by Dani Collins
The worst complaint he had so far was that she had cost him a favored laptop bag, since he wouldn’t dream of asking for its return. Even her escape had worked to his advantage, providing him a reason to shift their marriage from intended to a fait accompli. He had been on fire since he had spoken the words.
Now he had discovered she was a virgin? He had neither expected nor particularly wanted an untouched bride, but having one was an inordinate thrill. A primal possessiveness gripped him, chest and belly and groin. He would be the only man to stroke and taste and mate with her. She was his.
His inner barbarian howled with triumph, recalling the way she had ignited in his arms, demanding to stoke that blaze into an all-consuming inferno now.
The very fact he hovered so close to losing his rational brain to the primal one, however, told him he had to slow things down. For her sake and his own.
So he was careful to keep his tone even, not betraying how craven desire licked like flames inside him. “You’re very beautiful, Galila. Of course I desire you.”
Every man she had ever come into contact with must have desired her. It defied comprehension that she had never physically shared herself with one of them. He wasn’t in the habit of disbelieving people, but he genuinely couldn’t understand how a woman of her naturally sensual nature hadn’t indulged her passion to its fullest extent. He had.
Or rather, he had always believed he had. She might have already reset the bar—which was yet another disturbing layer to this thing between them.
All of these thoughts he held to himself behind an impervious mask.
She studied him, picking apart his words and seeming to grow more and more skeptical of them as the seconds passed.
“My beauty has nothing to do with this. You don’t care if I’m beautiful. You’re beautiful. Do you want me to believe you chose me so we can make beautiful babies?”
He felt his eyebrows jump. The topic of an heir hadn’t entered his mind beyond the abstract, but now she had brought it up...
“We should talk about that.”
“How beautiful you are?”
“Children.”
She scowled and shifted to hug her knees. “Politically expedient broodmare. Is that what I am? How romantic. A thousand times yes, I wish to be your wife, Karim.”
He ought to curtail that sarcasm. No one else in their right mind would speak with such casual disrespect toward him, but he found her temper revealing. She probably didn’t realize how much of her genuine thoughts and emotions she betrayed with that barbed tongue of hers.
“You had other plans for your life? Tell me how I’ve derailed them. Perhaps there’s a compromise.”
“Yes, you strike me as a man who compromises all the time.”
Ah. That was what she was afraid of.
“I rarely have to,” he admitted. “From the time I was old enough to grasp an adult conversation, I sat with my father in his meetings. He died when I was six and my uncle continued to include me in every decision he made on my behalf, explaining his reasoning. By the time I was fourteen, I was effectively running the country with his guidance and support. He carried out my wishes until I was officially crowned.”
She blinked wide eyes at him. “Zufar is barely ready for that level of responsibility at thirty-three.”
“He has the luxury of a father who still lives.”
She cocked her head with curiosity. “What happened to your father? It was an accident, wasn’t it? I don’t recall exactly.”
“He fell from a balcony at the palace.” He repeated the lie by rote, even though it grated on him to this day that he was forced to carry such a dark secret. He hated lies, probably because his father had burdened him with such earth-shattering ones. “He’d been drinking.”
“Ah,” she said with soft compassion. “That’s why you were so disparaging. I see now why you resent anyone who fails to appreciate the destructive power of alcohol.”
He resented a lot of things—his father’s affair with her mother, her mother for leaving his father and causing his father to pursue a desperate act. Now Karim learned there had been a child? It wasn’t as though he hadn’t considered that possibility over the years—and again in the last twenty-four hours specifically where Galila was concerned. She had been born long after his father had died, however. There was no chance they were related, which was quite possibly the only bright spot in this otherwise three-act tragedy.
“Do you want to tell me about him?” she invited gently.
“No.” He didn’t regret his abrupt response. He rarely spoke about his father, but the way she closed up like a flower, showing him her stony profile, caused him to sigh internally.
Women. They were as delicate as thin-skinned fruit, bruising at the least thing.
“Your father left you without a choice,” she summed up, still not looking at him. “So you’re comfortable imposing a lack of choice on others.”
He wasn’t so soft he felt stung by that remark, but he did feel it, maybe because the fact she was striking out that hard told him how deeply her own resentment ran at what he was demanding of her.
“You weren’t planning to avoid marriage forever, were you?” People in their position couldn’t.
“I was waiting to fall in love.”
Ah. Something like regret moved in him, but he wanted there to be no false hopes between them.
“It’s true that I will never expect or offer you love,” he agreed. “That particular emotion is as treacherous and devastating as alcohol.”
“You’ve been in love?” Her pupils exploded as though she’d taken a punch.
“No. Like alcohol, I don’t need to imbibe to see the inherent risks and have the sense to avoid it.”
A small flinch and her lashes swept down, mouth pouted.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t have a successful marriage. In fact, going into this union with realistic expectations ensures we won’t be disappointed in the long run.”
“Is that what you think?” She took a cube of cheese. “Because the problem isn’t whether you can grow to love me. It’s that I expected to choose my own husband, not have one forced upon me. I expected to make a family when it felt right, because I wanted to see something of my husband in the children I made. If you give me sons and daughters, I’m sure I’ll love them, but I don’t desire your children.”
That one did land in a previously unknown vulnerability. Why?
“Meanwhile, you expect me to give up my freedom so you won’t have to go through the inconvenience of renegotiating a few trade agreements with the new Sheikh of Khalia. The two most important decisions any woman will make are whom she will marry and whether she will have children. You expect to make both of those decisions for me. That’s not fair.”
“As I said, we can talk about children.” He wasn’t a monster. He had already said they could curtail the sex, hadn’t he?
“You still expect me to breed with you eventually,” she said with a sharp angst. “You gain on every level with this marriage and I gain nothing. In fact, I lose everything. And I’m not even allowed to feel disappointed? Your expectations are the ones that are too high, Karim.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I CAN GIVE you pleasure.”
The wind had died down, the light was off, and the sound of a gently plucked string on a rababeh carried from one of the other tents. They weren’t expected to appear before morning so they had turned in early. Galila had formed a dam down the center of the mattress with a rolled mat and a few cushions before asking Karim which side he wanted.
“Everything that happens in bed between us will be your choice,” was his response.
She had sat there stunned by what sounded like a vow, trying to understand why she felt both moved and overwhelmed. It felt like too much responsibility for a woman who knew so little about the things
she might want from her marriage bed.
And now, in the darkest dark, he was telling her he could teach her.
She wanted to say something cynical but couldn’t find any words, let alone form them with her dry mouth and even drier throat.
“Are you awake?” he asked in a quieter voice.
“Yes.” She probably should have stayed silent and let him think she had missed hearing what he said, but she revealed her wakefulness and died a little inside. She threw her wrist across her eyes, wanting to go back thirty hours or so and never take a single sip of brandy at her brother’s wedding.
The silence between them grew with expectation.
“I can give myself pleasure,” she pointed out, glad for the dark so he wouldn’t see her blush at the admission she was making.
Silence was his answer, but she swore she could hear him smiling.
“Don’t even pretend you don’t...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Read the footnotes?” he suggested.
“Oh, yes, you’re a delight in bed. So glad I can share this one with you.” She turned her back on him and clenched her eyes shut. Her fist knotted in the edge of the blanket and nestled it tight under her chin.
After a pensive few minutes, he said, “I had to take advantage of the opportunity you presented me, Galila.”
“Yes, well, I’m not presenting one now. Perhaps give me some quiet so I can get my beauty sleep.”
“For various reasons, I never thought you and I would be a good fit, despite the fact my advisors consistently brought you to my attention. You seemed young, wayward and superficial.”
“Are you sure you’re not a virgin? Because you’re offering very little pleasure with remarks like that.”
“No one else appealed to me, though.” He sounded almost as if this was a surprise revelation only occurring to him now, one that dismayed him. He sounded disturbed, even.
She sighed. “Please don’t make this about my looks, Karim. That’s no better than using me for political gain.”
“I didn’t come to the wedding intending to make an offer for you. I wouldn’t have kissed you if you hadn’t kissed me first. But when we did...”
“Karim.” She was glad for the dark because she was wincing with mortified agony. “I know you weren’t as involved as I was. I felt your...” She swallowed. “Distance. Before we were seen.”
“That only proves how attuned we are to one another. Physically.”
“No! It proves you can manipulate me with my body while I have no such power over you.”
He shifted abruptly, voice now coming from the space above and behind her shoulder, telling her he was propped on an elbow. “Did you want me to lose myself and make love to you against the wall where everyone could see us?”
“I wanted you not to use me!”
“I’m offering you a chance to use me.”
“You’re not that simplistic. Or generous. You’re going to get me all worked up, then say, ‘Why don’t we go all the way?’ Not my first rodeo, cowboy.”
“Am I?”
“What?”
“Going to get you all worked up? Because I know how to settle myself down. You have no fear I’ll prevail on you to provide my happy ending.”
“Oh!” She buried her cry of frustration into her pillow. “Fine,” she declared with the impulsiveness that had earned her a reputation for being exactly as spoiled and wayward as everyone thought her. “Go ahead and prove there’s something in this marriage for me. Give me all this pleasure you’re so convinced you can provide.”
Nothing. No compliments or commands. He didn’t move.
She suspected he still hovered over her, but it was too dark to tell. She turned to face him, one hand inching just enough to feel the silk tassel on the cushion still between them.
He drew the rolled mat out of the way and his hand bumped hers when he sought the cushion. He kept hold of her hand.
She didn’t know what to do. Pull away? Let her hand rest in his? She was nervous. Curious. Furious. Frustrated in more ways than one.
He lifted her hand and rubbed his lips against her knuckle. The short whiskers of his closely trimmed beard were silky soft where the backs of her fingers brushed against them.
“This isn’t about how you look, Galila,” he breathed across her skin. “I can’t see you. It’s about how we make each other feel.”
“How do you feel?”
His humid breath bathed her palm before he spoke into it. “I’ll let you know when you get there.”
The light play of his mouth exploring her skin, the dampness when he opened his lips, sent heady tingles through her entire body. When he pressed a kiss into her palm and set his blazingly hot mouth against the inside of her wrist, tongue swirling against her pulse, she gasped at the wave of arousal that throbbed through her. It sent heaviness into her loins, stinging tightness to the tips of her breasts, and a helpless sob to catch in her throat.
“How are you doing this to me?” He was touching her hand.
“What am I doing? Tell me. I can’t see you.”
“You’re—” She didn’t want to admit he was seducing her. “I can’t breathe. My heart feels like I’ve run miles.”
He moved her hand to his neck, setting the heel of her palm against his smooth throat, next to where his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. The artery there held a powerful pulse, one that was quick and hard.
“You’re excited?” she asked.
“Of course.”
No. He was tricking her again. But she found herself doing what she had last night, acting out of instinct, but this time her fingers were in his thick, silky hair. She urged him down and somehow their mouths found each other despite the blinding darkness.
The lack of light amplified the acuteness of her senses. Such a rush of heat went into her lips, her mouth stung under his, assuaged by the lazy way he settled into the kiss, easing her lips to part. She was the one to seek a deeper kiss by searching for his tongue with her own and moaned as their kiss grew fully involved.
His arm snaked around her and he tucked her half beneath him, weight settling more heavily on her. Then he lifted his head just enough to say, “Say yes,” against her lips.
He wanted this to be her choice and it was. His bare chest pressed where the straps of her nightgown left her upper chest bare and she had never felt anything like that specific heat and texture. It was intoxicating.
“Yes,” she whispered, arching to pull her hair out from beneath her.
It brushed against his skin, and he made a noise that suggested he had to reach for restraint.
“This might become my obsession,” he said, gathering the long waves and burying his face in it. When he turned his head, his mouth was against her nape. He licked into the hollow beneath her ear and sucked on her earlobe, making her whimper in delight.
His touch moved to play his barely there fingertips against the silk of her nightgown, following the band of lace beneath her breasts where it hid her navel, coming back to climb the slippery silk alongside the swell of her breast. By the time his touch met where his lips had strayed, and he began to ease the narrow strap down her shoulder, her breasts were swollen and aching. She was so needy, she was feeling wild. Her own hands were moving restlessly across his shoulders, excited but apprehensive.
“I’m going to make love to you with my mouth,” he said in a voice that barely penetrated the rush of blood in her ears. “That’s not a pleasure you can give yourself.”
Was that what she wanted? She didn’t know, but she was too caught up in the sensation of his beard across the top of her breast. He bared it and she stopped being able to think straight. The heat of his breath warned her just before his mouth engulfed her nipple, but nothing could have prepared her for the way electricity seemed to shoot through her, stabbing int
o her heart so she thought it would burst. Sexual need raced in sharp lines to her loins, making her tingle and tremble as he pulled and laved and cupped the swell in his big hand and flicked his tongue against the turgid tip.
She could feel herself growing damp and slick. Heard wanton noises escaping her throat. She wanted him to keep sucking her nipples, but wanted to kiss him, too. It was the sweetest torture and she actually lifted and offered herself when he eased the other strap down, desperate for the delicious torture on her other breast.
Oh, he was making her crazy. She swirled her hands through his hair, over his damp neck, across his shoulders. The dip of his spine was an intriguing place and she even wickedly slipped her hand down to touch his chest, finding his own nipples sharp as shards of glass.
He rose to kiss her mouth again, hard and thorough. She moaned her approval, body rolling into his of its own volition, knee crooking.
When he ran his hand down her hip, he pushed the blankets away at the same time. Then he gathered the skirt of her nightgown, drawing it up so her legs felt the cool night air. It was erotic and almost a relief, she was so hot, but it was a moment of truth. Was this really what she wanted?
The darkness was a wonderful place, allowing her to hide and somehow protect her modesty as his touch strayed inward and brushed the damp hair between her thighs. He caressed her swollen lips, more of tease, so entrancing she allowed her thighs to relax open.
He didn’t get the message and continued being so gentle, she wanted to sob with frustration. She was nothing but an agony of anticipation, waiting, longing, yearning for a firmer touch.
He shifted and slid down, pressed her legs wider, beard brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, sweeping in brush strokes that made her gasp and quiver with need. When he turned his face against one thigh and the other, refusing to make contact where she pulsed with molten heat, she sobbed, “Karim.”