by Pippa Roscoe
He trailed open-mouthed kisses down her throat, between breasts he cupped, the warmth of his palms reassuring, the thumbs against her nipples sensually unsettling. Her back arched involuntarily, pushing her body upwards against his, wanting more, harder, deeper.
His tongue teased the sensitive skin of her abdomen as his hands moved to her hips, hooking his fingers beneath the small band at her waist and drawing her knickers down, over her thighs, then her knees, gently pushing them away and making room for him between her legs. Her mind was overwhelmed with sensation and she was oblivious to thought or words, but a craving roared to life within her and she felt the echoes of the dragon once again.
She felt herself parted, exposed, but not vulnerable and she relished the groan of pure satisfaction from Kal, just before the world tilted on its axis as he pressed an open-mouthed kiss at her core. She arched against the wild streak of desire that almost lifted her from the bed, thankful for the anchor of his forearms holding her in place as a second sweep of his tongue stole her breath.
And she was lost. To pleasure, to sensation, the sparks of fire racing through her bloodstream that she’d never known before. Kal had set them alight, making her glow from the inside, throb with a pulse of energy that powered both her sense of self and her need.
She heard herself begging for something she couldn’t even name and gasped with sheer pleasure as his fingers joined his tongue. The unfamiliar feel of the stretch within her soon gave over to passion which gave over to frustration. It wasn’t enough—she wanted him.
‘Please, Kal,’ she begged. ‘Please.’
* * *
Kal reluctantly drew away from her. He had wanted to feel her come apart on his tongue, to show her the heights of pleasure before any kind of pain she might experience for her first time. But that was his want and this was about hers. His tongue swept out across his bottom lip to taste the raw honey and milk of her, not wanting to miss a single drop. She was exquisite, a man’s final feast, and the thought that she would be the last thing on his mind before he gasped his dying breath stopped him still.
But then her hands reached for him, pulling gently at his shoulders, and he would have followed her anywhere. Leaning up over her, bracing himself on his forearms, he took in the pink path his rough hands and tongue had traced over such silky skin. The marks would be gone in the morning, but right now the primal animal satisfaction he felt at such a sight made it seem as if she were the royal and he were a beast. He traced his fingers over the outline of her hip, watching her shiver and buck beneath the lightest of touches, across the sweeping hollow of her waist, and tripped them over rib after rib after rib to reach the underside of a breast he couldn’t resist cupping in his palm, the weight of it feeling like a lost pound of his own flesh. A missing part of him, one that he’d not known of until now.
He looked up at her face to find her watching him so intently that where he would have smiled, he couldn’t. Could barely breathe for the sight of her.
‘It may hurt, but I will take that pain away. That, I can give you,’ he swore, hoping that she understood all the things that he could not give her. She nodded and he leaned over to his bedside table for a box of condoms that he’d never thought he’d need.
He retrieved the packet, tearing at the foil with his teeth, and felt the searing heat of her gaze as she watched him roll the latex over his length. He felt her shift on the mattress and looked up to find her leaning back on her forearms, her teeth punishing her bottom lip with a bite. He reached out to smooth away a rich red curl that had fallen forward and she leaned into the palm of his hand. Selfishly, he wanted to keep her there. Keep this moment. He could fool himself all he wanted but, while he would do everything in his power to make this special for her, he wanted this as much as she did.
‘If it gets too much—’
‘Then the sun would have fallen from the sky—’ she returned his words to him ‘—the desert would have frozen and I would be myself no more.’
It sounded like a quote from one of her romances, but he didn’t recognise it—it felt as if it were just for them. He kissed her back against the mattress and settled between her legs, relishing the way his body covered hers almost completely, fitting together like a puzzle piece.
His pulse began to race, awed by the trust she had placed in him. He leashed himself with more control than he’d thought himself capable of as he cradled her face with his hands and pushed forward gently into her.
Her body tensed, as he knew it would, and she breathed in through the pain he could see she felt. He kissed her neck, the secret spot between her jaw and ear. ‘It’s okay, Star. Let it go. I’ve got you,’ he whispered, holding himself still, impossibly still, until she was ready. Her deep inhalations pressed her chest into his as he dusted her skin with Arabic, words of comfort, of reassurance, promises that he’d be there to catch her when she fell. Star’s body began to relax and he watched as her eyes opened, pain and shock replaced by wonder and desire once again. She nodded at his unspoken question and gently, and so, so slowly, he began to move.
He cursed. He prayed. He’d never felt anything like this. She was everywhere—around him, beneath him. His touch, his tongue, his taste was full of her and the air he breathed was laden with her. As her body undulated beneath him, he moved within her, their bodies joining together as if they were independent of thought and focused solely on pleasure.
Star strained towards him, her hand at the back of his neck pulling him down into a kiss that sent fire racing up from the base of his spine. A fine sheen dusted their skin, slippery and slick, sliding and tantalising, erotic sounds heating the air.
Star moaned into the kiss and he consumed it, the cries of her pleasure feeding his, bringing him closer and closer to orgasm. Each mewl of desire reached a higher pitch than the last and Khalif could tell she was on the brink. And he was torn between drawing out this singularly sublime moment and rushing them headlong into sheer bliss.
But then she tilted her hips downwards, drawing him even deeper within her, to press against a spot that saw Star explode beneath him, thrusting him headlong into an orgasm that stole his breath, his sight and his thought. The moon slipped behind the sun, the ocean poured away, and Khalif was completely and utterly spent.
* * *
When Khalif regained awareness it was to the feel of Star’s fingers tracing swirls on his shoulders, her small hands slipping over his skin, as if stealing all the moments she could. Then he felt her lips tracing kisses down his spine, her body reaching over his as he had reached over her. He twisted beneath her and pulled her into a kiss as if the sand in their hourglass had already run dry.
Throughout the night they reached for each other almost endlessly and the sun was a curse on the horizon when Khalif finally made his way to the bathroom, running water from the tap—desperate to quench the thirst that hadn’t quit even after the first taste of her. He was about to throw the protection they’d used in the bin when he noticed a small tear. And even had he closed his eyes to block out the image, his mind raced at the speed of light and all the while a voice screamed in his mind over and over and over again.
Pregnant.
Star could be pregnant. She could be carrying his child.
* * *
Star woke to the feeling of the sun streaming onto her skin, warming her and reigniting memories of the most incredible night of her life. She ran her hand over the sheets of Kal’s bed, marvelling that it was his—the bed, the suite, the room in the palace. Sidestepping what that meant, she indulged in the belief that it had made what they’d shared a little more real, more meaningful than if they had been in a hotel room.
She was so glad that she had waited, that she had saved herself for him. He’d been so gentle, so generous, and her cheeks throbbed with blushes from the memory of what they had done the night before.
She turned onto her back, wondering where he was.
Then, drawing the pale silk sheet around her, she made her way to the door, hearing the sound of voices beyond too late to stop her opening it.
The tableau that met her stopped her in her tracks. Khalif, dressed in suit trousers and a shirt, stood half turned towards her, his hands fisted at his thighs. A look of immense frustration was painted on his features for the second it took to register her standing in the doorway, before his face went blank. He was mid-conversation with another man, also suited, peering angrily at her through his glasses. A shift of weight drew her gaze to a uniformed security guard positioned in front of the door to the rest of the palace and finally a woman stood in the kitchen with a cup in both hands, gently blowing steam across the rim with a look of sympathy in her eyes.
Star shook her head as if trying to clear the image and pushed the door closed, hoping that the next time it was opened all these strangers would have gone and Kal would be there to tell her it was all a dream.
She was still standing there a minute later when he opened the door—through which she could still see the people staring at her.
‘We have to talk,’ Kal said, shutting the door behind him and walking forward.
‘Mmm.’ She wasn’t so sure she wanted to talk but she was definitely sure she wanted a bit of breathing space between them so, for every step he took towards her, she took one back until the backs of her knees hit the mattress and she half sat, half fell on the mattress.
She clenched her jaw, trying to block everything out, even sound, but it was impossible as her eyes tracked Kal, pacing back and forth before her, his hands sweeping angrily through his hair. His lips, the perfect, sensual, powerful lips that had worshipped her last night, were bringing words Star could barely process into a room where they’d shared such incredible passion. Words that didn’t make any sense at all.
In a daze, she tried to assemble what he’d said.
‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that last bit? Just one more time.’
‘I am Sheikh Khalif Al Azhar. First in line to the Duratrian throne.’
A sheikh. A prince.
He couldn’t be.
But then she thought of the way he had looked to the horizon as if he owned it. The way that she now remembered his interaction with Wahed and the other guards, as if they had known each other. At how he had known his way around the palace.
How had she missed that?
She knew how. She’d been caught up in the romantic history of Hātem and the terrible tragedy of Crown Prince Faizan and his wife, and the loss that would be to their two small children. The tragedy had made the headlines of almost every international newspaper, with images of the twin girls being held by their grandparents and a stony-faced half shadowed brother she now knew was Khalif. There had been a subtle aspect of the exhibition that covered it—Samira’s wedding dress, pictures, footage. The loss mourned by a nation had been handled well by the exhibition and there were references to an upcoming memorial to the short-lived ruler and his wife, but nothing had yet been confirmed.
He’d lied to her.
‘Star,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts in the widening of her eyes. ‘You didn’t recognise me and I...you were the first person to...’
There was a firm knock on the door.
‘Not now,’ he growled.
Star looked between the door and Kal. No. Not Kal any more. Khalif. His Royal Highness Sheikh Khalif Al Azhar. Hurt, embarrassment and shame flooded her as she realised that he had hidden who he was while she had been absolutely and completely herself. So focused on finding the necklace she hadn’t been able to be anything but plain old Star Soames.
Rich and powerful. I am impressed.
Her shaking fingers pressed against her mouth. Oh, God. She’d said that.
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy.
She’d said that too. Had he laughed at her?
No. While she might not have known he was a prince, she did know him well enough that she could tell he hadn’t laughed at her.
‘But why all this?’ she asked, gesturing to the door. ‘Why tell me now? Did something happen?’ she went on, wondering if it was fanciful to worry that perhaps a war had broken out, or that something had happened to a family member.
He came to sit beside her on the bed, their knees not quite touching, as if something more than his title had put a distance between them that hadn’t been there the night before.
‘This morning, I noticed that the protection we used had torn.’
She tried to look at him but he was facing straight ahead, as if confronting some unforeseen future head-on. She frowned. Torn protection? She couldn’t quite see what he...
‘You think I might be...’
‘Pregnant.’
A baby.
Could she be?
A flood of pure bright light dipped and soared across her heart, her skin, her mind, before swooping to the floor and scattering like diamonds on marble.
This wasn’t how she’d imagined finding out that she might be pregnant. She’d thought that there would be joy and a dizzying happiness as she shared the special moment with her husband, not a sense of confusion and disbelief and the father-to-be looking so...so forbidding.
‘But it’s highly unlikely, isn’t it?’ she asked him, looking for reassurance.
‘That’s not really going to work with my advisors.’ His voice was heavy and grim in a way she’d not heard before.
‘It doesn’t have to,’ she said, wondering why such a thing would be decided by committee. ‘It only has to work with you.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll catch my flight home and when I can take a test I’ll let you know what the results are and we can speak about it then.’
He smiled. It was a firm line of determination. ‘There will be no speaking about it then, Star.’
She studied him until he finally turned and locked his gaze on hers. ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling a tremble work its way down her spine.
‘What?’
‘The sheikh look. Does that actually work on your staff and subjects?’ she asked, forcing herself to keep her tone light.
‘Usually,’ he said, his tone still cold enough to cut stone.
‘I spend my days with thirty primary school children who throw much better tantrums than that.’
‘That wasn’t a tantrum,’ he ground out.
‘It was about to be,’ she said, relishing the heat that had entered his voice. Heat she could deal with, cold...not so much.
‘And that would be at Salisbury Primary?’
‘Yes, how did you...?’ Her words trailed off as she realised that if he was the Sheikh, if she might be pregnant, then of course his advisors would have looked into her background. As her heart slowly poked and prodded the idea that she might be pregnant, her mind ran like a stream over cobbles and stones. ‘I always wondered what that would feel like,’ she babbled. ‘You know, in romances, when the hero does a “background check”? He usually gets something horribly wrong and so there’s a big misunderstanding between them. I read this one—it was actually pretty funny—where...’
‘Can we focus here, Star?’
‘Of course,’ she replied automatically, wondering how on earth she was supposed to focus when her thoughts had been picked up by the wind and scattered across the desert floor.
She looked up, finding one thread of thought to hold onto. ‘Is it that bad?’
‘That depends on whether you are pregnant with the heir to the throne of Duratra.’
* * *
Khalif left the bedroom while Star showered and dressed. He wished he could ignore the room full of people—the guard, Amin, Maya... No. He’d not ignore Maya. She had made herself as invisible as possible, but the subtle comfort she offered was everything to him right now. He could rely on her confidentiality even if she wasn’t married to his best friend.
A best friend who would be calling him every shade of stupid for last night. And he’d be right. What had he been thinking? He’d been selfish. Completely and utterly selfish for wanting her, for acting on it, and now Star was going to pay the price.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to get to grips with running the throne for a few years and then, after his thirtieth birthday, there would be discreet enquiries as to the availability of a suitable wife who wouldn’t challenge him or interfere with his duty. And once the twins were of age, of course, the throne would return to them.
Years ago, he’d imagined something different, someone different, to wear his ring and have his children. But then he’d learned. Duty, the throne, family. It all came first.
But this? Star being possibly pregnant? He ran his hand through his hair, ignoring the uneasy glance his assistant sent his way as he stalked through the living area towards the balcony, stopping himself before stepping out onto it, remembering Star in his arms, hair streaming down around them. No one had ever affected him in such a way. Not even the one woman he had loved and lost.
He cursed out loud, uncaring of who heard him, his mind taking him to all the places he didn’t want to be that morning.
Pregnant.
Star might be pregnant. And if she was? Then there was no doubt whatsoever. They would marry.
* * *