by Nalini Singh
He smiled at her mock shudder. "I'll do that, Mina. While you are here, you may wish to...I do not know the word, but it would be good if you would walk among the people."
"Oh, you want me to mingle?"
"Yes. Especially with the women. Out here in the desert, a lot of them tend to be shyer than their city counterparts."
"So you want me to talk to them and make sure they're doing okay?"
He nodded. "You are a woman and you are friendly, es pecially as you continue to smile at everyone." His tone was disgruntled but his expression approving. "Most of the Zeina citizens will try to come to meet us. It is the way we strengthen the bonds that tie our land together. The men tend to wait for me, but the women will feel easier with you."
Jasmine bit her lip in sudden indecision. She felt more than saw Tariq's relaxed body tense.
"You do not wish to do this?"
"Oh, I do. It's just that ...do you think I can? I'm just an ordinary woman. Will your people talk to me?" All her life, she'd never been good enough. Sometimes the past threatened to overcome her hard-won self-esteem.
"Ah, Mina." Tariq tugged her into his lap and held her close. "You are my wife and they have already accepted you ."
"How do you know?"
"I know. You will trust your husband and do as he bids."
His autocratic command made her want to grin. If he trusted her with this, then he had to have some faith in her. Perhaps it was even the beginning of a deeper kind of trust. The flame of hope inside her, which had been threatening to go out ever since he'd revealed the assassination attempt, started to flicker with fiery life.
"Aye, aye, Captain." She adopted a meek expression that made him laugh and kiss her.
He rode out ten minutes later into the crisp desert morning. After waving him off, Jasmine took a deep breath and began to walk toward the heart of the camp. Within moments, she vas surrounded by Zeina's women, surrounded and welcomed.
It was only as dusk began to descend in purple strokes across the desert that she returned to their quarters. After washing the grit and dust of the day from her body, she dressed in an ankle-length skirt and fitted top in a beautiful shade of gold and lay down on one of the low couches to wait for her husband. Lulled by the soft chatter outside, she closed her eyes, intending only a moment's rest.
Once again, Tariq found Mina asleep. This time he needed to wake her, to satisfy not carnal hunger, but something far more dangerous. "Wake up, my Jasmine." His voice was rough.
"Tariq." With a wide smile she opened her eyes and her arms and tempted him into her embrace. "When did you re turn?"
"Perhaps forty minutes ago. Now you must awaken so we can eat." Nevertheless, he leaned toward her and let her put her arms around him. Spending the entire day apart from her for the first time since their marriage had brought old pain to the surface--raw, jagged pain that mocked him for pretending he didn't need her. The truth was that he needed her far more than she would ever need him.
"With Arin?"
"No." He smoothed the tangled strands of her hair off her face. "Just me. Tomorrow we'll dine with our people again."
Not wishing to face the emotions she aroused, he started to leave. She held him tight. "Don't go. I missed you."
"Did you, Mina?" He couldn't keep the edge out of his voice. He needed her, but would never again chance entrusting her with that knowledge.
"Yes. I kept looking for you all day." Her eyes were soft, her body warm from sleep.
"Show me how much you missed me, Mina. Show me." He clasped her to him possessively, the wounded beast inside him unsatisfied with less than complete surrender.
He stripped her so quickly that she gasped, but made no protest. He laid her down on the thick rug on the floor, in flamed by the sight of her creamy skin and fiery hair against the scarlet-and-gold material. She was like some pagan fan , a dream designed to drive men wild.
Wrapping his hand around her neck, he kissed her, claimed her. He tasted every corner of her mouth while his free hand roamed her body, then covered the soft mound of one breast, makin g her whimper. Finally breaking the kiss, he bent down to take a tightly beaded nipple into his mouth. He sucked. Hard.
She bucked under him and her hands clenched in his hair. "Please... please..."
The broken sounds urged him on. Nudging apart her legs with his knee, he settled in between them, opening her to him. One hand flat on the rug beside her, he raised his head and looked down at her as he moved his other hand to her stomach and inexorably lower. Sky-blue eyes bled into indigo and lush lips parted in a fractured breath as he found the small nub hidden in her curls.
Though he was careful not to hurt her, this woman of cream fire, his strokes were firm. Mina clutched at his arms and he coul d feel pleasure exploding inside her. He stroked harder, leaving her only for the instant it took to lift her right leg and place it over his hip, giving him full access to her secret places.
Her moan when he touched her again wasn't enough. He needed more. He needed Mina's utter and total submission. He needed her to hold nothing back from him. Needed her to need him like he needed her. Needed her to love him so much she would never leave him again.
Reaching lower, he slipped a finger inside her. Her body jerked. Her skin dampened. Then he lowered his head and lightly, carefully, bit the underside of one plump breast. Around his finger, her muscles clenched in an intimate fist so tight he was drenched, surrounded. It was at that moment, as she shoved a fist in her mouth to muffle her cries, that he removed his hand, released himself from his pants and surged into her. Unable to control the spasms overtaking her, she held on to him, biting his shoulder to silence her gasps and moan.
He welcomed the sweet pain. Mina had fallen over the edge and he could feel it beckoning, but he wouldn't surrender. Not yet. Gripping her hips, he thrust hard. Fast. Deep.
Branding her.
"You're mine, Mina. Only mine." The words were wrenched out of the part of him that raged to claim her for all time.
Only when she lost the battle to muffle her pleasure and her cry rode the night air did he allow himself to fall into the beckoning void.
It was at the final dinner with Arin that Jasmine learned about the relationship between the two men. While Tariq was deep in conversation, Arin answered her questions.
"Tariq spent time in each of the twelve tribes after he turned twelve. This was to teach him about his people."
Jasmine thought that the experience must have been unutterably lonely. He would have been one of them but also, as their future leader, set apart. Her heart ached for the boy he'd been, but she could see the results of his training. Tariq mixed as effortlessly with these desert dwellers as he did with his people in the city.
"He came to Zeina at fifteen and we became friends."
Arin's words were simple, but she understood the depth of that friendship. Her husband didn't bestow his trust lightly. And once that trust had been breached...
"And you've remained friends." She swallowed her sudden apprehension and turned a bright smile on Arin.
The big man nodded. "He is my friend, but he is also my sheik. Make him just your husband, Jasmine, not your sheik."
His advice echoed her thoughts of not so very long ago. She knew that Tariq needed freedom to lay aside the heavy burden of leadership, even if only for a few hours each day. It was easy to say but hard to put into practice, especially where her stubborn husband was concerned. Without warning, he could change, seeing in her the shadows of the past.
A memory of the bittersweet glory of their lovemaking yesterday flickered through her mind. The complex man she'd married, a man even more fascinating than the prince who'd been her first love, would give neither his trust nor his love into her keeping, unless she proved herself worthy. But she refused to quit trying to breach the walls around his heart. She could be just as stubborn as him.
That night, Jasmine sat cross-legged on their silken bedding watched Tariq undress in the warm glow of t
he lanterns. He turned and motioned her over with a tilt of his aristocratic head. She rose and walked toward him. Without words being exchanged, she knew what he wanted. She began to help him remove his clothing. His back was golden heat under her light touch, his body beautiful to her.
"You'd make a perfect harem slave," he commented, in cheek.
She bit him on his back for that remark. "I don't think this primiti ve desert atmosphere is good for you." chuckled at her response. She drew back when he was dressed only in loose white pants. To her shock, he held her gaze and pulled them off in one smooth motion. She couldn't move as he threw the last piece of his clothing aside and stalked to her. It wasn't as if she'd never seen him naked, simply that he had never acted with such sexual aggressiveness. Even his furious loving last night hadn't been this...blatant.
He was a sleek, muscled warrior, rippling with strength kept in check for his woman. She knew that Tariq would never phy sically hurt her, which only made his maleness more compellin g. Lips parted with sensual longing, she raised her head to meet his green eyes, shadowed in the dim light from the lanterns.
"You're overdressed for a harem slave," he murmured, and tugged her nightshirt over her head, leaving her naked.
"What about women?" she managed to ask, though her throat felt dry with need and her thoughts were scattered like tangled skeins of thread.
"Hmm?" He nuzzled her neck. It was, she was beginning to realize, one of his favorite preludes to lovemaking, as well as a gesture of affection.
"Did they have harems?"
He raised his head to meet her laughing eyes. "You wish for a harem, Mina?"
She frowned as if considering it. He squeezed her tightly. "Okay! Okay! I think I can handle only one of you at a time," she stated.
"You will only ever handle me," he said with a masculine growl.
Jasmine smiled and, without stopping to consider her words, said, "Of course. You're the only one I love."
Tariq turned to stone. She wanted to take back her hasty declaration. He wasn't ready; she knew he wasn't ready. But the words had welled up in her heart and escaped before she could control them.
"You do not need to say such things." Under her hands, liquid silk turned to steel and his warm flesh was suddenly searingly cold.
"I mean it. I love you." There was no going back. Throwing away her pride, she gazed at him, silently begging him to believe her.
Tariq's eyes were midnight dark in the lantern light. "You cannot love me."
"How can I make you believe I do?" She ached for the loss of their joy, their laughter, their blindingly beautiful love.
Too late. She was four years too late.
He shook his head, answering her with silence. In the past, his control over his emotions had fooled her into thinking that his feelings didn't run as deep as hers. Only now, when it was too late, did she understand that she'd hurt him more than she could have believed possible. He'd given her his warrior's heart and she'd thrown it away in her ignorance of its value.
How could he possibly believe the truth after such a be trayal? And yet the truth existed. Her love for him was deeper, richer, more intense now. The child-woman who'd first loved him had matured into a woman who loved him so much she sometimes thought she'd die from the sheer intensity.
When he kissed her, she gave herself up to his embrace, swallowing her tears. Tariq played her like a well-tuned mu sical instrument, drawing every note of pleasure out of her. But he didn't give her his heart. Her warrior didn't trust her n ot to hurt him again.
Long after he'd fallen asleep, Jasmine lay awake, thinking the past and how it had indelibly marked her future. Her husban d's distrust was like a razor in her chest, making each incredibly painful. Even worse was the knowledge that believed love weakened him.
" ...You'll never again allow me close to your heart?"
"Yes. I will not be such an easy target a second time. "
The memory of his implacable expression and his determination to never again fall prey to love haunted her. How could she fight her warrior's pride and his distrust in her loy alty at the same time?
Jasmine woke to find Tariq gone. She missed him. Missed his smile, his morning caresses, his body sliding into hers, comp leting her in a way that she'd never known was possible between a man and a woman. When their bodies were one, it was as if she could see into his soul for one blinding instant. But only sometimes. Last night he'd shut her out, loving her body with exquisite care but giving her nothing more than his physical passion.
She stood up and quickly ran through her toilette when her mus ings threatened to make her teary. Then she pulled on a long skirt in a soft peach fabric over her naked skin. She felt exposed even in the confines of the tent and wanted to get covered before she worried about underwear. In her rush to dress, she forgot that they were traveling today and she would need to be in pants.
Her fear was justified. She was reaching for a bra when the tent flap opened behind her and a warm breeze touched her back. Apprehensive, she glanced over her bare shoulder.
"Oh." Relief flowed through her.
Tariq raised a dark eyebrow. "You were expecting someone else?" The flap closed behind him, hiding the incipient brightness of the day.
She blushed. No one would dare enter without his express permission. "I just can't get used to the openness of these tents." With a shake of her head, she turned and picked up the bra.
"Leave it." Husky and rough, Tariq's unexpected com mand startled her into dropping the piece of lace and satin.
The feel of his naked chest against her back startled her even more. He'd been fully dressed when he'd entered, and she'd turned her back on him only a few seconds before. Un like last night, this morning his hands were impatient, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples with more heat than expertise, while he kept her trapped in front of him. He was a little rough and most possessive.
She felt a hot rush of liquid heat between her thighs. It was as if Tariq knew. He slipped one hand under her skirt. Continuing to caress her breast with the other hand, he slid a single finger through her curls.
"You are ready." His husky voice held a note of satisfaction, as if he was pleased at her responsiveness.
Before she knew what was happening, he pushed her skirt up her back and bared her buttocks to him. Too needy to be embarrassed, she gripped his thighs when he put both hands around her hips and pulled her onto him, sliding her down so slowly she thought she would go mad.
"Tariq, please, please," she moaned. "Oh, please."
From the way he growled in approval and gave her what she wanted, she knew that he liked her obvious need, liked the way she wriggled on him and urged him to go faster. Out of nowhere, an image of what Tariq had to be seeing as their bodies joined in wild surrender burst into her mind. It was the final erotic stroke. Her climax was thunder and lightning. She knew that she took him with her, his throaty cry mixing with her scream of release.
Afterward, he held her in his lap, their bodies still joined.
She tilted her head back against his firm shoulder and tried to get her racing heart to calm down. A long time later, she swallowed and wet her dry lips. "Wow."
Tariq chuckled against her ear and nibbled on the soft flesh of her earlobe. "Not too fast? I hear women like it slow." His tone was pure provocation, daring her to deny the way she'd burned like wildfire in his arms.
She nudged him with an elbow. "You're a horrible tease, but I'm too sated to argue with you."
She heard his smile in his reply. "So this is what I must do to get your complete cooperation. It could become exhausting. "
Jasmine laughed. Tariq closed his hands over her breasts in a final sweet caress before he reluctantly pulled away. "We must prepare to leave, my Jasmine. It is time to go home." Just before they left the tent, she took a deep breath and put her hand on his muscular forearm. Under the white material of his shirt, skin and muscle moved over bone, seducing her with their effortless flow.
He gave her an indulgent smile, still enjoying the after-effects of their wild mating. "What is it? I promise you we can play when we get home."
I6s sensually teasing response made her blush. It was as if last night had never happened. She had her husband back. The shields had dropped, but only as far as they had been before her declaration. It wasn't enough. If she let him deny her love, then this half-life would be all she ever had. And she was tired of never being good enough. Tired of never being loved. Perhaps her flaws made her unworthy of love, but until there was no h ope, she would try. This time, she wouldn't let anyone, even Tariq, keep her from fighting for their love.
"Your eyes are getting bigger and bigger." He raised one finger and ran it across her lips.
"I meant it. I love you."
His face underwent a sudden change, from open and teasing to totally reserved. "We must go." He turned away without another word and preceded her outside.
She sucked in a breath of air that felt like a knife blade slicing across her heart. Oh, it hurt so much to have her love not even acknowledged. But her struggle would be worth it if she succeeded in getting back what she'd lost so carelessly in her naivete.
Tariq waited for Jasmine outside their tent, careful to keep his emotions from showing on his face. It would not do for his people to see their leader in turmoil.
Why did she do this?
Did she truly believe that she could control him with a declaration of love? Words so easily said ... promises so easily broken. He'd offered her his very soul four years ago, and she'd thrown it back at him as if it was a worthless token, after promising him forever. Though he would never let her know it, he still hurt from that emotional blow.
Part of him wanted to believe her, whispering that she was no longer the scared girl who'd crumbled under the slightest pressure, but a woman strong enough to fight him at his angriest. However, Tariq refused to listen to that voice. His heart was still raw from her rejection, not yet convinced of the depth of her commitment.
More than once, when she'd thought him occupied, he'd glimpsed shadows in his wife's blue eyes. His pride had stopped him from hounding her, as he had in the desert, but the knowledge ate away at him. Even now, even after he'd told her so much, she kept her secrets, and that he could not forgive. Women's secrets had always caused him pain.