With a kiss.
A kiss that comes from deep inside me, like an ocean current far beneath the surface, unstoppable and undeniable.
I kiss her.
By God, I kiss her.
5
DAARI
“How dare you?!” I whisper as his warm lips press hard against mine. I push him away and step back in shock as my mind spins like a sandstorm, my body tightens like I’ve been electrocuted, my eyes glaze over at the sight of this swarthy pirate looking at me like he actually believes I’d have anything to do with him! “Do you realize that what you just did is punishable by death?”
“You just described most of the things I’ve done in my life, Princess,” he says, his dark green eyes narrowed and focused, his jaw set tight, his lips still wet from that kiss. “But I’m still here.” He pauses, looking me up and down, his broad chest moving as he takes deep breaths like he’s trying to control himself. “And so are you, Princess. You’re still here too.”
“Not for long,” I say firmly, my breath coming in gasps as I try to come to terms with what just happened. This man just kissed me! He just stepped forward, grabbed me by the back of the neck and kissed me! I can’t even . . . can’t even . . .
I can’t even complete the thought, because suddenly I’m on the floor, on my knees, hunched forward like I’m dying of something, gasping and panting and heaving like I’m having a seizure! In an instant Desh is down on the floor with me, pulling me into his body as I gasp for air. It’s a panic attack, I realize as I force myself to take fresh oxygen into my lungs. I used to get them when I was a child. They stopped in my early teens, though. Stopped suddenly, like something inside me had changed, like I’d found a way to control that part of me that felt stifled and suppressed.
Desh’s scent comes to me as I feel myself calm down, and it takes a moment to realize I’m leaning against his bare chest, his big hands stroking my hair like I’m a little girl, his hard body enveloping me like a blanket as the ship gently rocks on the ocean’s swell. Once again I feel the shock of being kissed flood my being, but Desh’s scent stills me and I breathe deep of his masculine musk as I feel a strange smile break on my face.
“You smell like the ocean,” I whisper against his chest.
He grunts and kisses me gently on the top of my head. “Ah, so now I smell like the ocean? Not rat dung?”
I giggle and look up at him, my heart beating faster again but not because I’m panicking. If anything, I feel calmer than I’ve ever been. So calm that I wonder if I should panic! “Well, now that you mention it . . .”
He laughs, his hand gently patting me on my bottom as I lean into him. I’m laughing too, more in surprise at myself than anything else. But then I swallow hard as I feel a rush of anxiety bubbling up again, and I blink and close my eyes tight as I wonder what in Allah’s name I’m doing. A man is touching me in a familiar way and I’m just smiling like a fool?! How will I rule a nation if one kiss from some dirty pirate brings me to my knees?! No. I am stronger than this. I have to be stronger than this!
“I am OK now,” I say, pulling away from Desh even though I don’t want to pull away from him, even though my body is alive with a feeling that’s fresh, new, exciting in a way that makes me want to dance. “Thank you.”
Slowly I rise, Desh holding me by the arms and not letting go until he’s sure I can stand on my own. It takes some effort for me to do it, but I push away his hands and straighten my robe, smooth out my hair, wipe my lips with the back of my hand as if I’m afraid my people will see what I’ve done, see my shame, my sin. I blink and swallow again, frowning as I feel myself being torn in half from the inside, like there’s two parts of me that have been thrown into direct conflict after what just happened with Desh. I can’t deny that my body is still tingling with the thrill of that kiss even as my mind is sternly judging me for tolerating what is clearly a violation.
But wait . . . there is another part of me that I can feel simmering beneath all of that, like a deep ripple far beneath the surface. It feels new but old, fresh but familiar. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s a part of me. Perhaps I am mad! Perhaps I am . . I am . . . I am . . .
You are his, comes that voice from inside me, and I almost fall down again as my head spins. I listen, my eyes going wide as I listen for the voice again. But the air is still, and I decide it’s nothing. Just nerves. Focus on the present, Daari. The here. The now.
“Now what, Princess?” comes his voice through my stupor, and suddenly I snap back to reality and look up at Desh. Immediately the seriousness of our situation comes pouring in, and now my mind is racing through the options, the possibilities, the problems and their potential solutions.
I turn and walk slowly to the porthole, narrowing my eyes as I gaze out across the open Mediterranean. I think about my stepmother, about what Desh said about her. Then I shake my head. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. This isn’t Snow White and she isn’t the evil stepmother. And this certainly isn’t Game of Thrones where family members kill each other because they’re all power-hungry maniacs. There must be another player involved. A third person. And I need to flush him or her out into the open.
Well, the best way to flush someone out into the open is to make them think they’re safe, that they’ve won, that they’ve got what they wanted, isn’t it? And if they want me dead, then maybe I should become dead!
“Now what, you asked? Here’s what: Now I’m dead,” I say as I slowly nod, my eyes transfixed on the swell of the blue ocean. I turn towards him, my jaw set as I make a decision and nod again. “I’m dead. You did what you were hired to do, and now you need to get paid. So let us see who pays you. It is not going to be my stepmother, I promise. She won’t even understand what in Allah’s name you are talking about if you show up at the Royal Palace of Dikaana and ask for your fee!”
Desh frowns as he studies my face like he’s wondering if I’m serious or perhaps just playing him for a fool. “You really believe it wasn’t your stepmother who planned this?” he says slowly, his frown deepening. “Who else if not her? Another family member? Someone else in line for the throne? A foreign power? The goddamn CIA?”
I snort and shake my head. “You might be CIA for all I know,” I say, still shaking my head. “No, there is no one else. No ministers or military generals strong or bold enough to try something like this—my father executed anyone who dared oppose him, leaving nothing but spineless sycophants on his councils. And there’s no other family. I’m an only child, and my stepmother never bore my father any children. The line of ascension is clear and indisputable. I am the sole heir and that’s that.”
Desh shakes his head and smiles grimly. “That’s that unless you’re dead, Princess. And if you’re dead, your stepmother gets the throne. That’s as clear a motive as it gets.” He sighs, narrowing his eyes in a way that annoys me. “You’re still young, Princess. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You never truly know people until—”
“Until what?” I snap, cutting him off as my anger rises in a way that’s puzzling. Again I think back to that kiss, that conflicting feeling of familiarity and freshness, the way my body tingled even as my mind almost snapped.
“Never mind,” he says, grunting as if to acknowledge that perhaps he was out of line, that although he’s a pirate captain who answers to no man, he still recognizes that I’m a powerful woman who’s not going to take being talked down to. He blinks and glances past me before nodding his head and shrugging. “All right, Princess. So you’re dead and it’s time for me to get paid. That’s the plan? All right. But I am most certainly not showing up at your stepmother’s palace with an outstretched hand unless I want to be beheaded and buried in the fucking desert. No, what I will do is contact your stepmother’s messenger, arrange a meeting, and capture him.”
I raise an eyebrow, think for a moment, and nod. “Well, you are not as stupid as you look
. All right. That should work fine for us.”
Desh grins and rubs his forehead. Then he takes a bow, his eyes staying focused on mine like he’s showing me respect but somehow not really bowing either, like he’s making fun of me without mocking me. “As you wish, Princess,” he says softly. “But I warn you: In my experience, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Your stepmother ordered this, and that’s what the man is going to say. So we’ll ask the question, but I guarantee you won’t like the answer.”
6
THREE DAYS LATER
PIRATE’S ISLAND, SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
DESH
“That is my answer, and it is the only answer I have for you. The king’s widow commanded me to do this, and that is the truth,” says the messenger, his gray eyes narrowing as I ask him again. “Do to me what you will, but that is all I have to say. I serve Queen Diraa and no one else.”
Queen Diraa, I think, the name making me frown. I remember reading the name in my own research. Apart from the similarity of their eyes behind those veils, I did think it was odd that the daughter is Daari and the stepmother is Diraa. But what do I know about naming customs in some Middle Eastern kingdom?
I grunt and rub my stubble, turning away from the man tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Interrogation isn’t my thing, and neither is torture. If we were still on my ship I could pull out the old “Walk the Plank” trick that I’ve always wanted to try. Nothing like the fear of being torn apart by sharks to get a man to talk.
But we aren’t at sea, and I exhale slowly as I step to the window and glance out at the rock-studded hills of my own little kingdom out here in the Mediterranean. There isn’t much to this island—in fact, at the way the sea levels are rising, in a few decades my “kingdom” will be little more than a sand-bar, fit for rats and nothing else. I “claimed” it years ago as my personal pirate’s cove. It’s technically part of Greece, but that’s mostly because no government gives enough of a damn about this lifeless patch of sand and stone. So it’s mine, for all practical purposes. See, Princess? I’m a king too!
I feel my mouth tighten into a grin as I gaze through the grimy window and see Daari standing near the golden beach, talking to her people: her attendants, bodyguards, her ship’s crew. She’s fully covered in her black robe, and I feel my breeches tighten again when I see the thin cloth press against her curves from the way the wind is blowing against her body. I frown and rub my chin again as I watch the Princess calm down her people with grace and poise and then turn towards the window of this wooden house like she knows I’m watching.
Her eyes meet mine through the scratched glass of the window, and I cock my head as my breath catches. We’ve been here three days, waiting for my men to bring the Dikaanan messenger back here from Athens, Greece. Three days in which we barely spoke, the Princess clearly mindful about her people and what they might think. It almost drove me insane as my need for her rose, but I respected her choice. I even understood it.
It turned out to be relatively easy to capture the bearded emissary: I demanded a cash payment in a mix of Euros and U.S. dollars. I asked him to come alone to our meeting. I wasn’t expecting him to come alone, but he did—which made me think back to what Daari had said about her father surrounding the family with weak-minded yes-men who meekly followed instructions without question. But although the man yielded fairly easily in Athens, it appears he’s suddenly found a backbone.
Either that, I think as I turn back to the gray-eyed messenger tied to a chair, or he’s scared. Yes, that’s it. He’s scared, but not of me. Which is once again strange. Who else would he be scared of? He doesn’t know the Princess is alive and here with me. Who else could he be scared of? There’s no one else here!
“Queen Diraa!” gasps the messenger just as I hear the door close softly behind me. “Ya Allah, Queen Diraa! It is you! Please! I did not say anything! I swear it! I told him what you said to tell him! I followed your instructions perfectly, without question, without—”
“But you failed,” comes a voice from my left. It’s Daari’s voice but it isn’t, and as I spin around on my bare feet, it hits me that this messenger didn’t address the Princess as Daari—he called her Diraa: Queen Diraa!
“By the tentacles of Poseidon,” I mutter as I see that Daari’s pulled her head covering up and her veil across her face, leaving just her eyes visible to the world. Eyes that cut through me like a knife because I recognize those eyes! They’re the same eyes I saw in that grainy wedding photograph from ten years ago! No. It can’t be. No. No. No!
But those eyes can’t lie, and I stare in shock as she glances at me and then through me, those eyes shining with a light that sends a chill through my bones, making my muddy toes curl up as the truth hits me in the face like a tidal wave.
I almost black out as my mind whips through everything I know about Daari, about the research I did on the Kingdom of Dikaana, her father the king, her stepmother the silent queen . . . the queen who never showed her face in public, was never seen without her veil and head-covering, was never seen with her own stepdaughter . . .
Was never seen with her own stepdaughter.
“There is no stepmother,” I mutter as I blink so fast my vision comes through like a series of still-life snapshots. Then my heart almost stops as I realize that my statement isn’t quite true. There is a stepmother. But the stepmother is Daari. This woman standing before me is two women: The stepmother and the stepdaughter, the Princess and the Queen, the daughter and the . . . the wife?!
I almost choke as I think back to that image again, the solitary photograph I saw of the dead king’s marriage ceremony ten years ago, his bride sitting quietly beside him.
His short, young, curvy wife, face and head covered in a veil, eyes brown and wide and innocent.
Innocent for the last time.
Daari for the last time.
I roar out loud, clawing at my hair and staggering back as the truth fills me with a sickness I can’t even describe. Then I swear I feel my heart rip in two as I suddenly understand the horror that is Daari’s life, understand that her childhood was stolen from her in the most awful way, her innocence destroyed by her own father, her soul shattered, her personality splintered.
“Oh, Daari,” I whisper, feeling tears roll down my rough cheeks as the realization shatters me so deep I can barely breathe. I want to pull her into me, hold her and never fucking let go, tell her that no one will ever hurt her again, abuse her again, betray her again. You’re mine, Daari, I want to tell her. The winds of chance have blown us together, and you’re mine! With me you’ll heal, Daari. With me you’ll become whole again. The one man a girl is supposed to trust betrayed you in the worst way, but I’ll make up for it, Daari. I won’t fail you. I won’t fail.
“You failed,” comes her voice, breaking me from my wild thoughts as I blink and realize she’s still talking to the messenger, her eyes blazing with cold hatred so pure it sends a chill down to my big toe. “You failed, and I do not tolerate failure. Failure is punishable by death under my rule.”
I stare as the Princess reaches for the machete I had placed on a wooden stool in front of the man. I use the machete to clear the hardy island shrubs from around the house, and I’d brought it in here to intimidate him into talking. I’ve broken countless jawbones with my fists, cracked men’s ribs with my knuckles, brought men the size of tanks down with moves I learned during my year in the Greek Army as a teenager. But I cannot bring myself to hit a defenseless man, and I figured that showing him a machete should loosen the bastard’s tongue well enough.
“Daari,” I say as the Princess raises the blade and steps towards the man, who’s already bowed his head like he’s accepted his fate. “What are you doing?! Daari, no! No!”
I leap across the room just as the Princess slashes down with the machete, and I manage to grab her arm just in time to divert the
stroke. The machete grazes the man down the left arm, and he screams in pain as the skin opens up and blood streams out.
I wrestle the machete from the Princess’s hand, tossing it across the room before she takes my goddamn head off! She snarls and swipes at me, and it’s everything I can do to pull her into me and hold her arms down by her sides as she thrashes wildly, turning her head and snapping with her teeth like she’d bite my nose off if she got a chance!
The rage in her is almost overwhelming, but I feel I understand it, like maybe I’m the only one who understands it—understands it in a way that perhaps even the Princess herself doesn’t.
“It’s OK,” I whisper, gritting my teeth and holding her so tight against my body I don’t think either of us can breathe. “You’re safe with me, Daari. You’ll always be safe with me.” I’m holding her from behind, her arms pressed firmly against her sides, and I think she’s calming down, that whatever I’m doing is working. “It’s OK, Daari. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve—”
Then I roar in pain as Daari brings her heel down hard on my foot. I let go of her for just a second, but it’s enough for her to break free and whip her arm around, her fist getting me smack on the mouth, bursting my lower lip like a goddamn balloon as I taste the blood in my mouth.
And now I lose it too, and I feel my own rage rise up, sense my own fire burn strong as I stand tall and let the Princess hit me again before I spit blood and grab her by the hair, fisting her thick black tresses down by the roots so I won’t hurt her too badly. I yank her into my hard body with such force I hear the air getting pushed out of her lungs, see her eyes go wide in astonishment at my strength, feel her body tense up as we stay pressed against one another.
I turn her head up so I can look into her eyes, and my jaw tightens when I see the coldness in there, the desolation inside, the repressed rage of the woman that Daari was forced to become after her own father took her as a bride. I search those eyes for the softness of that Princess, the innocence of that girl, the sweetness that I know is inside her. But I can’t see it, and a wave of despair passes through me. Was it all an illusion? Is there nothing of that Princess left in this broken woman? Did that twisted old bastard kill her from the inside out? Is Daari already dead?
Curvy for Him: The Princess and the Pirate Page 3