by Penny Jordan
‘Right now?’ A betraying ache was spreading through her body. ‘Well…’
‘Or maybe right now, tonight and all the nights for the rest of our lives?’ Tariq suggested softly. ‘And not because it wasfun , but because we can’t bear to be apart—because we love each other so much that life apart would be like the desert without the warmth of the sun or the water of its oases, an endless sterile darkness in which nothing could exist or survive. Because together we want to create the new life that will be our child, conceived and born in love—our love. Because we feel all those things for one another, and so much more I can’t put into words. You have become my morning sunrise, Gwynneth, and my evening sunset. And all the hours of my life in between.’
‘You…youlove me?’ Gwynneth felt as though all the blood had suddenly drained from her veins, leaving her hollow and light-headed.
‘Can you doubt it? If you do, then at least allow me to spend the rest of our lives proving it to you—as my wife.’
‘You want tomarry me?’ Gwynneth whispered, sitting bolt upright in the bed, oblivious to her nudity, the colour beating up under her skin. ‘This is crazy. You’re a prince. Princes marry princesses…’
Tariq was shaking his head. ‘Not this prince. He marries only where he loves, and he loves you, only you and always you.’
The look in her eyes betrayed her, making Tariq hold his breath against the sudden fierce rush of exultation that seized him.
‘Please don’t,’ Gwynneth begged him. ‘Please don’t look at me like that!’
‘All right,’ Tariq agreed easily. ‘How about if I do this instead?’
She was so unprepared for him to take hold of her and kiss her that she had no defence against the slow sweetness of her own helpless pleasure.
‘I love you,’ Tariq whispered against her lips. ‘I wanted to tell you so last night, before I made you mine, but somehow the words never got spoken.’
‘You loved me then…when you still thought…?’
‘I fell in love with the woman you are, Gwynneth. With you, not your virginity,’ he told her firmly. ‘Now, please, put me out of my misery and tell me. Will you give me your love? Will you share my life and my hopes and ideals? Will you allow me to love and cherish and—?’
‘Yes!’ Gwynneth stopped him, the joy of what she was hearing filling her heart to the brim with happiness. To know that he loved her when she had believed he did not, when she had believed that her own once-in-a-lifetime love for him could never be returned, was a once-in-for-ever kind of very special happiness, she decided. She put her hand in his and then leaned forward to whisper lovingly against his mouth, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes,yes …’ Until he silenced her with his kiss.
EPILOGUE
‘HAPPY?’ Tariq asked, his voice holding both tenderness and passion. ‘No regrets?’
Gwynneth smiled up at him and shook her head. They were sharing the same rose-shaded and scented bathing pool where, in what now seemed like another life, she had lain alone in the sun-warmed water and indulged in what had then seemed like an impossible fantasy.
But, as she had now discovered, reality could sometimes be infinitely better than fantasy.
‘How could I when I have you—and this?’ she whispered softly, reaching up to kiss him with her newfound knowledge of just how sweetly vulnerable he was to her kisses.
‘You love me?’
His voice was rougher now. Gwynneth nodded her head.
‘Say it,’ Tariq begged her hungrily. ‘Let me hear the words.’
‘I love you, Tariq,’ she told him, laughing softly when he scarcely allowed her to finish before taking her in his arms and kissing her with a passion that set the rose petals that floated on the water surging rhythmically on small waves created by the eager movement of her body against his.
It had been her choice that they should honeymoon here in the Hidden Valley, and although Tariq had insisted that she was free to choose any destination she wished, she had seen in his eyes how much her choice had touched his emotions.
‘I want to come back every year of our lives together to celebrate our anniversary here,’ Gwynneth told him lovingly, and then leaned forward to whisper in his ear, ‘Do you realise that it’s lunchtime and over three hours since breakfast?’
‘You’re hungry?’
‘Yes—but for you, not food,’ she told him boldly.
The colour came and went in her face, and, watching her, he wondered if even now, after he had told her so a hundred thousand times and more, she really knew just how much he loved her—just how complete his world was with her in it and how empty it would be without her.
‘Here?’ he suggested.
‘In the pool?’ Longing and excitement darkened the gaze she turned on him.
They had had so few opportunities for shared intimacy these last few weeks, in the run-up to the wedding, but now at last she had Tariq to herself.
When they returned to Zuran it would be to live in a rented villa until their own new villa was ready. Tariq was insistent that they had their own home, rather than live as part of his extended family, but she had told him that she wanted their villa to be close enough to the palace for him to be able to visit as often as he wished.
She was far from the first British bride to be welcomed into the Zurani royal family, and it had brought happy tears to her eyes to discover that the extended family members were so willing to become her friends.
She stroked his arm, still thinking of family. ‘It was so thoughtful of you to arrange for Teresa and baby Anthony to be flown out to our wedding.’
‘They are a part of our family, and it was only right and proper that they should be there.’
His reply might sound formal and distant, but there was nothing distant about his generosity towards her half-brother and his mother. Not only had he taken on the financial responsibility for Anthony’s education, he was also making Teresa an allowance that had enabled her to return home and set up her own small business.
Thinking of baby Anthony, and the gorgeous children of Tariq’s extended family, caused a small fluttering sensation to tighten in her own body.
‘It still scares me to think how close I came to listening to my fears instead of to my heart. In refusing to accept that I loved you I would have lost so much…’
‘No. I would not have allowed that to happen—and besides, the fault was mine for so stupidly misjudging you,’ he told her lovingly. ‘Somehow I would have found a way to open the doors of your heart to my love, Gwynneth. I would never have given up—just as I will never give you up now. You are my love and my life, my heart, and all of me that goes beyond that. It is my belief that we were destined to be together, that we were created for one another, and that we fit together as one perfect whole in every single way.’
Emotional tears stung her eyes. She loved him so much, and to hear him voice his love for her had the power to touch the deepest wellspring of her feelings.
‘I want our first child to be conceived here, Tariq,’ she told him huskily. ‘Here in this valley that is so much a part of your heritage and where we first loved one another. Here and…and now.’
She trembled as he lifted her bodily from the water and bent to take her mouth in a fiercely passionate kiss, ready to begin.
ISBN: 1-55254-518-0
PRINCE OF THE DESERT
First North American Publication 2006.
Copyright © 2006 by Penny Jordan.
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