Her head was cradled on his arm while he searched her face, seeking there the answer to some question that was beyond words.

‘Are you playing with me now?’ he growled.

‘Of course. A game that you don’t understand.’

He liked that. ‘When will I understand?’

‘When it is ended.’

‘When will it be ended?’

‘When I have won.’

‘Tell me your secret,’ he demanded.

A smile touched her lips. ‘You know the secret as well as I do.’

‘With you, there would always be a new secret,’ he said huskily, and covered her mouth again.

He half urged, half carried her the few steps to the couch by the window. She felt the cushions beneath her back and the moonlight on her face. He was caressing her with his lips while his hands began a gentle exploration of her body. She gasped at those soft touches. She hadn’t known that she had such a body until his reverent fingertips told her, and told her also what it was for.

It was for giving and taking in an ecstasy of pleasure, and she hadn’t suspected until this moment, when he made her understand what was possible beyond anything she could have imagined.

Her mouth moved feverishly against his, not receiving now but seeking and demanding with an urgency that astonished him-delighted him too, if his response was anything to go by. His insistence became fierce, and suddenly she could feel the hot breeze of the desert against her skin, see the dark red sun in its last moments before oblivion. He carried these things with him and no woman could lie in his arms without being aware of them as part of his soul.

All through the grey, chilly years this had been waiting for her, and now she had found it there was no turning back. He had said she was made for pleasure, and he was showing her that it was true.