Seducing His Princess

It was Kamal’s turn to scoff. “Give me some credit, Jala. I care nothing about any of this bull. I don’t have an inflamed ego and don’t borrow others’ enmities.”

“Yet you’re letting someone who has and does drag you down to his level, when you should contain him and his petty aggressions.” She exhaled her exasperation. “No wonder I did everything I could to get out of this godforsaken region and had to be told my oldest brother was dying to set foot here again. All this feudal backwardness is just...nauseating. You’d think nothing ever changed since the eleventh century!”

“War over oil rights is very twenty-first century.”

“Congratulations to all of you, then, for your leap into modern warfare. I hope you’ll enjoy deploying long-range missiles and playing high-tech war games.” She muttered something about monkeys under her breath. “I still don’t get why you conned me back here. You want me to have a front row seat with you lunkheads when the war begins?”

He reached for her hand, his eyes cajoling. Uh-oh.

“You actually play the lead role in averting this catastrophe.”

“What could I possibly have to do with resolving your political conflicts?”

“Everything really. Only you can stop the war now, by marrying an Aal Ghaanem prince.”

“What?”

“Only a blood-mixing union will end hostilities and forge a long-lasting alliance.”

She snatched her hand from his grasp, erupting to her feet. “Did I say you were stuck in the eleventh century? You’ve just stumbled five more centuries backward. Not so good seeing you, Kamal. And don’t expect to lay eyes on me for a long while. Certainly never in Judar again.”

Kamal gave her that unfazed glance that made her want to shriek at the top of her lungs. “It’s this or war. The war you know full well would come at an unthinkable price to everyone in Judar—and in Saraya and Jareer, too.”

Wincing at the terrible images his words smeared across her imagination, she gritted out, “Let’s say for argument’s sake that I don’t think you’re all insane to be still dabbling in marriages of state to settle political disputes. The Aal Masoods have many princesses who’re just right for the role of political bride. In fact, some have been born and bred for the role. So how are any of you foolish enough to consider me—aka the Prodigal Princess?”

Lethal steel came into Kamal’s eyes. “Others’ opinions are irrelevant. You’re the princess of Judar. Only your blood could end centuries of enmity and forge an unbreakable alliance. So it’s not a choice. You are getting married to the Aal Ghaanem prince.”

“Wow. If you wore a crown, I’d think it got too tight on your swelling head and gave you brain damage. Anyway, if you think you can sacrifice me at the altar of your tribal reconciliations, you’re suffering from serious delusions.”

“We all offer sacrifices when our kingdom needs us.”

“What sacrifices?” She coughed a furious chuckle. “To remain married to Carmen, Farooq tossed his crown-prince rank to Shehab when our kingdom needed him. Shehab did the same with you, to marry Farah. You grabbed the rank and sacrifice only because it got you Aliyah in the bargain. You’re all living in ecstatic-ever-afters because you did exactly what you wanted and never sacrificed a thing for ‘our kingdom.’”

“Farooq and Shehab had the option of passing on their duty. I didn’t, like you don’t now. And I thought it was a sacrifice when I accepted my duty.”

“No, you didn’t. You knew nothing less than another threat of war would get Aliyah to say good-morning to you again. You pounced on the ‘duty’ that would make her your queen and pretended to hate your ‘fate.’” At his raised eyebrows, she smirked. “I can figure things out pretty good, ya akhi al azeez. So spare me the sacrifice speech, brother dear. You’re out of your mind if you think you can sway me into this by appealing to my patriotism.”

“Then it will be your steep humanitarian inclinations. You’ve been in war zones. You know that once war starts, there’s no stopping the chain reaction that harvests lives in its path. As a woman who lives to alleviate the suffering of others, and who can stop this nightmarish scenario, you’ll do anything to abort it, even if you abhor Judar and the whole region. And the very idea of marriage.”

The terrible knowledge that he was right, if there was no other choice, seeped into her marrow. “So now what? You’ll line up Aal Ghaanem princes and I’ll pick the least offensive one? And the one I pick would just accept being sacrificed for his kingdom’s peace and prosperity?”

“If a man considers marrying you a sacrifice, he must be devoid of even a drop of testosterone.”

“You won’t appeal to my feminine ego, either. Any man in the region would rather jump out of a ten-story window than marry a woman like me, the princess of Judar or not.”

“A woman like you would be an irreplaceable treasure to any man in any region.”

“Blatant brotherly hyperbole aside, no, a woman like me wouldn’t. A woman living alone in the West since she was eighteen is the stuff of region-wide dishonor around here. It had to be something as dire as the threat of war and the promise of unending oil to sweeten my scandalous pill for one of those stuck-in-the-dark-ages princes.”

“The new generation of princes are nowhere as bad as that.”

“The only one I know who isn’t is Najeeb. But I bet he won’t be joining the lineup.” Her lips twisted with remembered bitterness. “King Hassan would never sacrifice his heir to such a fate as me, no matter the incentives.”

Kamal waved his hand. “You won’t suffer the discomfort of a lineup. The Aal Ghaanem prince has already been chosen.”

She almost had to pick her jaw off the floor this time. “How can I express my gratitude that you’ve gone the extra mile and abolished whatever choice I had in this antiquated process?”

Kamal’s lips twitched. “Let me rephrase my extremely misleading statement. The Aal Ghaanem prince volunteered. And he is already here. But he had the consideration to let me prepare you before he came in. So shall I send him in...or do you need some more time before you meet your groom-to-be?”

She sank back onto the couch, objections and insults swarming so violently it was impossible to pick one to voice.

Calmly disregarding her apoplectic state, Kamal bent and kissed her cheek. “Give this a chance, and it’ll all work out for the best. You have me as the best example for assa ann takraho shai’an wa hwa khairon lakkom.”

You may hate something and it’s for your best.

Before she could do something drastic, like poke him in the eye, he straightened, turned on his heel and walked away.

She watched him disappear, all her mental functions on the fritz.

What had just happened?

Was she really back in Judar? Only to find herself being pushed into a far worse cage than anything her previous life here had been? Could it be true that refusal wasn’t an option?

Suddenly a suspicion cleaved into her brain.

The logical progression to this nightmare.

The identity of this “volunteer.”

The man who was the reason she’d sworn never to return to this region. He was an Aal Ghaanem prince, even if the world forgot that most of the time.

But he would never volunteer to...to...

You’re mine, Jala. And no matter how long it takes, I swear to you, I will reclaim you. I will make you beg to be mine again.

The promise...the threat...that had circulated in her being for six long years, burning her to the core with its malicious arrogance and possessiveness, reverberated in her bones.

No. He’d just said that out of spite, to poison whatever reprieve walking away would grant her. He hadn’t really wanted to reclaim her. Not when he’d only claimed her as a means to an end. An end he must believe he’d long achieved....

Her heart kicked, had her pitching forward to the edge of her seat. The door of the reception room was opening.

The next moment, her heart battered her ribs. Time ceased. Reality fell away. Everything converged on one thing. The shadow separating from the darkness. A shape she remembered all too well.

Him.

No. No. Not when she’d finally managed to purge his malignant memory. She must stop this confrontation from coming to pass, flee...now.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Could only sit there, her every nerve unraveling as soundless steps brought him into the circle of light where she sat exposed, besieged.

His eyes were the first things that emerged out of the gloom. Those fire pits had haunted her dreams and tormented her waking hours since she’d last seen them.

But the tremors arcing through her weren’t from what she saw in them, or the blow of his presence or its implications. It was the awareness that had swept her from the first moment she’d ever encountered him. Even amidst the terror of the hostage crisis, it had yanked her out of reality, plunged her into a stunned free fall where only he existed. For that same feeling to mushroom again now, after all that had happened...

He blinked, and the vice garroting her snapped, propelling her to her feet and to the French windows.

Her steps picked up speed as her exit to the palace gardens neared...then it disappeared. Behind a wall of muscle and maleness. It was as if he’d materialized in her path.

He didn’t try to detain her, didn’t need to. His very aura snared her. And that was before her gaze streaked up, found him looking at her with that trance-inducing intensity.

Finding him so near, after all these years, after what he’d cost her....

Her grip on consciousness softened. The world swirled as she stared up at him, a prisoner to her own enervation. And again the sheer injustice of it all hit her.

No one should be endowed with all this. He was too...everything. And even in the subdued lighting and through the veil of her own wavering senses she could see he was even more than she remembered. Six years had taken him from the epitome of manhood to godlike levels.

He towered over her, even though she was six feet in her heels, his physique that of an Olympian, his face that of an avenging angel, every inch of him composed of planes and hollows and slashes of power and perfection. Adding to his lethal assets, his wealth of sun-gilded mahogany hair was now long enough to be gathered at his nape, the severe scrape emphasizing the ruggedness of his leonine forehead and the vigor of his hairline. A trim new beard and mustache accentuated the jut of his cheekbones and the dominance of his jawline and completed the ruthless desert raider image. Maturity had added more of everything to that supreme being of bronze and steel who’d taken her breath away and had held it out of reach for as long as he’d had her under his spell. Something she’d thought she’d broken.

But if, after all she’d been through, all the maturation she’d thought she’d undergone, he could still look at her and take control of her senses, then the spell couldn’t be broken.

But this unadulterated coveting in his eyes... She couldn’t be reading it right.

Still, when he took a step closer, he vibrated with something that simulated barely checked hunger. Which would be unleashed at the slightest provocation—a word, a gasp....

But she was incapable of even those. She’d expended all her power in her escape effort. Now she was caught in stasis, waiting for his next move to reanimate her.

None came. He stared down at her, as if her nearness affected him just as acutely. When he’d been the one who’d planned this ambush, who’d been lying in wait for her.

The barricades around her resentment melted, shattering her inertia, imbuing her limbs with the steadiness of outrage as she put the distance he’d obliterated back between them.

“Guess your memory must be patchy from all the head blows I hear is an occupational hazard in your line of work. Your presence can only be explained by partial to total amnesia.”

Another blink lowered his thick, gold-tipped lashes, eclipsing the infernos of his eyes and his reaction. Then they swept up, exposing her to a different kind of heat. Surprise? Challenge? Humor?

Just the idea that it could be the latter poured acid on her inflamed nerves. “Let me fill one paramount hole in your recollections. What I last said to you remains in full force now. I never want to see you again. So you can take whatever game you think you’re playing and go straight to hell.”

She swept around then, desperation to get away from him fueling her steps...and her arm was snagged in a hard, warm grip.

Before she could fully register the bolt that zapped her, a tug swirled her around smoothly, as if in a choreographed dance, and brought her slamming against him from breast to calf.

Before she could draw another breath, one of his hands slipped into the hair at her nape, immobilizing her head and tilting her face upward. The other hand trailed a heavy path of possession down to her buttocks. Then, as he held her prisoner, exerting no force but that of his will, he let her see it. The very thing she’d once reveled in experiencing—the lethal beast he kept hidden under the civilized veneer. Its cunning savagery had assured his survival in the dangerous existence he’d chosen, his triumph over the most deadly enemies. That beast appeared to be starving—and she was what would sate its cravings.

Holding her stunned gaze, his own crackling with a dizzying mixture of calculation and lust, he lowered his head.

Feeling she’d disintegrate at the touch of his lips, she averted her face at the last moment.

His lips landed at the corner of her mouth, plucking convulsively at her flesh. The familiarity of his lips, the unfamiliarity of his facial hair, sparked each nerve ending individually. The gusts of his breath filled her with his scent, burying her under an avalanche of memory. Of how it used to feel to lose herself to the ecstasy of his powerful possession.

The hand on her buttocks pressed her closer, letting her feel his arousal, wringing hers from her depths. Before she could deal with this blow, the hand holding her head combed through her hair. Each stroke sent delight cascading from every hair root, spilled moans from her depths in answer to the unintelligible bass murmurings from him. Then his other hand caressed its way beneath her jacket, freeing her blouse from her skirt...and delving below.

A gasp tore out of her as those calloused fingers splayed against her sizzling flesh, imprinting it like a brand, making her instinctively press closer. And then he took his onslaught to the next level.

Yanking up her skirt, he slipped below her panties to cup her buttocks, kneading her taut flesh hungrily before hauling her against him. Weightless, in his power, she keened as the long-craved steel of his erection ground against her core. A scalding growl rolled in his gut as he tugged one thigh, opening her around his hips, spreading her for his domination, while the hand at her back plastered her heaving chest against his. Her breasts swelled with each rub against his hard power, the abrasion of their clothes turning her nipples to pinpoints of agony.

She writhed in his hold as he singed kisses down her neck, ravaged her in suckles that would mark her skin, sending vicious pleasure hurtling through her blood, lodging into her womb with each savage pull.

All existence converged on him, became him—his body and breath, his taste and feel, his hands and mouth—as he strummed her flesh, reclaimed her every inch and response. With just a touch, she’d ceased to be herself, becoming a mass of need wrapped around him, open to him, his to exploit and plunder...to pleasure and possess.

She could no longer hear anything but her thundering heart and their strident breathing as he raised her up and slid her down his body in leisurely excursions. He had her riding his erection through their clothes. He dipped his head to capture her nipple through her bra in massaging nips, sending never-forgotten ecstasy corkscrewing through her every nerve ending.

Her moans droned, interrupted only by sharp intakes of breath. The flowing throb between her thighs escalated into pounding, tipping from discomfort into pain until she cried out. At her distressed if unmistakable demand, he shuddered beneath her, snapping his head up. Then, eyes glazed with ferocity, he crashed his lips onto her wide-open mouth and thrust deep.

She plunged into his taste, fierce wonder spreading in her flickering awareness. How did she remember it so accurately, crave it so acutely still?

Then everything ceased as his tongue invaded her, commanded hers to tangle and duel and drink deeper from the well of passion she’d once drowned in.

Then something stirred in her, shutting down her mind; something cold and ugly tore through the delirium. A realization.

This had happened before. This had been what he’d done to her that last time. He’d taken over her senses, exploited her responses, inundated her with physical satisfaction...and almost decimated her soul and psyche in the process.

Now he’d taken her over again, as if a mountain of pain and resentment didn’t exist between them. She was letting him pull her strings again when he only ever saw her as a means to an end. Having an even bigger end this time, he’d decided to go into all-out invasion mode from the get-go. And she was letting him. No.

Anger and humiliation shattered the spell, had her struggling in his arms as if fighting for her life.

Stiffening for a long moment, as if unable to make up his mind whether that was an attempt to get away or to press closer, he finally tore his lips from hers and slid her down his body and back to the ground.

Every muscle burning from the slow poison of need with which he’d reinfected her, she staggered, groping for equilibrium. She’d taken barely a step away when his hands descended on her shoulders and pulled her back against him.

She couldn’t even tremble, the control she’d long struggled for shattered, leaving her drained. She could only lean back against him limply, her head rolling on his shoulder.

Taking this as consent, he cupped her breasts, pressing against her as he groaned in her ear. “I didn’t intend to do this. I still have no control over what I’m doing right this second. I walked in here and it was as if time hit Rewind, as if we’d never been apart. And just like you always do, you overrode my every rational thought and impulse with a look, a word. Then I touched you and you responded...like you’re responding still....”

This zapped her with just enough energy to push out of his arms. “Sure. It’s my fault.”

He let her put distance between them this time. “There’s no fault here. Just the phenomenon that exists between us, this absolute physical affinity we share. But I really didn’t intend to kiss you.”

“Kiss me? That’s what you call a kiss?”

A rough huff of self-deprecation escaped him. “So I almost took you standing up, probably would have, not giving a second thought that we’re in the middle of your brother’s stateroom, if you hadn’t stopped me. You have that effect on me. I see you and I can only think of pleasuring you.”

Once she’d believed his every word. She’d been certain that what they did share was a phenomenon, as undeniable and unstoppable as a force of nature. Then she’d found out the truth. It was clear he thought she didn’t know, that he didn’t need to invent a new deception.

He approached her again, one of those hands stroking a gossamer touch down her cheek. “But you’re wrong. About the last thing you said to me. No matter how many blows to the head I sustain, nothing could make me forget it. You said, Find yourself someone else who might have a death wish. Because I don’t.”

He remembered. Word for word.

Figured. He was said to possess a computerlike mind, always archiving, networking, extrapolating. On top of his fighting prowess and weapons mastery, it was what made him the ultimate modern warrior and strategist in this information age.

She pulled away from the debilitation of his touch. “And that statement has been solidified by the passage of time and reinforced by this new stunt. So, since you have a flawless memory, what else is wrong with you? Haven’t I already turned down your marriage proposal once before?”

Perfect teeth sank into his lip, making her feel they’d sunk into hers again. “I prefer to dwell on when you said yes.”

She ignored the tingling of her lips. “Only to follow it with a resounding no, when I came to my senses. Now you’re using an impending war to reintroduce the subject? Since it’s not faulty memory, I assume these are your new orders?”

Something blipped in his gaze. It was gone before she could fathom it. But even that much from him was telling. He was taken aback and clearly had no idea that she was onto him.

Infusing her tone with all the cool derision she could, she cocked her head at him. “This surprises you? Hmm, maybe I must reconsider all I heard about your reputation as a know-it-all spymaster. Anyway, if you’re still not sure what I mean... Yes, I do know. Everything.”

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