by Penny Jordan
Erin’s heart was beating unnaturally fast when she entered the state room and walked on trembling legs to where Zahir was waiting for her beneath an ornate brocade canopy. She had assumed she would wear one of her new outfits—possibly the cream suit from one of the world’s leading fashion houses that Zahir had insisted on buying without even glancing at the exorbitant price tag. But when she had emerged from her bathroom this morning—after drying her hair into a mass of red curls that rippled down her back—her maids had been waiting to dress her in a forget-me-not-blue silk caftan decorated with exquisite beading on the bodice and sleeves and fastened at the back with tiny hooks.
A rustle went through the assembled guests, and as heads turned to watch her her nerve almost gave way. For a few seconds she was tempted to turn tail and flee. But if she did not marry Zahir she would lose custody of Kazim—and marriage to the devil himself was preferable to that.
There was something incredibly sensual about the brush of the silk caftan against her thighs when she walked. It made her think of Zahir’s hands stroking her skin, his lips pressing feather-light kisses down her throat to her breasts, and by the time she reached his side she was pink-cheeked and flustered. The sight of him in a bespoke charcoal-grey suit, white silk shirt and a burgundy and gold tie sent a tremor through her that she could not disguise from his eagle sharp eyes. He was awesome, and from the moment he clasped her hand she could not take her eyes from his—her voice little more than a whisper when she made the responses required of her.
The only reason she had married him was for Kazim, she reminded herself urgently. But when Zahir bent his head and captured her mouth in a fierce, possessive kiss that proclaimed her his wife, she parted her lips helplessly and welcomed the thrust of his tongue, her uninhibited response earning a low growl of satisfaction from him that warned her he would expect her total capitulation tonight.
‘What do you mean, we’re spending our honeymoon at your camp in the desert?’ she demanded hours later, when the formal wedding feast was finally over and Zahir had escorted her out of the banqueting room while the guests waved them on their way and showered them with rose petals.
‘Isn’t it romantic? This is the beginning of your life together,’ Fatima had whispered excitedly when she’d kissed Erin farewell, but although Erin forced a smile, inside she was quaking. Reality was intruding with a vengeance, and she was wondering just what she had got herself into.
‘I assumed we would be staying here at the palace,’ she faltered when Zahir led her not to his private quarters in the west wing—which would now be her home too—but out of the main doors and down the steps to a four-by-four parked on the drive. ‘What about Kazim?’ She glanced wildly around, as if expecting Bisma to appear with the toddler, even though she knew he was fast asleep in the nursery.
Zahir gave her an impatient look when he opened the car door and she did not immediately climb in. ‘He will remain here with his nanny. He is completely happy with Bisma, and I’m sure he’ll be fine without you for a week or so,’ he added tersely.
Erin’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re expecting me to camp out in the desert for a week—or maybe longer?’ She stared at him in horror. ‘And without Kazim?’ The thought of spending so long in Zahir’s exclusive company was frankly terrifying. ‘What will we do all day?’
At that Zahir threw back his head and gave a shout of laughter. Erin had only ever heard him laughing with Kazim, and she loved the warm, rich sound, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. But his next words made her heart thump painfully in her chest.
‘Sleep, I imagine,’ he drawled, the gleam in his eyes turning from humour to something altogether more nerve-racking. ‘We will be on our honeymoon, and we’ll use the days to recuperate our strength from the night before and prepare ourselves for the night ahead. I may allow you out of bed long enough to swim in the pool,’ he added lazily, ‘but you will spend most of your time beneath me, or on top of me.’
His voice lowered to a husky growl that sent a quiver of reaction along Erin’s spine. ‘You can drop the act of maidenly virtue now,’ he told her bluntly as he suddenly swept her into his arms and placed her in the four-by-four. ‘Qubbah may be rooted in tradition, but I’m a modern guy and I’m happy to accept that you may have had lovers before you married my brother.’
Erin could swear she actually felt her heart plummet down to her toes, and she turned to stare at him with huge, troubled eyes when he jumped in next to her and fired the engine. She should never have lied to him, she thought frantically. ‘Zahir…I have to tell you…’
‘It’s all right; I don’t want a detailed list of your boyfriends.’ Zahir swiftly cut her off.
Sure, he had a modern outlook, he assured himself. Women were equal to men, and they had just as much right to experiment with a variety of sex partners. He didn’t understand why the idea of Erin making love with any other man filled him with such savage fury. He should be pleased that she was sexually experienced, and tonight he would use every ounce of his own skill and passion to make love to her. He would teach her things that would no doubt shock her, and he would give her more pleasure than she had ever experienced—until he had driven all memories of her previous lovers from her mind for good and she thought only of him.
‘But, Zahir…’
‘Leave it, Erin. I have no wish to rake over your past or list all the women who’ve shared my bed. It would take most of the night,’ he added with a self-satisfied grin, ‘and I have other plans for us tonight.’
After that they drove through the desert in a silence that stretched Erin’s nerves to snapping point. Eventually they reached an oasis. A distinctive Bedouin tent loomed out of the darkness, pitched beneath several palm trees and illuminated by flickering oil lamps. Moonlight dappled the inky surface of a large natural pool, and more stars than Erin had ever imagined existed studded the sky like pins in a velvet pincushion.
Some distance away she could see more tents and, following her gaze, Zahir explained, ‘Servants’ quarters. But I don’t have many staff here, and they are under strict orders not to disturb us.’
He held out his arms to assist her down from the four-by-four, and despite her misgivings the brief contact with his body was enough to send heat coursing through Erin’s veins. The feel of his silk shirt beneath her fingertips and the sensual musk of his cologne captivated her senses, and her legs felt weak. When he opened the tent flap she stared around at the jumbled array of brightly coloured cushions and patterned rugs, and at the vast, low bed set beneath a billowing canopy and draped with a satin coverlet.
It was like something out of an Arabian fantasy, and if this had been a real marriage, born of love rather than convenience, she would have adored the romantic setting. But Zahir had married her out of duty and because he wanted to have sex with her, and the knowledge that he was expecting her to join him on that huge bed made her feel as though she had turned into her mother. She was no better than a whore—for what difference did it make that she had agreed to barter her body in return for remaining with Kazim rather than hard cash?
The panic that had been building inside her since the wedding ceremony had increased tenfold on the drive from the palace, and now threatened to overwhelm her. Her voice was sharp and high-pitched when she cried, ‘I’m not sleeping with you.’
‘Sleeping was not what I had in mind either,’ Zahir drawled lazily. He strolled over to a table and lifted a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket. ‘I can think of many infinitely more enjoyable ways of spending my wedding night.’
He filled two glasses and offered one to Erin, but she shook her head and wrapped her arms tightly around her body. It was warm inside the tent, but her teeth were chattering and she felt horribly sick. She had only picked at the wedding feast, so her nausea was not likely to be caused by something she’d eaten. It was fear, plain and simple, she acknowledged, her eyes fixed on Zahir, and her breath caught in her throat when he began to unfasten his shir
t buttons. The sight of his golden skin, overlaid with a covering of fine black hairs, and the visible ridges of his abdominal muscles shattered the last remnants of her self-control.
‘I mean it. This whole charade was a mistake.’
‘Charade?’ He frowned slightly but was not distracted from shrugging his shirt over his shoulders and allowing it to drop to the floor.
‘Our marriage,’ Erin said wildly. ‘It was a mistake and I should never have agreed to it. You used Kazim to blackmail me, and that was a despicable thing to do.’
Even to her own ears she sounded close to hysteria, but she couldn’t help it. Stripped to his waist, Zahir was a demi-god who made her mouth run dry—but he was expecting a night of tempestuous passion with a woman he believed was an expert in the art of seduction. He would probably laugh if she asked him to be gentle, and think it was all part of a game she was playing. But her ‘maidenly virtue’ wasn’t an act, and wild horses would not force her into his bed.
‘I’ll sleep over at the servants’ quarters,’ she told him, hastily dropping her gaze when she caught the gleam of anger in his eyes.
To her surprise Zahir made no attempt to stop her when she wrenched the tent flap open, but his murmured, ‘Watch out for snakes,’ stopped her in her tracks.
‘What snakes?’
‘Cobras, mainly, and the odd horned viper—their venom is deadly, of course, but I’m sure you’ll be fine as long as you look where you are putting your feet.’
‘But it’s dark. I won’t be able to see them.’ Erin cast a nervous glance out at the inky blackness of the desert and wondered what lurked in its mysterious shadows. Did snakes move around at night?
A faint rustling sound from a nearby bush caused her heart to practically leap from her chest, and she shrieked and jumped back inside the tent, her overwrought emotions boiling over into explosive temper when she caught sight of Zahir’s smirk.
‘I’m glad you find the situation so funny!’ Suddenly she was incandescent with rage. She was tired of being manipulated, tired of being backed into a corner, and with a cry of fury she snatched up the nearest object to hand—a small glazed bowl set on a low table—and flung it at him. ‘I must have been temporarily insane when I agreed to be your wife, but my sanity has returned and I want a divorce.’
With lightning reactions Zahir caught the bowl and set it down before striding towards her, his expression darkening from amusement to anger and his eyes glittering with a primitive hunger that caused Erin’s heart to pound. ‘Oh, no,’ he growled as he reached her and tangled his fingers in her hair when she turned to run. ‘This is what you want, my little wildcat—you just don’t have the guts to admit it.’
He jerked her against his chest and bent her backwards until she was sure her spine would snap. Her eyes widened in fearful anticipation when he lowered his head to hers.
‘I saw the furtive glances you gave me during the wedding feast, the hungry longing in your gaze that you thought I hadn’t noticed,’ he said harshly, his warm breath whispering across her lips. ‘I know you were imagining us together, our naked bodies pressed skin against skin, your limbs entwined with mine. And tonight it is time to turn the fantasy into reality. I will make you mine,’ he promised; his voice thick with a sexual promise that caused a mixture of apprehension and undeniable excitement to run through her. ‘I don’t know what’s caused this sudden change of heart. Maybe the wedding brought back memories of my brother. But you agreed to marry me of your own free will, and after tonight you will be in no doubt that you are my wife now, not Faisal’s.’
Erin’s cry of protest was lost beneath the fierce pressure of Zahir’s kiss. His tongue forced access into the moist warmth of her mouth, parting her lips with barely controlled savagery and exploring her with such skilled eroticism that she was powerless to fight him or the tumultuous emotions he aroused in her. He was her prince, the man of her dreams, powerful, formidable, a man who would sweep away the barriers she had built around herself and discover the intensely sensual part of her that she had tried so hard to suppress.
She wondered vaguely why he had sounded so harsh when he had mentioned Faisal. She might almost believe he resented the fact that she had been married to his brother. But she must surely have imagined the note of raw jealousy in his voice.
‘This was inevitable from the moment we first saw each other at Ingledean House,’ he grated, when he finally broke the kiss and stared down at her swollen mouth, his dark eyes gleaming with a determination that made Erin tremble. ‘I knew the instant I saw you that I wanted you in my bed,’ he told her with brutal honesty. ‘I assumed you were the maid, and instead of thinking about my dead brother I could not stop myself from planning how quickly I could seduce you.
‘Now that time has come, and I intend to make love to you until you plead for my possession and can think of no other man but me,’ he promised arrogantly, lifting her suddenly into his arms and striding over to the bed. ‘You have tormented my dreams for too long,’ he muttered as he set her down on her feet and spun her round so that he could unfasten the row of tiny hooks that ran down the back of her wedding gown. ‘And I know that you share my hunger, kalila. Your body does not lie—see.’
She still had her back to him as he pushed the silk caftan over her shoulders, tracing his mouth along the fragile line of her collarbone while his hands came round to cup her pale bare breasts in his palms. Her dusky pink nipples had already tightened into hard peaks, betraying the molten desire that was flooding through her veins, and she could not restrain a soft moan when he captured her nipples between his fingers and gently tugged, sending exquisite flames of sensation from her breasts to the damp heat between her thighs.
The caftan fluttered to the floor, and Erin caught her breath when Zahir turned her to him and she saw the look of primitive, feral hunger blazing in his eyes.
‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known,’ he said thickly, as he took the combs from her hair and ran his fingers through the rippling mass of vibrant, silky curls. She was a siren, and he could not resist the exquisite combination of flame-coloured hair and smoky grey eyes that were no longer flashing with temper but dark and soft with desire.
He had wed her reluctantly, but he did not share that same reluctance to bed her, he brooded as he stared down at her slender body, and at the tiny scrap of white lace that shielded her femininity from his eyes. His desperate desire for her was shaming, but now she was his wife and he did not have to fight it any longer. Instead he would give in to this elemental need to part her soft white thighs and plunge his agonisingly aroused shaft deep into her, to take them both to the heights of sexual ecstasy until he was utterly sated—and then perhaps he would be able to get on with his life and relegate her to a distant corner of his mind.
She was staring up at him, her pupils dilated so that her eyes seemed too big in her delicate, fine-boned face. The sight of her pink tongue darting out to trace her lower lip drew a muttered imprecation from him as he lifted her and placed her on the bed, immediately covering her body with his own. He wanted her now, hard and fast, he acknowledged, as he tugged her knickers down her legs and slid his hand between her thighs. He wanted her with a primitive hunger that was rapidly spiralling out of control—and he couldn’t wait.
Erin gasped at the feel of Zahir’s hard arousal straining beneath his trousers and nudging into her thigh. His naked torso pressed down on her so that she was aware of the faint abrasion of his chest hair brushing against her breasts. Somewhere at the back of her mind a small voice was telling her she should stop him, but the temptation to run her hands over the bunched muscles of his upper arms and then lower, to his chest and flat stomach, was too strong to resist.
He kissed her again, his lips warm and firm on hers but no longer seeking to dominate. Instead he slid his tongue into her mouth and initiated a slow, unhurried exploration that drugged her senses, so that she curled her arms around his neck and kissed him back with a fervour that drew a
groan from deep in his throat. At last he lifted his head and stared down at her, his eyes hooded and slumberous. He supported himself on his elbows and moved his head down to her breast, flicking his tongue across her nipple until it swelled and tightened and then drawing it fully into his mouth and sucking her until she moaned and tossed her head restlessly from side to side.
‘Please,’ she whimpered, past caring that he had reduced her to a pliant, submissive sex slave. She was on fire, so desperate for him to continue his wicked sorcery that she slid her fingers into his silky black hair and tugged his head to her other breast.
‘Your eagerness is such a turn-on,’ he taunted her, his eyes glinting with amusement when her cheeks flooded with colour.
She wasn’t supposed to be eager—she was supposed to be fighting him, she acknowledged sickly. The note of smug satisfaction in his voice filled her with shame at her weakness, but the tug of his mouth on her other nipple was so exquisite that she arched her back and pushed her knuckle into her mouth to stifle her scream of pleasure.
Now he was moving his head lower, trailing his mouth over her flat stomach and pausing to dip his tongue into her navel before continuing down. His warm breath stirred the tight cluster of red-gold curls between her thighs and she tensed, her eyes widening with shock when he gently parted the swollen outer lips of her femininity and pushed his tongue delicately between them to discover the sticky wetness within.
‘Zahir!’ She couldn’t believe what he was doing. Not even her wildest fantasies had included him bestowing upon her this most intimate caress, but his invasive tongue had found the sensitive nub of her clitoris and she could feel little spasms of pleasure building inside her.
Just when she was sure she could stand no more, he lifted his head and rolled off her, his huge chest heaving and his face a taut mask as he stood to remove his trousers and then tugged his silk boxers down to reveal the jutting length of his fully aroused manhood. Time seemed to stand still, and she stared at him in wordless apprehension. But the time to stop him had long passed, and she knew from the stark hunger in his midnight-dark gaze that there could only be one outcome—his total and absolute possession.