Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  She thought there was a stretch of time, the last she remembered, when she had been awake and talking. To him, to Hessuh, Saeed and Rafeeq. She remembered it as if she were remembering a half-forgotten movie. As if it hadn’t been her sitting in that hospital bed. She remembered she’d wondered why she was there.

  Now, as she opened her eyes to find herself draped in an ethereal cocoon of gossamer curtains cascading from a golden frame, and felt herself drowning in the luxurious depths of sheerest white and softest cotton, drenched in nerve-tingling spicy scents, warmth and mellow sunlight, she remembered why.

  She’d hurtled into the path of a thundering boulder.

  Judging by the persistent IC themes, it must have shattered her. Judging by Malek’s constant presence, it must have been him who’d put her back together.

  “I will have to lock you up.”

  Malek. His voice as dark and haggard as she remembered he’d looked in her delirium.

  She twisted around, homing in on it. She found him two feet away on the other side of the gigantic bed, sprawled in a huge, high-backed armchair, his legs wide apart.

  Through the gauzy curtain she saw he was wearing an abaya, white and embroidered with gold all along its opposing openings.

  It was the first time she’d seen him in traditional garb. He looked regal, overwhelming in anything, but in this, he was. Whoa. He was just … just … Whoa.

  This was what he was born to wear. Her incomparable prince of the desert.

  He stood up in one of those flowing moves that never ceased to stun her, with him being so big and tall, and the abaya fell open. And she had her first unhindered view of his body.

  She should have known that all the fantasies that had tormented her in endless nights of deprivation would be nothing to his reality. It had been merciful she hadn’t had enough imagination to do him justice.

  She didn’t need imagination now. Would never need it again. From now on she’d have memory. Of the chest she’d longed to lose herself against, a painstaking sculpture of perfection and potency, dusted in just the exact thickness of ebony silk to accentuate each slope and bulge of sheer maleness, to offset polished flesh, before the tantalizing layer arrowed down over an abdomen hewn from living granite by virility gods and endless stamina and discipline. Below that, string-tied white pants straight out of a thousand and one Arabian nights hung low, way low, on those narrow, muscled hips and those formidable thighs, the loose cut doing nothing to hide the shape and size of his briefs-bridled manhood.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her insides cramped with a blow of longing so hard she moaned.

  At hearing the explicit sound his eyes flared like a sun going supernova. “But it won’t be enough. Only chaining you to my wrist and throwing away the key will be.”

  And he considered that—what? Punishment?

  She tried to talk, found that sandpaper had replaced her vocal cords.

  “Feeling the after-effects of intubation still?” He placed one knee on the bed, making the hard mattress dip, putting his hands to the curtains as if he was feeling walls he was about to smash, his pose imposing, intimidating. And even more arousing. At least she knew her body was functioning if it was rioting this way, when he was clearly furious, too. “That’s what you get for playing Superwoman. Surprise. The boulder didn’t bounce off you.”

  She found her voice for this, or something that passed for it. “As long as it didn’t hit you.”

  He tore the curtains away, loomed over her, panting, his skin turning copper in his extreme. Oh, God, what had she said?

  “And why would you care, when you almost killed me anyway? Seeing you lying there, broken and bloody! The one reason I didn’t keel over was because I had to take care of you first. Because you were alive. If you weren’t—if …” He clenched and unclenched his fists, as if he was struggling not to grab her and shake her. “You could have just shouted for me to get out of the way. You could … you could … Be’hag Ellahi … you could have died.”

  “That’s why you’re so angry?” Tension seeped out of her. “I thought it was something serious.”

  “Almost killing yourself isn’t serious?” he exploded.

  She winced at his thundering volume. “Endangering myself is one of your hot buttons, isn’t it?”

  “One of?” She’d bet that snarl could perforate steel. “Endangering yourself? You risked your life for mine!”

  She ran her hands over her head, her arms. “Uh, I feel very much alive here. Not withstanding that my first thought as I woke up here was that I must be in heaven.”

  “You risked your life for mine. That you’re still alive is because God chose not to accept your sacrifice.”

  “I think you had a say in canceling that sacrifice.” She sat up and he seemed to lose all explosive retorts in his alarm over her sudden move. “Oh, I’m all right. As good as new, really, just sore from lying in bed too.” Her words petered out. She was in a sleeveless, low-cut, satin nightdress the same dazzling white as everything around her.

  Her heat rose as she imagined him putting her in it, and more as she, in such languorous detail, saw him taking her out of it. A breath shuddered out of her as the creamy silk slid over her legs, intensifying the heavy throb between them.

  She squeezed them together to contain the ache, looked up at him with eyes barely open with the weight of desire.

  “So, how bad was it?” she almost moaned.

  Malek’s teeth clapped together before grinding out a sound that made her dizzy. “Severe concussion, scalp wound, six badly bruised ribs, lacerated intercostals muscles, collapsed lung, massive hemopneumothorax. And a full body contusion.”

  “In other words, I got off pretty lightly.”

  “Lightly? Do you want to rid me of what little remains of my sanity? It was only because of that monster emergency bag you so love, which you held up as a shield at the last moment, that you’re not dead. Or, worse, maimed beyond recognition, a paralyzed vegetable!”

  “Well, I’m not. You saved me.”

  “Only because you saved me.”

  “So what do you say we call it even? We are, really.” Before he could rave and rant again she hurried on, “And just where are we? Is this your home?”

  He scowled his displeasure at her change of subject and muttered, “We are in Ayn Al-Hayah oasis. I have a retreat here.”

  “An oasis! So I wasn’t that far off when I thought I was in heaven. Ayn Al-Hayah.” She sighed, felt a sore spot where he must have placed a chest tube to drain accumulating blood inside her chest. “Eye of life?”

  “Ayn here means spring.”

  “Hmm. So how long have we been here?”

  His scowl softened, his eyes turning amber with deflating anger and mounting awareness. “Just today. You were in and out of consciousness for nineteen days before that.”

  “I’ve been in la-la-land for twenty days?”

  “Which part of severe concussion didn’t you get? And then you were in pain, and I had you on potent painkillers, and those knocked you out even worse than the concussion did. You’d look awake and then I’d later realize that you had been sleep-talking.”

  “Yeah, my threshold to any kind of medication is low. But what about the mission?”

  “Elal Jaheem with the mission.” That was roared. “You’re thinking of the mission when it’s a miracle that you’re alive?”

  “Well, duh. Of course.” She suddenly sat up. “The people in the Jeep … what happened to them?”

  His eyes remained hard, but his voice gentled. “Another batch of miracles. Fractures and concussions and gashes but nothing too serious.”

  She subsided against her downy pillow. “Thank God.”

  His tension eased, his eyes melted. He came down on the bed, supported by his extended arm. And it hit her harder. The scent of maleness and protectiveness, fiery and clean and musky. Her mouth watered. Her stomach rumbled.

  “You’re hungry.” He started to get up and she clutched
his hand. The hand that had snatched her from death’s jaws.

  “Not for food.” She pulled at it, bringing his unresisting bulk down to her. “Not for food, ya habibi.”

  “Janaan.” he groaned as he sank in her arms, letting her singe her lips with the pleasure of running them all over his jaw, his neck, his cheekbones.

  “You shaved for me,” she moaned into his skin. “You knew I’d wake up starving for you, wanted me to feast on you.”

  And she tried, trembling with the enormity of having him in her arms again, her hands quaking over the breadth of his back, the leashed power of his arms, sinking in the knotted muscles, in his vitality, his reality, her lips taking hesitant glides over his, her tongue laving them in tiny licks, still not believing their texture and taste.

  A rumble poured into her mouth, lancing into her heart just as it spiked her arousal to pain with its unadulterated passion.

  Then he broke away from her.

  She felt as if he’d backhanded her, fell back onto her pillow, gasping, her eyes gushing her misery.

  He was panting, his face taut with agony. Then the words shuddered out of him. “Nothing has changed, ya hayati.”

  A sob overcame her as she tried to reach for him again. He resisted her. This time his rejection clamped her chest with the frost of suspicion.

  Stone cold, she got out of bed on unsteady legs. “You’ve researched me, haven’t you? You’re afraid getting involved with me, even temporarily, an illegitimate daughter and half-sister to Damhoorian men of ill repute would be too damaging …”

  He exploded to his feet, his rage rattling her teeth.

  “Enti majnoonah?” he thundered. “Are you totally crazy, or is this the drugs talking? You think I’d care if you were Al Shy’taan’s—Satan’s—daughter? And afraid of getting involved? The whole kingdom is certain you are my mistress. I spent a night in your hotel room. The whole mission saw me weeping and roaring for you. I brought you here, put you in my bed. And you think I care what the world says or thinks? You think I’m denying you and myself for those petty reasons?”

  “Then why?” she cried. “The only other reason I can think of is you don’t want me any more.”

  He advanced on her, forcing her to stumble backward with his insistent momentum, until he had her plastered to the wall. Then he showed her just how huge his desire was, how much he wanted her.

  “Is this proof enough for you, ya majnoonah? And beyond going insane with lusting for your every inch, I worship you, I crave your every glance and word and thought and emotion—everything that makes you you.”

  She clung to him and he stepped away, thwarting her. She cried out her confusion, “Then why won’t you have mercy on me?”

  “Because I still don’t have the right to choose my wife.”

  Wife.

  And it came to her. Fully formed. What she’d never allowed herself to even think about. The images, the daily details, every sensation and thought and common occurrence of an existence as his wife. It brought a fresh wave of anguish. She sobbed as if her heart would break.

  He snatched her up in his arms, carried her to bed, curved himself around her. “Domoo’ek aghla men hayati—your tears are more precious than my life, ya galbi, argooki, don’t cry.”

  It was only on account of hearing his voice about to fracture that she found the control to leash in her anguish.

  “I never thought I was qualified to be your wife—” she started.

  He cut her off with a snarl. “You are my wife. In my heart and soul. But because I can’t choose you, I can never have one. And I won’t.”

  The way he’d said that … ! “You mean …?”

  “I’ll take the crown but I will not take a wife.”

  “B-but how can you not? The heir you need, the expectations of the whole kingdom.”

  “I’m not having a child if it isn’t with you. Let the crown go to someone else after me.”

  This was—was too much. Too much. Too huge.

  She felt shock relinquish its choke hold on her every cell, heard herself stammering, “But i-if you d-decided that, how can you say that nothing has changed? Everything has!”

  “Nothing has. I still can’t take you as my wife.”

  “You don’t have to! I only ever wanted to be with you for as long as you didn’t have a wife. And if you won’t, I can be with you forever …” She stopped, mortification rising at her presumption. “F-for as long as you want me.”

  “And what will I give you in return? Will you accept sharing my privileges?”

  Her lips pursed. “We’ve covered this, once and for all.”

  “So if you won’t accept my support and protection, what do I have to offer you? My love? My body?”

  A giggle of incredulity ripped out of her chest. “Is there anything more this life can offer?”

  “No, Janaan. You of all people need more than someone who says he loves you and never delivers.”

  “If you’re alluding to my father, there is just no comparison. My father deserted my mother and me for—what did you call them? Self-preserving, petty reasons. While you—”

  His growl interrupted her. “It doesn’t matter how grand my reasons are. I can’t let you invest yourself, body and soul, as I know you would, in a relationship with no future. You need a man who can give you the family you never had, the family you of all women were born to nurture and cherish. Damn the day I was born, but I can’t be that man.”

  Jay felt her sanity ebbing. Malek was in her arms, telling her he’d never take another woman, that he’d love her forever, but he wouldn’t be hers either.

  “You think you’re protecting me? Don’t you see you’re hurting me, destroying me?”

  “The pain of an hour rather than that of every hour, as we say here. You may never forgive me for being unable to be with you, for crushing your heart as I crushed mine, but you’ll remember I didn’t compound your involvement, your addiction.”

  She struggled out of his arms, looked at him with tears pouring down her face. “I could have died, Malek.”

  His reaction was spectacular. As if she’d shot him point-blank in the chest.

  And it all gushed out of her. “I could have died without having lived. I haven’t lived, Malek, because you won’t let me, because you won’t make me yours. What if I die tomorrow? Be gone in seconds, like Majd? Won’t you let me live now?”

  Jan’s words showered Malek like shrapnel. He could swear he heard them slashing the last of his control, snapping it.

  He surged up, blind, out of his mind, reliving the agony of fear, of helplessness, of rage and regret. He caught her to him, filled his hands with her, honey and sunlight and unconditional love made flesh, made woman, all woman. His woman.

  “Ana ella ensan,” he growled in her mouth, between tongue thrusts that breached the sweetness she surrendered with such mind-destroying eagerness. “I’m only human …”

  He tore his lips away and she whimpered. He only sank worshiping kisses all the way down to her ample cleavage.

  “You’re not pulling away?” she gasped.

  “Never again,” he groaned, suckling her honeyed flesh. “There’ll be no turning back. I’ll worship you, brand you, give you all of me, turn your body into an instrument of ecstasy, yours and mine. You’re mine to pleasure as I will, aren’t you?”

  Her nod was frantic. “Yes, yes. I’m yours. Yours. Love me, ya habibi, show me what being alive feels like.”

  He fell to his haunches under the import, the conviction of her words, groaning, “Maboodati …”

  He bunched her nightdress in his fists, looked up at his goddess, peach-flushed, eyes almost black, the totality of her hunger and trust shooting to his heart, tampering with its rhythm, crimson lips swollen with his passion, panting for more, beckoning him to lose his mind, once and for all.

  He raised the nightdress up, exposing her an inch at a time, replacing it with his lips, tongue, teeth, coating her velvet firmness in suckles and
nibbles, knowing just where to skim and tantalize, where to linger and torment, where to draw harder and devour. Her moans became cries, then keens, then loud, labored gasps.

  The pressure in his loins was reaching unbearable levels until he feared the first time wouldn’t be the languorous seduction he’d hoped it would be. The accumulation of need had reached critical levels and it would be like a dam breaking the moment he thrust inside her.

  No. He couldn’t let her first intimacy with him be anything less than perfect bliss. He had to show her what she meant to him. Show her he craved her pleasure far more than he craved his own, that his pleasure stemmed from hers.

  Yes. He’d show her how he cherished her, what he’d give, what he’d endure to give her the best, give her everything. Always.

  Her nightdress was now past her midriff, past her ability to stand the sensual torment. He took pity on her, straightened, taking the nightdress with him, over her breasts, over her head.

  He stood back, took his first gulp of her, exposed but for the lacy morsel Hessuh had helped Janaan put on before he’d brought her here, and almost dropped to his knees again.

  He’d seen parts of her as he’d treated her, but he’d been out of his mind with fear, his surgeon side in full control. Now he saw her as a woman, not a patient. And there she was. Beyond his fantasies. Ripe, strong, tailored to his every last fastidious taste and beyond. His woman. And she was dying for him, as he was for her, quaking with the force of her need, weeping with it.

  Her arms stretched out in demand, in supplication, and sabotaged what was left of his reason.

  He yanked her to him, bending her over one arm, her breasts an erotic offering. Pouring litanies of worship into her lips, all over her face, he kneaded, weighed one breast, seeking one erect, deep peach nipple, pinching and rolling it before he moved down, captured the other bud of overpowering femininity and need in his mouth, felt as if he’d captured a vital, missing part of his life’s meaning.

  She screamed. With each pull she screamed again, shuddered. His hands glided over her abdomen, shaking with the privilege, the freedom, closing over her trim mound, stilled in awe. This was his home. His home inside her. And she was letting him have it, own it. He squeezed his eyes, her flesh.