‘Do you like what you see, Caitlin?’ he questioned softly.
She lifted her gaze to his face. He’s playing a game with me, she thought, and maybe he wanted her to play it, too. Was that what long-parted lovers were supposed to do when they met up again? But what if you didn’t know the rules of the game—when your only experience of sex had been one short night which had ended so abruptly? ‘It’s okay,’ she said coolly, the fabric slipping from her fingers to the floor.
‘Just okay?’
His black eyes challenged her and suddenly Caitlin wondered why she was even trying to flirt with someone who was light years ahead of her in terms of sexual experience. ‘M-more than okay,’ she admitted truthfully, the words coming out in a rush. ‘Your body is beautiful.’
Was it her shaky praise which provoked the sudden tension in his body? Which made his eyes narrow before he bent to capture her lips again, searing them with a kiss which felt as if he were branding her with fire? Caitlin didn’t know and somehow it didn’t seem important. She just kissed him back as if her life depended on it, because hadn’t she dreamt of doing this so many times during the long nights she’d spent alone, and then woken up frustrated in the morning to realise it had all been a dream?
He lifted her up and laid her down on the divan, the smoky expectation in his eyes leaving her boneless with longing as he began to stroke her. And Caitlin closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation as he began to explore her skin. Because last time it had all been so new and she’d been so overcome with emotion that she hadn’t really had the chance to appreciate what was happening, but she wasn’t going to allow that to happen this time. No way. Instead of having pointless fantasies about having found ‘the man of her dreams’, she was going to concentrate solely on the physical. On the way he was stroking her inner thigh with a thoroughness which quickly had her squirming with frustration. On the way his tongue was licking its way luxuriously over each nipple, so that she wriggled with pleasure. The way he groaned when she smoothed her hand over the jut of his hips and stroked his curving satin-skinned buttocks. The way his blunt tip brushed tantalisingly against her belly, and already she could feel a little bead of moisture there.
‘Kadir,’ she whispered.
He reached out to slide out a drawer from beneath the rose-covered table, before producing a small square of foil which glinted in the dim light. As he smoothed on the protection with a slow and provocative deliberation, she wondered if he just happened to keep those condoms there, or whether the whole scenario had been a set-up. Again, her cheeks grew warm and this time Kadir must have noticed, because his black eyes were curious.
‘Are you blushing?’ he murmured.
‘Not at all. I think the air-conditioning must be failing. It’s very hot in here.’
Unexpectedly, he laughed before pulling her into his arms and suddenly words were forgotten because his mouth was on hers and his hand was back between her thighs. Where it belongs, she thought fiercely. But then her fingertips encountered the rough ridge of a small jagged scar, which snaked across his lower abdomen, and inexplicably she felt a sharp pain shooting through her. Almost as if she were experiencing second hand the hurt he must have felt at the time. She opened her mouth to ask who had caused it, who had inflicted such a wound on him—but by then his finger was brushing against her quivering bud and her brain wasn’t functioning at all.
Her body was hungry and her need was intense. Her throat dried as he straddled her and she parted her legs to accommodate him. And at last he was inside her. Easing slickly into her waiting heat and not seeming to notice the hard dig of her nails as she clung to him.
She gasped with each delicious thrust he made—her fingers sliding over his sweat-sheened skin as he took her higher and higher, until she didn’t think she could bear it any more. And suddenly she was falling. Falling in slow motion through a splinter of stars, vaguely aware of Kadir’s body tensing and hearing his guttural cry as he jerked inside her, before gradually growing still.
For a while they just lay there, Caitlin staring at one of the intricate lanterns which dangled from the ceiling as a great swell of emotion rose up inside her. And stupidly, she wanted to cry. To let out the tears which were building behind her eyelids, no matter how hard she tried to blink them away. Which wasn’t supposed to happen. Sex was supposed to provide release and remind her what she’d been missing—not leave her racked with regret and a deep ache at the thought of what she could never have.
‘Why are you crying?’
To her consternation, Kadir’s question made her aware that a tear had dripped onto the velvet divan and she turned her face away from him. She wanted to deny the accusation but then he would rightly accuse her of lying, so instead she dashed an angry fist against her wet cheek. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Was it really so awful?’ he persisted softly.
She gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, come on. You must know it was anything but.’
‘Then I am at a loss to understand.’ He stroked his finger between her breasts. ‘How do men usually respond when you react like this?’
She thought about glossing over the remark, rather than opening it up for debate. But his wife had lied to him, hadn’t she? And there was no reason for her to do the same. ‘They don’t respond in any way at all,’ she said quietly. ‘Because there hasn’t been any other lover than you. I was a virgin the night I slept with you, in case you hadn’t noticed. In fact, I’d never been intimate with any man before you, Kadir—and I haven’t been intimate with any man since.’
There was total silence. A pause so long that time felt suspended. And when he spoke his voice sounded heavy. As if each word had been carved from some dark and unforgiving rock. ‘Me neither.’
Bewildered now, Caitlin turned to look at him, but his eyes were closed, his dark lashes fringed against his olive skin, his hair startlingly black against the green velvet divan. ‘Run that past me again,’ she whispered.
He opened his eyes and she found herself caught in the ebony gleam of his gaze.
‘Your first experience,’ he said flatly. ‘Well, it was mine, too. Nobody before and nobody since.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve understood that properly.’
‘You have.’
‘You’re saying...are you saying I’m the only woman you’ve ever had sex with?’
Another pause. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
She hated the way the possibility of that made her feel. As if she were somehow special. As if something had marked her out and made her seem different. But that was a crazy hope without any foundation—and even giving it houseroom was dangerous. And besides, it didn’t make sense. None of it did.
‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘How is it even possible? I mean, you’re so...’
‘So?’
In the dim light, she could feel herself blush but she was still so caught up in the thrill of that moment that she said something she probably shouldn’t have done. ‘So amazing,’ she whispered. ‘So how on earth can you have been a virgin?’
Kadir looked down at her flushed pink face and wondered why he had told her, but deep down he knew why. He owed it to her to tell her the truth, even though it was not the kind of admission most men would be happy making. Yet from the outset he had been comfortable with his sexuality and his decision to channel it as he saw fit. With his ability to discard the expectations usually associated with a virile and highly desirable man. Yet, having told her part of the story, surely it would be impossible to leave the rest of the matter unexplained. Did he really want to masquerade as something he wasn’t?
‘I wanted to be the greatest king there ever was,’ he began, and as he saw her lips purse together he shook his head. ‘No, not for the sake of my ego, Caitlin, but for the sake of my people, who had suffered greatly by the time I came to the throne. My for
ebears had served Xulhabi well—my father less so. Under his watch, this country had been subject to constant invasion and land grabs and, economically, we were lagging behind many of the other desert states.’
‘Why? Did he...did he take his eye off the ball or something?’ She gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how this kingship thing works.’
‘In a way, that’s exactly what he did,’ he conceded. ‘But the rot set in when he married.’
‘Isn’t that a little...harsh?’
‘Harsh, but true.’ He flickered her a look. ‘You may recall me telling you he married my mother for love?’
‘Which you don’t believe exists?’
‘Oh, I believe it exists, all right,’ he said slowly, his voice growing hard. ‘Just not for me. Maybe the example I was shown by my parents was enough to warp my opinion for ever.’
‘Tell me about them,’ she said quietly, brushing a handful of hair away from her cheek.
He stared up at the ceiling. ‘She was the youngest of seven sisters—beautiful and completely spoiled, by all accounts—and although my father was warned it was an unsuitable match, he would not listen. Ironic, isn’t it? That I chose so carefully when selecting a bride. I wanted more than anything not to repeat the mistake of my father, which is why I picked a supposedly suitable princess.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘And look how that turned out. Which just goes to prove that the majority of relationships are doomed from the start.’
‘So what happened?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘He was completely obsessed with her and, in a way, that seemed to diminish her respect for him. And the more she played him for a fool, the more it seemed to feed his desire for her. He found himself unwilling to commit to the very demanding role of monarch because that would take him away from the wife he was so infatuated with. But she...’ He stopped for a moment, wondering if there was any need to tell her this and then he thought—why wouldn’t he tell her when he had come this far, when he had already broken the rule of a lifetime by confiding such intensely personal matters? ‘She took a series of lovers, which broke his heart. His loyal courtiers tried to protect him—the less scrupulous ones took advantage. And he went to pieces.’
‘And what about you?’ she questioned cautiously. ‘It must have affected you, too.’
He shook his head, determined his expression would show no sign of the pain which had hit him so hard as a child and made him feel even more isolated. ‘I tried to block out as much of the chaos as possible. And then, when I was nineteen, my father died, and my mother soon afterwards, and by the time I acceded to the throne, everything was in a mess.’
She looked as if she wanted to ask him a question and he guessed that maybe she was too shy to frame the words. ‘You want to know what all this has to do with celibacy?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘History has always acknowledged the power which abstinence from sex confers upon a man,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t the great knight Lancelot eventually ruined by his weakness for a woman’s flesh? And don’t great sportsmen deprive themselves of sex before a big game, in order to achieve the highest honours in their field?’
‘I guess so,’ she said uncertainly.
‘I vowed that I would enter my marriage without impediment, so I could offer my bride not just my untouched body and my fidelity, but intense pleasure, too. That is why I studied erotic texts so extensively for so many years, for there are many ancient books which provide comprehensive guidance on the subject.’
There was silence for a moment while she seemed to absorb this.
‘But what about your wife?’ she questioned eventually. ‘Surely she wanted you to consummate your marriage?’
‘It never got that far. Or rather, the subject remained purely academic and there was no consummation.’ His mouth twisted. ‘For there is only one thing which makes addicts happy and that is their chemical of choice. Adiya simply wasn’t interested in sex, not at any time during our short marriage.’
‘But why...?’ She looked as if she was trying to understand. ‘I mean, there must have been a thousand more suitable women to choose from, so why me?’
This was, Kadir realised, what Americans sometimes called the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Could he put his response to Caitlin Fraser down to frustration and lust and being in the right place at the right time? Of course he could, because what other possible explanation could there be?
‘Just before I met you, I’d spoken to one of Adiya’s doctors, who had explained that she could live in that vegetative state for many years and it was highly unlikely she would ever recover.’ He swallowed. ‘And I accepted that, as my destiny.’
He had decided to embrace the life which fate had afforded him. He would be a celibate king. So he had buried his once fervent desire to sire a child and had used his energies to rescue his battered homeland, throwing himself into a series of demanding battles to reclaim the areas of his country which had been unlawfully occupied.
The war had been won but he had lost Rasim, his oldest friend, and for a while that had derailed him. And then, on a business trip to the UK, he had seen Caitlin Fraser standing on a hillside with her camera, her flame-red hair calling out to him, the soft crumple of her lips imploring him to kiss her when she turned round to reproach him for frightening the eagle away. It had been the most overwhelming temptation of his life, even though many women had propositioned him. He had resisted them—but he hadn’t been able to resist her. Like some tame puppet he had asked her to meet him for dinner—made physically vulnerable by a woman in a tweed skirt and a scratchy sweater. Of course he hadn’t known she was a virgin—he had no template with which to compare his night with her. Nor she him. Yet she had been, he recognised with a sudden unwanted rush of exultation.
She had been a virgin, too.
‘And why me?’ he said suddenly, turning the question on its head. ‘There must have been men who had tried it on with you before.’
Now it was Caitlin’s turn to hesitate, but she saw no reason to hide the truth from him. She wriggled up the divan a little.
‘Because I had an inbuilt fear of men. My mother may have failed in many of the more accepted parental skills, but she was very good at teaching me that men were never to be trusted. That men would do you down if you gave them the chance. If you’re told something enough times, then eventually you start to believe it. Oh, I went out with people from time to time, but nobody ever lit my fire.’
‘And what was so different about me?’
He had been irresistible, that was what. With his towering stature and flashing black eyes, he had seemed more like someone who had stepped from the pages of a story. But what she’d felt for Kadir had transcended the physical. When she had talked to him it was as if she’d known him all her life, as if there were no barriers between them, nor ever could be. And when he had kissed her, she’d believed she could trust him with not just her body, but her heart and soul, too. The reality had been very different, of course. Maybe her mother had been right all along.
She wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. To tell him she had fallen into bed with him because he had obviously been very rich and that had turned her on. But that wouldn’t have been true and, anyway, he was the father of her child and they needed to find some way to work through this seemingly impossible situation in which they found themselves.
She reached down and touched her finger against the ridging scar which marred the perfection of his body. ‘This is new,’ she said quietly.
He nodded as he laid his palm over the faint stretch marks left behind after her pregnancy. ‘So are these.’
It was unexpectedly poignant, this unspoken acknowledgement of the time which had passed and the ways in which they’d both changed. For a moment the atmosphere became undeniably intimate and Caitlin was fearful of the way it made her feel. ‘What happened?’ she said
, quickly moving the conversation on.
For a moment he didn’t reply and she half thought he wasn’t going to. But then he spoke and she had never heard a voice sound quite so heavy, or defeated.
‘It was just at the end of the war with Yusawid and the final push to reclaim our borders. I was leading from the front but I was badly wounded, and Rasim came to my assistance, and he...’ His voice sounded thick. ‘He saved his king but lost his own life in the process.’
‘That’s the man in the photo on your desk?’
He nodded. ‘That’s him. Rasim and I grew up together. We learned to play and fight together and he was more like a brother to me, despite the fact that his mother was a palace servant. But he was the only person who was ever there for me in an atmosphere of poison and hate.’ He turned to her. ‘Can you understand now why the future of Xulhabi means so much to me, Caitlin? Can’t you see that if I fail to secure the continuation of the line, I will also be failing the man who gave his life, not for me, but for his country?’
Yes, she could understand all that. She bit her lip. But wasn’t he asking too much of a child who was not yet five?
He had started stroking her breast again and wasn’t it crazy how one minute you could literally be discussing life and death and in the next you could be opening your mouth so that your lover could put his tongue inside it? Maybe that was nature’s way of protecting them from life’s hardships—by making it possible for pleasure to eclipse the pain.
So many conflicting feelings were buzzing around her head and there were still questions she needed to ask. But not now. Not when Kadir’s dark head was moving towards hers.
Because how could she possibly think about anything when he was kissing her like this?
CHAPTER TEN
INDOOR SWIMMING POOLS were pretty much the same the world over, Caitlin thought. Even a grand palace version of a pool didn’t differ much from what you might find in a public bath. There was still all that echo and amplification of sound. Still the glimmer and shimmer of water beneath overhead lights which made everything seem supernaturally bright.
The Sheikh's Royal Announcement Page 10