She felt delicate and breakable in his arms. A woman to be treated with care, though he had watched her handle a 4x4 over the dunes and climb a hill that shifted with every step.
She responded with the passion he knew lay within her. Her free arm grabbed at the back of her shirt, as if she did not wish to let go. She moved her mouth against his, pushed her breasts against his thin shirt.
He drew her onto his lap, as he had done in the pool. She had pulled away from him then, and he feared she would do so again. Despite her emotional nature, she needed additional convincing, both logical and seductive. He intended to enjoy both.
She did not smell of her usual citrus scent, he noted, with some regret.
He had to muster all his discipline to part with her mouth and begin to nibble at her neck.
"Oh," she gasped. "Not fair. Cheater."
He smiled to himself. After a few more minutes of her soft cries of enjoyment, of her grasping his shirt, it was time to start his logical assault. "You have gotten over your aversion to me."
"Maybe a little," she huffed.
"Is there nothing you like about me?" he prompted.
She hesitated, but then seemed to decide to speak. "You're very..." She searched for the appropriate word. "Calm. Centered. Focused."
He pulled her closer, and spoke into her neck, moving his lips against her skin. "I enjoy focusing on you. Is there anything else?"
"You're smart and logical, which annoys me sometimes," she said. "But you also care about the future of your country. A good feature in a dictator."
"I take that as a compliment."
"It is one."
He easily lifted Gwendolyn as he rose. She felt good and right in his arms, though she made a little sound of shock, and fisted her hand in the back of his shirt for stability. He brought her to the mattress, placing her carefully and following after her.
"Wait," she protested. "No. We can't."
He pulled the black elastic from the end of one of the braids that made her look younger than her twenty-five years. Tied in the coils, her hair had not dried completely. "Since the sun has set, we are married," he reminded her. "We can do what we please."
White teeth appeared on her bottom lip. "Actually, I meant we don't have any protection."
His heart thudded against his ribs. He had heard her correctly. She had consented to sleeping with him.
"We still have the gun," he teased.
She smiled up at him. "You know what I mean."
"Would a pregnancy be so bad?" He recognized the question was a mistake as soon as the words left him.
She gave him a suspicious look and started to rise. "It would change both our lives."
He put his hand to her waist to stop her from getting up. "I still desire you, and you desire me. Nothing stops us from enjoying each other as we are able."
"You mean..."
"I want to put my hands on you, Gwendolyn." He lowered himself and kissed the skin at the base of the vee of her t-shirt. "And my mouth. The promise of things to come."
She put her hand to his shoulder and shoved him back. For an instant, he feared she would make her final refusal. Instead, she looked into his eyes gravely. "Doing this doesn't mean anything permanent, mister. Understand me. I'm not agreeing to anything but tonight."
"Then let us savor tonight."
Though he had known for a matter of days, he knew that for Gwendolyn, the physical act meant something important. He knew he had taken a significant step in getting her to agree to stay with him. As he removed her other elastic and ran his fingers through her glossy hair, satisfaction filled him.
***
Have I gone insane? Gwen asked herself.
Yep, probably. But the insanity felt so good. And the alternative—turning down the hottest man she'd ever met, one who'd told her he wanted her—seemed even crazier. Especially when he offered her one of her favorite things. The idea of having Ithnan between her thighs, well, no woman would be able to resist. No sane, straight woman, anyway.
His kiss was slow, but insistent, and as intoxicating as any drug. The touch of his mouth on hers flung every sensible thought out of her head. Almost. She had one sensible thought left, to get his shirt off him.
She fumbled at the buttons of his tuxedo shirt. Why hadn't she let him cut the thing off earlier?
She undid the final button and ran her fingers through the hair on his chest. He was a beautiful animal, so solid and masculine. And she could do whatever she wanted to him. For tonight, anyway.
He said her name, over and over, between deep, sensual kisses. She didn’t know how she managed to get his trousers off him with fingers as boneless as sausages. Soon, she held his sex in her hand. She traced its thick hardness. He was a large man—of course he was. The man was so flawless that his jacket didn't even wrinkle under gunfire—why wouldn't his dick be a perfect specimen?
She stroked him hard, from root to tip, and he rewarded her with a masculine grunt of approval.
For the second time, he was naked before her, while she was still fully covered. Her sense of feminine power spiked. The most perfect man she'd ever seen was wild for her, offering her as much passion as she desired.
He dragged at her pajama bottoms, pulling them off, exposing her butt to the night air. He pulled at her t-shirt, freeing her breasts to his touch. He covered them with both hands.
"Beautiful," he declared, a little breathless. He put his mouth to one hardened nipple. The sensation of hot wetness made her gasp. The stimulation zinged down below, making dewy moisture between her legs.
He licked and suckled on her breasts, teasing and tasting them, until she found herself on her back, staring at the cave ceiling.
"Gwendolyn, open for me."
She looked down her body at him. Ithnan trailed kisses down her stomach, toward her tidy patch of curls. Her knees seemed locked together for some reason. Why did she hesitate?
You don't trust him, came an internal whisper.
She hushed the voice. She had no reason not to trust him. She forced herself to relax, and her knees fell apart.
He kissed the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. Wherever he touched, she tingled with brilliant sensation. Her heart beat with excitement as she felt him draw closer and closer to where she most wanted him.
After what seemed like eons, she felt hot breath on her sex.
"You like this, do you not?" As his lips moved, they touched her lightly.
She wanted to scream in frustration and force his head into her. She wasn't the only one who liked it, she could tell. But the part he liked was keeping her on the edge of anticipation, teasing her into submission.
She knew what he wanted. She gritted her teeth and begged. "Please, mister."
She couldn't see his smile, but she felt his lips curl against her. Closing her eyes, she could have floated away.
Delicious sensations coiled out from her sex, lighting up the rest of her body like a neon sign. She squirmed into the feelings of heat.
Ithnan was amazing. He clearly loved doing this.
With each of his intimate touches, her insides throbbed with pleasure. Breathing got harder with every new sensation. She felt his tongue tasting and probing her flesh, stirring something deep in her.
The feeling built, a coiling inside her, a spring getting tighter and tighter. She heard her own cries pitch higher. She was climbing a mountain—climbing Everest—and every step brought her closer to the peak.
"Don’t stop," she ordered him, gasping in air.
He obeyed. At the same time, she felt him slip his fingers inside. The feeling was too much for her, and she dropped off the edge of the world.
She cried out, falling backwards off the mountain, all the tension and energy releasing from her.
And even through her pleasure, she felt in grave danger of another kind of falling. Falling for him.
***
"Hey." Gwendolyn sounded like she was on the cusp of shrieking.
Not
the ideal way to wake the morning after they had made love for the first time. Perhaps not full intercourse, but an intense physical bonding. He had slept with many beautiful women, but with the unspoken agreement doing so was temporary pleasure for both of them.
With Gwendolyn, sex had been different. Perhaps not so... skilled, but far more intimate. He could not wait to roll over and give her the first kiss of the day—
"Mister, get up, damn you." She pounded on his bare chest with one small fist. "You have to get up now."
Forced to defend himself, he grabbed her hands to keep her from bruising him.
Her hair was in a morning tangle. She had the imprint of his arm on her cheek. She'd already put on her pajama bottoms. He hoped her putting on clothing did not signal a change of her heart.
"Why must I get up now? Or ever?"
She broke his grip and tugged on his arm as she stood. "Someone's coming. Can't you hear the car?"
He froze in place. The low, distant rumble of some kind of vehicle reached his ears.
"Come on," she urged. "Let's go."
They stood together on the lip of the cave and looked to the desert floor below. Two dirty white 4x4s approached the base of the hill. They each had a mound of luggage and traveling equipment loaded on top. He had less than a minute before they would pass by.
"We're rescued," she cried. "Er, I think. Who are they? Bedouin?"
His mind spun with the possibilities. A few more days in the cave. He needed a few more days with Gwendolyn, alone, to convince her they belonged together. If they went back to the palace now, she would insist on the annulment and leave before the end of the week.
"They are a tourist company. I do not trust them." He tried to pull her back into the cave.
"A tour group?" She resisted his tugging. "Awesome. Why wouldn't we be able to trust them?"
"My men will rescue us."
"Don't be an idiot." She narrowed her eyes at him. "We can't count on them finding us. This is our chance. The food could run out and we would die here. Don't you want to be rescued?"
Something in the way she had cocked her head and put her hands on her hips told him he was on dangerous ground. She was correct. He was the one not behaving rationally.
Luckily, they didn't have the time to get to the base of the hill before the trucks passed. Nor could they get the attention of the group from up here.
He was safe.
"You are right," he told her. "Let us get to the bottom of the hill before they pass."
He started to move, but she pulled him back with a jerk of the handcuffs.
"Bad plan," she told him. "No time. We've got to wave the bedsheet so they notice us."
His stomach sank. Her plan would work, he realized.
He had not yet cemented his relationship to Gwendolyn, and they were going back to Ismek.
***
The moment the trucks stopped at the base of the hill, honking and flashing their lights, was the happiest of Gwen's life. Only the audience kept her from grabbing Ithnan and kissing the devil out of him from sheer excitement.
Their rescuers waited while Ithnan went back into the cave and put some pants on—he'd worn the sheet for a cover so they didn’t get an eyeful. Then they arranged his tux jacket to hide the handcuff chain and did a scrambling slide down the hill. She didn’t even feel her bruises. She wanted to get back to the city as fast as the tour group could carry them.
For some reason, Ithnan seemed far less enthusiastic. She chalked his hesitation up to his general mistrust of people.
A handful of Westerners escorted by four Zallaqi guys in faded denim waited by the trucks. When she and Ithnan got to the bottom of the hill, the air shifted. Half the group got stiffer, more closed off. Two of the guys whispered to each other in Arabic. Had Ithnan been right about not trusting them? Maybe she should have been more cautious...
"Are you two all right?" asked one of the Western women, in a British accent. She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and removed her Gucci sunglasses. "What happened to you?"
As if on cue, the Zallaqis dropped to one knee, looking to the sand. "Your Majesties," said two of them, in unison. The other two spoke some kind of Arabic greeting.
"Majesties?" asked Gwen, stressing the plural.
"Oh," said one of the other tourists, an American with wild white hair spiking out from his head. "You're that rich girl who ran off with the sheikh."
"I'm—I’m who?"
"Explain yourself," ordered Ithnan. "Why have you greeted Miss Spencer in such a way?"
"Did you not elope?" the man who seemed to be the tour leader asked, rising from his kneel. "Is she not your wife now?"
The morning sun blazed into an inferno of heat. She'd been thrust into an oven. Her legs were in danger of shattering.
"The story was all over the paper," the woman in the hat said.
Gwen swallowed the curse sitting on her cracking lips. They knew. The newspapers knew. Everyone knew. The whole damn country. Maybe the whole damn world.
The realization struck her like a blow. There would be no quick annulment. Her life had changed forever. Now they needed a divorce, which would be public. Would Ithnan agree?
Based on his arguments of last night, she doubted he would.
Ithnan put his arm to her waist, a possessive gesture. "Excuse us. Her Majesty is weak and overcome with joy at our rescue. We have been through an adventure. Our 4x4 broke down."
"Of course," agreed the tour leader, looking at Gwen's pajamas. Not exactly an outfit to elope in. "Immediately."
"But our trip—" someone protested from the crowd.
"Is less important than getting these people home." The British lady overruled her fellow traveler. She went to Gwen's side and began to guide her to the passenger side of one of the vehicles.
Once Gwen was settled on the seat, she got a hold of herself. She raised her chin and tried to keep breathing, though the desert air burned her lungs on the way down.
"Are you in a fragile state?" asked the Brit in a whisper. "Explains the hurry to get married."
Oh God. "I'm not pregnant." She squeezed the words through her dehydrated throat. "Please don't tell anyone I am."
Right then, the tux jacket slid off the handcuff chain. The Brit got a good look.
"What the hell?" Her mouth pinched into a sour expression and her eyes launched daggers at Ithnan.
Gwen grabbed the hem of the lady's raw linen shirt. "It's not what you're thinking."
Ithnan had followed Gwen to the vehicle, of course. How long could they hide the cuffs from the others? With the stories they'd read in the paper, if the rest of the group saw, they'd start thinking Ithnan had kidnapped her.
"My wife is overcome at our rescue," Ithnan announced to the whole group, while using his body to shield the cuffs from view. "We require you to return us to the palace immediately."
A few of the tourists muttered.
Ithnan raised a hand, and silence dropped. "You will be compensated for the delay of your excursion, and you shall be guests at the palace, though we are unable to entertain you personally."
"Your Majesty is most generous," the tour leader said, bowing. Then he began squishing tourists into the other 4x4 so she and Ithnan wouldn't have to share.
Within minutes, they were on their way back to the city. And, Gwen realized, she was on her way to a life she never wanted and didn't know how to deal with.
EIGHT
News of their return got back to the city before they did.
A street mob met their vehicle as they pulled into the heart of the city. Throngs of thrilled citizens crowded outside the tinted windows, slowing the traffic as they tried to get a look inside.
The people seemed joyful their king had gotten married, a real cause for celebration. Their shouts were happy, not angry. Their songs were cheerful, not livid.
She still found the crowd too big, too close. She craved anonymity and peace. Something told her she would never have either again.
Her new husband—in Zallaq, at least—leaned in to her. To the driver, his position must have looked like him nuzzling her ear. And maybe he was, a little.
"Gwendolyn," he whispered, in relative privacy. "Please hide your emotions for the moment. There will be time to discuss our situation soon enough."
She fought to control herself. She hadn't pictured her marriage like this. She should be grateful for the rescue, but she needed time and space to deal.
"Two hours," she croaked. The distance between the cave and the city. "A little more gas and we would have made it back to Ismek."
"I know," he agreed. "But please put on a smile for my people. We will speak at a later time."
She nodded, blinking back threatening tears. She needed to play the happy bride, for now. She needed to roll with the tale, at least in public, and at least for now. No matter how much of a nightmare loomed later.
She focused on her relief at being rescued, and forced a smile. She wasn't going to die. That was something, wasn’t it?
"Very good," he praised. "After all, a wise woman once told me bitching about the desert and the mountain would not change the desert or the mountain. A philosophy I am taking seriously just now."
"Why?"
"My brother has been sitting on my throne."
He said the words with a casual air, but Gwen knew buckets of stress lay underneath the surface. "The brother who thinks he should be ruling Zallaq?"
Ithnan nodded. "The one who thinks Zallaq should not even exist, but should be part of Askar as its natural right."
She glanced at their driver.
"He speaks no English," Ithnan told her. "We may speak freely so long as we appear to be a happy couple."
Gwen brightened her fake smile. "Our security escort has arrived." The police had created a safe perimeter around their vehicle. They were moving again. "I guess we'll find out what welcome Walid has planned."
Handcuffed to the Sheikh, Too Page 11