reclaimed by the powerful sheikh

         From the streets and out of the surrounding buildings, voices began to cry out. The countdown to the New Year had begun. The cries rose up around them, breaking into the moment of silence Mason might have held for ever. They were standing so close she could feel the heat from his body.
        Ten, nine, eight…
        He was so much taller than her, she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Rather than making her feel small, as her diminutive height usually did, it made her feel protected, surrounded by him.
        ‘Would it be inappropriate for me to kiss you at midnight?’ he asked. His voice, lower and huskier than it had been before. She felt, rather than saw, his palms flatten out against his legs, as if he were preventing himself from reaching for her. Until she gave him permission. Until she allowed it.
        She shrugged her shoulder as the subtle tension that had hummed between them since leaving the Langsford built to fever pitch. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The way it had been as she’d led them further away from the hotel. It increased as the time to midnight decreased. Was she really going to let a prince kiss her?
        Seven, six, five…
        ‘I suppose it’s not as if you’re spoilt for choice,’ she replied, looking around them briefly at the few groups that had spilled onto the roads around the park, before being pulled back to his gaze—the one that had not left her.
        ‘There’s always a choice, Mason.’
        Four, three two…
        He was giving her an out. He knew it, she knew it. But, looking into his deep smoked-whisky-coloured eyes, she thought she might drown, thought she might not be able to breathe if she didn’t take the chance…the chance to act on the heady desire sparkling between them.
        In answer to his question, she reached up to his tie and gently tugged his head down towards hers.
        One.
        His firm lips pressed against hers, sending a thousand little bursts across her skin…but it wasn’t enough. As his tongue gently swiped over her bottom lip, flames licked up her spine and shivered out over her entire body. Another swipe begged entry, a third demanded it, and she opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers. Her hands came up to the lapels of his coat, pulling him towards her, clinging to them as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet. Need and desire almost crushed her. Adrenalin poured through her veins as she pulled him deeper into a kiss she would never forget.