Virgin Seduction

as she drew closer and closer to the American named Cade Gallagher. And it occurred to her to wonder if she had ever had a choice at all.

They were only a few feet apart now, close enough that one or the other must speak. But Cade only looked at her and went on quietly smoking…something too brown to be a cigarette, too slender to be a cigar. Reminding herself what Kitty had said, that in America-in Texas-it was permissible for a woman to speak first, Leila summoned all her courage and sent up a small prayer.

'Good evening-it is Mr. Gallagher, is it not?' She kept her voice low to hide the tremors in it. 'May I call you Cade?'

'I wish you would.' His voice was a husky drawl that shivered her skin as if someone had lightly touched her all over. He gave a bow, and she wondered if he might be mocking her. 'Good evening, Princess-or is it, 'Your Highness'?'

'If I am to call you Cade, then you must call me Leila.' She was glad for the shadowy torchlight that hid the blush she could feel burning in her cheeks. On the other hand, she hoped he would see the dimples there, and as she joined him, she smiled and tilted her face toward him and the light.

He waited for her to reach him, then turned so that they walked on together toward the terrace, side by side. Leila's heart was beating so hard she thought he must hear it.

After a moment he glanced down at her and said, 'Shouldn't you be at the royal reception?'

She hesitated, biting her lip, wondering just how 'cheeky'-it was a word she'd acquired during her school days in England-she dared be. Hoping he wouldn't think her insolent, she looked up at him through lowered lashes and colored her voice with her smile. 'Yes, I should. And…should not you be, as well?'

He acknowledged that with a soft and rueful laugh. Emboldened, she added, 'You are certainly dressed for it.' And after a moment, bolder still, 'You do look quite nice in evening dress, but…' She counted footsteps. One… two…

She felt his gaze, and, looking up to meet it, caught a small, involuntary breath. To get his attention, a woman would have to be a little bit…She smiled and said on the soft rush of an exhalation, 'But, I liked what you were wearing yesterday-especially your hat. You looked quite like a cowboy.'

She heard the faint, surprised sound of his breath as he looked down at her. 'Yesterday?'

'I saw you in the garden,' she explained with an innocent lift of her shoulders. 'I was with my sisters, on the balcony outside our chambers. I could not help but notice you. You stood out, among all the others. I thought you looked…very American-like someone I have seen in the Western movies.'

He gave a little grunt of laughter, but she didn't think it was a pleased sound.

She conjured up a new smile. 'But tonight…tonight you look very different-elegant, very sophisticated. And, of course, very handsome.'

He laughed uncomfortably. 'Princess-'

She laughed too, in a light and teasing way, and before he could say more, hurried on. 'But, you have run away from the reception and all the ladies who would admire you, to walk alone in the gardens…' She left it hanging, the question unspoken.

Cade brought the slender cigar briefly to his lips before answering. 'I needed some air,' he said abruptly, and there was a certain harshness in his voice now. They had stepped onto the terrace that overlooked the sea. He made a gesture toward the emptiness beyond the marble balustrade. 'Some space.'

A breeze from the sea lifted tendrils of hair on Leila's neck. She felt a shivering deep inside her chest. Space…

'Yes,' she whispered, forgetting to flirt, for all at once her throat ached and she no longer felt like smiling.

They stood together at the balustrade in silence, shoulders not quite touching, and she felt the ache inside her grow. I shouldn't have done this, she thought in sudden and unfamiliar panic. This is terrifying. Perhaps I am not cut out to be a pushy woman.

Far below, waves collided gently with the rocky cliff, sending up joyful little bursts of spray. The rhythmic shusshing sound they made was familiar and soothing to her soul. She listened to it for several more seconds, then lifted her eyes to the almost invisible horizon.

'I understand, I think,' she said quietly, leaning a little on her hands. 'I come here often when I am feeling…'

At a loss for the word, she gave a little grimace and shook her head.

'Cooped up?' Cade softly suggested, watching the horizon as she did. She looked him a question, not being familiar with the expression. He glanced down at her. 'Walled up…fenced in-'

'Oh, yes!' She turned toward him, her breath escaping in a grateful rush. 'That is it exactly-walled up and fenced in. But what is this…coop? I do not know-'

He shrugged and turned his gaze back to the sea. 'It's an expression they use where I come from. A coop is a kind of pen. They keep chickens in it.'

'In Texas?'

'Yeah…' He said it on a sigh. 'In Texas.' After a curiously vibrant pause, one that fairly sang with unspoken communion, he jerked himself upright and away from the silence with a loud and raggedy attempt to clear his throat. 'Other places, too. Pretty much any place they have chickens.'

He couldn't believe he was having this conversation with a princess. One that, even in a designer gown, really did look like something out of The Arabian Nights. But talking about chicken coops, dopey as it was, seemed infinitely safer than that terrifying sense of…what in the world had it been? Affinity, concord…none of those words seemed adequate to describe what had just happened between them, between himself and this woman from an alien culture…a kind of oneness he'd never experienced before with another human being. As if, he thought with a shudder, she'd somehow found, and for that one brief moment touched, his innermost self. His soul.

'Texas.' Her sigh was an echo of his. 'It must be very wonderful.' Hearing a new lightness in her voice, he looked at her warily. Torchlight played mischievously with her dimples.

She's flirting with you, Cade. The thought made him almost giddy with relief. This was familiar territory, something he was pretty sure he knew how to handle.

He turned toward her and leaned an elbow on the balustrade, relaxed now, and casually smoking. 'Some parts of it are,' he drawled, 'and some aren't.' He was thinking about the West Texas oil country, and parts of the Panhandle that were so flat you had the feeling if you got to running too fast you'd run right off the edge of the world. Even such a thing as wide open spaces could be carried too far.

Maybe because his thoughts were back home in Texas and he was feeling a little bit overconfident, it was a few seconds before he noticed the intensity of Leila's silence. By the time he did, and snapped his attention back into focus on her, it was too late. He thought it must feel something like this, the first moment after stepping into quicksand-a disquieting, sinking sensation, but not yet sure whether he ought to panic or not.

When had she come to be standing so close to him? The sea breeze carried her scent to him, sweet and faintly spicy. The word 'exotic' came to his mind. But then, everything about her was exotic. Was that why she seemed so exciting to him? The fact that she was different from every other woman he'd ever met?

Don't even think about it. She's absolutely off-limits.

Or was it simply that she was forbidden fruit? Off-limits. Inaccessible. Except that, at this moment, at least, he knew she was entirely accessible…to him.

To think like that was insane. And insanely dangerous. He was dealing with a tiger out of her cage, nothing less.

Except that she didn't look much like a tiger at the moment, or anything even remotely dangerous. She looked soft and warm and sweet, more like ripe summer than forbidden fruit. Torchlight touched off golden sparks in the ornaments in her hair and in her eyes. Gazing into them, he felt again the peculiar sensation of not-quite-dizziness, as if his world, his center of gravity, had tilted on its axis. Clutching for something commonplace and familiar, he took a quick, desperate puff of his ail-but-forgotten cheroot.

Her whisper came like an extension of the breeze…or his own sigh. For one brief moment he wasn't certain