by Leslie North
The two women looked through the wide double doors, which were thrown open and held back with sandstone doorstops. The studio inside was one long room, airy and whitewashed, the back wall open to a courtyard. Twelve potter’s wheels dotted the space, and eleven of them were being used by children whose laughter bounced up to the ceiling and fell down over Laila like rays of sunshine. The hum of the wheels buzzed below everything else. Talif bent over one of the wheels, and he was laughing with a boy who looked about ten. The clay beneath their hands wiggled in and out of form and finally collapsed. “You’ll get it next time,” said Talif, and then he looked up. “Your High—”
“Ara,” Laila said quickly. “Call me Ara.”
A smile spread across Talif’s face. “Ara it is. Welcome to the pottery studio. Would you care to join us?”
“Very much.” The way her throat tightened surprised her. “I would like that.”
“Class, let’s greet Ara. She is a friend of mine and a master potter.”
Laila’s heart thrilled at the sound of master potter, though she wasn’t sure that a master’s degree necessarily made her a master of anything.
“She’ll be...helping us today?” Talif tossed the question across the room at her, and Laila snagged it out of the air.
“I will,” she answered. “I will.”
Laila hung her veil from a hook on the wall by the door and plunged in feet first. She bent down next to the closest student—a little girl named Jana—and helped her with the base of the little pot on her wheel. Jana’s dark eyes danced, and dimples decorated her cheeks when she grinned. Something in Laila’s chest unknotted. The world tightened down to the pottery studio, with the chatter of children against her ears, the warm breeze coming in from the open back wall, and the way the clay felt under her hands.
“Ara.”
The soft voice came from just off her shoulder, and Laila glanced up from the pot she’d started when nobody else needed help. The empty potter’s wheel had called to her. “What is it, Talif?”
She kept her eyes on the clay in her hands and finished off the lip of the pot, letting the wheel come to a slow halt.
“It’s been several hours,” Talif said gently. “I’m worried you might be wanted back at the palace.”
Laila blinked and stretched. The light outside in the courtyard had a warmer glow, trending toward evening. “I don’t think time has ever gone so quickly in my life,” she said. “I should get back, you’re right.”
“I’ll fire this in the kiln for you,” Talif said. “Go. And you’re welcome here any time. I mean it.”
“I’ll be back.” She hustled to the sink at the side of the room to wash her hands, signaling to Maha to call the driver. “I can’t wait.”
Laila slid into her seat in Zayid’s private dining room, a smaller version of the royal dining room on the first floor. Though the room held a round table that could seat five or six, they sat alone.
“Hi.” She brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. “I’m sorry I was a bit late.”
He considered her carefully, dark eyes grazing over her skin. “No apology necessary. Your trip to the market seems to have done you good. What did you do while you were there? Shop?”
“I just threw some clay around at Talif’s studio.” An unstoppable grin came to Laila’s face. “It always makes me feel better.”
Zayid nodded slowly. “So that explains the clay in your hair.” He reached forward and plucked something from just over her ear—a small hunk of dried clay. “And on your face.” He swept the pad of his thumb over her cheek, and Laila’s eyes fluttered closed. She’d been so irritated with him earlier, and now her body melted at his touch. “I wonder where else on your body I might find clay.”
She opened her eyes wide and laughed. “I’m sure there’s none under my clothes.”
“How sure?” His eyes blazed, and Laila’s breath caught in her chest. “Are you absolutely sure there’s no clay on your skin? It’s on your clothes.” He took Laila’s wrist in his fingers and brought it into the light. “There’s clay on your sleeve...” Zayid clicked his tongue. “This won’t do. Not for a dinner with my wife.”
Laila caught a glimpse of one of the staff in the doorway to the dining room, watching them carefully, tray in hand. “It’s too late to change.”
“It’s never too late to change.” Zayid took her hand and led her out of the dining room, down the hall and into his bedroom. Desire worked its way over Laila’s skin, making goose bumps rise and a laugh burst from her lips.
“Where are we going?”
“The shower,” Zayid said sternly, but she saw the smile at the corners of his lips. In the bathroom, he shut the door behind them. “Hold up your arms.”
She did as he said, her nipples peaking as he slipped her tunic over her head, exposing her bra. Zayid’s gaze swept critically over all of it. “No clay so far,” he said, and undid the clasps. He circled her nipples with his thumbs, then gave each one a little pinch. Laila let her head fall back, the pleasure driving all the way to her spine and between her legs. “I want to see the rest of you.”
He kept up this game until they were both naked, the shower running hot beside them, and Zayid pressed a kiss to the side of her lips. “I’m going to get that clay out of your hair,” he whispered. “Get into the shower.”
They stepped in, her breath electric with anticipation. “I know how to make this easier for you,” she said solemnly, and then she sank to her knees in front of him.
Zayid’s cock was already hard and ready, and she wrapped her hands around it, testing the thickness. This earned her a groan. Taking it into her mouth earned her a low moan. And then she felt the cool of the shampoo hitting the top of her head. She worked Zayid, and Zayid worked his hands through her hair, bubbles cascading to the tiled floor beneath them. His muscles trembled and shook, even with his feet planted firmly on the floor, and his noises got lower and more animal with every moment. Until finally words burst out of him. “Your hair is finally clean.” He pulled her, grinning, up from the floor. “But I need you. I need you now.”
“I need you more,” she breathed, and she let Zayid turn her around, his touch moving over all her most sensitive places, and guide her hands to the wall. His fingers danced between her legs, and she let out a panting breath. Zayid rolled her clit between his fingers and entered her from behind, filling her in one slow, delicious stroke. “More,” she said, the words in her mind folding into one another and becoming one long sound of pleasure. “More.”
12
Laila worked the clay in her hands on the traditional potter’s wheel in her studio, trying to keep her focus light and her hands steady. Delicate touch, she told herself for the hundredth time. Delicate touch.
“Excellent.” Talif stood close by, watching. “Keep it going.”
Her skill had increased with every lesson on the traditional wheel, and Laila’s heart lit up at the praise. Talif was a bit old school with his instructions—he offered lots of encouragement but kept his praise sparing. She knew this meant that the work really was up to par. But she kept her focus on the clay in her hands. The traditional shape of the Raihani pot was different from her usual style. She was going to perfect one. No two ways about it. But the shape of the lip took extra concentration.
Laila took a deep breath. This was the trickiest part. The wide lip, along with the specific curve of it—she hadn’t managed to get one perfect. But today was going to be the day. Today—
The door to the studio burst open, and a guard’s voice boomed across the space. “Your Highness, the crown prince requests your presence.” Laila jumped, the clay wobbling out of balance and out of shape under her hands. She bit back a curse. How many times was this guard going to do this? She let the wheel stop and picked up the mess of clay, throwing it onto a shelf alongside four other similar messes. Maha had come to get her at first, but Zayid clearly hadn’t been happy with how long it took her to leave the studio, because fo
r the past few weeks, he’d sent guards. And the guards ruined everything.
“Work on your concentration,” Talif told her as she made her way to the sink and scrubbed her hands. “A potter shouldn’t be so easily startled at her work. Especially at your level.”
She bit her tongue. A potter shouldn’t be so easily interrupted. But that wasn’t Talif’s fault.
“I’ll do better next time,” she told her mentor with a pasted-on smile. “And thank you for telling me that the prince needs to see me,” she said icily to the guard. “I’ll see you at our next meeting, Talif.” There was no point in dawdling. The guard wouldn’t leave until she did. Maybe that was why Zayid had stopped sending Maha to pass along his “requests.” She’d deliver them and then go back to Zayid’s apartments to wait for Laila there.
The guard trailed her on the way back to Zayid’s rooms. “Am I going the right way?” Laila said with a sigh. “Or did he want me to meet him in his office?” She couldn’t stay mad at the baby-faced guard for long. It wasn’t his fault that Zayid constantly needed her when she was busy.
“Your presence has been requested in the dressing room, Your Highness.”
“The dressing room. Good.” Laila swallowed another irritated response. Zayid wouldn’t be waiting for her there. He got ready in his own bedroom suite.
This was only temporary. She wouldn’t be sitting in state events for long. Zayid had told her more than once that her presence was important and that people were charmed by her. Everything goes more smoothly when you’re by my side, he’d said. And Laila didn’t mind the dinners and receptions so much. No, it was only getting interrupted at the potter’s wheel that rankled. And that she would likely miss the lesson she was supposed to be giving a girl at Talif’s pottery center later that day. It really would be nice if Zayid would ask her to come to these events, rather than ordering her there—especially with no notice. She’d have to send word, so the girl wouldn’t think she’d forgotten.
It was a little much that Zayid only saw things in terms of what was politically advantages for Raihan and what wasn’t. Not a lot of room for nuance there. Working with one of the country’s top artists didn’t count as politically advantageous, she supposed.
Laila took a deep breath. No time for any of that angry dwelling. She set it free into the air around her and pushed the door to the dressing room open.
Maha waited with a small team of stylists and ushered her into the chair. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said, giving Laila a perfunctory pat on the shoulder and stepping back to let the stylists work. “We don’t have much time.”
Laila thought about asking what the event was—what state dinner could have been planned at the last moment?—but what was the point? Her job was to sit there and be charming. And look pretty. And she didn’t need to know anything about the event in order to have a team of people do her makeup and help her change into—
“Oooh, what’s that?” The makeup artist whipped the cape off her shoulders and Laila stood up to look over the dress Maha held out. “It’s gorgeous.” The gown was a deep blue with silver leaves delicately embroidered into the cuffs of the sleeves, something closer to a tunic than the formal gowns she wore to most state dinners. Laila ran her hands over the silky fabric. “I love it.”
“Good, Your Highness—Laila.” Maha flashed a smile at her. “Put it on, quickly. Prince Zayid is waiting.” Laila craned her neck toward the door, but Zayid wasn’t there. “In the hall,” Maha said. “Go, let’s go.”
They went at top speed toward the door of the apartment and found him standing there in a crisp white shirt and pressed slacks that made the lean muscles of his legs stand out. Laila had to suppress the urge to unbutton his shirt and watch it fall to the floor in a cloud of white.
“There you are.” His dark eyes flared at the sight of her. “You look gorgeous.”
“What is this all about?” Laila spun around to show Zayid the full effect of the dress, and he caught her mid-spin and tugged her to him.
“We have an event to attend.”
“An event that you couldn’t have put on my calendar before I was in a pottery lesson?”
“No,” he murmured, dropping a kiss to the curve of her shoulder. “I couldn’t. Come with me.”
She put her arm in the crook of his elbow, but at the first turn toward the reception rooms, he went the opposite direction. Laila laughed. “Are we meeting our guests on the road behind the palace?”
“Certainly not,” he said.
“Then where are we meeting them?”
“Who said there were guests?”
She raised one hand in the air then let it fall. “With all the rush, I assumed that there were guests.” Laila took a moment to study his face and the twitch of a smile at the corner of his lips. “Tell me where we’re going.”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
“Surprises aren’t all they’re chalked up to be. Tell me,” Laila demanded. But Zayid didn’t utter a word. Not as they left the palace, not as they crossed a path by the gardens, and not as they approached a helicopter waiting for them on the helipad. “A helicopter?” She squeezed his arm. “Where are we going?”
“A little trip,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back in plenty of time for your next pottery lesson. Schedule a new one, if you’d like.”
The helicopter swept them up from the ground and over the desert. Laila looked down onto the green of an oasis and the rise of a mountain ridge. Sand dunes rolled away from the mountain and became grasslands, which became the green borders on the edge of a foreign city. Laila couldn’t take her eyes off the landscape below. Zayid offered nothing except a squeeze of her hand. A helipad appeared on the open ground beneath them and got larger as they descended. The helicopter touched down. Laila followed Zayid to a waiting black SUV, the first in a row of three.
“Where’s the event? Tell me that, at least,” Laila prodded in the SUV. The city they drove into reminded her of Raihan, with modern buildings at the outer edge and progressively older ones the further they went toward the city center. They passed a sign that marked a set of ancient gates, but she didn’t catch the name of the city. She searched the storefronts and street names for any sign, but nothing was clear until the very moment they pulled to a stop in front of a towering building, the entire front wall decorated with intricate mosaic.
Laila gasped and spun to face Zayid. “The National Museum of Majadin?”
He beamed at her, the warmth of his smile filling her chest. “I had my people work overtime at settling the trade deal with the Sultan. When everything was said and done, I requested a private tour of the museum for my wife.”
Laila’s pulse beat bright and happy in her veins, and excitement rushed down over her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She launched herself across the backseat of the SUV and into Zayid’s arms so hard he let out a startled laugh and settled his big hands on her back.
“Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “This means so much to me. Thank you.” She took a deep breath of the sandalwood scent of his skin, and then her mind dipped lower, to where her legs straddled his hips. The fabric between them felt unbearably thick and somehow too thin to ignore.
“Shall we?” Zayid asked, and she clambered off his lap and stepped out of the SUV. Their guards went ahead, meeting up with staff from the sultan’s palace. At the entrance to the museum, which was a set of wide doors flanked by hand-carved pillars, the head curator met them. He wore a tunic and pants in a deep maroon and had eyes the same dark color as Zayid’s. His were ringed by wrinkles that became even more pronounced when he bowed to them both, smiling all the time.
“This way, Your Highnesses.” He ushered them inside the cool foyer. Laila’s eyes adjusted to the light in slow increments. It was dark and cool in the museum, the exhibits lit from above. Her eyes landed on a tall vase, a deep gold color shining with glaze. The pottery of Majadin was similar to that of Raihan,
but the two cultures had grown up next door—they weren’t twins. Laila rushed over to the display as if a starting gun had sounded the beginning of the tour. The curator led her through the exhibits one by one, his even voice spilling facts like gemstones. Her head spun with them. It was like trying to hold a fistful of diamonds—just when she thought she couldn’t hold anymore, the curator added another tidbit. And here she was without a way to take notes.
An hour into the tour, she realized Zayid wasn’t next to her. She turned her head to look and spotted him coming toward her at a clip, his eyes on his phone.
“We need to move to the next exhibit if we want to stay on schedule.” He shot her a distracted grin, as if this wasn’t the most important museum visit of her life.
“Not yet,” said Laila. “There’s more to learn about this display.” They’d stopped in front of a glass case filled with pottery implements from five hundred years before.
“We need to continue on.” Zayid checked the time on his phone again. “I’ve allotted one more hour for the visit. I want you to see the whole museum, but that means we have to pick up the pace.” He moved to the next exhibit and gestured for Laila and the curator to follow along. When they met up again, Zayid looked up from the painting he was studying and smiled at the curator. “Please tell the sultan we could not have asked for a more enlightening visit.”
Laila’s mind stuck on the words. Was this some official visit, meant to show the sultan that they appreciated Majadin’s art and history? Would she later discover photos had been taken of them going in and out, big smiles on their faces?
An hour later, on the steps of the museum, Laila listened hard for the telltale click of the cameras but didn’t hear or see any photographers. She settled back into her seat in the SUV and looked out the window at the museum entrance. The pillars retreated into the distance. She wished for full day to explore the collection—a full week. But it turned out that even marrying a prince couldn’t make all her dreams come true.