The Sheikh's Bartered Bride

His hand came up and cupped her breast, his thumb brushing over her achingly erect nipple. She arched into his touch while squirming her backside against his hard maleness. She loved him so much. Loved what he was doing to her. Loved the anticipation of more. For the first time in her life Catherine was glad she had never been with another man.

She wanted Hakim to be her first.

He kissed his way down her neck, stopping to suckle her rapid pulse beat. Arrows of pleasure shot through her limbs and she cried out at the wonder of it all.

Then his mouth was on her collarbone, his tongue caressing her in a way she had not expected. She went completely still when he pulled the stretch neckline of her dress down to expose her braless breasts.

He stopped moving, too, pulling back until he had an unfettered view of her exposed flesh. There was a lot on display. Her figure in no way resembled the boyish shapes so popular in today’s media.

She felt another blush crawl up her skin as her senses prickled with heat and heady excitement.

Dark fingers caressed her pinkened flesh, making her moan and shake in response.

“So beautiful. So perfect.” His words registered with the same sensual impact as his touch had done.

“I’m—” She’d meant to say something about how she was not exactly cover model slender, but he forestalled her with a finger against her lips.

“Exquisite. You are exquisite.”

Then his head lowered, his lips touched her sensitized flesh and she lost her sense of place and time. He tasted her. All of her, covering each square centimeter of her naked curves with tantalizing attention. By the time he took one of her nipples into his mouth, she was shaking and inexplicable tears were running hotly down her temples and into her hair.

It was too much. The pleasure was too great.

“Hakim, darling, please!”

She didn’t know what she was begging for, but he seemed to as his hand trailed down her body until it reached the hem of her skirt. His fingers brushed against her stocking clad leg and moved upward, slowly, ever so slowly.

Combined with his tasting of her breast, this tormenting slowness was driving her mad. But then his hot fingers were on the skin above the top of her stocking, curving toward her feminine center. His fingertip brushed against the silk of her panties where it covered her most tender flesh and sensation exploded inside her like a nuclear reactor.

Her body bowed. She screamed. She thought Hakim cursed, but she couldn’t be sure. Nothing but the agonizing pleasure of her body was registering completely.

His hand slipped inside the waistband of her panties, down to flesh that had never, ever felt a man’s touch and she cried out in an overload of sensation as he touched that bit of feminine flesh that other women talked about, but she had never even experimented with finding.

She went rigid and then shook in convulsions that were so strong, her muscles ached from supporting them.

He continued his ministrations until her entire body went limp from the strain.

He pulled her close to his chest, wrapping her in his embrace with strong, sure arms. The tears that had been a trickle became a torrent and she sobbed against his chest with as much abandon as she had given to her pleasure.

He comforted her, whispering soothing sounding words in a language she did not recognize. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t understand the words, their tone was what she needed.

“That was too much,” she said between hiccuping sobs.

“It was more beautiful than the desert at sunrise,” was his response.

“I love you,” she confessed, her heart left unprotected by the amazing experience she had just gone through.

She was hopelessly in love with a man who could have any woman he wanted and that scared her. Refusing to admit it did not change it and there was a certain amount of relief in letting the truth out.

His hands caressed her back and she shivered with another convulsion. If it had been an earthquake, she would have called it an aftershock. It had been close enough.

He picked her up, carrying her as if she weighed no more than one of the throw pillows off the sofa. When they came into her bedroom, he flipped on the small light by her bed, casting a warm glow in the room.

Stopping beside the bed, he bent to lay her down, but she clung to his neck. “Please, don’t leave.”

She couldn’t bear being alone after that.

He tensed.

“Please,” she begged again.

“Do not plead. If you want me to stay, I will stay.”

She let go of his neck and let him lay her down on the bed. He straightened to stand beside her. “Prepare yourself for bed and I will return to hold you.”

“Aren’t we going to make love?” she asked, not at all sure she could stand another dose of pleasure like what she had just gone through, but willing to try.

“Not until we are married.”

She still didn’t believe for a minute they were actually going to end up married. “But…” She could see the hard ridge still pressing against his slacks.

He shook his head decisively. “We will wait.”

She couldn’t expect him to hold her all night in that condition.

“I could…” She blushed without completing the offer, knowing he was a smart enough guy to figure it out.

“I’ll take a shower.”

“You’re going to take a cold shower?” The thought of a sexy man like Hakim having to take a cold shower over her was somehow very appealing.

He smiled as if he could read her thoughts. “As you say. Prepare yourself for bed. I will return in but a moment.”

She nodded and silently watched him walk into the en suite. It was only when she looked down that she realized her chest was still exposed. Her nipples were still hard and wet from his mouth. Oh my. The sight paralyzed her for a full minute before she was able to get up and find a nightgown to wear to bed.

Hakim stood under the warm jets of water, his body buffeted by the pain of unrequited passion, his mind filled with pleasure at how successfully his campaign had gone.

Catherine had agreed to be his wife.

His uncle would be pleased. Her father would be pleased. Hakim was pleased.

Marriage to Catherine would be no hardship.

Under the shy exterior, she was so passionate, so beautifully sensual. It had been harder than he ever would have thought possible to pull back from making love to her completely.

She’d liked that. His sweet little wallflower had liked thinking he was in here taking a cold shower because of his desire for her. The shower wasn’t cold, but only because he’d never found that an effective deterrent to desire. He had found that warm water could sometimes soothe the physical ache of wanting what he could not yet have.

It wasn’t working right now though. His sex was so hard, he was in pain.

He could not banish the image from his head of how she had looked with her dress pulled down, her breasts swollen and quivering with her desire. And the way she had exploded…her entire body bowing with such strong contractions, he had found it most difficult to keep his jewel on the couch. He groaned as his male member throbbed at the memories.

Maybe a cold shower would help.

Turning the knob all the way to the right, he was soon blasted with an icy spray. He gritted his teeth, practicing a self-discipline technique he had learned while training with elite guard in his uncle’s palace.

Catherine would have to marry him very soon.

She would not demur at a simple civil ceremony, he was certain. She was too happy to be marrying him.

She loved him.

Though it was not necessary, it pleased him, it pleased his pride that his future wife loved him.

Her shock at his proposal underscored the reality that she had reached the age of twenty-four without once having had a serious relationship, or even a steady date. Or so her father had asserted and Hakim had no reason to disbelieve him.

Her virginity had been an important issue to Hakim’s uncle. According to the old man, no royal prince of Jawhar could marry a woman of uncertain morals. Hakim felt a certain primitive satisfaction in Catherine’s untouched state, but he hardly placed the importance on it that his uncle did.

After all, he’d been prepared to marry once before and the woman had not been a virgin. Undoubtedly his uncle would not have approved.

And right now, when he wanted very much to bury himself in the silken wetness of Catherine’s body, her innocence was more barrier to pleasure than benefit.

Reentering the bedroom, he found Catherine sitting up in the bed wearing a virginal, almost Victorian gown in white and her dark honey hair hanging over one shoulder in a thick braid. He smiled at her innocence.

As he got closer to the bed however, his smile slipped. He doubted very much that she realized it, but the gown was borderline sheer and the dark aureoles of her nipples were visible as well as the outline of her gorgeous breasts. He wished he’d left his slacks on as the benefits of the cold shower disappeared and the silk of his boxers shifted with his growing erection.

Catherine didn’t seem to notice. Her blue eyes were unfocused as she stared at something beyond his right shoulder. Her lips were slightly parted and he could see the sweet, pink, enticing interior of her mouth.

As he climbed into the bed beside her, she jumped as if startled.

“Hakim!”

“You were not expecting me?”

Soft color flooded her cheeks and she scooted down into the bed so that the quilted spread covered her to her neck. “I was thinking about something.”

“And was I this something?”

Expecting a shy affirmative, he was surprised and chagrined to see her shake her head in a jerky motion.

“What were you thinking of?”

She started. “Just, just a story that’s all.”

“A story?”

“Sometimes I like to tell stories in my head.”

“Our lovemaking was not enough to keep your mind occupied?” The fact his innocent fiancée had been able to dismiss their lovemaking from her thoughts when he had not, irritated him.

“I didn’t want to think about it.”

Offended, he demanded, “Why not?”

And only realized as she pulled back that he was leaning over her in a most intimidating fashion. He did not move back however. He wanted an explanation.

“You said we couldn’t make love until we’re married.”

“Yes. This is true.”

“Well, then what would be the point of letting myself get all worked up if you aren’t going to let anything happen?”

It was a good question. One he wished he could answer, but he had not been so successful in tamping down his own desires. He was rock hard and the only thing saving his pride were the blankets covering them both. Even so, had he not had his body tilted toward her, his erection would have tented the covers and given him away.

It shamed and frustrated him that his usual ice-cool restraint was letting him down. With all his training, she had more control over her desires than he did his. He did not like weakness, even that of a purely sexual nature.

“So you told a story in your head?” What sort of story would have been sufficient to take her mind off of the pleasure of their lovemaking?

“Yes.”

“And it was not about me.” He felt his irritation turn to irrational anger at the thought.

“That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?” Her tone said her words should be obvious to even the simplest of minds.

He glared at her. “I thought you wanted me to stay with you tonight.”

Suddenly the pragmatic tilt to her mouth disappeared and searing vulnerability beamed at him from the startling blue of her eyes. “Yes. Are you going to leave because I was daydreaming?”

She had much to learn about him. “I made a commitment to stay. I will stay.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, still red and full from his kisses. “Do you always keep your promises?”

“Always.” He repeated the word in his mind, reminding himself he had given her his word to wait until their marriage to receive the gift of her purity.

CHAPTER FOUR

“IN OUR marriage, you will always know that when I promise a thing, it will be done.”

Catherine stared at him. Their marriage? This joke had gone far enough. “Stop teasing. We’re not really going to be married.”

Hakim’s black eyes snapped at her and the darkly dangerous side to his nature she had first suspected became all too real. “When you promise me something I expect the same from you. We will be married.”

“But why?” It had to be obvious to him that he didn’t have to marry her in order to make love to her. She was way too vulnerable to her desire for him and after what had happened on the couch, he had to know it.

He tapped the end of her nose with his forefinger. “Are you so uncertain of your own appeal you must ask this question?”

“But you’re a sheikh for goodness’ sake. Don’t you have to marry a princess or something?”

“We are not quite so medieval in the royal family of Jawhar. Catherine, it is my desire to marry you.”

A twenty-four-year-old children’s librarian who had never even been kissed by a man before that night? “I don’t think so.”

The gentle touch of his palm against her cheek mesmerized her. “I want you, Catherine. I thought that was obvious.”

Was it true? Felicity had told Catherine many times that she was no longer the girl too tall for her age or whose face was pockmarked with severe acne. But Catherine had never stopped feeling like that girl.

He tilted her head toward him. “Accept that it pleases me very much to make you my wife.”

But why did it please him? The only logical answer that she could think of was so beyond the realm of reality, she felt shock thrill through her even contemplating it. Yet, she could think of only one reason for a man like Hakim to marry a woman like her. She had no diplomatic pull, could not increase his cache with his people and while her father was wealthy, Hakim was wealthier.

Love.

He had to love her. It was the only thing that made any sense of their situation. He’d never said the words, but maybe that was a cultural thing. Or an alpha guy, totally in charge and too cool to admit to really tender emotions kind of thing. Whatever.

When she remained silent, stunned by the thoughts racing through her mind, he sighed and rolled onto his back. “The time has come for me to marry. It is my uncle’s wish I marry now.”

“And you picked me.”

“You are my chosen bride, yes.”

She thought of the years since her laser treatments during which her father had thrown men at her head, men interested only in what they would gain materially from the marriage. Men who had not stirred her emotions or her senses as Hakim did. Not only did he stir her emotions, he returned them.

A glorious smile broke over her face. “I want children.” Family who would love her and accept her love unconditionally.

“As do I.”

Then a sudden thought assailed her, one she could not dismiss. Not when he’d withheld the words of love so there was this little niggle of doubt way down, deep inside. “You have to be faithful. No mistresses. No other wives.”

He didn’t smile, didn’t make a joke of it as some men would have. In fact, his expression turned even more serious, his mouth set grimly. “Polygamy is not practiced in Jawhar and to take a mistress would be to compromise my own honor as a prince among my people.”

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