsy girl,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

She twisted herself around so that she was facing him. The lights shone in eyes that were dark with excitement. They looked like pools of reflected stars.

‘I’m not going anywhere without you.’ She smiled, moving her hands down to his hips and sliding her fingers into the pockets of his jeans, pulling him against her. He could feel her hips moving, snake-like, as if the music weren’t just all around them, but was inside her too.

Dangerous thought.

‘If you carry on doing that, the only place you’ll be going is back to the hotel, as quickly as possible,’ he growled, pulling away, capturing her hands and drawing her with him as he began to walk forwards.

She was like a chameleon, he thought. Wherever you put
her she had a way of adapting, becoming part of the scene. For a second he thought of what the other women he’d dated, with their expensive shoes and glossy Knightsbridge hair, would make of this place. The idea brought a smile to his lips.

‘Come on, I’m hungry,’ she said, pulling on his hand. Her excitement was completely infectious. The smile widened.

‘What do you want to eat?’

He had to bend down and speak close to her ear to make himself heard above the noise of the marketplace. The scent of her made his head spin and took him back to earlier, on the kitchen worktop. London seemed like another lifetime, but in that moment the two worlds collided and desire rushed through him, dilating his veins with heat.

‘Do you think anywhere sells chocolate spread?’ she asked innocently.

‘Stop it,’ he warned.

She laughed, turning and beginning to walk between the crowded stalls again. Her hair hung loose down her back, gleaming in the lights as she turned to look at the displays of jewel-coloured fruit and golden, deep-fried prawns and tiny pastries. Kit didn’t really take in the food on offer. He was too busy looking at her high, rounded bottom beneath the thin linen trousers, which was far lusher than any of the pomegranates and melons on display.

The music got louder as they approached a break in the stalls where a group of musicians had gathered, squatting on the ground around their framedrums and reed-like pipes, a woman in silken robes undulating in front of them. Sophie’s pace slowed, and fragrant smoke wreathed her as she turned to face him. The bright lights beneath the canopies made her skin glow gold and her eyes, as she looked up at him, were dark and dilated.

‘I don’t know where to start. There’s so much I want to try.’

Food, Kit reminded himself sternly. She’s talking about
food
. Reaching out, he brushed his thumb over her slightly parted lips.

‘What do you feel like?’

Looking up into his eyes, she shrugged slowly. ‘Anything that I haven’t tried before. Something that’ll blow my mind.’

Kit dragged his gaze away from her. The smoke was coming from a stall opposite that was laid out with just about every kind of local delicacy, both tempting and alarming, and a man standing behind it, impassively laying skeins of small sausages onto a searing hot grill. Kit spoke to him, and he glanced at Sophie, his dark eyes gleaming with approval as he took the money Kit offered.

‘What did you ask for?’

‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ he said gruffly. ‘Close your eyes.’

Hesitantly, Sophie did as she was told. The noise around her seemed to increase as darkness flooded her head, and the scent of cedar smoke and spices and meat and garlic and hot, salty bread intensified so that her mouth was instantly alive. And beneath it all, close and strong and most delicious of all, was the scent of Kit’s skin as he raised his hand to her lips.

‘Are you ready?’

She nodded. A great happiness was simmering inside her, threatening to bubble over. She was in love with the moment, the place, the man she was with and everything seemed sharply, almost painfully wonderful. Tentatively she opened her mouth, her senses on high alert, both afraid and excited.

She breathed in chilli-scented steam for a second, then tasted something strong, spicy, smoky-rich on her tongue and guessed it was one of the tiny local sausages she’d seen the man put on the grill.

‘Mmm … gorgeous,’ she murmured, swallowing and opening her eyes. ‘More, please.’

Kit towered above her; inscrutable, beautiful. The cuts and bruising on his face seemed less noticeable here somehow;
perhaps because everything was more real, more raw than in England. The painted sign that swung above the stall was chipped and rusting, the face of the woman at the next stall was creased like crumpled paper, her smile gap-toothed, joyful.

‘Close your eyes. Keep them closed.’

Sophie pressed her lips together holding back her own smile. Kit’s fingertips on her lips made a shiver of longing travel down her spine.

‘Open your mouth.’

He dropped a fat olive onto her tongue and she held it between her teeth for a second, enjoying the feel of its skin on her tongue-tip before biting into it with an explosion of flavour. A dense, dry lamb kefteh followed, then a slice of tomato, slippery with olive oil and mint leaves. Gripping the metal pole of the canopy, she kept her eyes closed as he’d said, giving herself up to the succession of sensations and flavours, murmuring her appreciation as oil moistened her lips and dripped down her chin. The music and the drums and the warm, smoky air wrapped around them, so that it was easy to imagine it was just her and Kit, alone under the dark blue African sky …

Easy, but perhaps not wise. There was a throbbing at the apex of her thighs and her skin was so sensitive that the lightest touch of his fingers brought goosebumps up on her bare arms.

‘Enough?’

Kit’s voice was a husky whisper, but she could hear the amusement in it. Her senses sang. She shook her head.

‘More.’

More quickly now he fed her bread, soft and airily dissolving beneath its hard crust, meltingly tender meat, battered prawns and crisp fried squid. She pulled a face as she chewed that, and next he gave her something spicy loaded onto bread that made her lips tingle.

‘Mmm … better …’ she murmured.

‘What about this? Open wide …’

Juice, redolent of cumin and garlic, ran onto her tongue and a second later she felt something lightly touch her lips. With a low moan of greed she opened them, trying to capture it as it quivered just out of reach. She heard Kit laugh, a low throaty sound that made her longing crank up another notch. Sticking her tongue out, she caught whatever it was he was holding, his fingers with it, sucking them hard until he let it go.

It was like nothing she’d tasted before—soft, but at the same time oddly tough and with an earthy flavour that she couldn’t name. She swallowed.

‘What was it?’

He brought his head down so his lips grazed the lobe of her ear, and let them linger.

‘Snail.’

Her eyes flew open. ‘Really?’

‘Well, when you didn’t object to the sheep’s head …’

‘Kit! You—’

Laughing, he caught her wrist as she went to hit him, and it was then that she noticed the crowd of people—locals in djellabas, curious tourists, the musicians from opposite—standing around her in a circle, watching. They burst into a round of applause, and the man came round from behind the stall to shake her hand, clearly delighted to have such excellent free advertising.

Sophie looked up at Kit, smiling sweetly, speaking so softly only he could hear. ‘You are in
such trouble
when we get to the hotel.’

Kit’s teeth showed white as he flashed her a grin. ‘I can’t wait.’

Taking advantage of the assembled crowd, the musicians started up again. Sophie wondered when they’d stopped. The dancing girl came forward, holding her hands out. Her face
was half veiled and above it her dark eyes warm and melting. Sophie took the hands she offered, casting a deliberately wicked look over her shoulder at Kit.

‘You might have to …’

‘Sophie—’

Already she had slipped her little jewelled ballet flats off and Kit felt his smile set like concrete as desire kicked him in the ribs. He stood back helplessly and watched her move to the centre of the circle of people, tying her shirt above her midriff then raising her arms above her head like the Berber girl, rotating her hips.

Of course, he knew she’d be good at it. But she wasn’t just good. She was … hypnotic. She didn’t have the technical precision of the other girl with her intricate moves, but there was a more earthy sensuality about the way she undulated. The circle of onlookers thickened, became two deep as the beat got faster, the musicians responding to the writhing bodies of the two women—one veiled and mysterious, the other fiery and sensual. Kit couldn’t take his eyes off Sophie’s midriff, the snake-like undulations of her flesh.

Where had she learned how to do that? And why hadn’t she shown him before now? In the privacy of a bedroom where it wouldn’t take every shred of his self-control to subdue his raging erection and withstand the urge to hoist her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and bear her away.

Night had descended properly now and a full moon floated high up in the sky like a white balloon. The crowd was pressing in closer. In the glow of the lamps the musicians wore rapt, trance-like expressions on their faces. Sophie was half turned away from him now. Her face was hidden by her hair, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed hard, see the gleam of moisture on her skin.

Kit couldn’t wait any longer. She had had her revenge. Going forwards, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled
her into his body, scooping her up in one swift, decisive movement.

She didn’t resist. Tipping her head back, she looked at him with eyes that glittered like black diamonds.