Sheikh's Baby Of Revenge

The scent of him—the more she breathed it, the more she wanted to—a tantalizing mixture of sandalwood and horse and pure man.

His fingers turned her jaw to the moonlight so that the bruise, which she hadn’t covered after washing off her makeup, was visible. The pad of his thumb traced it and she flinched. More from the heat his touch generated than from pain.

A sharp curse flew from his mouth. “Forgive me, I promised not to cause you harm.”

“You didn’t,” she said automatically.

He raised a brow. “No?”

“Our skin has thousands and thousands of nerve centers that react to external stimuli, did you know? Your palm is rough against my skin and also, I’m barely ever touched by anyone other than my father—and not in such a leisurely, soft way, either—so I feel a flash burn where your skin touches mine—” when his brows rose, she hurried to explain “—not like fire burns us, more pleasurable than that, and I believe that’s why I flinched. Because even pleasure, especially when it’s unexpected and unfamiliar to the recipient, causes flinching.”

The utter silence that ensued sent blood pooling up her neck and into her cheekbones. She clamped her palms over her mouth. No wonder her father got aggravated whenever she opened her mouth.

A slow smile dawned in his eyes, causing lines at the ends of his eyes and adorable creases in his cheeks. His teeth flashed at her again and that smile made him a thousand times more gorgeous.

“I state facts and run my mouth endlessly when I’m anxious or agitated or upset or sad or angry. My father thinks I do it to ignore his dictates and to insult him.”

“And when you’re happy?”

She smiled. “You’re very smart, aren’t you? You know, people think intelligence is...” She cleared her throat and she blushed fiercely again. “I do it when I’m happy, too, yes. Pretty much all the time, now that you make me think about it.”

His smile turned into laughter. It boomed out of him. Low, gravelly, utterly sensuous, but also a little rough and strange. As if he didn’t do it much.

Amira wanted to roll around in that smile. She wanted to be the one who caused his serious face to smile and laugh again and again. She wanted to spend an eternity with this exciting stranger who made her feel safe. She wanted to...

“I have to leave.”

He sobered up. And frowned. “So I can take your word that you’re not hurt?” He flicked another glance at her jaw. “Other than your jaw?”

“I misjudged the distance between the last ledge and the stairs, but I’m not hurt.”

He nodded. “And what is so irresistible that you took such a dangerous route...? What is your name?”

Zara, Humeira, Alisha, Farhat...

“You’re thinking up fake names.”

She blinked. Like a hawk, he watched with predatory intensity. And something else... Possessiveness, perhaps.

She swallowed. “I would get into trouble if word gets out that I escaped my room or that I was wandering the palace without guard or that I spent all this time in the dark with a stranger...a lot of trouble.”

“No one will know,” he said. “I will get you back to your room unharmed and undiscovered.”

And all the while he tempted her, he watched her. As if he found her endlessly fascinating. “I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said.

His fingers pushed back a strand of hair that brushed her jaw. Featherlight and tender, his touch knocked down the little sense remaining in her skull. “I think you do trust me. Which is why you have lingered here so long already. All you need to do is take the final step, ya habibiti. We’re strangers passing a few moments together in a long life.”

Another rough-padded finger lifted her chin until she was gazing into his eyes. His nostrils flared, the set of his jaw resolute. “I would have your real name.”

If he had commanded her, Amira would have prevailed. But beneath that request was a thread of longing that resonated in her soul. What could such a commanding man want that he was ever denied?

He was harshly beautiful, like the rugged landscape of the desert, and yet he looked at her with such pure need.

The last of her good sense and diffidence melted. Innocent she might be when it came to men but she already felt like she knew him.

He wouldn’t hurt her.

“Amira...my name is Amira.”

Fire awakened in his eyes. They both knew she had given him more than just her name in that moment.

He tilted his head—a regal nod for granting him the privilege of her real name. Warmth filled her chest. “I’m Adir.”

“Salaam-alaikum, Adir.”

“Walaikum-as-salaam, Amira.”

He took her hand in his, completely engulfing hers. Sensations shimmered through her, flowing like a river from where their hands touched to spread all over her body. And then he was softly tugging her to him. Raising their clasped hands, he placed a soft kiss to the tender skin at her wrist.

It was a chaste kiss—nothing more than a buss from those lips to her skin. And yet her pulse skittered under his mouth. “Meeting you has made an awful night a thousand times better.”

The way he held her gaze, the banked fire in it...she wanted to answer it with her own fervor. For one night, she just wanted to be Amira and not a power-obsessed man’s daughter, nor the fiancée of a mostly indifferent prince. She wanted to sink into Adir’s arms and let him carry her away.

“You know, when you smile, you get two dimples. Did you know that dimples are caused when a facial muscle called zygomaticus major is shorter than normal? Sometimes, they’re also caused by excessive fat on your face. Although, in your case, it’s definitely not excessive fat, because you look hard as those rock structures we see in...in...”

His smile dawned as slow and bright like the sun over the horizon.

Amira buried her face in her hands and groaned loudly.

“So you’re informing me that my facial structure is flawed, yes?”

She tried to tug her hand from his. He didn’t let her. “Oh, please, you know you’re flawless.”

That seemed to take him aback. Didn’t he look at himself in mirror? Did he not have women flocking to him for a glimpse of that wicked smile?

Still smiling, he pulled her to her feet. “You’re...like a desert storm, Amira.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Do you want a compliment, ya habibiti?”

“Yes, please.”

Again that pure laughter—a reward for her boldness. “You’re precious. Now, do me the honor of letting me check you.”

When she straightened all the way, he patted her down in an impersonal manner. As if he was used to her antics and had done it a thousand times before. As if he cherished his right to indulge her.

A hard knot made its place in Amira’s throat.

His hands rested on her shoulders. The sheer breadth of him took her breath away anew.

“So what was it this time?”

Caught staring at him once again, Amira frowned. “What was what?”

“What caused you to divulge all those important facts about dimples to me? Was I making you sad, perhaps? Upset? Angry?”

“You’re shamelessly goading me into admitting something I shouldn’t. Isn’t it enough that I made a fool of myself?”

“Please, ya habibiti.”

She raised a brow, stalling for time. “Why do I have the feeling you never say that word?”

He shrugged. “A couple of times in the last decade.”

She sighed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know. “I’m attracted to you. I could steal all kinds of romance novels from the library and read about all the feelings that hit a woman when she finds a man attractive, but it’s not even close to what I feel. You could be forgiven for thinking it was all cooked up to sell books, this whole chemistry thing. And yet...it’s new and it’s strange and it’s utterly scary and it’s...”

Heartbreaking and painful.

Despair swamped her so fully and so suddenly that she pulled away from him. Looking up, she fought for composure.

Stars glittered in the sky above, winking at her. The fragrant night with its whispers and taunts seemed like a punishment now. It promised something she could never have.

Warmth coated with his scent reached her back. She tensed as he stilled behind her. Her pulse zigzagged all over at the closeness. He didn’t even touch her.

“Come away with me, Amira. Just for a few hours. I promise you again I would never harm you.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“I’m not free to be attracted to you like this. I’m not free to indulge in this...this late-night stolen moment with you. And not just because my father would skin me alive if he found out.” Longing curled through her and she tried to shut it away. “I’m a betrothed woman.”

There was that contained energy within him again. Like walking too close to fire. “Is it your fiancé that...” the words choked in his throat “...that hurt you?”

“No. He...is a perfect gentleman who barely even looks at me. If you ask him what color my eyes are, I’m sure he wouldn’t know.”

“Then who is it?”

“My father. He...his temper gets away with him.”

Whatever it was that made him cover the last step between them, she didn’t care. His arms enveloped her on either side and unlocked her tight grip on the sill.

The graze of his hard chest against her back ripped open a longing inside of her. One, two, three...four seconds before she fell into his embrace. Sensations beat upon her. He was so shockingly hard all over—his abdomen against her back, his thighs resting against the back of hers, his muscular arms wound tightly around her own... He didn’t press the part of him that she wanted to feel most, to her wicked shame.

And yet, she felt consumed by him.

She closed her eyes and leaned back into him. The scent of him filled her every breath. His heart thundered against her back. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand, curious for the feel of him.

His skin was rough and tanned, his fingers long and square-nailed. A dark emerald jewel sat on his ring finger and Amira traced it, too, carving it into memory.

It was the first time in her life that she had been held like this by a man. It was both exhilarating and comforting—just like the man himself.

“Is that why those shadows linger in your beautiful eyes? Because you love this man you are to marry but he does not love you in return?”

“Love? I would settle for acknowledgment as a person. My father is King Tariq’s closest friend. I have been betrothed to Prince Zufar for most of my life.” A bitter laugh escaped from her mouth. “I’m to be the future Queen of Khalia, Adir.

“I’ve been trained, educated, groomed, molded to within an inch of my life to complement Prince Zufar in every way. My life has never been my own. My will can never be mine. My dreams and desires...are not mine.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHOCK BARRELING AT him with the might of a sandstorm, Adir struggled to hold himself still. She was Zufar’s betrothed... The future Queen of Khalia!

The realization drummed in tune with his heartbeat even as desire filled every inch of his body. “You’re shivering,” he whispered, moving his hands up and down her arms.

Thoughts came and went through his head like sand held in a palm. His fingers must have tightened over her shoulders for she let out a soft gasp.

Adir gentled his grip, but for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he didn’t want to let her go.

The bones at her shoulders jutted under his palms as he tried to soothe her. And himself.

Desire for her, he understood. She was beautiful, brave, smart, funny.

But this fierce possessiveness that coursed through his blood... It stemmed from something else.

That she was his half brother’s most precious possession perhaps? Now in his hands?

“I should walk away.” Her words were a whisper in the night—a plea, a demand on herself. Yet she didn’t move from the cradle of his arms. “From you. From this moment. It only tells me how much I cannot have. This...” she brought his arms up to her face, burying it in his palms. The soft buss of her kiss against his skin burned him “...only pains me. Only reminds me of how much I never had. And never will have.”

“Shh... I only want to hold you, Amira,” he said, even as his mind raced. “Whatever you need, it is here, now, with me.”

Turning, she burrowed into him. Her arms wrapped around his waist, her face hidden in his chest. The scent of her hair filled his own breath. He wrapped thick strands of her hair around his fingers, coiling and uncoiling, not unlike his own thoughts.

She was so damn innocent and trusting. Such a gift. A gift Zufar didn’t deserve. A gift Zufar didn’t even value, for why else would she crave a stranger’s company so much?

A gift that had unwittingly fallen into Adir’s hands.

He raised her chin until she was looking into his eyes. The transparent desire he saw there banished any doubts he might have had. Feral possessiveness filled him and he touched his mouth to hers in a soft press that sent lust punching through him.

She was so beautiful and young and soft.

So easy to seduce.

If anything inside of him revolted at the idea, Adir suppressed it with a ruthlessness learned through years of surviving the harshest desert conditions.

Shocked at first, she stilled underneath his kiss. But it was already there, the heat he had felt between them, a small spark waiting to be ignited.

Adir ran his hands over her back, soothing the tremors, learning her curves, all the while gently nibbling at her lips.

Honey and heat, she was the most perfect thing he had ever tasted. An urgency he had never known before filled his blood, pounding at him to push her against the wall behind them. To lock her body against his hungry one. To thrust his tongue into her mouth while he entered her heat in the same way...to make her his, here, in this moment, to stamp his...

No!

A small voice inside him whispered. Whatever his reasons for doing this, he wanted to make it good for her, too. And that meant he couldn’t let his libido run rampant.

“Adir?” she whispered, blinking owlishly. Making him smile. “Why did you stop?”

“I wanted to make it good for you.”

“It is good. It is so... I didn’t know a simple kiss could be so animalistic. So powerful.”

For an innocent, sheltered beauty, how could she be saying the one thing that fired his blood? He dug his teeth into her lower lip. And licked it when she moaned. “Between the right couple, a kiss can be a lot more.”

“So, it is this good for you, too?”

“You have quite the scientific mind, don’t you?”

She shrugged, studying him with those big eyes. “I wondered.”

He rubbed his nose against hers, a gesture of tenderness that shocked even him. It was only a prelude, he reminded himself. She had been his for the taking from the moment she had glanced up at him and sighed that feminine sigh.

What was wrong with blending into her fantasy a little? Giving her what she wanted? “You wondered what, Amira?”

“If it felt the same to you. I... I have never shared such a passionate kiss with any man.”

“Not even your fiancé?” The question slipped past his lips.

“No. The most he has ever done is hold my hand. At public ceremonies.” She blinked and he knew he would never forget that earnest expression in those wide eyes. The transparent desire. “Coming back to us... You’ve obviously been with a lot of women.”

He couldn’t remember a time he had enjoyed a conversation with a woman as much as he enjoyed having sex. But then, when had he had the inclination or time to have a proper relationship?

For him, women were for sex. To sate his body’s needs. And only when he was on his overseas visits because he could not disrespect any of his own tribes by taking a daughter or a sister or another’s wife as a lover.

Not when all the power rested in his hands.

“Why obviously? And are you asking?” he teased.

“No,” came her resounding answer. “I think it is tacky and I really don’t wish real life to interrupt this...dream. The only reason I brought it up is because it makes me curious if it feels just as powerful and passionate for a man who is sexually experienced and has had a variety of partners, in contrast to a woman who has lied to her own best friend when she told her that her fiancé had done more than kiss her because she feels too pathetic to admit that he barely even looks at her.”

This time, her admission, instead of giving that high again, made his chest contract in a strange sensation. No...chemistry was a strange thing, and he didn’t need to understand it. It was a tool tonight and he was using it. As he had always done—to carve his own path in life. To rise from orphan to sheikh of warring tribes.

To be the man who had done the impossible.

He brought her palm to his chest where his heart was thundering. Down his chest to the flat plane of his abdomen and farther down.

Eyes wide like a dark oasis on a moonlight, she gasped when her hand reached his groin. He covered her hand with his and let her feel the shape and hardness of him. It was a bad idea that made him grit his teeth when she explored him with that innate curiosity, her breath hitching in and out in the dark silence.

He leaned his forehead against hers, locking her wrist. “I have been like that from the moment I touched you. That kiss between us, Amira, is no common thing. It is a spark waiting to burn and I can’t breathe for wanting to set it alight.”

An incandescent joy lit up her face, and in that smile, he felt like a king.

Clasping her cheeks with his palms, he kissed her gently. He licked at the seam of her lips. Again and again. He sank his fingers into the thick mass of her hair and pulled her toward him until she was a perfect fit for him. He licked a damp trail from her neck to her jaw, dropping soft little butterfly kisses over her cheek, her nose, her eyelids, her temple. Everywhere but the sweet offering that was her mouth.

He did it again and again, until it felt like he had been waiting an eternity to taste her. Until every muscle in his body was coiled tightly, until the innocent rub of her belly against his erection was sensuous torture.

“I could do this all night, habiba,” he whispered, his own contrary nature fighting the pull she had on his own control. This was a means to an end—a pleasurable means, though.

“I can’t,” she threw back at him, her eyes daring him.

Adir laughed and decided to give in.

She groaned into his mouth and he deepened the pressure, hungrier than he could ever remember being for the taste of a woman’s lips.

No, for this woman’s lips. This woman’s body, her innocence and the desire she expressed with such fierceness and generosity.

Her hands caught between their bodies while he pressed her against him. When he demanded entry into the sweet cavern of her mouth, she gave it, clinging to him with a deep moan. He licked the inner curve of her lower lip, using every ounce of skill he had at his disposal.

Her hands moved to his shoulders, her breasts pressing into his chest, her mouth so addictively hungry for more. It sealed the night.

He would give her what she desperately needed for one night. She would come with him willingly, he knew that—the fire between them, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen or felt.

“Come away with me, Amira. For one night. A few hours. Steal something for yourself from your own life, ya habibiti.”

Her swollen pink lips trembled, her eyes shining with desire along with something else. He didn’t have to ask, she was his for the taking—the pulse beating madly at her throat, the hunger in her gaze—and yet Adir wanted her to make the choice.

He would take what he wanted—revenge. He would steal something that belonged to his half brother, just as Zufar had stolen from him. His revenge on Zufar so much fuller if his betrothed came away with him out of her own choice.

If she chose Adir over Zufar even for a few hours...

“A choice, Amira,” he said, running his thumbs over her trembling lips, his body primed for possession, and yet he carefully used the words that would shred the last bit of her fear and doubts, a ruthless strategy he had learned from his mother’s letters. “You can go back to your bed and wonder what magic could have happened between us for the rest of your life. Or...” He bent his head and licked the pulse throbbing at her neck and felt her jerk toward him. He smiled wickedly before sucking the tender skin with his lips before releasing it with a popping sound. This time, she writhed against him, looking for relief from the ache between her legs, he knew. She was ready for him, even if she didn’t know it. And the knowledge filled him with a primal pride, not unlike the rulers before him who had mastered the harsh desert. “...you can choose me. This. For a few hours.”

When she kissed his knuckles, when she looked up at him with tears shining in her eyes, as if he was the sun and moon and stars all combined together, he pushed away the fragile thread of unease in his gut.

You’re a dirty stain.

He would pay Zufar back for those words. He would take what had been handed to him without guilt.

Victory thrummed through him when she said, “Yes, I... I would like to spend the...a few hours with you.”

He pressed his mouth against her temple, holding her tight until the shivers that had overtaken her subsided. She was courageous, this fragile beauty, and he would make this night worth that courage. He would show her infinite pleasure.

“I will return you unharmed, yes?”

When she nodded, he took her mouth in a fierce kiss, forgetting in that instant that she was innocent. He bit the lush pillow of her lower lip and when she moaned, tangled his tongue with hers. Heat built inside of him, goaded on and on by a dark need to possess her. To take what should have been Zufar’s by right.

His mother’s legitimate son, the man who was poised to be King of Khalia, the man who had never doubted his origins or his place in the world, the man who even now denied Adir his rightful place when he himself held Khalia in his palm...

It was a fitting revenge.

His body vibrated with the need to be inside her, here...in the dark stairway. But whatever his half brother thought of him, Adir was no savage.

He pulled the threads of his control together and pulled away from the lush temptation of her mouth. Already, her lips were swollen and her hair mussed with his questing fingers.

And yet Amira didn’t back away, her breaths falling and rising rapidly. “Where shall we go?” Her eyes shone with an impish delight, even as she shivered. “I have to return before—”

“I have heard so many tales about her gardens,” he said, remembering the beautiful words with which his mother had painted the gardens. “That she toiled hours and hours there, that they were her true love.”

“The Queen’s Gardens? You know of them?”

He simply nodded.

A wide smile curved Amira’s lips. “That’s exactly where I wanted to go tonight.”

He took her hand in his and led her down the steps. “Then it must be fate that I came upon you tonight, of all nights.”

A small frown tied her brows and she halted his steps. Her chin tilted up, a fierce resolve in her eyes. “Not fate, Adir. No. You and I... We ended up in this darkened corridor because we both made choices, yes? Tonight, there is no fate, there is no destiny, there are no forces commanding us. Just you and me.”

“You and me,” Adir agreed and pulled her on, before she could see the shadow of his dark thoughts in his eyes.

She was his tonight. Not Zufar’s. That was all he had to remember.

* * *

Amira felt as if she had been floating on clouds for the last two hours. Two whole hours she had spent with Adir by her side, touring Queen Namani’s famed gardens. Two hours spent smiling, talking, laughing, teasing.