One Desert Night

Her body was soft and lush against his, her waist where his arm was clamped around it impossibly narrow, and the curves of her hips and buttocks crushed up against his pelvis tormented his still aroused and hardened manhood. If she squirmed against him as she had done when he had first grabbed her then he would be lost. But instead it seemed that she had given up on any thought of action, her whole body loosening, almost sagging in his arms.

‘I was friends with an Aziza once,’ he said slowly. ‘A long time ago.’

A lifetime. Everything that he had believed he had in that time had been taken from him and destroyed, shattering into tiny irreplaceable pieces. Had he hoped for something of that life to be returned to him when he had thought of Aziza, only to find that his choice had rebounded right into his face?

‘And we never truly knew each other.’

With a sudden movement he spun her round in his arms so that she was facing him, golden eyes blazing straight into his. But it wasn’t just defiance that he saw there. Instead it was something new, something infinitely disturbing. He had seen just such an expression in the eyes of a puppy when he had once kicked it accidentally on his way out the door. The elaborate make-up that adorned her face, even behind that blasted veil, had started to wear off, leaving her looking paler and strangely vulnerable. And the elaborate coils and braids of her hair had started to come loose in their struggle just moments before. She looked younger, gentler—more like the maid who’d had such a disturbing effect on him ever since that night on the balcony.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he growled, refusing to let himself admit to just what effect that spin of her body had had as it pressed her breasts and hips against him, making her perfume waft in the air. The slide of several silken strands of her hair against his face was almost the last straw as it caught on his mouth, on the dark hairs of his beard.

‘I’m Aziza—I am!’ she protested when she must have caught his sceptical frown. ‘I’m both Aziza—and Zia. Yes, I’m that “maid” you met that night—really I am—but I was just trying to cover myself. I knew I shouldn’t have been out there on my own—wandering about your palace without your approval. It’s the truth!’

She looked innocent. Looked totally believable. And every masculine element in him wanted to believe her and get this over with. He had been anticipating a wedding night and he should be enjoying it now. The heated pulse in his body, the hardness between his legs, told him he would be enjoying it—if he could only let go of the black memories and suspicions that held his mind prisoner.

Sharmila had looked innocent too. He’d been caught that way before and he had no intention of letting it happen again.

‘And why should I believe you?’

‘Because I’m telling the truth. Because...’

Meeting the cynical question in his eyes, she let her voice fade away, dropped her gaze sharply, biting her lip as she did so. The impulse to lean forward, cover her mouth with his and lick away the sharp punishment she was inflicting on her soft skin was almost overwhelming. His own mouth actually watered for the taste of hers just as he’d shared it on the balcony. How had his world become turned inside out in so short a time?

‘Because you have nothing to fear from me.’

Aziza’s voice caught as she realised just what she was saying. What he had been saying with all this suspicion, the sudden cold distance. That terrible moment with the knife. In the back of her memory she saw again that moment when he had heard the door bang and had tensed sharply, almost imperceptibly, but she had caught it. How could she forget—how could anyone forget—that he had once been the victim of an assassination attempt?

‘Nabil...’

He had let her use his name before, hadn’t insisted on the reverence due to him as the King, so she risked it again.

She shifted in his arms, still face to face with him. So close. She could even catch his breath in her nostrils and the crisp brush of his beard on her forehead.

‘You can trust me—I promise. And, as to who I am, well, I am Aziza. Your chosen bride. My father’s daughter.’

He was silent, still, watchful and alert. Those black eyes were polished jet, reflecting her own face back at her and giving nothing away.

‘But I’m also Zia—the “maid” you met that night.’

Was his reaction one of acceptance or rejection? She only knew that the hands that held her had tightened and his head had gone back slightly.

‘I was there with my family—with my father and Jamalia. I was supposed to be there to act as my sister’s chaperone. But she didn’t want me; I was cramping her style, and the party just wasn’t my sort of thing. My head was pounding. I needed air.’

Gently she placed her hand on his arm, realising that it looked impossibly small against the swell of his muscles under the white robe. The slightly twisted little finger looked even more vulnerable like this. She watched his eyes drop to stare at it.

‘It was very stuffy in there.’

Was that response any sort of a concession, or simply an acknowledgement of fact? At least he had spoken. That stony silence had stretched her nerves to snapping point.

‘Your hand...’

It was low, rough. He shifted position slightly, lifted his own hand and traced the twisted line of the delicate bones, making her shiver in response.

‘How did it happen?’

He’d been there when she’d been injured. But why would he remember?

‘It was so long ago. Fifteen years, at least. When you were visiting us.’

‘Fifteen years?’ Nabil frowned as he took his thoughts back. ‘You fell from your pony.’

He recalled the fuss when her small chestnut steed had reared in a panic at the sight of a snake and Aziza had tumbled from the saddle. They had been a long way out into the desert on that ride. It must have been a slow, painful journey back.

‘Your sister was trying to keep my focus on her.’

Jamalia had been playing for his attention so much that day. Even back then, with his father still alive, before he’d actually become the Sheikh, it had been obvious that Farouk had hoped that his elder daughter would catch his eye. It had been the blatant attempts of Farouk to interest him in Jamalia that had put him off, Nabil recalled. As a result, he’d been an open target for a later, much more subtle approach. He hadn’t seen Sharmila coming.

The flood of memories that thought brought made him scowl darkly and he watched the way his change of expression made her recoil against his arms.

‘You were very brave.’ That was what he remembered most. Her silence. Any other child would have cried; Aziza had clamped her mouth shut over whatever she’d been feeling.

‘That’s not what my father thought. He thought I was foolish—if I’d been a better rider then I’d never have fallen off. That’s why he had me taken home—fast.’

He supposed, when he thought of it, that he remembered that too. At the time it had seemed that her father had focused on sending his younger daughter home to have her injury tended. Instead, he had been determined to make sure that nothing intruded on the time Jamalia spent with the Sheikh’s son. But he remembered the poor, pinched little face of the injured child, and how she had put up with her injury without complaint. He’d been impressed at her courage and control. And he’d known a flash of anger at the way that her father had dismissed her distress, wanting to spend more time on the ride—more time bringing Jamalia to his attention.

‘He forbade me to ride again after that, for fear that I would do more harm to myself and become damaged goods—even less valuable as a bride.’

It was no wonder he’d never liked or trusted Farouk El Afarim, Nabil thought grimly. But he hadn’t realised that his memories went back that far.

Aziza had broken her finger and he had seen that same damage on Zia’s hand the night they’d met. So this was Zia—but she also had to be Aziza too.

‘It didn’t mend too well.’

Once more his touch smoothed over the damaged bones, making Aziza shiver. You were very brave. So had he accepted her story, believing in what she told him? Certainly he recalled the young Aziza, and the day of her fall. But it hadn’t done anything to reduce his tension. The long body against hers, the powerful arms that held her, were still taut with control.

‘So that night—on the balcony. Why tell me you were the maid?’

When he thought of how much he’d wanted her. How close he’d come to seducing her. The drum of his pulse that seemed to have quietened now started up again, pounding at his temples, at the feel and scent of her, warning him not to trust too easily. Not to forget.

With an inward snarl he drove it away. All he wanted to do was to forget. But now here was this woman bringing back so many memories he thought he had buried. Hell, that first night he’d even thought she was Sharmila.

‘Why call yourself Zia?’ he asked sharply. ‘Why not give me your real name?’

‘And have my father know that I had been wandering about the palace unchaperoned? That I’d left Jamalia to her own devices?’

She gave a tiny shiver at the thought. And, recalling how her father had so obviously put her sister first, Nabil thought he could understand why.

‘I gave that name because I knew I shouldn’t be there.’

‘So why “Zia”?’

The question changed something in her demeanour, made her expression close up, her eyes become shaded. She was hiding something there, he recognised. Each time it seemed that she had convinced him there was nothing shady behind her actions, she made a mistake, and that deep suspicion was back.

‘Tell me!’

‘It’s just a shortening of my name. One the family uses.’

‘And you expect me to believe all this?’

‘It’s the truth!’ she protested. ‘And you’d know it if you’d just listen.’

Her eyes lifted swiftly, golden gaze meeting his, and she gave an unexpected little smile straight into his watchful eyes.

‘I want to convince you, sire. There must be a way I can do that.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘LET ME CONVINCE YOU.’

It was half-plea, half-enticement.

Unexpectedly she lifted her arms—spread them out on either side of her, leaving her whole body open to him. The movement lifted those lush breasts high, putting temptation right there in front of him and forcing him into a brutal fight against his natural impulse to give in to that enticement without thinking.

‘I know you believe that I could be planning to harm you, but I swear I’m not. So why don’t you prove it—search me. Go on,’ she urged when he didn’t move. ‘Check me out—you’ll not find anything. I’m not carrying any weapon.’

Nothing except those wide, beseeching eyes, that rich, soft mouth, those glorious breasts... Did she know what it would do to him to touch her now when he was already so hot and hard in arousal just from having her against him?

She was Aziza—had to be Aziza—and so she brought with her everything he had looked for, everything he needed in this marriage. As Farouk’s younger daughter, she ensured the benefits of the peace treaty, the alliance with her father, the future that this union offered for the country. Did he need to do this?

‘Do it,’ Aziza said sharply when he still hesitated, fighting a grim and brutal battle with himself against the urge to do just as she asked—more than she asked. To do what she was inviting.

But the truth was that it was what she was inviting that made him hesitate. Wasn’t this the best way to distract him?

‘I need to prove that I’ve not come here to harm you.’

If he was honest, Nabil acknowledged, then he would be all sorts of a fool to leave things just as they were. He needed to prove that she was harmless, that the pretence that she had been Zia the maid when really she was a member of the El Afarim family had been just an accident, not part of some other plot. But life had taught him that there were plots where you least expected them; and the most innocent, the most beautiful face could hide a lying, treacherous heart. It was the only safe, the only sensible thing to do. But he didn’t feel at all safe and he didn’t feel in the least bit sensible as he moved her slightly backwards, away from him, and, with the knife still held in one hand, carefully began to move the other hand across the glorious curves she offered him.

How the hell did security officers, his bodyguards, ever manage this? he asked himself as his fingertips patted over the silken robe, keeping to the safety of her neck and shoulders first, but then moving down, lower, over the slopes of her breasts, and underneath where the soft weight seemed to fall into his palms with wicked enticement.

He would have been all right then, too, if only he hadn’t glanced up. Hadn’t looked into her face and seen the way her eyes had darkened, their lids becoming heavy, hooded, as her breathing became deeper, slower too. He could feel her pulse, thick and heavy, and saw her head fall back, eyes closing slowly, her soft mouth opening slightly.

He was on very thin ice indeed. If he gave in too quickly to the hungry demands of his aroused body, he of all people knew how foolish that was. Hadn’t Sharmila taught him anything? In the back of his mind he could hear her words—the words he had believed to be motivated by love and caring.

Come to bed, my lord, and make me your wife.

‘Nabil...’

Aziza’s whole body was burning up in response to his touch, her breasts tightening, heated moisture gathering between her legs. The feel of those hot, hard palms against her body, even with the fine silk of her wedding dress between them, was like being branded for life. Branded as his. Wherever he touched she thought that a trail of marked skin would follow the path of those tormenting fingers and she could barely stop herself from pressing into that scorching connection. When his searching hands swept down from below her tingling breasts to smooth over the curves of her hips, the intimate response that shuddered through her had her doing a small, uncontrolled little shimmy against his touch.

‘As you see, I’m not hiding anything,’ she managed, her throat raw and dry.

‘No...’ He sounded worse than she did.

‘So take me to bed, my lord, make me your wife.’

Nabil’s shocking response was a violently muttered curse. Unbelievably, he suddenly stopped his search, his hands frighteningly still for a moment.

‘Enough,’ he declared harshly, cold and withdrawn.

Enough? Aziza blinked hard, tried to stare at him through unfocused eyes. How could that be enough? He must be as aroused as her. How could he switch it off, forget it in the space of a heartbeat?

But when she looked into his face it was as if it was dead, totally closed off and opaque. He had withdrawn into some secret space where she couldn’t reach him and he snatched his hands away sharply, letting the heat evaporate and leaving her cold, jolting her out of the sensual dream she’d foolishly let herself drift into.

‘I said enough!’

His hands came up between them, like a knife cutting off all connection; his face was so set and hard, each muscle taut.

‘We are done.’

She was back to being Zia, the unwanted maid.

You stupid little fool—you wouldn’t even know who you were kissing. What kind of man you wanted...

The words rang inside her head, harder now, more brutal than before and hitting home with cruel precision. Because this time she knew just who she had been kissing; and she very definitely knew what kind of man she wanted. She wanted Nabil and only him, her childhood crush flowering into a fully formed adult hunger. The trouble was that he couldn’t have made it any plainer that she was not the kind of woman he wanted.

At least not in any way that he would admit to. But he had wanted her before—hadn’t he? She had so little experience in these things so had she read it all wrong? Was it true that, as her father had always said, she was not the marriageable prospect that her sister was? Or had she shocked Nabil by appearing so forward, by displaying her need so openly?

‘But now that you know I’m not concealing any weapon? That I’m no danger to you...?’

‘Not unless that was your secret weapon,’ Nabil flashed back, stunning her.

His searing look that slid over her bewildered face, lingering at her breasts and hips, confused her even further until she realised just what he was saying and her blood ran cold.

‘You think that I was trying to seduce you into...’

‘You were not trying—you were succeeding,’ Nabil retorted but he managed to make it sound as if that was the greatest crime on earth.

She was forgetting that the man who had grabbed her hand and all but dragged her here from the banqueting hall had had his mind filled with thoughts of conspiracy and treachery. Did he really believe that she had set out to seduce him, to distract his thoughts from the realisation he had been deceived...betrayed? The memory of the moment he had pulled out the knife made it feel as if the weapon had twisted in her own heart.

She had tried so hard to make him believe that she was someone he could trust, even submitting to that brutally intimate search, letting his hard fingers go wherever they wanted on her body. She could still feel the scorch they had left behind.

‘As I said, we are done.’ The ultimate dismissal.

Just for a moment Aziza almost returned to the mood of the night when they’d met on the balcony. When she had been pretending to be Zia the maid. He had spoken in the same dismissive way then, wanting rid of her as quickly as possible. Once again she’d been ordered to leave the presence of the Sheikh, dismissed by him, and this time her response was very nearly the same. She even let her hands drop to gather the golden folds of her skirt, ready to dip into the respectful curtsey protocol demanded. But then she met Nabil’s cold-eyed stare once more and knew a welcome rush of rebellion.

No. The word reverberated inside her head so strongly that she felt sure Nabil must hear it too. But the brutal glare showed no response, no alteration in his expression. She felt the change in herself, though, and was determined to act on it. He had chosen her once even if the dark suspicions built by something in his past had caused him to go back on that decision. She would show him that, even if he didn’t believe it as yet, she had his best interests and that of the kingdom at heart.

‘So you want me to go out there...’

With a wave of her hand she gestured towards the closed door through which he had bundled her such a short time before.

‘And let everyone see that this marriage has failed already? To tell my father that the treaty is null and void—dead in the water?’

And that her father was correct when he’d said that his ‘other daughter’ was not a suitable wife for the Sheikh.

‘As you wish.’ She made her voice as cold as his had been.

Then she drew herself up, lifted her chin and turned on her heel. Not even glancing back over her shoulder to see his response, refusing to let it look as if she cared, she took one step away from him, then another.

‘One moment.’

It came from behind her, brutal and hard as a bullet hitting her between her shoulder blades.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

Was he going to let her go? Nabil demanded of himself. Was he actually going to let her walk out of here and take with her everything that this whole marriage arrangement had been about? Was he really going to throw away the peace and prosperity of the country, the heir that his throne needed so badly?

‘I believe that you said we are done. If that is the case then I don’t intend to wait around for you to decide whether you trust me or not.’

It wasn’t her he didn’t trust, but her father. Farouk had been scheming for this wedding for so long that he could believe Aziza’s father would do anything to make it work. Even accept that the daughter Nabil had chosen had not been the one he had wanted him to marry. It was strange but now, when she was walking away from him, his mind was filled with the most vivid image of when they had first met, when she had fallen from that pony and broken her finger. She must have been in pain and distress, but her small back had been straight, her head held high as her nursemaid had hurried her away. She was so much taller now, her figure that of a woman, not a child. But it wasn’t the physical change that struck him. It was the proud defiance, the regal elegance of her figure.

He had spent too long thinking of the gentle child Aziza had been that it was a shock to realise she had become a woman—all woman. Even more of a shock to recognise that she was the woman he had lusted over when she had told him her name was Zia. If he let her go now then he was losing more than just the treaty and doing his duty by the country. This wasn’t for Rhastaan, this was personal.

But in that case, trust was all the more important. He’d rushed into this marriage with too little thought. He’d weighed the pros and cons of the arranged marriage with a cool head, but he’d chosen Aziza in a very different mood. The last time he’d done that it had ended with marriage to Sharmila, and the fallout from that had scarred so much more than his face. If there was one thing that experience had taught him, it was to be wary, that nothing was what it appeared on the surface.

He had time to spare on this. He could bank the treaty, play a careful game, and see if he might get more out of it than he had ever planned. One thing he was sure of was that he was damned well not going to lose the women who had sexually excited him most in years if he could help it.

‘Did I give you permission to leave?’

‘Do I need your permission?’

She wanted to resist—wished she had the strength to tell him to go to hell and turn and walk away. But she knew she wasn’t going to manage that. How could she try for any other reaction when she’d already given him the message he wanted simply by staying at all?

She had to prove to him that she could be trusted. That there was no conspiracy at all behind her appearance as his potential bride. What else could she do? If Nabil suspected her father, her whole family would be in danger, her mother and sister disgraced.

The memory of the moment he had taken her from the banqueting hall, the way that her father had had to bow as she passed, the look on Jamalia’s face when Farouk had said those words he has chosen you, all combined to put a touch of steel in her spine, fire up her blood. She could see his face reflected in a mirror on the wall, the dark scowl that brought his black brows together.

‘I am the King,’ he growled now.

‘And I am your Queen. Well, that’s true, isn’t it? Or was our marriage illegal in some way?’

She waited a nicely calculated moment, watched his face freeze, those black eyes flashing dangerously.

‘You wanted to know who I am—well, I’m not Zia the maid, or even just Aziza any more. I am the Sheikha, the Sheikh’s chosen wife, by marriage at least if not in actual fact.’

That hit home. She saw his eyes go to the bedroom door, then back again, fixing on her so strongly that she felt the force of his stare like a laser burn at the back of her head.

‘You took me as your wife today and as such I no longer need to bow down to anyone.’

His smile was deadly. A quick, rough quirk of his lips that warned of something dangerous to come.

‘Outside this room, perhaps. But surely you know that a marriage needs to be consummated before it becomes formally finalised—a fact rather than just a declaration of intent?’

‘Consummated...’

This time she couldn’t help herself. She turned partway, then froze again as she met the black ice of his stare. Just hours before, her foolish young heart had dreamed of sharing this man’s bed, of giving him her body, because he had made her feel special, chosen—wanted. It had been the fulfilment of her adolescent dreams. But that was when she’d believed he wanted her more than any other woman.