The Sheikh's Contract Bride: Theirs was an ancient debt, and the time had come to settle it... (The Sheikhs' Brides Book 1)

by Clare Connelly

  “Violet,” he shook his head, his face drained of colour. “No.”

  “Why not?” Her index finger lifted to his penis and ran from the base to the tip. He was so big. She brought her face closer, and before she could lose confidence, opened her mouth wide. It was strange how instincts took over. She felt him in her mouth and she rolled his tip with her tongue, her hands lifting to his buttocks. She dug her nails into his muscular flesh, holding him steady, and she moved her mouth up and down his shaft. His hands fell to her shoulders and perhaps he’d intended to push her away, but instead his fingers dug into her flesh as he felt wave after wave of pleasure move through him.

  Finally, though, aware that his restraint was a thread away from dropping, he reached down and removed her hands, enabling him to step backwards. Her lips were shining and her eyes were hooded by desire.

  He swore angrily and pulled her to her feet and now he felt a primal need to take her. He moved quickly, more roughly than he’d intended, until they fell to the bed in a tangle of limbs. It was their wedding night and he’d wanted a long, slow exploration but there would be other times for that.

  Only need was in the room. His need; her need; an ancient need to bring their bodies together as one.

  There was no space in his mind for thought. He stared down at her as he parted her legs and brought his tip to her entrance. She feathered her eyes shut but he shook his head. “Open your eyes. I want to see the moment I am inside of you. I want to watch you come.”

  She nodded, blinking up at him, lost on the current of emotion.

  He thrust into her hard and fast and she cried out as an invisible barrier was broken beyond repair. But it was not a cry of pain. There was no pain. Only surprise and confusion and then finally pleasure. But his eyes on hers showed feelings she didn’t want to analyse.

  He swore again but she shook her head, lifting up off the bed and seeking his mouth to convince him everything was fine. He moved slowly but Violet cried into his mouth, “Not like that. Fast. Hard. Please.”

  He pulled away, his expression grim. “I will hurt you.”

  “Stop staying that and just do it.”

  Even in the tension of the moment he smiled at the command. “Yes, your highness.” He thrust hard, pausing to make sure her expression was one of pleasure before pulling back and driving into her deeper. He moved like a man possessed and she answered every challenge he lay. She climbed the stairs to orgasm with each thrust until she was falling apart in his arms, and he watched her face look more perfect than he’d known a woman could look. She was an angel in his bed.

  But he wasn’t done yet. A small part of him, angry with himself or her, wanted so much more. He waited until her cries had quietened a little and then he thrust deep and hard at the same time he brought his mouth down on her breast and bit lightly into a nipple. Just enough to make her body quiver as new sensations pummelled her. He moved within her, watching her, and whenever she closed her eyes he would shake his head. “Look at me,” he challenged.

  So she did. She let him see everything. Her desire and her pleasure, her gratitude and relief, until finally he felt her dropping off the edge of reality and spiralled after her, releasing himself with a guttural oath. His body dropped on top of hers, strong and heavy, and she wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding him tight.

  “Well,” he drawled against her ear, stroking her hair. The crown had fallen off during their love making and lay across the mattress. “That was surprising.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut now as reality began to pierce holes through the totally unexpected events that had just taken place. “Are you angry?”

  He pushed up, hovering his face over hers. “Angry?” A frown formed on his brow. “Why on earth would I be?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you that I’m … that I was…”

  “A virgin?” He shrugged. “I should have asked again. I should have presumed. But no, qalil, I am not angry. I am honoured and delighted.” He dragged his finger down her forehead and over her nose, teasing the corner of her lips. “It is not how I would have planned your first time, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.”

  “It was perfect,” she assured him, but then something unpalatable occurred to her. “I mean, for me it was perfect. For you it was probably boring. I guess you’re used to women who actually know what to do.”

  “Hush,” he whispered, bringing his lips to hers. “Believe me, you were excellent.”

  “Oh.” She expelled a pent up breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “I’m glad.”

  He pulled out of her gently, lifting out of her grip easily. “I did not use protection,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “That was foolish.”

  “Oh.”

  “You are not on birth control?”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide.

  Self-directed anger sparked inside of him. How foolish he was! He had been so carried away by his need for his bride that he had neglected his most crucial determination. To assure himself as much as her, he said gently, “It is unlikely to be a problem. And if it is, we can deal with it then. In the mean time, we will just have to be more careful from now on.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured, stretching her arms above her head and feeling new muscles begin to throb everywhere. “I like the sound of ‘now on’.”

  He laughed. “It is definitely not what I had in mind when I travelled to England, but I am not going to complain with this development.”

  She sighed, but it turned into a yawn and his brow furrowed. “You must be exhausted,” he said softly. “It is only the afternoon. Why don’t you have a rest?”

  She shook her head but her eyes were heavy. “I should shower…”

  “Later,” he promised, reaching down and lifting her off the bed. He rearranged her higher, her head against the pillows that smelled of him, and straightened the sheets over her. “I will come and get you for dinner.”

  “Dinner,” she nodded, but her eyes were now glued shut. “Okay.”

  He stood at the foot of the bed and stared at her for minutes. Until her breathing was deep and steady, her lips pursed in sleep, and he wondered that he didn’t feel any remorse. He had worried that he would kiss her and somehow ruin her, and now they’d slept together. So what did that mean? He shook his head.

  It meant nothing.

  It was convenient to have a wife he wanted; a wife he could sleep with. A wife who wanted him. These were all good things. And he hadn’t expected any of them from this arranged marriage.

  He watched her for a minute longer and then, a smile on his face, moved from the room.

  * * *

  Six years earlier

  “Isn’t that your husband?” Whitney murmured, pointing at her phone.

  Violet craned closer, scanning the screen. “He isn’t my husband,” she pointed out factually, but her heart was hammering quickly in her chest. “Yet.”

  “Well, he’s never going to be if this article is accurate.” There was nothing but sympathy in Whitney’s statement.

  “What on earth do you mean?” Violet took the phone from her best friend’s hands and stared at the screen. “Oh my God.”

  BILLIONAIRE SHEIKH TAKES SUPERMODEL BRIDE.

  “I don’t understand,” she muttered, numb through. “How is that possible?”

  “It shouldn’t be. You guys are engaged, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Violet shook her head, her eyes meeting her friend’s. “I mean, we’re betrothed but it’s not quite the same. I mean, we signed a contract. Our marriage was … I didn’t think … I presumed …” Confusion spun through her and her eyes filled with salty tears.

  “He’s married?”

  Whitney nodded, pulling her best friend cape back on quickly. “Maybe this is a good thing, Vi. I mean, arranged marriages are so ancient. So chauvinistic. How can you marry someone you don’t even know?”

  “That’s the thing,” Violet sobbed, thinking back to the ni
ght years earlier when she’d first met her future husband. “I feel like I do know him.”

  “You’ve spent, what? Three hours in each other’s company?”

  “I know,” she nodded, dashing away her tears. “It’s so hard to explain. But I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I just felt like we were meant to be.”

  “Meant to be?” Whitney tried to contain her smile and failed. “You sound like you’ve stepped out of a Nora Ephron film.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Violet laughed through her tears, picking up a cushion and tossing it across the room at her best friend. “I looked into his eyes and I just understood him. It’s like something clicked inside of me.”

  “You were fourteen,” Whitney laughed.

  Violet resisted the impulse to correct her, for she’d been thirteen when they’d met. “It doesn’t matter. It was a weird kind of love. An acceptance. A rightness. I know I fell in love with him that day. How can he have married someone else?”

  “Because if he’d fallen in love with you it would actually be criminal,” Whitney pointed out.

  “Don’t make it gross. It’s not like that. And our age gap isn’t even that big. When I’m thirty, he’ll be forty one. What’s the matter with that?”

  “But you’re seventeen,” Whitney murmured gently. “And he’s fallen in love with her.”

  The words were like knives being dragged across Violet’s heart.

  He’d fallen in love with her.

  Violet Covington had been so sure that her heart belonged to Zahir that she never bothered to doubt his was likewise held safely in the palm of her hands.

  And apparently, it wasn’t.

  He loved his wife. Anna.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A week after the wedding, Violet woke suddenly, her face wet with tears.

  Dreams of Anna wouldn’t quit.

  More so, memories of how Violet had felt in the weeks and months after learning that her betrothed had married another. It had been compounded by the loss of Efani, of course. From grief to grief, she’d survived that year in a permanent fog of sadness.

  As with the other mornings, she wiped her face immediately, removing any proof of the strange emotions that were taking over her. But this day, unlike the others, Zahir was awake, and watching her. His handsome face was trained on her expression and as she dried her cheeks, he reached for her wrist.

  “What is it that makes you cry like this?”

  She startled, embarrassed into pulling her hand away and using it to fold the sheet of the bed. “Nothing,” she mumbled, mortified beyond words.

  “Violet.” The way he said her name made her gut twist. She was addicted to him. She adored him. She loved him as much now as ever. Not for any explicable reason. Not because of a single thing he’d done. But because of who he was and how her heart answered his.

  She pushed her head back into the pillow, her eyes running across the ceiling. “Just a dream,” she said finally.

  He was quiet, processing this for a moment. “About what?”

  She shook her head and then pushed up on one elbow to face him. The sheet dropped a little, revealing the swell of her breasts. “I don’t remember.”

  At his look of obvious disbelief, she expelled a sigh. “It’s just a bad dream I have sometimes. It doesn’t matter.” She swallowed and forced a smile to her face. They’d made love only hours earlier. At some point in the middle of the night, she had reached for him and he for her, and their bodies had meshed in the way that was now becoming their norm.

  “Are you sore?” He murmured, knowing he’d been nowhere near gentle.

  She shook her head and then moved to straddle him, the sheet between them the only barrier to their coming together once more. “Not at all.” Her eyes twinkled and he laughed softly.

  “You are insatiable.”

  “I think I might be.” She dropped her head to his, kissing him hungrily. “Can you forgive me?”

  “Can I forgive you?” He shook his head. “I’m already wondering how I’m ever going to let you go.”

  The words, so innocent, so genuine, lodged deep inside of her. They were truth and they were pain. She clogged with hurt.

  “I need you.” And she did. She needed him to obliterate the reasons for their marriage from her mind. She needed him to obliterate the fact that she loved him and he was using her. To obliterate the certainty that she was living on borrowed time with another woman’s husband. Anna might be dead, but she was still his wife. The wife he had chosen. The wife he had pledged to love for the rest of his days, until death do them part.

  “Please,” she begged desperately, her hand pushing away the sheet.

  He was hard for her. He had been since their wedding night. It was driving him mad that he couldn’t simply ignore his obligations and make love to her around the clock. But another frustration was gnawing at his gut. He’d woken two nights after their wedding to the sound of her crying. She’d been fast asleep, and he’d wondered at the strength of dreams that could result in such real-time emotion. He’d woken and waited for her to say something, but she’d been her usual self. Bright, curious, content. She’d gone back to her suite, to her time with Lilly, and he’d gone to his office, and his obligations, certain that she would tell him if something was truly plaguing her.

  But seeing her wipe away the tears this morning had been too much. “What is it?” He asked gently, grabbing her wrists and holding them to her side.

  “I told you. A stupid nightmare. I’ve had it for years.”

  That was true. It was a variation now, though. Knowing that she had Zahir physically but not in any other way was almost worse than not having him at all.

  “Are you unhappy?”

  She froze, her eyes locked with his. Was she? Not until she slept. In the days, she was fascinated and captivated by this kingdom. At night, she was a slave to her husband. A sex-slave – a very willing one. She would do anything he asked. She was desperate for him. Her sexual appetite had caught her completely unaware. She’d gone twenty three years without having so much as a flicker of interest in any other man and now she couldn’t get him out of her head.

  Even worries about Lilly were eclipsed by what they shared.

  “I’m not unhappy,” she said slowly. Until she slept. Until she slept and saw Anna’s eyes. They mocked her, in her dreams. They taunted her. He wanted me. Not you. If I’d lived, we would be a family.

  She felt grief bubble inside of her again and pushed off the bed. Sex wasn’t going to fix it. Not if he continued to question her.

  “Hey.” He snaked a hand out and caught her wrist unexpectedly. “Hey, hey.” It was quiet and soothing. Gentle. She felt her knees buckle and forced herself to meet his eyes. He stared at her for several beats of time. So long that she felt her resolve weakening and a desire to confide in him burst through her.

  But it was ridiculous. How could she possibly hope to compete with Anna, the woman he’d loved? The woman he’d chosen to marry? The woman who had died attempting to bring him a child?

  “I want to show you something.”

  Her breath was rushed. Desire was at war with curiosity.

  “Can it wait?”

  He grinned. “Definitely,” as he tugged her back to the bed, right on top of him.

  * * *

  “I feel that we’ve walked a mile, at least,” she murmured, wishing she’d chosen better shoes. Only her valet had a bad habit of laying out ridiculously sophisticated outfits even for the days when she was planning on remaining predominantly within her suite of rooms.

  “Not much further,” Zahir promised, his tone amused.

  “I had no idea the palace had this many paths. It really is a rabbit warren.”

  “Down here it is,” he agreed. “We are three levels below ground. These rooms are used mainly by servants, and now, hardly even by them.”

  “Fascinating.” She reached out and ran a hand over the tiled wall. The lighting was electric, but it was faint, however
she could still make out the artwork that spoke of centuries earlier inhabitation.

  “Yes, it’s very old,” he pre-empted her observation. “These corridors were built first, then the first floor of the palace. These are secret and guarded – they offered refuge in times of war, and were used to stockpile supplies when famine was feared. They are an integral part of our history.”

  Goosebumps moved over her. “I haven’t heard of them.”

  “I told you. They are secret and guarded.” His wink made her want to lift up and kiss him.

  “But surely not to your people?”

  “To all but the family. And you.”

  And you. An addendum. A tiny little thought-asterix that annotated her separation.

  “Why?”

  His smile was lopsided. “You shall see soon, qalil.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  He stopped walking. “You know what it means?”

  “Yes. Little. Small.”

  He grinned. “I suppose it does. Are you not both of those things?”

  She frowned. “I guess so. I’d never really thought about it.”

  He brought his lips close to hers and brushed them gently. “It also means dear.”

  “Oh.” Happiness fizzed like a soda can that had been shaken just prior to opening. “So I can call you qalil too?”

  “No. That would be … inappropriate,” he murmured.

  “So what may I call you?”

  “Zahir?”

  She laughed. “Okay. Fine.” Then, she fixed him with a seductive gaze. “Or perhaps Your Highness?” She lifted a hand to his robe, tracing the fold that she knew would reveal the opening. “Sir?”

  He sucked in a breath. “Violet …” A warning that was strangled by need.

  She pulled on the chord around his waist and the robe separated. “We said that was a useful trick to know, didn’t we?”

  His grunt was lost in fabric, as he shrugged out of the robe and pushed at her dress, lifting it around her waist. He pushed his pants just low enough to free his arousal and then lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist at the same time he pushed her backwards against the wall. He didn’t even remove her silky underwear; there wasn’t time. He pushed it aside in the same motion he thrust into her, taking her with a guttural cry. She echoed it; their voices tangled as their bodies merged. The tiles were cold and dusty against her back. Her legs were tight around his waist. Her arms held onto him for dear life, and he drove into her as though his life depended on this possession.