by Tara Pammi
Widen your legs, Amira... Tilt your hips up when I push in... Hold on, habiba.
He had been a consummate teacher and she an eager pupil.
Could she teach him some things, too? Could there be more to this marriage?
Not love, no. Maybe they were both far too realistic, but perhaps they could have a good marriage.
* * *
Her straightforwardness made Adir smile. She was a lioness, slowly coming into her own. Suddenly, the prospect of Amira as his sheikha, of having her in his bed for the rest of his life, seemed less like duty and more a thing to look forward to.
She would be such a challenge—everything she gave would have to be earned. And when her surrender came, it would be so much sweeter.
And when she did give her all to this marriage, there would be no turning back. He would have a true partner, a woman he could share so much with.
For the first time in his life, he could have an actual relationship.
“With me, you could have a marriage of respect and desire. With me, you would be free of even the shadow of your father, forever. With me, you could have a position of power as the sheikha, you could make a true difference in women’s lives. With me, you will have a place to belong, Amira. If only you can summon the courage to grab it with both hands.”
“Will you give me the freedom to make my own choices?”
“Within reason, yes.”
“Our child,” she began, “if it’s a girl—she will be allowed to study, pursue a career of her own choice and will not be used as a bartering tool to move up in the world.”
He raised a brow, the very picture of masculine arrogance. “What will you do if I promise all this and don’t keep my word?”
“That you ask that question instead of giving me a blind promise is enough, Adir.” His smile told Amira she was right.
What Adir thought of himself and what she thought of him were eons apart. Yes, he had deceived her. But from what she was learning of him, honor was important to him, too. And this child was important.
And any man who wanted to be a good father had something to recommend for himself, didn’t he?
“All I ask is that anything that concerns our life, we decide together,” she said. “And that you don’t force me into any other role except a wife and a mother.”
“The tribes will call you their sheikha.”
“I can live with an honorary title. Because I already have a career, Adir.”
His jaw took on a resolute tilt, his eyes gleaming. “That, ya habibiti, is not negotiable. You will be my sheikha, my wife, the mother of my children, and anything else I decide you should be.”
He turned to leave and then stopped. “And if it’s a boy, Amira?” Something shimmered in his eyes and in that wealth of emotion, Amira knew she had made the right choice even then.
The Adir she had trusted that night was a part of the sheikh, too. And that made her non-choice feel like a very real one.
“If it’s a boy, I hope you will help me in raising him to be a good man, Adir. A man who is secure in who he is, a man who knows his roots, a man who understands that his life is full of love,” she said on a wild risk. Her heart felt as if it had clawed into her throat as he stared at her. “Yes?”
It was not a trick of light, she knew. It was emotion that glittered in his beautiful eyes.
He nodded, perhaps because his throat was full of emotion just as hers was. At least, Amira wanted to believe so.
“And Adir?”
“Yes, Amira?”
“If it’s a boy, I hope he would be as handsome as his abba.”
The smile he left with dug grooves in his cheeks and Amira went to bed with a smile on her own. For the first time since the night she had met and chosen the man who was to be her husband.
She had thought him hardhearted, remote, a monster. But neither was she simply naive or any of those things he thought her.
She was a lot of things made up together—apparently, even a little bit foolish.
Nothing in life was simple. Not the least of which was Adir Al-Zabah.
CHAPTER SIX
THEIR WEDDING TWO weeks later was a small, private affair—a fact that Amira ended up loving—attended by councilmen from the tribes that Adir was sheikh of, her father and a handful of Adir’s close friends and business associates.
He hadn’t asked her what kind of a wedding she wanted. Amira had even been surprised that he’d told her that it was to be a rather simple affair since the tribes’ elders didn’t believing in stepping foot in the city—even for their sheikh’s wedding.
“It wouldn’t be the elaborate affair that you were expecting with Zufar,” he taunted her.
“I would be more than glad to stand in front of the imam with you, just the two of us, and get it done.”
A devilish brow arched, he said, “Neither do they want to miss my wedding. It is an occasion they’ve been waiting years to celebrate.”
Amira sighed. Did he think she missed all the fripperies and extravaganza of her royal wedding? Nothing had been her choice—not even the dress. “Even as a young girl, I knew my wedding would never be about what I wanted. Please don’t feel the satisfaction of thinking you’re taking away something I long for, Adir.”
The man never did what she expected. Instead of anger, he laughed, the pad of his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “You’re developing quite the tart tongue, hmm?”
And then, before she could respond to that, he pressed that sinful mouth to hers.
Fingers crawled into her hair, tilted her head up for his pleasure. The taste and scent of him rushed over her, her body rocking into his.
Such pure sensation. Such naked heat. His lips firm and soft, brushing over and over against hers; his chest crushing her breasts. Her belly bearing the press of his arousal.
Hard. Fast. No gentling, no giving, it was a furious, carnal taking. The skillful pressure of his lips pushed her lips against her teeth until she had to open for him, until tasting him was the only thought in her head.
How had she forgotten how seductively he kissed? His kiss betrayed the urgency of his desire—for days after that agreement, he had not visited her again.
Even when he had driven her to the city for a checkup and the doctor had congratulated them both, he had been thoughtful, his gaze lingering again and again on her face. His fingertips had barely brushed her skin, and that only when necessary. As if he couldn’t tolerate being near her.
Finally, Amira couldn’t bear it any longer. “What have I done now? You have become remote again.”
“Did you send Zufar a letter?”
“Did you intercept it?” she countered, suddenly his attitude making all the sense in the world.
His nostrils flared, a tic throbbing in his jaw. Amira would have laughed if she could corral the disconnect between her mind and body. Whatever his birth, Adir Al-Zabah was every inch a royal who could command as easily as breathe.
Every time she mentioned her own mistrust for him, a certain aloofness descended in his eyes. She could almost hear the command he stifled by sheer self-control. You can’t mistrust me, Amira. As your husband and your overlord, I command you to like me.
If she weren’t so sure of his arrogance, she would have thought that instant reserve hid his dislike of remembering his twisted motivations, even his own confusion that he had behaved less than honorably toward her.
She killed the thought as soon as it was born. One mistake in thinking she understood him and his motivations and his feelings was allowed. Doing it again was sheer stupidity.
“My guard asked me if I wanted it intercepted.”
“I merely sent my apologies, Adir. He deserves more from me. After what I did.”
His jaw tightened. “And is that it?”
“I wrote to Galila, too. She
must be worried about me. I have heard news that she, too, is to be engaged soon.”
Just as she assumed, those shutters came down in his eyes. “No note for Prince Malak?”
“Will you always mistrust me like this? Should I question where you have been for a whole week? Should I question why you are keeping your distance from me?” But it was only after she asked the question did she realize that maybe it had nothing to do with her. It had to do with the royal family.
But every time she tried to bring up this...feud between him and Zufar, he tuned her out.
“You will cease your communication with the royal family.”
“Galila is my friend. My only friend for a long time.” When it didn’t look like he would relent, she took his hands in hers, even if he was unwilling. “Adir, what is the harm in my asking after her? I promise there is nothing about you in those letters. Except a small reassurance that I am safe and happy, given the circumstances.”
After what felt like an eternity, he nodded. This time, Amira couldn’t catch her impulse in time. She pressed her mouth to his. And with a growl, he took the kiss over until she couldn’t even breathe.
His touch, his kisses were fire. It was as if he forgot the resentment, the polite courtesy, it was as if he reveled in her surrender. Like he had done the first evening when they had met.
The hunger he felt for her—the reluctant slide of her tongue against his as he plundered her mouth, his powerful body shaking around her. To keep from pooling into a puddle at his feet, she grasped his shoulders. And the tight clench of his muscles under her hands as she dueled her tongue with his, as she sucked on the tip the way he did with hers brought shallow breaths and thundering hearts. Amira gasped for breath.
He placed a palm over her throat and chest, the heat from it searing her bare skin. Her breasts ached with a languid heaviness that reached right to the tips of her nipples—so close to his fingertips. Her fingers dug into his shoulder muscles. Pleading, almost begging.
“Is this what you’re missing?” He didn’t move his hand, didn’t give her what she needed. Only watched her with a hooded gaze.
“Yes,” she admitted, heat streaking her cheeks.
He roughly thrust his fingers through his hair. To stop himself from grabbing her, she knew. A thread of feminine power whispered through her at how easily this...thing between them teased his control.
A harsh smile bared his white teeth. His thumb traced her lower lip. “I want you just as much as you want me.” With precise movements, he pushed her away.
“I have been alone for a long time, Amira. I cannot and will not account for my whereabouts to you on every hour at the top of the hour.” That he had even answered her question took the bite out of his flippant answer. “And as to why the distance...if I come into that tent, I will be inside you within minutes. Damn it, I cannot sleep for wanting you. But you’re to be my wife, the sheikha, and I can’t dishonor you and myself by flouting the tribe’s traditions so openly.”
This was what he had meant by straddling tradition and progress. Amira gazed at him, her heart full of admiration. It took a truly complex man to respect something he clearly didn’t agree with.
“I never want the tribes to question your honor. To disrespect you. And if that means a cold dip in the oasis that turns my balls blue until the wedding, then so be it.”
Amira didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. For she, too, missed him—missed the warmth of his kisses with an increasing ache. She went to him and buried her face in his chest, willing him to hold her. Just for a minute.
To let her pretend, even as she knew she shouldn’t, that he was the Adir of that night.
“The more I learn of you from the camp and its people, from Zara and Nusrat and Humera, the more my respect for you grows. As a sheikh, as a leader, as a man who straddles past and future and owns the present...you’re exemplary. But I guess it is too much to ask that a man be a paragon, an expert in all walks of life.”
His fingers sneaked into her hair and he tugged at it sharply. “And what do you mean by that?”
She gasped and looked into his eyes. The eyes that she could drown in when they were smiling like now. “You could have simply informed me of your decision. But then I learned that you have shouldered responsibility since a very young age and it’s clear your personal life—your interpersonal skills with women—have suffered for that.”
“You’re the first woman to have complaints, ya habibiti.”
“Cheap shot, Your Highness. But if it’s true, it’s because I’m the first woman who dares be honest with you.”
Humor twinkled in his eyes, his fingers cradling his jaw. Another tell—she was learning. He did that when he was amused despite himself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so thoroughly insulted and complimented in the same sentence.”
Should it be another victory for her—small though it was—that even amidst the bitterest argument with her, Adir laughed? That she saw a glimpse of the man who had held her so tenderly?
If she wasn’t careful, her entire identity would be constructed on what he thought of her.
“You will laugh and cry and do whatever emotionally overcome brides do at our wedding, Amira. I will not have Humera demanding of me again why my betrothed writes secretly to a man I loathe, and why she is not filled with joy at our upcoming nuptials.” The arrogant lord that he was, he completely ignored her outraged gasp with a flick of his hand.
“The last thing I need is for the tribeswomen to complain to their husbands that I am forcing you into this and sullying my reputation. And yours in that process.”
Of course, that was why he had come to inform her about the wedding. Not because he wanted to. Not because he considered her his partner in this, whatever his proclamations about her being his sheikha. Just like every other man she had dealt with, he meant to give her freedom only within the parameters he set for her. “And if they complained to their husbands, would it have any effect?”
He frowned. And then released a breath. “I forget how little of the world you have seen. The tribes are based on a very clear hierarchy, but women have their own power. Your father...has twisted your views of men.”
He was right. The tribes’ way of living—hard and with little comfort to the naked eye—was strange in her eyes. But already she had seen the close-knit community it was.
“Why does Humera have such...sway with you?” The old midwife had no family to speak of, was a font of knowledge on old medicinal remedies and the desert tribes and commanded the sheikh with the lift of a single brow. Amira had spied the genuine affection in Adir’s eyes when he spoke to Humera.
“She raised me.”
“And your parents?”
“My mother and Humera came from the same city. She trusted Humera to raise me when she had to give me up. As a days-old infant. So she sent me to the tribes here where Humera had settled.”
To be sent away as a little infant to this harsh landscape...not to know where one had come from.
Amira wanted to ask more. It was all tied to what he had demanded from Zufar, she knew. Whatever Adir’s past was, it had shaped him in life. And it was her child’s legacy and a part of her life, too, now.
“Who...who was your mother?”
But she knew the answer before he gave it. In fragments and pieces from their conversations, the truth had sunk in, without her even realizing it.
The way he had tilted his chin, something in the way he had trained those eyes on her—a glimpse of Galila that caught her breath. The veneration in his tone that night and every time he spoke of her.
“Queen Namani. I was born of an affair. King Tariq quietly arranged to send me away to Humera.”
Zufar, Malak and Galila...he was their half brother! That was why Galila had known him. “And your father?”
His features tightened. “Queen Namani wrote
to me every year on my birthday. But she never mentioned his identity.”
“So you have no idea who he...is.”
A queen’s illegitimate son, sent away like a disgrace and he had risen to be the sheikh.
Suddenly, his anger, the fear in his eyes when he had thought of her marrying Zufar after learning of their child’s existence—everything fell into place.
He had grown up among strangers, sent away by his mother. He had no idea who his father was. And if she had married Zufar, the entire wretched history would have been repeated with their own child.
“Adir, I’m truly sorry. But you cannot hold me responsible for something I didn’t cause willingly. You didn’t come back until you had decided that your revenge could have even worse consequences for Zufar.”
“It matters not whether I was born a bastard out of wedlock, Amira. I would never agree for a child of mine not to know me.” But it did matter because he hadn’t known his parents. “It is a truth only Humera and I know.”
Amir nodded automatically, her mind whirling.
So why had he come to the palace of Khalia? What had he wanted of Zufar?
Had he told her more truth than even he realized that night?
Had he come looking for family?
Would he tell her truth if she asked?
Just as she turned away from him, his fingers on her wrist pulled her back. His face was so close to hers that his breath caressed her cheek. “I will not have you play the martyr at our wedding.”
She laughed. What did the insufferable man want? Even he didn’t seem to know. “Believe me, Adir. I hate even aspiring to that role. Passivity has never been my favorite. Anything else Your Highness wishes to command?”
“No, you’re not passive, whatever else you are.” And then something almost tender glinted in his eyes. Something she wanted to burrow into. “Pick one thing. One thing, one element in this wedding will be as you want it. What do you want, Amira?”
The words hung between them as Amira stared at him with wide eyes. The arrogant tilt of his chin couldn’t erase the significance of what he offered.