by Leslie North
Nora gave a nervous laugh. Her skin seemed to hum and buzz with nerves, her heart pounding even though it was just Rashid at the end of the aisle. Just heart-stoppingly handsome Rashid, her old friend from school, and they were just rescuing each other from a pair of subpar deals.
“I don’t want to.”
“All right. Meet you down there,” said Hafiza.
Then Nora was alone with the wedding coordinator and the last few members of her beauty team, who stepped forward to make sure everything about her looked flawless.
Because, of course, it wasn’t just Rashid at the end of the aisle. It was Rashid, crown prince of Omirabad. It was a bank of international photographers, scattered in various corners of the tent so that the ceremony could be broadcast and photographed from every angle. It was hundreds of guests, most of them strangers, all waiting for the red-haired doula from London to become a princess.
“Three, two, one,” said the coordinator, and without thinking Nora took her first step into the tent.
She had known about the guests—about all of it—but seeing it with her own eyes took her breath away, and she froze.
Cameras flashed, the music swelled…
Walk, she commanded herself. Walk forward.
Her feet wouldn’t move.
Why had they ever decided that she would walk down the aisle unaccompanied?
A reassuring touch on her back snapped her back into the moment, and she turned to look into King Rafiq’s kind eyes.
“I know the plan was for you to walk alone,” he said quietly. “But I thought you could use some company.” He offered his arm discreetly, and Nora took it as if it was the last lifeboat off a foundering ship.
“Thank you.” There it was, that ache in her throat. Her own father should be the kind of man to do this. That thought made her stifle a laugh, which she turned into a smile more appropriate for the occasion. Her father would never be like King Rafiq.
The walk down the aisle was over in a flash, and there was Rashid, taking her hand.
Dark eyes. Dark hair. Dark suit. And a smile that made her half forget what had happened in the clinic. Who cared about that now? On some level, Nora did, but as she faced Rashid and the ceremony began, it was all washed away by the look on his face.
His eyes revealed his nervousness, excitement, and… Yes, there was real heat, beneath it all.
In one searing moment, Nora forgot the fear at the pit of her stomach and lost herself in his eyes.
She stayed there through the ceremony and into the reception in the grand ballroom, which was a riot of color and celebration and spice. Nora changed into a traditional gown in red for the reception and found herself pulled into a tide of greetings and congratulations and farewells from person after person.
The colors and warmth would stay with her forever.
One moment, she was lifting a bite of cake to her lips and the next a cheer went up over the crowd as Rashid raised their clasped hands above their heads, and then…
They were plunged into the quiet of his private apartments.
Her ears rang with the relative quiet, and like two swimmers surfacing from a deep dive, they blinked at each other.
Rashid lifted a cautious hand to her cheek, stroking the skin there as she tilted her head into his touch.
“We’re married now,” he said.
“Yes.”
His knuckles brushing against her flesh gave her goosebumps along every inch of her body.
“Would you like to see your rooms?”
“My…rooms?”
Rashid smiled down at her. “All of your things have been moved to a suite here. In my apartments. Let me show you.”
He guided her through the massive apartment to a hallway that had an additional air of privacy. “My bedroom is that way,” Rashid said with a wave of his hand. “Yours is here.”
It wasn’t a bedroom—it was, as he’d said, a full suite with a bedroom, a living room, and a small den. Just the bathroom itself was larger than most of the dorm rooms Nora had lived in during college.
Back at the door, Rashid searched her face. “Do you like it?”
Did she like it? Yes.
“It has almost everything,” Nora said. She still felt a little drunk from the celebrating, and being alone with Rashid only made her feel more soaring and lightheaded. “Just like our wedding ceremony.”
“What was it missing?” He took her hand, eyes on hers. “I’ll try to make it up to you.”
“It wasn’t like an English ceremony.” Her heart fluttered against her ribs. “We got married, but there was no kiss at the end.”
Nora felt the energy in the room change, the temperature rising, and she saw it reflected in Rashid’s eyes. “That’s easy enough to fix.”
Without another moment of hesitation, he put his hands on her waist, drew her in, and kissed her. His lips were confident on hers, strong and soft, and Nora flicked her tongue against his bottom lip. Rashid’s grip on her waist tightened, and then his own tongue demanded entrance to her mouth.
With one deft movement, he turned them both so that her back was pressed up against the wall, and then he stroked his fingers down the side of her neck.
“How was that?” His low whisper made desire curl low in her belly.
“Good,” Nora said, struggling to catch her breath. “It was good, Rashid. I—” She fisted her hands in his shirt, wanting to see it on the floor more than she’d wanted anything in life. “I wanted to know…what your intentions are in this moment. Every time we start to talk about how…how our life together is going to be, we seem to get interrupted, so—”
He put his fingers underneath her chin, tipping her head back until he could look into her eyes. “What do you want, Nora?”
You. The thought rang in her mind. I’ve always wanted you. She blushed, feeling it from her cheeks all the way down to the tips of her toes, but the words didn’t come.
“Tell me what you want out of this.” Rashid’s voice was husky, and his eyes burned into hers. “We can start from there, if you’ll only tell me what you want.”
They had kissed before. They had touched before. But it was finally sinking in that she was married to Rashid, and Nora’s body could hardly contain the swell of emotion. It couldn’t possibly be a marriage that was only on paper, could it? She couldn’t possibly live so close to him, with her life so intertwined with his, and not have him, could she?
No. She couldn’t. A thin burst of fear cut through the warmth generated by his hand under her chin. If she did really have him—if she reached out and took what she wanted with both hands—wouldn’t it all fall apart eventually? She could live at the palace and wear the world’s most beautiful wedding dress, but underneath, Nora was still herself. She wanted to work as a midwife and wake up with a sense of freedom every day, not dreading what she had to get through.
That could happen if Rashid decided she didn’t fit in. That could happen if she really didn’t fit in, despite how kind everyone had been to her leading up to the ceremony and through the reception. It was different, Nora knew, when you got into the nitty-gritty of the days and weeks and months that went into a marriage.
But all that was for a future version of Nora to worry about. In this moment, her school-days crush had grown into a man who had feelings for her. She could see them in his gaze and feel them in his touch, and she wanted…
“You,” Nora said. “I want you.” No other words could describe the rush of need that seemed to center over her heart.
The smile on Rashid’s face grew and deepened, and he took her face in his hands as tenderly as she’d ever seen him do anything. Touch me like this forever, she thought, leaning into him.
“Nora?”
“Yes?”
“I want you, too.”
9
The air in Nora’s suite shifted, and a glittering anticipation rose like a tidal wave as Rashid stepped back to look at her. He had looked at her many times before—at school an
d since she’d come to Omirabad—but this felt different. Her fingertips tingled with excitement. The whole world was holding its breath. No—that was only Nora.
“It feels different now,” she breathed. “With you.”
He laughed, the sound calling to something deep within her. “It should feel different. You’re my wife.” Their eyes met, and the smile on his face smoldered into an expression that made her think possession. Nora had never been one to want a man to possess her, but here, behind closed doors, she wanted to belong to Rashid.
He must have sensed it, because he reached out a hand for hers and led her across the suite to the bedroom.
It was spacious and fresh, the lights turned low, but Nora hardly noticed the details. Rashid led her to the foot of the bed, then turned her to face him.
“Let me undress you.”
It was half question, half command, and…was she dreaming? Was this really happening? Nora felt like the girl who had sat across from Rashid at so many study tables, trying to hide the fact that she had an enormous crush on him. But that girl was gone, replaced by a woman who…still had an enormous crush on him.
She was aware of every inch of her body in a way she’d never been before.
“Yes. Please,” she said into the heady silence.
Rashid took her hand again, turning her to the side so that he could unbutton the back of her dress. There were so many buttons, but he took his time with each one, slowly exposing the skin of her back to the gentle air of the room.
At last he slipped the gown over her hips, taking the slip underneath with it, and Nora stepped out of the puddle of red silk.
His hand stroked her bare waist, between the lacy bra and the matching panties she’d worn for her wedding day. Rashid pressed a hot kiss into the curve of her shoulder, and she turned her head toward him, raising one arm to hook it around his neck as he explored her body with his hands. His palms slipped over her stomach, played over the waistband of the panties, and traveled upward to trace the curves of her breasts. Nora felt the clasp of her bra release, and Rashid took it off almost reverently before discarding it on top of the dress.
She arched against him when he circled her nipples with the pad of his thumb, one and then the other.
He let out a low groan into her ear. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”
Excitement—sheer excitement. “A week? Maybe two?” Nora joked, trying to harness some of the nervous energy building inside of her.
“Years. Since school.”
“No, you didn’t.” Nora’s words hitched. “You were so careful never to look at me…”
“How could you know that?” Rashid’s fingertips stroked down over her hips, dipping into the front of her panties. “You never looked at me, either.”
“I only—” Nora gasped when he moved his fingers lower. “I only looked when I thought you weren’t looking. I thought—” His fingers brushed through the hair at the apex of her legs, and she struggled to form words. “I thought—”
“What did you think?” With his other hand, Rashid nudged her legs apart. “Tell me.”
“I thought you were so handsome,” Nora forced out as two fingertips made contact with her clit. It was already swollen and ready just from his sheer proximity, and oh, she wanted… “I thought you were the most handsome person I’d ever seen, and I thought…” Small circles. He was rubbing in small circles, and her entire soul was wrapped around those movements. It was so dirty, to have his hand inside her panties, and she wanted it so much. How many times had she imagined— “I thought I could never have you.”
“Sweet.” He put a hand on her hip to pull her closer, bracing her as he brought her closer and closer and closer to the edge of pleasure. “You’ve always been sweet, Nora. But why on earth would you think you could never have me? You deserve nothing but the best. Better than me.”
“Better—than—you?” It was hard to think with the magic he was working between her legs, the pull of the panties around her ass heightening every sensation. “There’s—nobody—”
“Plenty of men are better than me.” He stroked between her legs, gathering the juices there, and she almost tipped forward. She’d never been more desperate for anyone’s touch. Rashid caught her, pinning her against his chest. “But I’m the one who got to marry you.” His voice was filled with…awe. Awe like she’d never heard. Rashid wasn’t the kind of man to let the public know what got to him, and she—she was getting to him.
Not that she could think much about it, because she was almost—
Nora must have let out a noise, because once again Rashid’s fingertips were against her clit. “Come for me.” The command came softly into her ear, and it sent her right over the edge into her first orgasm of the night, breaking over her like a wave.
Her knees gave out as it came to an end, and Rashid scooped her up into his arms. He spread her out on the bed, and Nora got her first look at his face.
Desperation.
He was desperate to have her.
“Let me watch,” Nora said.
Rashid grinned down at her. “My pleasure.”
He was wrong. The pleasure was all hers as his tuxedo jacket came off, followed in quick succession by the rest of his clothes.
His body…it was a work of art. And muscles. He was perfection from head to toe, and it gave Nora a burst of pleasure to see it all in front of her. It was one thing to feel it beneath his clothes. It was another to see her husband on display in the low light of her bedroom.
Her husband.
Rashid looked into her eyes as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his briefs and pushed them down. And Nora—
Well, she couldn’t maintain eye contact.
He was perfect.
In every way.
Perfect and already hard, his thickness standing out from his body.
Nora was on her knees in an instant, scrambling for the edge of the bed. Rashid watched with raised eyebrows as she positioned herself there, sitting up tall and wrapping one hand around him.
Steel. Yet so soft…
At her touch he let out another grown.
“May I?” asked Nora, batting her lashes.
“You don’t need to ask permission,” Rashid said through gritted teeth, and then she took him in her mouth.
There were no more words after that.
It was more intimate than her own orgasm; it was more intimate than the fact that she was mostly naked in front of him, to feel him pulse in her mouth. Nora braced her hands around his muscular thighs and felt every motion, every sway, every pitch of his hips until finally he broke.
“Oh, it’s too—” Rashid never finished the sentence, because he was pushing her gently away, and then more firmly back onto the bed. His eyes were almost black with need as he tugged her panties down over her hips and dropped them to the floor. “There.”
He clambered up on the bed and pressed her legs apart, and Nora felt the burn of his eyes on her skin as he drank her in. Rashid pressed a kiss to her clit, creating a little pressure with his lips in a way that made her squirm underneath him. His tongue came next, licking at her slit—a taste. He raised his head.
“So sweet,” he said. “But I can’t wait any longer. I need you now.”
Nora reached for his face then, tugging him up so she could kiss him. “I’ve needed you for longer,” she said.
“I doubt that.”
He worked himself into position with his mouth on hers, and Nora tasted her own particular sweetness on his lips as he aligned himself with her opening. He was big. She spread her legs wider, making more room for his hips, and sucked in another breath.
He caught her gaze with his eyes. “Do you want this?”
Nora had never been so certain of any other man. Without question, if she so much as shook her head, he would stop.
But she did not want him to stop. She didn’t want this to ever stop. If they could live in this day forever, and never have to let themselves
be consumed with royal life…
She shoved that line of thinking out of her head. Now was not the time. Now was only the time for Rashid, waiting between her legs, and her own desire—
“Yes. I might explode if you don’t—”
Rashid covered her mouth with his, tasting her deeply as he took her deeply, a single powerful thrust that filled her to the hilt. It was a delicious meeting, better than anything Nora had felt with any other man, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Meant to be. Meant to be, they had to be meant to be—
She hooked her legs around his hips and matched his rhythm. Their bodies were so matched that when he thrust forward his root brushed tantalizingly against her clit, so with every motion back and forth she got a little closer, a little closer—
“Tight,” Rashid growled into her ear. “It’s so tight, so good—do it again. Yes. There.” His words were the best music she’d ever heard, and she worked her muscles, drawing him in, pulling him close.
On the next thrust he turned them both, so quickly she couldn’t figure out how he’d done it, and then she didn’t care. She was on top, looking down at Rashid, her husband, and he was deep inside her.
She rocked her hips, his hands guiding her.
“I wanted to see you like this,” he said urgently. “I have to see more of you like this, and I—” Another groan. “Nora—”
At the sound of her name on his lips, she came hard in a crescendo of heat and pleasure, tossing her head back, and she knew from the way his cock jumped inside her that Rashid was coming too. He reached a hand up to the back of her neck and pulled her down, kissing her hard as they shook and trembled and rode the wave all the way down until it was over. It was that same sunny, relaxed vacation feeling. She wanted to bottle it up forever, but it had been a long, long day.
Rashid rolled her easily onto her side, snuggling against her as she caught her breath. The pillow was cool beneath her cheek.
“I want to keep this day forever,” she murmured, the tiredness already taking over.
“It’s yours,” promised Rashid. “This day, and all other days.”