by Tara Pammi
All he’d heard toward the end of the celebration had been what a lovely and kind woman their sheikha was.
“I didn’t wait up for you so much as I fretted over whether you would come to bed and what you would want if you came. And what I would do if you did what you want to do.” Pink stole into her cheeks at this, rendering her utterly beautiful and lovely. Of course, she didn’t give him a chance to interject a compliment. “Then I fretted some more over what to do if you didn’t do what I thought you would do. I think I hurt my brain with a thousand thoughts running in a million directions and just fell asleep.”
“Your brain must hurt a lot more frequently then,” he said automatically and her face broke into a brilliant smile. That tentative quality that had remained all the last two weeks faded, the imp from their first meeting emerging. It stole his breath, which was a curiosity since his libido was already growling and nothing else should have mattered.
“May I join you, Adir?”
He didn’t quite frown but couldn’t manage a smile. He had a lot on his mind tonight—about his mother, about a lot of things he couldn’t control and he didn’t want her intruding on that. He didn’t want her innocence and her probing questions. He had always dealt with this alone.
What he did want from her tonight he couldn’t take, because he wouldn’t be gentle. Not tonight when he was feeling this...turmoil. When he was already on edge after the uncharacteristic celibacy he had forced on himself for the last four long months.
Something he still didn’t understand even now.
“I will not be much company tonight, which is what you seem to be looking for. Go back to bed.”
“Will you...join me tonight?” she asked, the wariness back.
A more patient man would have taunted her back, asked if she wanted him to join her. A man who hadn’t already been through an emotional whirl thanks to her unwanted, unsolicited opinions.
“Do I need to inform you of my intentions, Amira? Give you a schedule every evening as to whether I want to have marital relations or not?”
She paled. “No... I just thought we could wait—”
“No, we shall not wait to consummate this marriage. You’re my wife.” It was the wrong thing to say to a man whose identity had already been challenged once that night, whose very rule over the tribes was being called into question based on a fact he had no control over. “It is my wedding night, isn’t it? I think I shall do as I please at the moment. If I find you’re asleep when I come to bed, I will wake you to accommodate me.”
He sounded like a man of a different century—a husband before women’s lib. He had always considered himself an educated and enlightened man, but Amira drove him to regress to Neanderthal behavior.
She didn’t flinch and yet what color had been in her cheeks receded at his snarl. She would leave him alone now, he was sure.
And once he had gotten over his black mood, he would join her in bed and she would welcome him.
Because the one thing Amira wasn’t good at was playing games. Beneath the elaborate, roundabout clamor of her thoughts was plain desire. Desire that enflamed him despite his dark mood.
She wanted him next to her in that bed, above her, moving inside her. But she hadn’t yet quite come to terms with her desire, nor did she know how to express it without feeling mortified. The realization that his wife needed his touch, the release he could bring, as desperately as he needed hers, went a little way to assuage his own turmoil.
But if he thought his innocent wife would retreat to lick her wounds, he was wrong. Invalidating her own question, she walked into the lounging area, as if propelled by his refusal of company. In defiance of his surly mood?
It never amazed him how much strength she possessed beneath that outward fragility.
“Even Humera avoids me when I’m in this mood,” he added as a warning, unable to look away from the ravishing picture she made.
She shrugged and gracefully sank down onto the divan, on the other end. “Then Humera is fortunate. Since I’m your wife, I have no such escape route available.”
“I’m giving you one.”
“No, you’re dictating what kind of marriage we will have. And I told you that is one place where I shall not bow to you. If you’re...upset...” she looked him square in the eye, her eyes widened, and then she started again “...if you’re angry and want to fume in silence, then I shall simply sit with you, in silence. Since we’re married, it would be nice if you shared your thoughts with me. But if you don’t want to, that is fine, too. What I will not tolerate is being completely shut out of your day just because you’re in a sulky and snarly mood and then for you to visit me only when you’re in the—” whatever she saw in his eyes, she licked her lower lip and Adir’s blood fled south “—in the...in the mood for...sex. When I gave my promise today, I meant it. I meant that I would share your life and I mean to share everything. Not just your bed.”
Having finished her little speech, she leaned back and scooted upward on the divan. Legs tucked under her, the dress spread around her reclining form, her long neck bared to his hungry gaze, her breasts rising and falling... It was like dangling meat in front of a hungry predator.
“Are you saying I’m not allowed to touch you, Amira?” he asked, half shocked, half taunting.
Her eyes remained closed, the sweep of her lashes casting shadows against her cheekbones. “I’m saying you can have more than my body, Adir. I’m not asking you to pour out your heart. But you also don’t have to protect me from your...mood swings. Believe me, I’m not going to protect you from mine.”
He laughed then, a sound that rushed up from his belly, a sound that surprised himself. Even in his foul mood, she somehow made him laugh. “Mood swings and tart words...hmm. I thought I was getting a sweet-tempered wife.”
“For a man who managed to unite two warring tribes, you’re quite dense, aren’t you? Use honey rather than vinegar if you want a sweet wife, Adir.”
The minx’s mouth twitched and Adir lost his hold on his control. On his hunger. “I know what to use to make you sweet, ya habibiti. My fingers, my mouth, my tongue.”
Her breasts rose and fell rapidly. Lust came at Adir like a punch to his middle, all consuming. Suddenly, he wanted her bared to him.
Those dark pink nipples, the sharp curve of her waist, the jet black curls at the juncture of her thighs.
Sweat beaded over his forehead.
He moved toward her slowly, gently, afraid of spooking her. The tense line of her shoulders said she was aware of his proximity. But she lay there like a queen, supine, a ripe temptation.
Small beads of moisture collected on her upper lip, such plump, pink lips that they reminded him of raspberries. Tart, too.
He moved closer until his thigh touched hers, until he was leaning back beside her.
Her breaths sped up, her fingers on her stomach fluttering, like the wings of a butterfly. And suddenly, from one breath to the next, everything shifted.
She was so slender that it was barely noticeable in her normal clothes, but this close, with her reclining back, he could see the curve of her belly.
He swallowed and placed his face above hers. When she didn’t jump away, even as she tensed like a taut bow, he slid his hand in under hers.
There.
Stillness came over him, all his earlier turmoil grinding to a halt.
A life they had created together.
A tiny, tiny being that he was responsible for. A child that would look to him for guidance, protection and...love.
Since he’d learned the truth, all his thoughts had been on legitimizing his child, on Amira and all the strange new things she made him feel. Fatherhood hadn’t even been on his mind.
Only now did he realize what a tremendous thing had come into his life. A strange shiver gripped him.
Amira’s gaze flicked ope
n, alarm dancing in it. She covered his hand with hers, tangling her fingers with his. “Adir? What is it?”
“Would you give up this baby for anything, Amira?”
She jerked away from him, pure aggression coiling her movements. Her glare could burn him into ashes. “How dare you even ask such a question?”
And yet the same question coiled around him, twisting and turning, choking him. “What about if I offered you the freedom you covet so much in exchange? A fresh start somewhere in the world where no man would ever rule you again? A place in a coveted university to study to your heart’s content? What then?”
“No. No. No. Not for anything in this world.”
A shaft of pain pinched his heart. Sharp and so incredibly real, more than anything he had ever experienced.
“Adir, you’re frightening me. What...what have I done?”
He’d been an innocent babe like this when they had cast him off. His mother had professed her love in all her letters, for the man she had had to cut out of her life, for Adir. She had urged him to make something of himself. There had been an almost mad fervor to her letters in which she had poured out all the injustices done to her as she was forced to give him up and described all her festering resentment for her other children—for Zufar, Malak and even Galila.
But in the end, she had given him away. She had never tried to see him again, had forbidden him from seeing her—only directing his destiny from afar.
And as for his father... “Why is the baby so important to you? It’s unexpected and...by your own admission, it ties you to a man who deceived you, yes?”
“Adir—”
“Let’s not pretend that if not for the baby, you would have run away before I could catch you, Amira.”
“Fine. It is important because it stemmed out of a choice I made. My very own. It grew out of a good thing.”
“You still think it’s a good thing that you spent the night with me even though you hate me?”
“I do not hate you. I...that night was... Let’s just say, a fairy-tale night. That night and this baby are tied together now. I can’t claim to love the night but hate the repercussions. How could I hate you or that night when it brought me this tiny creature?”
But unlike Amira, his mother and his father had enjoyed their affair, their love for each other—just not the result, which was him.
He took Amira’s unwilling hand in his, lacing their fingers like she had done before. When he tugged her, she came, until she was sitting between his legs, her back resting against his chest, her hips grazing his thighs.
Something inside him calmed. This child of theirs she carried, this woman—they belonged to him. His own. It was atavistic, this thinking, but he couldn’t help it. In a life where he had called no one his, they were his.
“Adir, please...tell me what brought this on. Tell me—”
“Hush, habiba,” he said, holding her close, regretting the fact that he had scared her. It was hard to stay mad at her, he was realizing. And even worse, indifferent. “It is nothing to do with you. Or even me. The meeting with the chiefs just brought on questions.”
“What kind of questions? Adir, you can’t expect me to be your sheikha and not share anything of what makes you you.”
“What is it you want to learn, Amira?”
“How did you become the sheikh? I mean, after you were sent away like that.”
He buried his face in her hair, the scent of her encircling him. “When I united the Dawab and Peshani tribes, I did it unknowingly. They had been warring with each other for years, and the local governments provided just enough fuel to keep them going at each other’s throats. Because as long as they were fighting—and trying to make deals to cheat each other—the oil rights on the land they occupied, vast tracts of land, was up for grabs.”
Slowly, she relaxed against him. His breath stuttered when she pulled his arms around her middle, a pillow for her soft breasts. He wasn’t even sure she was aware of the move. Of how she constantly tempted him, of how innately sensuous she was.
“You pointed out the obvious,” she said, and he smiled.
“Yes. When I was at university in Zyria, I met an investor who saw merit in my ideas for an eco-adventure tourism company. Then from there, I went on to buy an arm of an IT company since it was clear that even the Bedouin way of living wasn’t going to escape modernization completely.”
“I know. I was so amazed to learn that Zara works for you.”
The pride in her words made him feel a thousand feet tall—even though he’d never needed validation before. “It took Zara and me and Humera months to convince her parents that it was a good idea for her to use her brains to support the family’s meager income. That they were not selling out their daughter to the modern world.
“Once we provided the bus service and they met a recruiter—another woman who works for me—they were convinced.”
“And from there, everything took off.” She looked over her shoulder at him as if he had achieved the impossible. As if he were truly a hero. “You have done so much for them, Adir. You’re a natural leader. Every day, I see their pride in you, their trust that you would always do the right thing for them. It is a trust you have earned.”
“Today, two other tribal chiefs attended our wedding.”
He could almost see her frown. “And?”
“They were testing the waters, so to speak. That the Dawab and Peshani have given up on decades of enmity is a powerful draw. That they’re thriving under my leadership, finding new sources of income and livelihoods while the most traditional of them continue the old ways of goat herding has brought another tribe to be ready to grant me permission to represent them. It is a double-edged sword, a privilege to be given power to rule them. And the second chief...he questioned my birth, about my right to rule over the tribes. He asked about my parentage. About where I had sprung from. He was clearly trying to provoke me into a fight and...”
Adir would have no answer to give, Amira realized.
Even the part he knew of his parentage, he could not proclaim it to the world. He could not say he was of royal lineage, that ruling was in his bones and in his blood.
He couldn’t say anything. He would have to take any insults offered him.
Suddenly, Amira wanted to call Zufar out on his pride.
And Queen Namani, what had she bred into Adir through those letters? What had she given him? Not pride, not love, whatever Adir chose to call it. But a festering resentment for his half brothers and sister.
And all this he had borne alone, until now.
“And it made you think of Queen Namani?”
“It made me think of my father, the man she had the affair with. The man she said she loved with all her heart and who in turn adored her.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Queen Namani’s letters have been the driving force in my life for as long as I remember.”
Curiosity about the old queen ate through Amira. She couldn’t even believe it was the same woman that had been her best friend’s temperamental mother. “When did she send them?”
“One letter every birthday.” The monotony of his voice tore at her for it completely belied the emotion in his eyes. “By the time I began to understand who she was to me, I waited for that day every year. It was a prize, a gift.”
“What...what were those letters about?”
“A piece of her heart, just for me, she said. Her true legacy, she called me. She urged me to study, to take control of my life, every letter on every birthday reminding me that I was destined for great things. That I was not to neglect my education at any cost. That I was to rise through the world. That I was not to grow weak in the face of any hurdle. That my path would always be that of a loner, if I wanted to reach my true destiny. Not to trust anyone, not to give into the whims of my heart. That I was to make an advantageous match with a pow
erful bride when it was time to wed.”
The path of a loner... Destiny before heart... Ya Allah, was it any wonder he was so remote, so isolated from everyone? The rage Amira felt for the dead queen choked her.
She swallowed it away, for she didn’t want to disturb the small intimacy. “Did you tell her that you achieved even more than she could predict? That you had been chosen to rule the tribes?”
“No.”
Amira’s heart ached for the pain contained in that single word. She forced herself not to look at him for the fear of seeing that pain in his eyes. Because if she did, then she wouldn’t be able to control the outrage that filled her. She couldn’t arrest the words that needed to be said. “Why...why not?”
“The condition of receiving her letters was that I was never to contact her. Never to betray her confidence. Never to let another soul learn who she was to me.”
“But you went to see them after her funeral.”
“On her orders. She urged me to claim my place in that last letter.”
After there was no harm to her own reputation. When she was no longer in this world to deal with her mistakes. What a coward Queen Namani had been!
“When the old sheikh told me he had chosen me as his successor, it was her words that filled me with confidence. I never gave the identity of my father another thought...until today.”
“And today, that man made you wonder about your father. About what kind of a man would not even look up the child he had fathered on the woman he supposedly adored and loved. About the woman who gave you a dream, lured you with it but kept it out of your reach. A woman who only bred anger toward—”
He jerked her up so fast that she would have fallen off the divan if it weren’t for his tight grip. “She was forced to give me up. Queen Namani loved me.”
“And yet you asked me if I would give this baby up for anything. I wouldn’t, Adir. Even if I could understand how she had to, I don’t understand her. With Zufar and Galila, she—”
“Enough, Amira! You, with your naive outlook of the world and your loyalty still tied to Zufar, you wouldn’t understand. She loved my father and she hated parting with me. I will not hear a word about this from you, ever again. Do you understand?”