The Desert Lord’s Bride

by Olivia Gates

  He’d been wrong about her. This unpredictable enchantress was nothing like the hardened vixen he’d expected.

  And she was infinitely more dangerous for it.

  And it didn’t matter to him. Nothing did. Not her crimes or that she was another man’s mistress, who, an hour after meeting him, was begging him to do anything and everything to her. It only inflamed him more, the force of her equal hunger…

  No. No. He couldn’t give her what she wanted that easily.

  If he did, he’d be a one-night stand to her. A steady supply of those had to be how she filled her insatiable sexual needs. Although she’d been discreet, no doubt fearing her lover’s wrath. His reports on her hadn’t included any known liaisons.

  But she was pressing into him, all that glorious passion and flesh. He could smell her arousal, feel it vibrating in his loins, hear it thundering in his cells. Surely this much hunger wouldn’t be satisfied with one frenzied mating. He could take her now and it would only start her addiction, as he’d planned…

  No. He couldn’t risk it. He had to stop. Even if he wasn’t sure his potency would survive the blow.

  “Farah, wait.” She didn’t heed him, her lips at his pulse wringing coherence from his body. He tried again, his voice a gruff groan he didn’t recognize. “We have to stop…”

  And again her reaction was nothing he could have predicted. It was as if he’d shot her. She jackknifed away, stumbling as she fumbled to pull up her gown and purse, emotions slashing across her face. Shock, frustration, embarrassment. It was the distress that disturbed him. A distress she must surely be feigning.

  Before he could say anything she rasped, “You have someone in there…or somewhere, don’t you? I should have asked…” She stopped, her mortified gaze hardening into a glare. “Wait a minute. I’m less to blame here than you.” She struck his hands off. “What kind of a bastard remembers his commitment to another woman just before…What kind of promiscuous jerk starts a-a situation like this when-when…”

  Kettle calling the pot black, anyone? But then, now wasn’t the time to let her know that he knew she was a two-timer herself.

  He clamped her shoulders, wouldn’t let her shake him off. “You wait a minute. I have no one waiting for me in there, or anywhere.”

  Her lower lip trembled. “Really?”

  He barely stopped himself from catching that lip, making a feast of it. “Farah, I’m saying this once. I don’t have, and have never had, any kind of commitment to any woman.”

  “Which probably doesn’t say much about you.”

  Her scoffed volley was so unexpected it wrung a surprised laugh from him. “It says I’m free to start a ‘situation like this.’” She mumbled something. He frowned. “What did you say?”

  She shrugged, her color deepening. “Nothing.”

  “Farah.”

  “Listen, I should just shut up, preferably forever, and get the hell out of here. Do me a favor and forget you ever saw me.”

  “Alf la’nah-a thousand damnations-tell me what you said.”

  She grumbled some more. Then she sighed. “I said ‘Of course you’re free to start a situation like this. And to end it. And to hell with your partner, anyway.’ Satisfied now?”

  He laughed again. “Enti majnoonah, weh ajeebah…crazy and incredible.” He crowded her against the tree, snatched up her skirt, nudged her thighs apart as he lifted her, brought her down over an erection huge and hard enough for her to straddle. “Does it feel like I want to end this? Anywhere but inside you?”

  She gasped as his hardness dug into her core through his taub and her sodden panties. Her hands clutched at some branches to hold on to, her legs going around his hips. “Then-then why…?”

  He cupped her buttocks, rasped, “Why did I stop? Why aren’t we already in the throes of the first orgasm of many?”

  His words jolted through her, sent her back arching and her hips grinding down on his erection. Moonlight exploded into fireworks. He would climax, would make her climax if he’d only thrust at her, like this, through their clothes…No. Stop.

  He disentangled her legs from around his hips, gritted his teeth against the combined force of their frustration, took himself out of range of her scent and hunger.

  He stared out into the gardens, still blind. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is too fast.” He inhaled, struggled to come down. “It’s magical and unprecedented, it defies time and timing, but that’s why I can’t risk spoiling it. I can’t rush you into intimacy, no matter how willing you think you are, and cast recriminations or shame or regret on it all.”

  He paused, dazed at his fluency. He should only be glad the pretense was coming so unaffectedly to him.

  He turned to her, pain leveling, his sight back, found her looking smaller, her face shimmering with uncertainty. Stiff steps took him back to her. “I beg of you, ya ameerati, let’s start again, slowly…slower. Let me see you again…and again.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. She’d actually whooped, jumped up and down. This couldn’t be an act, could it?

  But why should he care? It was going his way so easily.

  Though maybe he should feel bad, if she wasn’t the unfeeling creature he’d been intending to manipulate?

  No. He shouldn’t. Even if she wasn’t acting, only her choices mattered. She’d talked of discovering her real father only in terms of how it had hurt her. She cared nothing for the pain she was causing that father or the damage she was causing his kingdom. She thought of nothing but her own comfort and convenience and, right now, her own pleasure.

  Well, he’d make her wait for it. He’d drive her insane wanting it. And when the time was right, he’d take her, ensnare her. Then he’d marry her. Once the marriage was a reality, it wouldn’t matter what she thought. Or wanted.

  She didn’t matter. Only Judar did. Only the throne.

  Reiterating the resolve, he rasped, “Let me take you home.”

  “That would be wonderful…” Her words trailed off and her passion-drugged face fell. “I forgot. I drove here.”

  “I’ll have one of my chauffeurs collect your car.” He tugged her to his side, felt a rush as she nestled into him as if she were a missing part. Focus, ya rejjal. This rubbish is what you say to her, not what you think. He inhaled. “But don’t think I’ll leave you on your doorstep. I’ll change you out of this ruined gown, wait for you to shower, tuck you in bed, give you a massage, kiss you good-night…”

  She trembled, clung tighter, making him wonder if she was far gone enough to say yes to marriage right now.

  No. A no from her would be final, and he had no other leverage but her need. And it had to be great indeed for her to consent to marriage according to his culture. One she couldn’t terminate in any court of law when she wanted out.

  He’d show his hand after he’d entangled her. In every way.

  When they reached the parking lot, he reluctantly withdrew the hand he’d found inside her bodice hungrily cupping her breast, pushed a button on a wireless device in his pocket. He took another taste of her lips as he reiterated inwardly, any moment now.

  Just as Farah was almost climbing him again, the night around them splintered into the bursts of a dozen flashes.

  Three

  One second, Farah was swathed in Shehab’s power and eagerness, buoyed by the promise of the night ahead and so many days and nights to follow. The next she crashed back to reality, as figures materialized out of the void that had existed beyond her and Shehab, shattering their cocoon of intimacy.

  It still took the flashes burning her retinas with splotches of painful blindness to make her realize what the figures were. Paparazzi.

  Helplessness and outrage lurched through her, against the merciless greed of the predators who’d invaded her life countless times, polluted her image and shattered her peace. No matter that she’d practically given them license to do so, with her arrangement with Bill. It still made h
er ill every time.

  They were now catching her in her one moment of unguarded abandon to joy, turning her discovery of Shehab and her own unknown depths into photographic evidence that would turn all the magic into something cheap and sordid.

  But before distress bubbled to her lips, Shehab offered her the refuge she hadn’t cried for yet, whirling her around, his clothes swirling around him like a magician’s cape, enfolding her into what felt like another dimension, where nothing existed but the duet of their heartbeats, hers a cacophony of irregularity, his the very rhythm of steadiness.

  Then other sounds invaded her awareness. Stampeding feet, imploding flashes and shouted outrage. She clung to him, her heart invading her throat, breached, under attack.

  Then she was no longer touching ground, swept up in his power, the world tilting then bounding on fast, steady thuds.

  Suddenly a car screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. A gleaming black stretch limo.

  Half a dozen men materialized out of nowhere, one opening the back door for them, the rest surging toward her and Shehab, overtaking them, putting themselves between them and the commotion at their back. Shehab lowered himself inside the spacious vehicle with her still held securely in his arms. The door immediately slammed shut with a muted oomph and the limo shot forward soundlessly.

  Shehab’s hands ran all over her, soothing, caressing her own hands, which ached from clutching him to her.

  “It’s over,” he murmured. “My men will detain them.”

  She unclenched her grasp on him, squeezed her eyes shut. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that. The paparazzi had already gotten what they’d hounded her for more than two years to obtain-evidence that she was a promiscuous tart who constantly cheated on her sugar daddy. And she’d obliged them this time, leaving a party disheveled and climbing all over a man like a cat in heat.

  But it was worse than that. What hurt most was his men. With the way they’d appeared on the spot, they must have been invisibly following Shehab all along, must have seen…everything…

  Mortification made her struggle out of his arms, spilled her on the plush leather couch beside him.

  She felt sick at heart, at the whole thing, was afraid she’d be sick for real. Her head flopped on the headrest as everything tumbled through her mind in a vicious spin cycle.

  “Can you please ask your chauffeur to pull over?”

  He hit a button, rapped the order in Arabic. Another button flipped open a compartment from which he produced wet towels, then with utmost gentleness he wiped her face, neck, arms and the tops of her breasts with their fragrant coolness.

  Long moments later, he stopped, looked at her. “Better?”

  Oh, she was so not better. His caresses had at first soothed her, but then they’d become fire, licking exposed nerve endings. Her womb was contracting so hard, it was almost painful.

  How could he do this to her? Even now, when she was dying of embarrassment?

  She nodded, mutely. Otherwise she’d tell him the exact truth. She’d told him enough of that for one night.

  Giving her such a smile, that of an artist looking in satisfaction on his handiwork, he tried to move her again onto his lap. She resisted, and he only coaxed her with more insistent caresses, his lips rubbing against her temple. “Let me soothe you, ya jameelati. You really are shaken up by the paparazzi’s appearance, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve developed a phobia where they’re concerned,” she admitted.

  He pressed her harder into his containment. “They’ve pursued you before?”

  Shehab pulled back when Farah made no response, watched agitation shudder over her face. It felt so real he almost felt sorry for arranging the incident.

  The plan had come to him when he’d been informed paparazzi had followed her when she’d left to come to the ball without Hanson, as he’d planned. He’d known they’d swarm the park until she made an exit, hoping to succeed where they’d failed so far, to catch her in one of the infidelities everyone insisted she regularly indulged in. He hadn’t been about to risk her slipping and providing them with their coveted photographic evidence, not when he’d have to make her his princess. But he’d decided to use their presence to his advantage.

  He’d ordered his men to get rid of the paparazzi, to take their place, to pretend to ambush them on his signal. He’d planned to get her into a compromising position somehow, aiming to convince her that her spotless record of never having been caught in the act was at an end. But even his best projections hadn’t included his leaving the ball with her all over him.

  He’d almost forgotten to give the signal, had done it with utmost reluctance, hating to have his men witness any measure of their intimacies, even the mild kiss he’d allowed them to see.

  He’d expected her to cry out for him to send his men after the paparazzi, to make sure no evidence of her indiscretion remained in existence. He’d gambled on that driving her deeper into his trap, adding the feeling of being partners in barely averted scandal to the mix, compounding desire with debt.

  But her response to the whole situation had again thrown him for a loop.

  She’d been scared instead of incensed, was now looking so rattled, so pained, he almost blurted out that she had nothing to worry about.

  Which proved he was thinking with nothing above the neck.

  Yet-why hadn’t she made any demands that he contain the situation? Did she assume he would anyway, for his reputation?

  She at last let out a wavering exhalation. “They’ve been hounding me since my father-my adoptive father-died.” So, no demand yet. When would it come? She went on, her voice strangled with emotion. “They always find a reason for their sick interest in me. I’m just scared witless that this latest episode has something to do with their getting wind that I was adopted, or worse, who my newfound biological father is. If it does, they’ll never leave me alone.”

  He knew he should steer away from this subject, shouldn’t risk her connecting him with the situation between her and King Atef. He couldn’t resist asking, “Because of the drama of the discoveries? Or is your bioligical father’s identity worthy of creating a sensation?”

  “Both. Just the fact that Francois Beaumont isn’t my father would make them salivate. But oh, boy, is my biological father’s identity sensational. If I can hardly believe it, imagine what the tabloids would make of it.”

  He had to be satisfied with that, would recall her answer later for analysis. For now he had to end this strain of thought, divert her to safer grounds.

  He shrugged. “They could have been after me.”

  “But no one knew who you are, except me…”

  Her breath left her in a rush. He gritted his teeth at the response its freshness and femininity wrung from him. At the surge of what felt too much like shame.

  Anger at the stupid feeling roughened his voice. “Yes.”

  Her breath caught now. Savoring the depth of the privilege he’d imparted to no one but her? Let her. It was the best way to snare a woman, appealing to her vanity.

  Just as he was sure he’d fathomed her reaction, she frowned. “Do you realize how stupid that was? To blow your anonymity like that to someone you just met?”

  That was again the last thing he’d expected her to say.

  Unsure how to react, he raised an eyebrow. “I trusted you?”

  Her glower, her tone, only grew sharper. “And which part of your anatomy made that monumental decision?”

  What he’d just been thinking. He shook his head as if it would make this turn in conversation make better sense. “I have made it so far by trusting my instincts…”

  The irony of his words made him stop. For his instincts were lying. They’d been lying ever since he’d laid eyes on her.

  She mistook his pause for belated realization. “See what I mean? So you were right to trust me, but what if you weren’t? Worse still, what if someone overheard you on the terrace?”

  He stared at her. Anyone would have swo
rn that she cared. Knew how to care. But he knew better.

  “No one heard me. And then no one who does know me could have recognized me. I was covered from the eyes down…”

  She huffed a sardonic laugh. “And you consider that a disguise? Do you think anyone wouldn’t recognize your eyes? Not to mention your physique. Put them together, and anyone who’d seen you across a street would recognize you.”

  He was used to women flattering him, knew much of their flattery used truths as ammunition. But he’d always recognized the self-serving intentions behind the adulation. He detected none now in hers, delivered in this no-nonsense, exasperated-at-his-obliviousness way. He barely stopped himself from hauling her on top of him again and showing her how he reciprocated in kind.

  Which was probably the effect she’d planned. Or was that as far-fetched as it sounded to him?

  Getting more confused, he exhaled. “I was in that ball for over an hour before you arrived. No one recognized me.”

  “Then the paparazzi were after me.” She seemed to deflate beside him. “It’s weird, but I’m actually relieved they were.” Suddenly she shot up straight again, clutched his forearm. “But-the photos…” Here it came. The belated demand. “They might have taken some of your face. I’m used to being pursued, but I can’t bear it if being with me is going to expose you to their viciousness.”

  And? Where was the demand for him to undo it? For his own privacy and comfort, of course, not hers?

  None came. Instead, her eyes suddenly sparkled with moisture and she choked, “I’m so sorry, Shehab.”

  And he gave in. He lowered his head with a groan, stilled her tremulous words and lips with his, his tongue gliding over her plumpness, unable to wait to plunge into her again. She opened for him with a whimper, overpowering him with her surrender, allowing him all the licenses he needed.

  Desire crested, threatening to overcome all considerations. He severed their meld, looked down on her. “Don’t be sorry, ever, ya jameelati.” Then he gave in again, ending his own maneuver, giving her what she hadn’t asked for, gaining nothing for himself. “And don’t worry, either. Never fear anything when I’m with you. I’d defend you against anything.” And he would. Only because she was the key to protecting the throne of Judar, he insisted to himself. “My men will make sure those paparazzi have nothing to publish.”