The Desert Lord's Bride / Wed by Deception

She’d always smirked at the meaning of her name. Apart from the sporadic times of contentment in the company of her ultra-busy father, she’d never experienced anything approaching joy.

She gave a laugh, shaky, self-deprecating. “Not according to my mother. I certainly haven’t been her joy.”

“Of course you were. How could you not be?”

“And to answer that, I’ll have to refer you to her.”

His frown was spectacular. “She actually told you that you are not the joy of her life? What mother says that to her child?”

“A mother who turned out to have lived a much more complicated life than I dreamed possible. I guess I was the reminder of my real father. Not a source of happy thoughts.”

He cupped her cheek. Was his hand on fire? She pressed into his palm, wanting to burn. His hand pressed back before going to her nape, tilting up her head. “She had no right to taint your life, to let her emotions for you be polluted by her bitterness against your biological father.”

She pressed her head harder into his assuagement. “Oh, she never said anything like that. It’s my own conclusion. You see, she’s always been morose, withdrawn. She does everything right, but it’s all…held back, as if she’s going through a chore, finding no…joy—there’s that word again—in it. When I learned about my real father, it made sense. She loved him beyond reason it seems, and was never the same after losing him.”

A long moment passed as he stared at her, his face a blank mask. At last he exhaled. “So you don’t feel bitter toward her? Or toward your real father for scarring her, making her less than the perfectly loving mother that you deserved?”

“I don’t do bitterness. What does it serve?”

“Indeed. So, not only a siren, but a deeply sane one, too.”

She coughed a laugh. Sane? Not that she’d noticed since she’d laid eyes on him.

“Is your real father alive? Do you now know who he is?”

“Yeah, to both questions. I found out over a month ago. And let me tell you, it’s been one hell of a roller-coaster ride.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Uh…I’d appreciate it if we change the subject. It ranks right up there with tearing my skin on barbed wire.” And she wasn’t exaggerating. If anything, she was understating how discovering her real parentage had left her feeling. Her world had blown apart when her mother had dropped the bomb that Francois Beaumont wasn’t her father—that some Middle Eastern monarch was. Then her newfound father, King Atef of Zohayd, had overwhelmed her with his happiness at finding her, his eagerness to know her— his long-lost daughter. And she’d found herself responding, liking him, waiting with baited breath for his next call or message. She’d worried about her eager reaction, wondering if she was desperate for a new father figure to fill the gaping void her adoptive father’s death had left inside her. But King Atef had swept her up in his excitement, soothing her worry that she was betraying her dad’s memory by being so happy to find another father. Then he’d come to meet her and had dropped another bomb. He needed her to marry some prince from a neighboring kingdom as part of a political pact.

And she’d realized that it had been another setup. Another lie. He was just another man pretending emotions he didn’t feel, saying whatever it took to get her to go along with his self-serving plans. She’d shut him and his protestations of sincerity out, kept hoping he’d find another easy way to put his pact through so he’d stop badgering her, so he’d forget she existed….

Shehab trailed a forefinger along her forearm, jogging her out of her oppressive musings before tears of letdown and heartache and guilt spilled from her eyes again.

“It hurt that much?”

“Actually, tearing my skin didn’t hurt that much.”

His eyes flared. “How? When?”

Her bones rattled with the blast of response to his intensity. “You mean the wound? Uh, I was trying to sneak under a fence on one of my father’s ranches and got caught on the barbed wire. I was eleven.”

“Where?”

“O-on my back…” She barely held back the rest, the other wound she’d sustained on her left buttock when she’d panicked and struggled to free herself.

“Show me.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. A demand she didn’t even think of denying. She could only close her eyes, turn.

And his hands were on her. Spanning her waist, removing the cascade of her hair, exposing the dipping back of her dress.

His hands skimmed her skin as he searched for the healed evidence of her injury. She stood mute, unable to tell him he wouldn’t find it there. He didn’t need to be told. He eased her zipper down, the sound, the idea of what he was doing, what she was letting happen, almost making her keel over.

He traced warm, knowing fingers down her spine until they met the slightly raised scar above her tailbone. She keeled over then, over the balustrade, swamped in sensation. He traced its outline, and the tissue that alternated between numbness and aching fired with stimulation. Each caress sent lightning forking throughout her body, lodging in her nipples and core.

“Does it still hurt?” His fingers traveled up and down to the rhythm of his words, yanking the direction of the electric current lancing through her back and forth until she almost collapsed. She could only shake her head. Shake, period.

“Tell me you never hurt yourself again.” His palm splayed over her scar in a gesture rich with something far more disturbing than lust. Concern, protection. What she’d never felt from anyone but her father and Bill. And to feel it from him…

She shook her head again, heard a satisfied rumble deep in his chest before he ended his torture, pulled the zipper up. Then he clamped her waist again, turned her to him, bore down on her with his aura and hunger.

And she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Had to be totally still, to watch him do it, take the first taste of her.

But he didn’t do it. His lips descended only to whisper against her burning cheek, “Ya ajmal makhloogah ra’ayta’ha, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, dance with me.”

Dance? Dance? That was all he wanted?

But she wanted more. He’d been right. She’d never imagined she could feel anything like this. Hunger that rocked her, frightened her, made her crave things from him she’d never wanted from another man. Things she’d hated from other men.

But he was only drawing her into a loose embrace, leading her into the first languid steps of a waltz. Maddening her with enough contact to inflame her more, but not enough to blunt the talons of need that sank deeper into her flesh with every move.

To her surprise, she felt her feet flowing into steps learned during her days as her father’s favorite dance partner. Then the rest of her body followed, as one with the rhythm, with his every move, with him. She felt grace and power pulsing in her arms as she wound them around his steel bulk, securing him to her. She had a feeling it would all end when the dance was over. She was taking all she could…now.

At one point, Shehab groaned against her temple, “You are the meaning of your name. This would be how a hooreyah, one of the inhabitants of heaven who brings total joy, would feel in my arms…” He pressed her harder to his length. “But, no. If those creatures do exist, they’d be nothing to you. With you, it’s like dancing with bliss, with passion made human.”

Laughter flowed from her, unfettered, delirious. She didn’t believe any of those things applied to her, but it seemed he believed they did. Why not, when she believed the same about him? This had to be what he’d said it was. Magic. And she wouldn’t think how or why. She’d just wallow in it.

Somewhere in her hazy mind she realized the music had ended, another piece had started and they were no longer dancing. He was leading her down the wide marble steps to the gardens. And she was following him, still laughing, ready for anything. She felt like someone coming out of stasis and now rushing toward the first moments of life.

He took her behind obscuring trees, pressed her against a smooth trunk, then took her face in both hands. In a rogue moonbeam slashing among the foliage, his face and obsidian gaze were supernatural in beauty, in impact. She felt penetrated, the notion of spontaneous combustion no longer such an impossibility anymore.

Just as she thought she’d crumble to his feet in ashes she cried out, “Shehab…”

He swallowed his name, growled hers inside her. “Farah…”

And it was like opening a floodgate. She’d thought nothing could be better than his feel and scent. His taste was. She wanted to drown in it. She was drowning. In kisses that gave her glimpses of the ferocity she needed from him. His hands joined in her torment, gliding all over her, never pausing long enough to appease, until she writhed against him, whimpering, begging, not really knowing what she was begging for, “Shehab…please…”

His lips clamped down on hers then, moist, branding, his tongue thrusting deep, singeing her with pleasure, breaching her with need, draining her of moans and reason.

She took it all, not knowing what to do to pleasure him in turn. It was just so…so…everything. Pressure built, in her eyes, chest, loins. Her hands convulsed on his arms until he relented, lowered her zipper, pushed her gown and purse strap from her shoulders, setting her swollen breasts free.

She keened. With relief, with the spike in arousal. He had her exposed, vulnerable. Maddened. “Please…”

Her hands pressed her breasts together to mitigate their aching as everything inside her surged, gushed, needing anything…anything he would do to her. His fingers and tongue and teeth exploiting her every secret, his body all over hers, his manhood filling the void between her thighs, thrusting her to oblivion…

Oh, God. What was she thinking?

She wanted him to do all that to her? There? Then?

What was wrong with her?

Then revelation came. Nothing was wrong with her.

Something…everything…was finally right.

This was all wrong.

He was supposed to be the one performing the seduction.

He was always the one in control, easily taking what was on offer or leaving it, his libido never in the driver’s seat.

No woman had ever had him a breath away from insanity.

But as his eyes glazed over kiss-swollen lips and glistening eyes, over the perfection of full breasts pressed together in a mind-blowing offering, he couldn’t remember how this had started, or why he shouldn’t take what his body was bellowing for, come what may.

He’d been wrong about her. This unpredictable enchantress was nothing like the hardened vixen he’d expected.

And she was infinitely more dangerous for it.

And it didn’t matter to him. Nothing did. Not her crimes or that she was another man’s mistress, who, an hour after meeting him, was begging him to do anything and everything to her. It only inflamed him more, the force of her equal hunger…

No. No. He couldn’t give her what she wanted that easily.

If he did, he’d be a one-night stand to her. A steady supply of those had to be how she filled her insatiable sexual needs. Although she’d been discreet, no doubt fearing her lover’s wrath. His reports on her hadn’t included any known liaisons.

But she was pressing into him, all that glorious passion and flesh. He could smell her arousal, feel it vibrating in his loins, hear it thundering in his cells. Surely this much hunger wouldn’t be satisfied with one frenzied mating. He could take her now and it would only start her addiction, as he’d planned…

No. He couldn’t risk it. He had to stop. Even if he wasn’t sure his potency would survive the blow.

“Farah, wait.” She didn’t heed him, her lips at his pulse wringing coherence from his body. He tried again, his voice a gruff groan he didn’t recognize. “We have to stop…”

And again her reaction was nothing he could have predicted. It was as if he’d shot her. She jackknifed away, stumbling as she fumbled to pull up her gown and purse, emotions slashing across her face. Shock, frustration, embarrassment. It was the distress that disturbed him. A distress she must surely be feigning.

Before he could say anything she rasped, “You have someone in there…or somewhere, don’t you? I should have asked…” She stopped, her mortified gaze hardening into a glare. “Wait a minute. I’m less to blame here than you.” She struck his hands off. “What kind of a bastard remembers his commitment to another woman just before…What kind of promiscuous jerk starts a—a situation like this when-when…”

Kettle calling the pot black, anyone? But then, now wasn’t the time to let her know that he knew she was a two-timer herself.

He clamped her shoulders, wouldn’t let her shake him off. “You wait a minute. I have no one waiting for me in there, or anywhere.”

Her lower lip trembled. “Really?”

He barely stopped himself from catching that lip, making a feast of it. “Farah, I’m saying this once. I don’t have, and have never had, any kind of commitment to any woman.”

“Which probably doesn’t say much about you.”

Her scoffed volley was so unexpected it wrung a surprised laugh from him. “It says I’m free to start a ‘situation like this.’” She mumbled something. He frowned. “What did you say?”

She shrugged, her color deepening. “Nothing.”

“Farah.”

“Listen, I should just shut up, preferably forever, and get the hell out of here. Do me a favor and forget you ever saw me.”

“Alf la’nah—a thousand damnations—tell me what you said.”

She grumbled some more. Then she sighed. “I said ‘Of course you’re free to start a situation like this. And to end it. And to hell with your partner, anyway.’ Satisfied now?”

He laughed again. “Enti majnoonah, weh ajeebah…crazy and incredible.” He crowded her against the tree, snatched up her skirt, nudged her thighs apart as he lifted her, brought her down over an erection huge and hard enough for her to straddle. “Does it feel like I want to end this? Anywhere but inside you?”

She gasped as his hardness dug into her core through his taub and her sodden panties. Her hands clutched at some branches to hold on to, her legs going around his hips. “Then—then why…?”

He cupped her buttocks, rasped, “Why did I stop? Why aren’t we already in the throes of the first orgasm of many?”

His words jolted through her, sent her back arching and her hips grinding down on his erection. Moonlight exploded into fireworks. He would climax, would make her climax if he’d only thrust at her, like this, through their clothes… No. Stop.

He disentangled her legs from around his hips, gritted his teeth against the combined force of their frustration, took himself out of range of her scent and hunger.

He stared out into the gardens, still blind. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is too fast.” He inhaled, struggled to come down. “It’s magical and unprecedented, it defies time and timing, but that’s why I can’t risk spoiling it. I can’t rush you into intimacy, no matter how willing you think you are, and cast recriminations or shame or regret on it all.”

He paused, dazed at his fluency. He should only be glad the pretense was coming so unaffectedly to him.

He turned to her, pain leveling, his sight back, found her looking smaller, her face shimmering with uncertainty. Stiff steps took him back to her. “I beg of you, ya ameerati, let’s start again, slowly…slower. Let me see you again…and again.”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. She’d actually whooped, jumped up and down. This couldn’t be an act, could it?

But why should he care? It was going his way so easily.

Though maybe he should feel bad, if she wasn’t the unfeeling creature he’d been intending to manipulate?

No. He shouldn’t. Even if she wasn’t acting, only her choices mattered. She’d talked of discovering her real father only in terms of how it had hurt her. She cared nothing for the pain she was causing that father or the damage she was causing his kingdom. She thought of nothing but her own comfort and convenience and, right now, her own pleasure.

Well, he’d make her wait for it. He’d drive her insane wanting it. And when the time was right, he’d take her, ensnare her. Then he’d marry her. Once the marriage was a reality, it wouldn’t matter what she thought. Or wanted.

She didn’t matter. Only Judar did. Only the throne.

Reiterating the resolve, he rasped, “Let me take you home.”

“That would be wonderful…” Her words trailed off and her passion-drugged face fell. “I forgot. I drove here.”

“I’ll have one of my chauffeurs collect your car.” He tugged her to his side, felt a rush as she nestled into him as if she were a missing part. Focus, ya rejjal. This rubbish is what you say to her, not what you think. He inhaled. “But don’t think I’ll leave you on your doorstep. I’ll change you out of this ruined gown, wait for you to shower, tuck you in bed, give you a massage, kiss you good-night…”

She trembled, clung tighter, making him wonder if she was far gone enough to say yes to marriage right now.

No. A no from her would be final, and he had no other leverage but her need. And it had to be great indeed for her to consent to marriage according to his culture. One she couldn’t terminate in any court of law when she wanted out.

He’d show his hand after he’d entangled her. In every way.

When they reached the parking lot, he reluctantly withdrew the hand he’d found inside her bodice hungrily cupping her breast, pushed a button on a wireless device in his pocket. He took another taste of her lips as he reiterated inwardly, any moment now.

Just as Farah was almost climbing him again, the night around them splintered into the bursts of a dozen flashes.

Three

One second, Farah was swathed in Shehab’s power and eagerness, buoyed by the promise of the night ahead and so many days and nights to follow. The next she crashed back to reality, as figures materialized out of the void that had existed beyond her and Shehab, shattering their cocoon of intimacy.

It still took the flashes burning her retinas with splotches of painful blindness to make her realize what the figures were. Paparazzi.

Helplessness and outrage lurched through her, against the merciless greed of the predators who’d invaded her life countless times, polluted her image and shattered her peace. No matter that she’d practically given them license to do so, with her arrangement with Bill. It still made her ill every time.

They were now catching her in her one moment of unguarded abandon to joy, turning her discovery of Shehab and her own unknown depths into photographic evidence that would turn all the magic into something cheap and sordid.

But before distress bubbled to her lips, Shehab offered her the refuge she hadn’t cried for yet, whirling her around, his clothes swirling around him like a magician’s cape, enfolding her into what felt like another dimension, where nothing existed but the duet of their heartbeats, hers a cacophony of irregularity, his the very rhythm of steadiness.

Then other sounds invaded her awareness. Stampeding feet, imploding flashes and shouted outrage. She clung to him, her heart invading her throat, breached, under attack.

Then she was no longer touching ground, swept up in his power, the world tilting then bounding on fast, steady thuds.

Suddenly a car screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. A gleaming black stretch limo.

Half a dozen men materialized out of nowhere, one opening the back door for them, the rest surging toward her and Shehab, overtaking them, putting themselves between them and the commotion at their back. Shehab lowered himself inside the spacious vehicle with her still held securely in his arms. The door immediately slammed shut with a muted oomph and the limo shot forward soundlessly.

Shehab’s hands ran all over her, soothing, caressing her own hands, which ached from clutching him to her.

“It’s over,” he murmured. “My men will detain them.”

She unclenched her grasp on him, squeezed her eyes shut. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that. The paparazzi had already gotten what they’d hounded her for more than two years to obtain—evidence that she was a promiscuous tart who constantly cheated on her sugar daddy. And she’d obliged them this time, leaving a party disheveled and climbing all over a man like a cat in heat.

But it was worse than that. What hurt most was his men. With the way they’d appeared on the spot, they must have been invisibly following Shehab all along, must have seen…everything…

Mortification made her struggle out of his arms, spilled her on the plush leather couch beside him.

She felt sick at heart, at the whole thing, was afraid she’d be sick for real. Her head flopped on the headrest as everything tumbled through her mind in a vicious spin cycle.

“Can you please ask your chauffeur to pull over?”

He hit a button, rapped the order in Arabic. Another button flipped open a compartment from which he produced wet towels, then with utmost gentleness he wiped her face, neck, arms and the tops of her breasts with their fragrant coolness.

Long moments later, he stopped, looked at her. “Better?”

Oh, she was so not better. His caresses had at first soothed her, but then they’d become fire, licking exposed nerve endings. Her womb was contracting so hard, it was almost painful.

How could he do this to her? Even now, when she was dying of embarrassment?

She nodded, mutely. Otherwise she’d tell him the exact truth. She’d told him enough of that for one night.

Giving her such a smile, that of an artist looking in satisfaction on his handiwork, he tried to move her again onto his lap. She resisted, and he only coaxed her with more insistent caresses, his lips rubbing against her temple. “Let me soothe you, ya jameelati. You really are shaken up by the paparazzi’s appearance, aren’t you?”

“I’ve developed a phobia where they’re concerned,” she admitted.

He pressed her harder into his containment. “They’ve pursued you before?”

* * *

Shehab pulled back when Farah made no response, watched agitation shudder over her face. It felt so real he almost felt sorry for arranging the incident.

The plan had come to him when he’d been informed paparazzi had followed her when she’d left to come to the ball without Hanson, as he’d planned. He’d known they’d swarm the park until she made an exit, hoping to succeed where they’d failed so far, to catch her in one of the infidelities everyone insisted she regularly indulged in. He hadn’t been about to risk her slipping and providing them with their coveted photographic evidence, not when he’d have to make her his princess. But he’d decided to use their presence to his advantage.

He’d ordered his men to get rid of the paparazzi, to take their place, to pretend to ambush them on his signal. He’d planned to get her into a compromising position somehow, aiming to convince her that her spotless record of never having been caught in the act was at an end. But even his best projections hadn’t included his leaving the ball with her all over him.

He’d almost forgotten to give the signal, had done it with utmost reluctance, hating to have his men witness any measure of their intimacies, even the mild kiss he’d allowed them to see.

He’d expected her to cry out for him to send his men after the paparazzi, to make sure no evidence of her indiscretion remained in existence. He’d gambled on that driving her deeper into his trap, adding the feeling of being partners in barely averted scandal to the mix, compounding desire with debt.