by Tara Pammi
With the little time he had, contrary to the Celebrity Spy! lurid exposé about his alleged orgies and depraved tastes, he needed his sex life to be easy and simple, not an ongoing battle of sexes.
So Amalia Christensen—with her long, wavy, dirty-blond hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail that brought her exquisite features into stunning focus, her pillowy, lush mouth that argued that she wasn’t flustered when she so obviously was and her hot little body hidden in her buttoned pencil skirt and long-sleeved top—was not the kind of woman Zayn would engage with sexually.
If she was the innocent type who couldn’t even own her sexuality, he didn’t have the time or patience to teach her. If that innocence was a cunning act to attract his attention, he didn’t want to play that game.
Neither was her vehemence that her father’s heritage had no part in her life something he liked. Clearly, she had been raised to disrespect authority figures, encouraged in her rejection of an important part of her identity. He would bet her mother, who had given her those light brown eyes and the stunning golden-blond hair, was the author of that disillusionment, too.
So Ms. Christensen was not fit to be his wife in any form or way.
Was this Ms. Young’s rebellion because he had ruffled her sensibilities with his requirements in a wife? She couldn’t have believed Zayn would choose this contradiction of a woman to be his sheikha in a hundred years.
But after a morning of meeting eligible candidates—all lovely virginal women with connections in high places and with a full understanding of what it meant to be the future Sheikha Al-Ghamdi, docile and respectful of his country’s norms and traditions, and even more important, thoroughly and admittedly bowled over by what he represented—this woman was a maddening, arousing novelty. His response to her and her rough, almost insulting manner was both curious and irrational.
Because staring into those long-lashed, honey-colored eyes, he couldn’t help wishing he’d met her a few months ago. Even a month ago, before the episode of Celebrity Spy! and ruffled sensibilities of his countrymen.
She was nothing like the women he slept with but she completely intrigued him—a novelty—and that would have made the chase and the final victory that much more exciting.
For a minute he wondered if he could give her a position in the palace and keep her close. Until he was married and Mirah was happily married and the dust settled around his image. Until he was free to pursue her... No. Even for a man who considered marriage nothing but an advantageous step in his preordered life, the idea was utterly distasteful.
He had long been resigned to the idea that, like his father, after a few years of marriage, he would find sexual satisfaction with other women. But beginning his marriage with a mistress in mind was repugnant.
He should be sending her on her way. He should think back to the women he had met this morning, make a decision and get it over with. Move on to the next task in his unending list of state duties.
“Have I insulted you by that statement, Amalia?” he said instead, using her given name on purpose.
Just as he expected, her mouth tightened. Her shoulders went back into a ramrod line, which thrust her breasts out provocatively. He had a feeling she’d never do that if she knew how alluring that gesture looked.
“I’m wondering why you’re not sending me on my way if I’m such a bad candidate, Your Highness. I’m also wondering how to make the best of this situation. It seems my options are lose-lose.”
Something in her eyes, a conflict, a hesitation, made him think she wasn’t just sparring with him anymore. She was upset by the sure outcome of this meeting and she was mustering defenses.
Had she been so sure that she would impress him? Would this alliance mean so much to her?
Or had she conspired with Ms. Young to lure him into an alliance of a different nature? Why not? Women tried to attract his attention in every which way. He was known to be a kind and generous lover. If there was a connection he could use in high places, or a recommendation he could make to advance the current woman in his life’s career in some way, he’d always been open to it.
Was this Amalia’s game? Had she somehow inveigled this invite so that she could present herself as a candidate, but for something altogether different?
Doubts ensnared him.
He didn’t forget that even though she’d lost her footing, she’d recovered her composure very well. She had been the most interesting woman he had met today among all the candidates. The most interesting woman he had met in a while, if truth be told. But was that interest being cultivated and engineered with a purpose in mind?
“In your life, are there any skeletons I should know of?”
Instantly, her gaze shuttered; a paleness touched her skin. Guilt was a shining emblem on her forehead. He’d been right. The woman was here under false pretenses and convoluted motives.
Send her away, one voice inside his head said.
Play her at her own game, another said.
“You’re hiding something. Or are you counting your lovers in your head?” something savage and out of control goaded him to ask.
Outrage filled her eyes. “That’s none of your business. Unless you’re offering to do the same count for my benefit. Will you reveal what you ask of me? Should I pull out the Celebrity Spy! exposé and tally your number against theirs to verify the veracity of your claim, Sheikh?”
Utter scorn, for him as a man and for his position, reverberated in her defiant question.
Instead of being infuriated, Zayn smiled. He deserved that after his probing remark. Still, he found himself unwilling to give up this sparring match with her. With every back and forth, he knew he was indulging himself in something that was fundamentally against his principles. Against the little personal respect he had put aside for his wife’s position.
But the compulsion was fierce, the urge too primal to be denied. There was something about her that called to things he’d never before experienced. “It is my business if we are going to consider this, Amalia. And I will not apologize for having lovers in the past.”
He hadn’t decided on a candidate yet. Technically, he was still a single man. Even if that line was very thin right now. He ran the tip of his finger over her cheek. Her skin was gossamer silk under his hands. “Every past and present aspect of your life is going to be considered fair game. There has been enough scandal in my life and I do not want to deal with jealous ex-lovers.”
She didn’t push his hand away. A fine tension began to vibrate from her. “That’s a double standard, and you know it.”
Why didn’t the infuriating woman just tell him about her past? What was this curiosity that drove him to learn about a woman he could have nothing to do with? “The world is full of them.”
Chin tilted at a defiant angle, she stared back at him. “So let me get this straight. If I have my hymen intact, it will give me a few more points on this list of yours?”
The fire in her eyes, the soft tremble of her lips...it made Zayn think of sultry nights and damp, tangled limbs.
“I will tell you my expectations, then. You will be given a certain amount of freedom. Your primary role will be to present an image of a healthy marriage and to give birth to our children. An affair with another man will have disastrous consequences. The media will rip us into shreds and the country will be in uproar.”
“Is Your Highness promising the same fidelity in marriage, then?”
It was already a fantasy, this game they were playing with each other. This pretense they were both playing at, knowing that it was leading nowhere. Only one thing they both wanted.
She had to know that he would never marry her. He had told her that. And yet, she was still here, provoking him, luring him in for a taste. An affair with him—was that truly what she wanted, then?
Even in the charade, Zayn woul
dn’t lie. “On the contrary, I fully expect that within a few years, the reality of our marriage and the pressures of this life will make us, if not hateful, at least indifferent toward each other. And when that day comes, I intend to seek another woman. I’m sure you’ll be glad to not have to bear my unwanted attentions. I enjoy sex and I do not intend to give it up.”
“And this is your idea of marriage? This is what you’ve been offering all the women you’ve been meeting all morning?”
“No. All those women already understood these terms and accepted them. They knew even before they saw me today, that that was reality. It is only for you I see the need to set the expectation.”
“Because you think I’m naive enough to believe in love? To believe that a man like you will offer fidelity and respect and love?”
The cynical light in her eyes shocked him. Why, when she was clearly here with not so pure motives... “No, I explained it all because I thought it would tell you that I’m as unsuitable a husband for you as you are a wife for me. Marriage to each other would be war, Amalia, and I have enough of them to contend with in the other areas of my life.”
“Wait, you thought I’d be heartbroken that you’re rejecting me for the role of your wife and this is you softening up the loss for me?”
“Yes.” Before she could skitter away from him in her outrage, Zayn cupped her neck and arrested her movement. The small indent at the base of her nape was the sexiest part of a woman he had ever touched.
He swallowed his shock at how swiftly lust rose through him.
Her breath fell in rough exhales while a tight stiffness entered her body. He held her loosely enough to not threaten her, leaving it in her hands if she wanted to move away. Other hand sliding to her waist, he exerted enough pressure to bring her closer to him.
Gorgeous brown eyes widened into innocent pools. Very likely, the vulnerability in her eyes was a well-rehearsed act, but still it turned him on incredibly. Pursuing one sophisticated woman after the other, sleeping with women who knew the score, Zayn had forgotten, or maybe he had never known, how hot this kind of vulnerability was.
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make her all flustered again. He wanted to see if she would taste sweet as her soft sigh said or tart as her words suggested. When it came to women, Zayn had always taken what he wanted, pursued models and actresses ruthlessly. He wasn’t going to let this rough-around-the-edges woman slip past him.
“I’m going to kiss you, Amalia. This is your moment to go all outraged on me and call me a savage beast.”
If possible, she stiffened even more in his hold. “I...refuse to provide you with any more entertainment. I was right in thinking that you would be just as bloated and corrupt with power as—”
* * *
Whatever outrage Amalia had amassed to fight the man’s autocratic ideas and her own out-of-control senses, all of it disappeared as Zayn’s mouth touched hers.
The scent and taste of him was an overwhelming assault on her senses. He tasted of mint and some dark potency that stirred everything in her to waking. Heat poured through her in rivulets as he pressed one tender kiss after the other, from one corner of her mouth to the other. The softness of his mouth—who could know such a hard man could have such soft lips?—was a delicious contrast against the rough scrape of his jaw, tugging Amalia’s senses this way and that.
If he had kissed her with the aggressiveness she sensed within him, or if he had employed that sensual mastery that had made him a favorite lover of women, maybe she would’ve resisted.
But instead the soft flick of his tongue against the seam of her lips, the kisses punctured by the sweetest endearments in Arabic, Amalia melted like an ice cube on a hot and sultry Khaleej summer day. He tasted her as if he was dying to probe all her beguiling secrets; he kissed her as if she were a treasure he had just discovered.
This supposed connoisseur of women requested entry into her mouth as if she was the most enchanting woman he had ever met. And sensible, rational, rarely discomposed Amalia fell for it all. She eagerly opened her mouth under his questing one.
And just like that, the tenor of the kiss changed. It went from a pleasant seaside breeze to an intense scorching heat wave. His tongue swiped over the moist recesses of her mouth, teasing and taunting her tongue to play with him. The stroke of his tongue over hers released a dampness between her thighs. It was what he had done with words, too. He had somehow provoked her, called the part of her that she didn’t even know existed, made her revel in the moment, made her prolong what was only a dangerous charade.
He was seducing her mind.
He was doing that now, too. It was as if he knew to soften his aggressiveness for her, to slowly draw her out instead of demand. At least until she came to him of her own volition.
With a shamefully wanton moan, she sank her fingers into his hair and pushed herself closer to him. She sucked his tongue into her mouth just as he had done with her.
Large hands roved over her body now, tracing the ridges of her shoulders, the line of her spine, setting every nerve ending on fire. Urgent and aggressive, he stroked every inch of her to the same need. Amalia had never felt like this before and she didn’t know how to stop it, how to gain control over herself or this madness that had overtaken her.
All she knew was that she never wanted to stop.
Her mouth stung and her nipples peaked to tight points, grazed again and again by the hard contours of his chest. His hungry hands finally stilled on her waist and he pulled her even closer. Mouth left hers, giving her a chance to breathe. “Point proven. You can huff and puff and act outraged but truly, you want me. And you can’t see how all your self-control and rules about needing respect and recognition before attraction are out the window already. That’s what all this feminist bluster is about, isn’t it?
“It’s not about my double standards but about your own conflict in wanting me when you do not want to.”
If he had slapped her, Amalia couldn’t have been more shocked. It was like being drenched in an ice bath to douse her overheated senses. Still, her body throbbed in all these newly aware places, slow to cool down.
With a disgusted growl, she pushed away from him and turned around. Lungs burned as if she had run a long distance, her mind blank under the onslaught of such heady pleasure.
She rubbed her palm roughly against her stinging lips as if she could get rid of his taste. A horrified sound escaped her mouth. Dear God, she couldn’t believe she’d been kissing the Sheikh of Khaleej.
The thought of her twin rotting in that jail cell while she played ridiculous games with the man who held his fate in his hand made nausea whirl up through her throat. How could she have forgotten Aslam so thoroughly?
How had she gone from asking for help to a harmless pretense to climbing all over him like a vine?
“You’re offended by the kiss. But I will not apologize for doing something both of us wanted.”
She whirled around, his self-assured words scraping at her. Could she blame him for thinking she was putty in his hands? “I’m not just offended. I’m disgusted with myself.”
He laughed again. And this time the sound was redolent with mockery. “Because you got what you came for? Or because you enjoyed the kiss thoroughly?”
“What I came for?”
“You and I both know that you’re not suitable to be my wife in any way or form. So the only conclusion I draw from your being here is that you came seeking an affair. It is not a secret, anymore, that I treat my women well.”
The gall of the man to think she had expressly come so that she could lure him into an affair. Was there anything bigger in the world than the man’s ego? “You mean you pay them for sex?” she hurled at him.
His mouth curled, a hardness entering his eyes. “I do not like games, Ms. Christensen. I do not find affected outrage of t
he kind you’re displaying attractive at all. If you find my conclusion that offensive, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
This was it, her opening. To prolong hiding the truth meant resigning Aslam’s life to the jail cell for who knew how long. And yet, Amalia hesitated.
Something in the glittering gaze, in the sensual but hard contours of his mouth, told her he wasn’t going to like it. He wasn’t going to forgive her easily and then offer to help with Aslam. She might have made it worse if the sheikh thought she’d made a fool of him.
She was completely screwed.
“I did not come here hoping to marry you. In fact, I don’t think there’s a couple in the entire world more unsuited to each other for marriage.”
His hands behind his back, he looked at her as if she was one of his subjects. “My sentiments exactly. So I see only one reason why you would be on Ms. Young’s list.”
“No... I’m not one of the candidates lined up for your pleasure by Ms. Young. I would never allow myself to be presented like prize cattle for viewing.”
His hardened jaw told Amalia she was only making it worse, but she couldn’t stop. “I figured that much, too. Which is why I have to believe that you came here seeking a different kind of alliance.”
“I’m not here for an affair with you.”
“No?”
“A hundred times no. I came to meet with a state official about my brother Aslam’s case. I have spent two months dragging myself from one state office to the other, hoping someone would listen to me. He is in jail for—”
“Ah...so you’re a family of criminals, then?” His eyes were cold, flinty, his mouth a study in utter distaste. “Brother goes to jail, and sister inveigles herself into the palace under false pretenses. Is your father really a historian? Is anything you told me the truth?”
Amalia flinched. Her credibility was zero with him and she had no one but herself to blame. She softened her tone, hoping it would appeal to his good side. If he had one. “All I did was tell a white lie. No, I didn’t even do that. I just didn’t clear it up. I...couldn’t pass up the opportunity—”