by Annie West
Far from being horrified or outraged, she knew it was excitement that thrilled through her.
The idea of being possessed, of being claimed so blatantly by a man, should be anathema to her. In the camp the idea had made her skin crawl.
Yet now with Amir it was different—and not solely because he spoke of her choosing to be his. Perversely she discovered a sense of power in the fact he wanted her so much. To her shock, the idea of having him at her mercy sexually held a forbidden allure she’d never thought possible.
Cassie’s eyes widened. In agreeing to be Amir’s lover she’d stepped from safety into the dark unknown.
She couldn’t pull back. The allure was too strong. Her need was too intense. She wanted everything he offered.
‘I see you understand,’ he purred against her mouth, then swiped the tip of his tongue between her parted lips in a sensual promise of pleasure to come.
Too soon he pulled away.
‘Dinner,’ he said huskily. ‘Our meal has no doubt been waiting for some time and you need your strength.’ The twinkle in his eyes warmed her. ‘Then I’ll find something to cut those links.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘AMIR?’
‘Hmm?’ Long fingers tangled with hers even as Amir focused on the chessboard. As ever, he threatened to distract her with the lightest touch, reminding her of the bliss they’d shared.
In the late-night stillness they might have been the only residents of the sprawling palace.
Cassie loved this time. Precious hours together when Amir finished his work and she came alive to his lovemaking. Sex with Amir had gone from spectacular to spellbinding as under his tutelage, she’d learned to listen to the needs of her body, and his, enjoying both to the full.
Yet, more than sex, Cassie enjoyed these times when, not driven by desire, they lounged, relaxed and companionable.
It was something she’d never before experienced—sharing.
They played chess or talked of anything from politics to town planning, about the theatre or music. They swam by moonlight in Amir’s private pool lined with exquisite handmade mosaic tiles. Once Amir had driven her out to a lookout from where she’d seen the lights of the capital spread below her, like a glittering reflection of the starry sky above. On the way back she’d been enchanted by glimpses of the colourful night markets in full swing and vowed to revisit during the day.
Amir lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to it, sending her thoughts spinning just as he moved his queen across the board. ‘Check.’
Cassie laughed, albeit breathlessly. ‘You’re trying to distract me so you’ll win.’
His eyebrows rose in mock surprise, belied by the glitter in his eyes. ‘Will it work?’
She struggled against the tide of tenderness that rose when he teased her. ‘Of course not.’ She straightened and concentrated on the board, pulling her hand free.
‘I spoke to the volunteer agency today. I told them I’m not ready to go to that school just yet.’
‘Good.’ Amir moved to sit beside her. His arm slipped around her waist.
Amir had been adamant she wasn’t ready to leave the city and she’d agreed. Not because of lingering trauma, but because she didn’t want to leave him.
‘But there’s work here in the city. Tomorrow I’ll begin with a small English-language class.’
‘Tomorrow? Impossible!’
Cassie turned and looked up at him. His aristocratically honed features looked tight.
‘Why?’
He frowned. ‘You’ve had a traumatic experience.’
Cassie smiled and lifted her hand to his face, stroking the deep groove that had formed at the corner of his mouth. It always struck her as incredibly sexy.
‘You’ve helped me get over it.’ Still he didn’t smile. ‘I’m fine, Amir. You know that.’
‘You can’t want to go there.’
She tilted her head as she surveyed him. ‘Of course I want to go. What have I got to do here?’ ‘Am I not enough for you?’
Instantly Cassie stiffened. The smile bled from her face as she saw he was serious. With an effort she stifled her rising temper.
‘I see you at night, Amir. That’s all. During the day I’ve nothing to do. I’ve got no occupation. I’ve got no companions. Even though your staff are friendly that’s not the same.’ She paused and drew a deep breath, focused on keeping her tone reasonable.
It didn’t help that an insidious voice inside whispered that he wanted her at his beck and call, reminding her that her mother had lived solely to service a man’s desires. This was different. Wasn’t it?
‘I don’t see you giving up your work to spend all your time with me.’
‘Of course not.’ Some of the tension in his face eased, yet he didn’t look happy.
‘Of course not,’ Cassie echoed. ‘I wouldn’t expect it.’
Her soft fingers stilled against his cheek and Amir covered them with his, revelling in the feel of her here, where he wanted her.
Where he needed her.
Where had that come from?
Amir ibn Masud Al Jaber didn’t need anyone. He never had.
Yet the denial didn’t ring true. At this moment he needed the reassurance of Cassie’s touch, her warmth, as he’d never remembered needing anyone.
The realisation crashed through him.
He drew a breath, centring himself after the shock. Not at her statement that she wanted to work, but at his intense visceral reaction. What he’d felt in that moment was a possessiveness so crude, so primitive, it made a mockery of his claim to be a modern civilised man.
‘This is important to you?’
Amir felt her tension ease as the militant light in her eyes faded. How often had he let himself fall headlong into those pansy-dark depths, transfixed by Cassie’s unique passion? A passion for life as well as for pleasure.
‘Of course it’s important. That’s why I came to Tarakhar. I want to do something useful. I love acting but right now it doesn’t seem enough. I want something more tangible, at least for a while.’
Fleetingly Amir thought of the many women he’d known only too eager to live off his generosity in idle luxury. ‘You want to leave your mark?’
She shrugged. ‘You could put it like that. It just seems a shame not to contribute more. I like the idea of being part of something bigger than myself.’
Amir remembered what she’d said about her childhood, not being wanted by either parent. Cassie talked blithely of friends, and with her outgoing personality he was sure there were plenty, but she’d never spoken of anyone especially close. Was her determination to work in a foreign language and literacy programme spurred by her desire to belong? To be needed?
He pursed his lips. Why was he delving so deep, puzzling out every nuance?
Because Cassie was important to him.
A frisson of premonition feathered through him. Or was that warning?
These days he thought of Cassie more and more, even when he should be concentrating on the mass of royal work. His thoughts lingered not only on sex, but on how he enjoyed her company, the way she made him feel.
He stiffened, uneasy with the direction of his thoughts.
Having her occupied elsewhere would be good for them both. He didn’t want her getting notions about a permanent place in his life.
What they had was perfect while it lasted. Mutual pleasure with no strings attached. He shoved to one side the lurking suspicion that soon he might want more. Such an eventuality would not occur.
‘What’s important to you, Amir?’
Startled, he focused on Cassie’s upturned face. She looked so earnest.
‘No one’s ever asked me that before.’
In truth, he’d rarely considered it himself—except as a child, when he’d craved … love, he supposed. Then as an adolescent all he’d wanted was to prove himself and belong. Carve a place for himself in this new world of Tarakhar where, despite the frowns and misgivings over the son of a sc
oundrel, he’d discovered stability and honour and finally a home.
It struck him that perhaps he and Cassie had been driven by similar demons.
Though of course he’d vanquished his. As sheikh of a populous and prosperous country he had other concerns than the shadows of his past.
Cassie watched Amir’s eyes flicker as if processing memories. What was he thinking?
‘Let me guess what’s important to you.’ She leaned across and moved one of the beautifully carved antique pieces on the chessboard. ‘Winning at chess.’
‘Winning at everything.’ A smile softened his words but they had the ring of truth.
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘If anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’
Cassie’s breath snagged as her brain diverted to what they’d been doing half an hour ago. She remembered his absolute concentration on giving her pleasure, the way he’d drawn out each caress till she was almost screaming with the pleasure-pain of arousal and need.
If something was worth doing …
No wonder he was such an exquisitely generous lover.
‘What else?’ Her voice was husky and she cleared her throat.
Amir moved a piece to corner her king. ‘My people. My country.’
‘But it wasn’t always that way? Didn’t you say you rebelled at one time?’
He shrugged. ‘When I was young and impatient I had other interests. At first I tried to be all they expected and more. I had to work twice as hard as anyone else. To be accepted I had to be not only competent but perfect at every task. And still everyone waited for me to run riot, just like my notorious parents.’
Cassie knew what it was like to be the child of notorious parents. School had often been hellish because someone had seen Cassie’s mum at the races or the theatre on the arm of her latest paramour. Everyone knew she’d been bought and paid for, just like a new watch or a car.
‘Finally I’d had enough. I decided I might as well fulfil everyone’s expectations.’ Amir’s voice dropped to a pitch that made something quiver inside.
‘What did you do?’
‘I devoted myself to pleasure and nothing else. I went on a binge of parties, gambling and overindulgence of colossal proportions. I doubt I was sober one day in four.’
‘And?’ ‘And what?’ ‘What changed?’
Amir’s eyebrows rose and he pulled her hand towards him, bending to draw his tongue along her palm till she trembled and edged closer.
‘Persistent, aren’t you?’
‘I want to know.’ It surprised her exactly how much she wanted to know about Amir.
He shrugged, and she hated the hard edge of cynicism in his voice when he spoke again. ‘At first it was exciting, satisfying, even. No rules, no regimen. Just pleasure.’ His lips thinned in a tight smile. ‘Then I woke one morning with a woman I couldn’t remember. Her body was a testament to surgical enhancement in too many places to count. She had a plastic smile, eyes that flashed dollar signs, and a laugh like an asthmatic mule, guaranteed to tip a man into insanity after twenty-four hours.’
Cassie curved her mouth in a perfunctory smile at his humour, but inside sadness carved a hollow. What a waste of a man like Amir.
‘I had no idea whose apartment I was in, much less which country. I couldn’t remember the previous week, but I had no trouble realising I was utterly, irredeemably bored.’ He shook his head abruptly. ‘I looked in the mirror that morning and for the first time ever saw my father’s face looking back at me.’
‘You didn’t like your father?’ She could relate to that.
Amir threaded his fingers though hers and looked down at their joined hands as if they held some great truth.
‘You have to know someone to dislike them, don’t you?’
When she didn’t speak he shrugged again, and his breath escaped in a low rush.
‘I never knew my parents. They were strangers to me. I was cared for most of the time by the staff at whatever resort they were staying at.’
‘And the rest of the time?’
Amir lifted his gaze and Cassie was shocked by the fierce blankness she read there.
‘The rest of the time I wasn’t cared for.’
She flinched with shock and he turned his attention back to her hand, trailing his index finger over each of hers in a deliberately erotic caress, as if to distract her from his words. It didn’t work, though deep inside the flicker of awareness that was ever-present near Amir burst into pulsing life.
‘One of my earliest memories is waking to find my room being made up by an unfamiliar maid who didn’t speak any language I knew. My parents had been invited to a party weekend in the Alps and had left instantly. Unfortunately they’d forgotten, till they got a call on arrival in Switzerland, that they’d left me behind in Rio de Janeiro.’
‘Oh, Amir!’ She curved her hand into his, cupped her other hand around them as if she could somehow erase the pain of such neglect. She’d never felt wanted, and had been told time and again she’d ruined her mother’s life, but her mother had never forgotten she existed! How could his parents have cared so little? ‘How old were you?’
‘I don’t know. Three? Maybe four?’
Cassie’s heart thundered with outrage and distress at what such a childhood must have been like.
‘It’s all right, Cassie.’ With his free hand he brushed his knuckles over her cheek. ‘I survived. And when they died I came here to my uncle.’
The uncle who’d spent his days watching his nephew like a hawk, waiting for the day the telltale weakness of his parents would reveal itself.
What sort of life was that for a child? The fire burning in her belly had nothing to do with arousal, but with a fierce need to protect the boy Amir had been.
‘After my taste of reckless living I ended up back here,’ Amir continued. ‘Not because I was ordered to but because I knew I’d do anything rather than turn into my father. Because this was what I wanted—this place, these people. I needed purpose and stability. I turned my life around and made a place for myself. I faced down the doubters and proved myself so well that when my uncle died the Council of Elders turned to me rather than my older cousin to lead the country. This is my destiny.’
His hand dropped from her cheek and he withdrew his other hand from her grasp.
She missed his touch so much it frightened her.
‘My sons will grow up with a father to be proud of. A respectable mother, not a notorious one. There’ll be no taint of scandal marring their lives. They’ll be cared for and cherished, accepted by everyone.’
His words rang with a certainty she almost envied.
For a moment, before she realised where her thoughts had strayed, Cassie found herself wishing he’d look at her as he spoke of his wife and future family. How wonderful it would be if …
No! Such thoughts were dangerous.
Amir knew exactly what he wanted. He’d planned it all out. Whereas Cassie knew what she didn’t want. A life without respect or choice. A life dependent on the whims of a man who didn’t love her.
Yet surely now she was taking steps towards a more positive focus? With Amir’s help she’d banished the dark demons of fear. She enjoyed to the full every moment with this remarkable man. A man so strong and honourable he banished her preconceived biases. A man so honest and forthright she could share anything. A man so tender he opened new worlds of delight.
Plus she felt so good about this new work she was planning. If she could make a difference in someone’s life maybe that would give her the purpose she’d lacked.
What more could she possibly want?
‘There’s one more thing, Highness.’
Amir heard the hesitation in Faruq’s voice and looked up sharply. His aide was anything but comfortable.
‘Everything’s in place in Bhutran, isn’t it?’ It had been weeks since they’d left the mountains and Amir grew impatient to conclude his unfinished business with Mustafa. The memory of what h
ad been done to Cassie made him long for retribution.
‘Yes. The situation will be dealt with in the next few days.’ ‘The situation’ being Mustafa.
Despite the negotiations, and Mustafa’s promises, the old renegade showed his true colours with continued incursions into Tarakhar, breaking every promise.
If necessary Amir would put an end to that with an incursion of his own that would topple Mustafa from his comfortable mountain perch.
But it seemed that wouldn’t be necessary. Changes in Bhutran meant that a newly energised central government, eager to maintain peace with its neighbours, was moving against Mustafa and others like him.
Amir had conveniently supplied information on the size and location of his camp, and offered back-up should it be necessary.
Soon there would be peace on the border and Mustafa would be a spent force. Satisfaction filled Amir.
‘Good.’ He nodded and stood, stretching, behind his desk. It had been a long day and he’d promised himself the pleasure of an early visit to Cassie. Strange how her allure grew with each passing day instead of diminishing.
‘It’s about Ms Denison, Sire.’
Amir’s head whipped round. Cassie wasn’t a subject he shared with anyone. ‘What about her?’
Faruq stood straighter, as if preparing to defend himself. ‘I wondered how long she would remain in residence.’ Amir’s eyebrows shot up. ‘As long as I wish her to remain.’ ‘Of course. It’s just that …’ ‘Yes?’
‘The betrothal negotiations are nearing completion.’ Faruq spread his hands in a stiff gesture of appeal. ‘Ms Denison’s continued presence in the palace has become a matter of speculation.’
Amir strode from behind the desk to the far side of the room, his hands clenched in tight fists behind him.
‘Ms Denison is my guest. She is recuperating from a violent assault.’
‘Of course, Highness.’ Yet the tone of Faruq’s agreement wasn’t convincing.
‘What are they saying?’
Faruq shrugged. ‘There is speculation that you and she …’