by Lucy Monroe
Even knowing he was teasing, she still jerked in shock. “Zahir! Of course not!” She’d never seen female parts outside of a sex education book and those were clinical diagrams.
“Then you cannot know, so I will forgive your doubt.”
She turned her face away, embarrassed and pleased and even more embarrassed because she was pleased.
“Every inch of you is beautiful, including this flesh only I and your doctor will ever see.”
That had her looking at him again. “You didn’t used to think I was beautiful.”
“You were thirteen when our contract was signed. To have looked upon you in that light would have been wrong.”
“I didn’t stay thirteen.”
“In my mind, you did.”
She almost laughed, but the seriousness in his expression could not be denied. A jolt of unexpected understanding went through her. Perhaps this, more than anything else, explained the passage of ten years since that darned contract had been signed.
She stopped wondering seconds later when his touch robbed every logical, and illogical for that matter, thought from her brain. He knew exactly how to touch her, playing with her breasts and teasing her nipples into turgid aching nubs.
But he didn’t stop there; no, he seemed to know secrets about her body that had escaped her notice. Caressing her inner thigh, that spot in the center of her back, her nape, he stimulated numerous little bundles of nerve endings she’d had no idea existed on her body. Even after that first night together.
She writhed, begging him to come inside her and finish this spiral of pleasure, but she did not let go of the headboard.
He rewarded her with his mouth. First on her breasts, then the other hot spots he’d exposed on her body and then finally on that place he said was beautiful to him.
She was still screaming out her first orgasm when he surged inside, filling her beyond comprehension.
Just as the first time, it wasn’t merely her body he filled, but her heart and her mind until she could not breathe without breathing him in, could not think without thinking of him, could not feel without feeling him.
Her second orgasm came over in a wave of such intense pleasure, it bordered on pain.
He wasn’t done yet, though. He held himself rigid through her body’s convulsions and only started moving again when her breathing had slowed down to hiccupping pants.
He brushed at the tears she hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. “Aziz.”
“I love you, Zahir.”
Something moved in his gaze and then he started to move again, this time building to a rhythm that left her gasping with no sound for her scream when she reached the pinnacle of pleasure again…with him.
He insisted she sleep in his bed that night after they bathed together; she rested better than she had since returning from the States, her body, mind and heart as at peace as they could be.
She woke the next morning to gentle hands moving over her body. She went to reach for him, but her hands were stuck and it was then she realized they were bound to the headboard with something made of the softest silk.
“Zahir?” she asked as her eyes opened to the shadows of early dawn.
His look was as intent as she’d ever seen it. “Is it all right?”
Perhaps another woman would say no. Perhaps with another man, she should. But Angele knew what Zahir was asking her and it wasn’t just whether or not she was willing to let him make love to her with her hands bound.
He was asking if she trusted him enough to allow it.
The only things she knew about kink were the jokes passed around the water cooler at her former job, but this was instinctive. She didn’t need to know about anyone else’s intimacy to know this was right between her and Zahir.
He needed to know she trusted him completely and if she was honest with herself, and she always tried to be, she needed to know the same thing. This binding was for both their sakes, a chance to undo the damage too many years between the signing of the contract and their actual wedding had wrought.
It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was one of intent.
She could accept it. “Yes. It’s all right.”
The tension in the lines around his eyes dissipated and he smiled, happiness glowing forth in a way she’d never seen from him. “You are so alluring this way.”
And he was unbearably sexy with that look of joy in his eyes. He might not love her, but then again he might. No matter what had been said on the subject to this point. One thing was certain, though: she was able to give him something no one else could. He’d told her he’d never tried this type of thing with another woman and she believed him.
He would not trust a casual lover not to go to the tabloids with the sexual peccadilloes of the Crown Sheikh of Zohra.
He was a man who must maintain personal control at all times and had far too much responsibility on his plate for any normal man. But he was not an average guy, not even close.
He was something more and so was this. Something special and incredible.
“Will you ever let me turn the tables?” she asked, not sure she wanted to, but curious.
“If you’d like.” And she knew he meant it. He was willing to trust her in ways he would never have trusted another.
“Maybe someday…” she said, the last word trailing off into a moan as his heated mouth made love to her body.
Rich male humor sounded even as he upped the stakes and drove her toward pleasure only he had ever been able to give her.
Zahir accompanied Angele on the walk back to her room, shrugging when she commented that if they were caught together in the secret passageway there could be no doubt what they had been up to. “You are mine.”
“You’re a possessive man.”
“And are you any less possessive?”
She didn’t even have to think about it. “No.”
“Good.”
“I thought men didn’t like clingy women?”
He stopped them in the passageway outside her room and gave her a serious look that melted her right to her toes. “Cling, Princess.”
She choked out a disbelieving laugh as his mouth covered hers in a kiss of unmistakable claiming.
When their mouths separated, he sighed. “I have business of State in Europe. My flight leaves later this morning and I will be in meetings until then.”
“Where in Europe?”
“Germany.”
Her breath caught, but she wasn’t giving in to jealousy. He’d told her to cling. Had he meant it? “Berlin’s Fashion Week is happening right now. I could come with you and write a freelance article. I’m sure I could get into some of the runway shows.”
“If you are sure you can get away from the wedding preparations.” His smile was brilliant.
His reaction left no doubt he wanted Angele to come. This was no grudging acceptance. She’d never be a whiny-clingy type, but she knew that wasn’t what he meant. Zahir wanted to know that no matter how independent she was by nature, that she needed him and would make time to be with him.
“Lou-Belia and your mother have it under control.”
“You have given them full control of the festivities.”
She wasn’t sure if that was an observation or a criticism, but she chose to take it as the former. “You may as well realize that planning social events is not my thing. I’ve got a great attention to detail and can coordinate my life to the Nth degree, but I don’t enjoy poring over guest lists and seating charts.”
He nodded, as if confirming his own thoughts. “It is not a requirement of your position. We have a more than competent event coordination team.”
“I know. The palace event coordinator is pulling his hair out at both our mothers’ overt interference in every detail of the wedding.”
“My mother said you will not allow any one to see the dress you have planned to wear for the formal ceremony?”
“That’s one thing I refuse to compromise on.”
“Mother said
you won’t tell them anymore than that it is white.”
Was he fishing? And was it for his sake, or his mother’s? Angele knew both Lou-Belia and Queen Adara were frustrated by Angele’s secrecy on the matter.
She wasn’t giving in, though. “That’s all they need to know.”
“She said you told her that it would not clash with the traditional couture chosen for the rest of the family and wedding party.”
Angele merely shrugged. If he thought she was giving him any more details than she’d given his mother, he was wrong. No matter how sexy she found him and his interest in their wedding.
Though if he knew her as well as she had come to realize he probably did, he would realize exactly what she planned to wear to speak her vows.
Angele napped on the flight to Germany. The night before hadn’t seen either of them sleeping much, though Zahir didn’t seem affected in the least as he worked in his seat beside her on the private royal jet.
Her morning hadn’t been exactly relaxing, either. Lou-Belia had come close to meltdown when Angele told her she was flying to Germany with Zahir. Angele had spent the remaining hours on wedding preparations, despite the fact someone else could easily have made the calls and decisions she ostensibly made. Ostensibly because all she did was rubber stamp approval plans already put in place by her mother or Queen Adara.
Angele had exactly twenty minutes to pack for the trip. It was a good thing she was used to travel.
They were in the limousine, driving away from the airport, before she realized there was a real possibility Zahir would take her to the chalet in the photos that had prompted her to try to break their contract. She didn’t like that possibility. Not one little bit.
“Where are we staying?”
He named a posh hotel in downtown Berlin.
Stifling any sign of the abject relief she felt, she couldn’t help probing. “I thought you owned a chalet you used when doing business here.”
“It’s been sold as have most of our business interests here in Germany.” He looked at her as if challenging her to ask further.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to. “Oh.”
Either she trusted him, or she didn’t. She chose to.
“We couldn’t cut all ties—it wasn’t what was best for Zohra, but they have been minimized,” he added in the silence that followed.
She felt she should respond to that in some way, but wasn’t sure how. She finally settled on a quiet, “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed.” His words were more forceful, as if trying to impart a message he did not want to come right out and say.
And apparently, that was that, because he didn’t say anything further and answered his phone when it buzzed in his pocket. However, she felt a lightness in her heart that could not be denied.
Their connecting hotel suites were both luxurious and comfortable. His comment that she could use the bedroom in hers as a dressing room put paid to any doubt she might have about where she would be sleeping over the next three days.
Despite the fact that she now traveled with a security entourage, Angele found no difficulty in getting last minute VIP seating for the main runway shows. It was past midnight when she made it back to the hotel that night. She was tired, but wired.
“You really love the world of fashion, don’t you?” Zahir asked.
She shrugged as she kicked off her pumps. “What can I say? It’s in my genes.”
“Fashion is a lucrative industry.”
“It is.”
“Considering how little you like to plan events, I do not suppose you would consider coordinating a fashion week in our capital?”
Excitement made her heart rate increase. A fashion week, or even a single runway show was nowhere near as boring an event as a State dinner. “That depends. Can I hire a team to help me? Can we designate a charity to couple with and make the event about more than just fashion?”
“Of course.”
“Then, yes, absolutely. I would love to.”
“Good.”
“It’s no longer seen as quite the thing for a political wife to be without some interests of her own,” she acknowledged.
The British weren’t the only country that pushed a princess to be more than her title.
“Just so.”
She smiled, enjoying the fact he had thought about what sort of interest would make her happy. Because she knew Zahir was not a spontaneous guy. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“Years.”
Wow. Just, wow. “I thought so. I could have continued writing freelance fashion articles, you know. We don’t have to invent an industry for me.”
“I’m sure you will continue the writing. You are very good, but it is time Zohra joined the rest of the world in showcasing modern fashion.”
“Right, like you really care if there is a runway show in Zohra’s capital.”
“What is important to you, is important to me.”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him. “I just love you so much, right now.”
He laughed, his eyes going hot with an expression she was coming to know very well. “That is good to hear.”
She cocked her head to the side and smiled up at him. “I don’t want our children raised by nannies.”
“Agreed.”
So, a very part-time interest. She could work with that.
“Are you ready for bed?” he asked.
“I’m tired, but not sleepy.”
“I think I can fix that.”
And he did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE next day, she got up early and when he left for his meetings, she accompanied him. The car dropped her and her security detail off at the main pavilion. She spent her morning focused on the German designers and boutiques, taking dozens of pictures in between miniinterviews with designers, boutique owners and other attendees of the show. It was unsurprising, but nevertheless pleasing how eager people were to be quoted in an article written by the soon-to-be wife of the Crown Sheikh of Zohra.
Her pregnancy caught up with her around lunchtime and she returned to the hotel for a nap after eating a light snack from the food stalls.
She woke up hungry and decided on a late lunch in the hotel restaurant before returning to the Fashion Week festivities. The hauptkellner looked surprised to see her, but then nodded to himself as if working something out. He said something in rapid German to another waiter that she was sure Zahir would understand, but Angele’s German was not up to such rapid speech. Then he turned and led her toward the back of the restaurant, where the tables afforded a lovely view of the garden out the wall of windows.
She was so intent on the view she didn’t immediately see the other occupants at the table the head waiter had stopped beside. He snapped his fingers and the other waiter appeared with a third chair, since the two already at the table were occupied.
By Zahir.
And Elsa Bosch.
Zahir’s face had gone completely blank, but Elsa looked both amused and slightly sick to her stomach.
It was an interesting reaction that Angele cataloged almost subconsciously as she took the chair the waiter held out for her. The hauptkellner placed her napkin in her lap while the waiter laid another place setting at the table.
He went to hand her a menu, but she waved it away. “I’ll just have a chicken Caesar salad.”
She didn’t know if they had it on the menu, but was confident the chef could come up with something. It was taking all her concentration to maintain an air of calm and casual demeanor while seated at the table with her soon-to-be husband and his former mistress.
The waiters left and Angele released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Well, this is awkward.”
Neither of her companions had an answer for that, so she turned to Zahir. “Not to be rude, but I believe you told me this particular problem had been taken care of.”
Elsa made a sound of annoyance, but didn’t say anything.
“I believed it had, but then further developments arose.”
“She’s trying to blackmail you now?” Angele asked in Arabic, fairly confident none of their fellow diners could overhear to quote her for the gossip rags.
She made no attempt to hide either her disgust or her shock. Only an idiot risked making an absolute enemy of a man like Zahir.
“No.”
“I am not sure if that makes me more relieved or worried.” Perhaps a week ago, her reaction to this situation would have been much different. Okay, there was no maybe about it, but she’d decided to trust him. Totally and completely.
And she was going to keep doing so, unless she was given a whole lot more than a public lunch as evidence she shouldn’t.
“Elsa was not the blackmailer.”
Angele’s gaze flicked to the other woman, who seemed to be listening with interest. “No? You confirmed she was.”
“She did not deny it when I confronted her and threatened to bankrupt and dismantle her personal production company if so much as a single picture from that envelope ever found its way into the press.”
“I imagine a tell-all article would have paid her well enough to tempt her regardless.”
“I was more than generous in our parting. She signed a contract stipulating absolute media silence in exchange and would have to pay back every penny I ever gave her or spent on her if she broke it.”
“So, how could she think she would get away with blackmail?”
“She didn’t.”
“It was my brother,” Elsa spoke in English, but made it clear she had enough understanding of Arabic to have followed the gist of their conversation.
“Your brother?” Angele asked in the same language, feeling shock on shock.
“He hadn’t signed anything.” Elsa shrugged. “He’s an idiot. He did not realize that the way the contract was worded that I had signed, it wouldn’t matter. I would still have to pay the price.”
“Elsa is here to pass over all the printed copies of the pictures as well as her brother’s hard drive and backup thumb drive.”
“He could still have other copies.”
“He doesn’t,” Elsa said.
“I’m supposed to take your word for it?” Angele asked, maintaining a tone of slightly bored interest for which she was rather proud, considering the maelstrom of emotions roiling inside her.