MARRYING HER ENEMY & STOLEN BY THE DESERT KING

by Connelly, Clare

  It was a moment that mattered a hell of a lot. For reasons he appreciated, and reasons he didn’t. Mostly, because he could put an end to the Haddad’s desperate attempts to stir up civil war – their last hope rested around Kylie’s young shoulders.

  But it was more than that.

  It wasn’t a political move.

  It was suddenly a necessity. Sleeping with her was something he needed.

  And to know that she was right there with him, caught up in the moment of passion, the heat of desire.

  Her first time should be with him. Not that monster Fayez.

  “Trust me.” The words were a challenge he almost hoped she’d refuse. How could he ask her to trust him when every word was a lie? When even his identity was being kept from her?

  “I do.” She tilted her chin at him defiantly, but her eyes didn’t quite meet his. “I know it’s crazy and I don’t care. I had no idea what this would feel like.”

  He groaned, parting her legs with his powerful thighs, spreading her open to him. He paused his tip at her entrance, giving her a chance to change her mind, though he knew she wouldn’t.

  The die was cast.

  He nudged deeper, using every ounce of his strength to stop himself from doing what he wanted and taking her hard and fast, owning her as his body craved. There would be time for that. Even as he poised to take her innocence, he knew that it would not be their last time together. He would be with her again and again.

  Their future was marked now; they were to become one.

  “Tell me how you feel,” he commanded unknowingly, the words confidently demanding.

  “I feel… strange,” she whispered, shaking her head in instant rebuttal of the word. It was wrong. “Good strange. I feel… I feel…”

  He nudged deeper, his palms on either side of his head holding him up high enough to study her. Deeper, and her muscles, so tight, squeezed his length so that he felt like he might explode. But he was attuned to her every move, and her face scrunched beneath him so that he understood her pain and he brought his head lower, pressing a kiss against her lips.

  The discomfort was sharp, but it was over almost immediately. She arched her back, needing more, wanting him to push past it and bring her back to pleasure. She moaned softly, lifting her legs around his back and pulling him deeper. He didn’t fight her. He sank into her body, and felt her tremble beneath him.

  Letting her body experience him was one thing, but showing her the full strength of what she was capable of feeling quite another. He pulled out slowly and then thrust into her, still not as he wanted to, but enough to send spirals of awareness rioting through her abdomen. She dug her nails into his shoulders, so hard that he wondered if she might be drawing blood. Hard enough for him to worry she was in pain.

  But one look at her face showed the rapturous awareness expanding through her. Nonetheless, he dropped his mouth to her ear, and asked, in a gravelled tone, “Okay, lanaria?”

  “So, so okay,” she mumbled, running her hands down his back, teasing his flesh in circular patterns, moving lower and lower until she gripped his hips. “Better than okay.”

  The air around them crackled with passion. For the briefest moment, Kylie wondered what the hell was going on – only hours earlier she’d been preparing for brunch and now she was making love to a man she barely knew. So why did she feel that she did know him? Was it just the intimacy of that moment fooling her into a sense of knowledge? Was her body playing tricks on her mind?

  If so, she was happy to be tricked away.

  * * *

  She was spectacular while in the throes of passion. He watched her fall apart three times, holding her in his arms as waves of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever anticipated rocked her to the core of her being. He watched her and he kissed her and he whispered reassurances in his own tongue, not sure if she understood his words – or if she was capable of understanding anything beyond the language of their bodies.

  He spoke low and deep and then, when she rode yet another wave, he flipped them so that he was on his back and she was straddling his hips and he held her low and tight against him, bucking into her and finding new pleasure centres. She cried out, arching her back instinctively, offering herself to him and he grunted as he pushed into a sitting position so he could take a breast in his mouth and flick her nipple with his tongue, before transferring his attention to the next. All the while he moved as he’d wanted to all along, hard and fast, lifting one hand to her hair and tangling his fingers in its fine gold lengths, his body slamming against hers; or was it hers slamming his? They moved as one, yet they pushed and pulled against one another, their kiss a torture, an instrument of fierce need, and his body moved with an ancient rhythm that Kylie instinctively recognised and echoed. His release was close, but he held himself in her, waiting until her muscles began to squeeze his length, tormenting him with their sweet responsiveness and finally he succumbed to the explosion that had been building from the second he’d seen her, all sweet and wide-eyed, bare-foot and tanned like an angelic hippy.

  He held her tight, knowing somehow that the depth of passion she’d experience was starting to terrify her. He held her against him as her fevered breathing slowed and her trembling eased.

  He had made her his, just as he’d set out to do. So why didn’t he feel so euphoric? The wedding would be cancelled. Whatever claim the Haddads were planning on launching would be scuppered.

  Why couldn’t he bring himself to feel exuberant? Thrilled?

  “That was…” she sighed against him, and it was such a gesture of softness that it somehow hardened him. Softness was not welcome. So far as she was concerned, this was little more than a business arrangement. She’d said as much herself – her marriage to Fayez would have been predicated on the amount of money she owed the Haddad family. And if Khalifa hadn’t come to Sydney and seduced her? She’d have found herself married to an abusive tyrant.

  How could she have been so careless as to agree to such a thing?

  “Well, I suppose we’ve answered the question of sexual compatibility.” Even to his own ears, the drawled comment sounded sarcastic.

  He felt her stiffen in his arms; hell, he felt her stiffen around his length. He was still inside her, feeling her vibrations as they ebbed and slowed.

  “I suppose we have.” To her credit, she responded in kind and he admired her that. “So you’re happy to marry me?”

  “I think it is a matter in which neither of us has much say now, azeezi.”

  Kylie tried not to let his words slide pain over her flesh but it was there – an ache low in her gut that was spreading through her. She nodded, using the movement to dislodge herself from him and standing awkwardly. She winced as her body complained – at his abandonment, certainly, but also at the strange experience of having new muscles twinge with awareness.

  He caught the gesture and swore inwardly. “I’ve hurt you.”

  “No.” Too fierce. Too swift! She didn’t want him to understand how she was hurting. It wasn’t a physical pain so much as a heart-deep confusion. “I’ll be fine.”

  His frown was a storm cloud on his handsome, chiselled face. She looked away and then realised she was naked. She looked around for her clothes; her dress was across the room. She hated having to walk to it and she could feel his eyes on her the whole time. She crouched down, lifting it between her fingertips and sliding it over her body.

  Her underpants must have been somewhere but she wasn’t sure she could spare any more pride looking for them.

  What the hell had just happened?

  “Our wedding is in a month,” he said softly. “Obviously I will expect you to maintain the terms of our contract until then.”

  The terms of their contract? Her heart swirled in her chest. For a stupid moment in time she had let herself forget the years and years and years of planning that had gone into their union. The agreements that had been negotiated and renegotiated and finally entered into.

  So he’
d come to Sydney to get a little preview. That did not a meaningful connection make. He was still just a man she barely knew. Albeit one she was going to marry.

  “Fine,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Whatever.” And then, steeling herself to keep a poised expression of nonchalance, she spun slowly to face him. “I’d like to go home now.”

  Chapter 4

  EVERYTHING ABOUT THE wedding was exquisite, but Kylie was either too jetlagged or too overwrought to fully appreciate it. The five star hotel in Thaïda-yr was as extravagant as it was tasteful. From the moment she’d been deposited the night before, she’d been overawed by the grandeur of the place. The highly-polished marble floor, the gold and crystal chandeliers, the tapestries that hung on the wall – rich burgundies and gold threads with thick cream frames.

  And it had all got bigger and bigger. From first thing in the morning when a team of hair and makeup artists had arrived and set about transforming her into what her groom expected – and that involved a lot of grooming. Her cheeks flushed pink as she thought of the women who’d appeared with a pot of hot wax and proceeded to remove all hair from her body – barring the long blonde ones on her head! She’d been exfoliated all over, wrapped in warm muslin clothes that had been sprayed with a lightly fragranced oil and left to marinade for two hours while someone else did something weird to her face and another person trimmed the ends of her hair and then washed and dried it.

  After a day of pampering, Kylie was glowing and exhausted. But she was also beautiful – just what a man like The Sheikh would expect. Embarrassment and something else swooped in her gut. She’d let him make love to her and she still didn’t even know his first name. She’d searched the Haddad family online and seen a few references to powerful cousins but there were no pictures online. A very frustrating and almost impossible to believe occurrence in this day and age. Then again, the family was renowned for their privacy.

  The dress was so much more revealing than she’d expected – oh, it covered her from the base of her throat to the tips of her toes but it was a fine silk and cut on the bias so that the outline of her breasts and hips showed clearly and the gauze wrap embroidered with diamonds did little to disguise the shape of her figure beneath the gown.

  She sucked in a deep breath as she stepped into the heels that had been delivered earlier. They pinched a little but she barely noticed. Other feelings were flowing through her too keenly to allow for foot discomfort.

  Soon, she would see him again.

  Her stomach dropped like she’d crested over the high-point of a roller coaster and she dropped a hand to it, checking her appearance one last time. Beyond the enormous doors to the room she was waiting in there was the sound of an ever-growing crowd. Nerves clipped at her designer-clad feet.

  People were talking. Laughing. Life went on.

  But for Kylie, she could only feel … so many things! A closeness to her parents, who had wanted this so badly. Anticipation. Desire. Anxiety. Fatefulness.

  She sucked in a breath, scanning the room with her enormous green eyes. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  “Madam?” She blinked towards the door as a young woman approached. Her smile was kind and Kylie returned it, despite the flood of anticipation that was making her knees knock and her pulse race.

  Her body craved him.

  Her lover.

  The month between the afternoon on his yacht and this day had stretched interminably, and yet there’d been so much to do.

  “It’s time.”

  Her heart soared. It was time.

  She fell into step beside the woman and they emerged into a small corridor just behind the main ball room, where the ceremony was to take place. The fragrance of roses was overwhelming and Kylie sneezed.

  The woman nodded with understanding. “It’s overwhelming.”

  Kylie had been prepared for the wedding earlier that day, when a protocol advisor engaged by the Haddad family had explained that she would walk the aisle on her own, to a large floral vestibule at the front of the church. There she would sit, with her intended, for the better part of the afternoon, as the sacred vows of Argenon were recited.

  She was prepared for that. Hell, she could handle anything with him by her side.

  She took the first step, her eyes trained on the vestibule before dipping lower to the man she was desperate to see – the man who had filled her dreams.

  And frowned.

  Who was that, looking back at her? An officiant, perhaps? Someone related to the family or the event? Her eyes skimmed left then right, searching for the man she had been longing to see. And drew a blank.

  Doubts made her stomach flip and flop. She didn’t like the way this man was looking at her. His eyes were raking over her body, as if her dress were invisible and her flesh on display for him to see, touch, taste. A shiver of revulsion crept along her spine.

  But she kept walking; so ingrained were the deportment lessons she’d been given as a child. She kept walking even when a voice in her head was shouting at her to turn and run; when every instinct in her body was making her wish she was anywhere else. She walked with her head high until she reached the front of the assembled guests and then she looked around once more.

  Where was he?

  The other man held a hand out, as if for her to take it. She stared back at him, like a rabbit in headlights.

  His expression flashed with something like anger and she frowned. What was going on?

  “Here.” He pointed at the floor beside him.

  She moved towards him with a frown on her face. “I don’t understand,” she whispered when she was close enough. “Who are you?”

  “Fayez Haddad. Your groom.”

  Her jaw dropped, her eyes huge in her face. “I…” She shook her head, confusion driving any etiquette concerns from her mind. “No.”

  His eyes lifted heavenwards. “It is a little late for ‘no’.”

  Her heart thumped and again her eyes scanned the front row of guests. Had something happened to him? Where was he? Her fantasies had sustained her through the thirty days they’d spent apart. But it had all been coming towards this moment – a moment in which she fully expected to come face to face with him again. The Sheikh.

  “There’s been a mistake,” she whispered, hating it when this man reached down and gripped her hand in his.

  “No. It is too late for that.” His eyes met hers and they were laced with scorn. “You are bought, azeezi.”

  How different an effect that word had, coming from his mouth!

  The sound of footsteps travelled down the length of the ballroom to Kylie’s ears. She angled her head backwards and expelled a breath at the exact moment Fayez sucked one in. An angry breath. His grip on her hand tightened.

  “Stop this,” The Sheikh said in his own language. Kylie understood it perfectly though. The crowd dropped as one, bowing low, all eyes dropped to the floor save for Fayez beside her, and a few of the guests near the front of the church.

  “Why?” Fayez interjected. “This is a wedding; what right do you have…”

  Only for the smallest moment did the Sheikh’s eyes meet Kylie’s, as he came close enough that she could see the swirling emotion in his gaze and she could remember the way his body had felt on hers. A charge of awareness tore through her.

  “You will not marry her.” The words were delivered in a command and his eyes dropped scathingly to the way they were holding hands.

  “You have no say in this matter,” Fayez retorted, turning back to the officiant, his face hardened by rage. Kylie shivered once more at the sense she had that he was not a kind man.

  “This is my country. I have a say in everything that takes place in it.”

  Kylie’s head jerked towards his, her pulse racing even harder, pounding her body from the inside out. His country?

  “And why would you object to a … love match?” Fayez prompted disingenuously.

  “I believe that would be better discussed in a pri
vate location.” The Sheikh’s look would have turned ice to rock.

  “There is nothing to discuss.”

  A movement behind The Sheikh alerted Kylie to the presence of several men. Security guards, she presumed, but the Sheikh held a hand up, holding them at bay.

  “Come.” He turned and began to move down the long corridor, confident that Fayez and Kylie would follow. The security guards parted like a wave. For Kylie’s part, she began to move, but Fayez jerked her back, his expression furious. After a few moments’ pause, he began to stalk behind the Sheikh and as they passed, chatter began to rise, causing an enormous din. Kylie winced as they left the ballroom finally, grateful beyond words for the possibility of escape.

  A woman was standing outside the room Kylie had dressed in. She looked professional and polite, though there was something in her manner that conveyed apprehension. She tilted her head slightly, indicating that they should enter Kylie’s dressing room.

  Fayez gripped her elbow as they entered the room, holding her tight.

  While Khalifa didn’t act, she could feel tension emanating from him in waves. “Do not touch her.”

  “Why?” A lascivious sound that made Kylie’s skin crawl.

  Kylie pulled away, the very idea setting her teeth chattering.

  “Because I am marrying her, that’s why.”

  The hand that had been digging into her elbow dropped suddenly and Kylie didn’t need another opportunity. She stepped away quickly, rubbing her flesh as if she could erase his touch.

  “That’s absurd. My family entered into this arrangement – and paid for the privilege – seventeen years ago. Do not cry because you were not fast enough to act,” the other man sneered.

  “Oh, I was fast enough to act.” Khalifa’s smile was almost a leer and colour burned Kylie’s cheeks at the implication she understood all too well. And, gathering by the way the other man looked from Khalifa to Kylie, he did too.