by Annie O'Neil
All eyes swung to Robyn. She surprised herself by meeting the gape-jawed looks with a confident smile. “Thank you very much for coming. The next time we see you will be in London after what we expect will be a successful surgery.”
She stood and gave a slight bow of the head as she’d seen many Da’harian women do when a conversation had finished. A quick glance over her shoulder as she turned to walk out of the auditorium told her Idris was close enough for her to hear his whispered words. “You dazzled them.”
Lil’ ol’ plain Jane Robyn Kelly! Barren spinster. The woman who knew the nooks and crannies of Paddington’s better than she did the cupboards of her own home. And now a media darling! It was one of those moments when all you could do was laugh at the madness of how far she’d come from thinking of herself as the barren spinster of Paddington’s.
Getting to this point hadn’t been a solo flight, though. It had been a duet.
* * *
“How would you feel about taking a walk with me?” Idris poked his head into Amira’s room where she and Robyn had gone to read after supper. He’d looked in earlier and had barely been able to wipe the smile off his face for the last hour. Two heads—one blond, the other dark—pressed together as they worked their way through the intricacies of the elaborate tale. From what he could determine there were swashbucklers, princesses and a rather unfortunately named camel.
“Robyn?”
He took a step into the room, his smile growing softer, more tender, as he took in the sight of the pair of them, fast asleep on Amira’s large canopy bed. His daughter was curled in the crook of Robyn’s arm, the book having spilled to one side. Robyn’s body language was entirely open and loving, even in her sleep. Her cheek was resting atop of Amira’s dark hair, one arm protectively wrapped around his little girl’s shoulders, the other enclosing Amira in a loose hug. Throughout Robyn’s time in Da’har, there had, not even for a moment, been anything awkward or strained about the way the pair were with each other, and in sleep, the relationship they shared seemed, if possible, even more honest. One trusting soul with another.
He watched them for a moment before silently padding over to the bed and gently extracting Amira from Robyn’s embrace so that he could tuck her under the covers. She stirred a little as he moved her, sleepily crooking the stuffed elephant she favored under her arm as he pulled up the covers and switched off the bedside lamp.
Walking around to the other side of the bed he wondered for a moment if he shouldn’t just leave Robyn. She looked more relaxed and at peace than he had probably ever seen her. A swell of pride took hold of his chest as he remembered how well she had done at the press conference, despite her long-held fear of public speaking. Pride was replaced by passion as the desire to touch her, hold her in his arms, took such strong possession of him; he was lifting her up and out of the bed before common sense could prevail.
Robyn’s arms slid naturally across his shoulders and chest, cinching together at the base of his neck as, still half-asleep, she nestled her curly blond head into his shoulder. The touch of her silky hair upon his cheek, intermingling with the wildflower meadow scents that swirled around her, threatened to undo him then and there.
Before he thought better of it, he tipped down his chin and kissed her.
* * *
Robyn wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or if she was receiving a very real kiss. She clenched her eyes tight, not wanting whatever was happening to come to an end. Hits of understanding came to her.
Idris’s scent. Cinnamon and hot sun mixed with pure alpha male.
His touch. Fingertips pressing possessively along her midriff, shifting with intent along the silken top she wore over a pair of body-hugging sherwal trousers. A cascade of goosepimples shivered along her spine as more details came to her.
His arms were around her. One around her back and the other under her knees, holding her as if she weighed nothing more than sunshine itself.
His lips, which she could feel hovering just above hers, were every bit as sensuous as she had imagined them to be. The touch of them so soft and evocative... Surely this had to be a dream.
Her eyes fluttered open, lashes brushing against his soft skin, before their gazes locked and an understanding passed between them. The desire was mutual and pressing, unchecked, against doors they both wanted to open.
Her lips parted. She felt the brush of his stubble against her skin as he took possession of her mouth again. Hungry, heated kisses seared her to her very core and all she could think was...more.
Idris’s spicy scent intermingled with the sweet taste of his lips. It was impossible to hold in a whimper as he drew his lips away from hers and began to drop kisses along the length of her neck. Softly at first and then, as her senses shot to life at the speed of light, the pressure from his lips grew more urgent. As he reached her throat, and then her mouth, his tongue took advantage of the parting of her lips as a low moan escaped her throat. Lightning jags of response crashed through her, jettisoning her entire body onto another plane of touch alight with electricity.
“I want you.”
She could barely believe she’d spoken the words, but they were the truest thing she could say. She did want him. Body and soul she ached for him in a way she hadn’t known possible.
Idris accelerated his pace, taking the length of the never-ending corridor in long-legged strides, turning, unexpectedly, into his own suite of rooms, which she hadn’t yet seen.
The blur of decor she glimpsed as he carried her toward his emperor-size bed was deeply male. Rich scarlets, the darkest of blues and the raw luster of mahogany melded together to craft the extraordinary sensation of masculine beauty. Something Idris’s entire being exuded. Especially now as he laid her out on his bed, chest heaving with ragged breaths, not from exertion but desire.
If he had wanted her to beg she knew she would have.
Never before had anyone looked at her with such longing. She could see the flashes and glints of hunger in his eyes, as if a damn had burst within his psyche. More than anything, she wanted to satiate his every appetite.
Lush, wanton thoughts crowded out the woman Robyn had thought she once was as a sexual confidence she’d never experienced took hold of her. She pressed herself up to sitting, tipped her chin up so that she could meet Idris’s black, sparking gaze and reached out to touch him below his waist where his desire for her was most evident.
He gasped at the contact, instantly pulling her up so that her legs encircled his waist, both hands cupping her buttocks as his lips crashed down on hers with a heated urgency she ached to return. Such was the depth of her need for him, slaking her hunger for Idris’s kisses, his touch, would be nigh on impossible.
* * *
Idris unhooked Robyn’s legs from around his waist, his arms bearing her entire weight just millimeters away from his own as if it would help check his body’s primal urges to possess her. Whether she was light as a feather or he was channeling the strength of a Titan—all he knew was he was holding an angel in his arms. Amber eyes. A halo of blond curls. The softest skin he had ever touched.
He laid Robyn onto his bed, standing stock-still for just a moment as he drank in the sight of the wild, desire-fueled woman he’d uncaged. He lowered his knees to the edge of the bed, then fully mounted it, crawling slowly forward as a triumphant lion would approach a prospective mate, to take possession of what he knew he had already won.
The tight line of connection that had drawn them together cinched and became unbreakable.
Idris’s lips peeled into a satisfied smile with each whimper and groan of pleasure he drew from her. The simplest of movements—a finger tracing the soft outline of her jaw, his lips skidding across the décolletage of her dishdasha, a thumb grazing the sides of her straining breasts as he lowered his mouth to kiss them through the thin fabric—each gesture elicited
a complexity of responses.
There was much more than lust in those amber eyes of hers, and when she whispered into his ear, he could have sworn she told him that she would always be his. Only be his.
An even deeper longing for Robyn shunted straight to his heart, spreading like scintillating pulses through his entire bloodstream. Theirs was a mixture of primal and cerebral, an inevitable union as the stars aligned for them. For tonight, at least, they would be as one.
* * *
Robyn’s body positively thrummed with need. She began, timidly at first, then insistently, to undo the buttons on Idris’s shirt, then his trousers. His impatience matched hers and within milliseconds he had dispensed of his clothes and her own.
When the length of his naked body pressed against hers, a cry of longing so carnal she barely knew where it had come from curled up and out of her throat. Each of his touches was pure erotica. The caress of his hands. The sensation of his bedclothes against her skin as he moved her to where he could please her best. The soft hair on his leg as he wound it around hers, decreasing the ever-diminishing space between them. The wet warmth of his mouth traveling from her breasts to her belly and beyond—all threatened to be her undoing.
Her body became possessed by a need to touch and be touched, to have him inside her, deep and unfettered. After an agony of strokes and teases, Idris slipped a hand between her legs, fingers slowly sliding along the length of her wetness before pulling his hand along her inner thigh until he reached her knee, tugging her leg onto his back as he lowered himself into the hot, eager center of her very womanhood.
It was the first time in Robyn’s life she had experienced complete, full-bodied ecstasy at the touch of another man. Her body melded with his as their movements intensified, each of them undulating and pressing together to reach the ultimate release, until finally, when she felt they could fly no higher, everything within her burst into a shimmering cloud of sensation and pleasure. Idris reached the same heated denouement deep within her, his spine arching, belly pressing into hers as Robyn’s nails scored the length of his back, eliciting a whimper of the purest satisfaction from her parted lips.
They lay in silence, each of them taking long, full-bodied lungfuls of air as their bodies recovered. Idris shifted to his side, pulling Robyn in tight to him so that her back met his stomach and chest, the beat of his heart pumping straight through to her own. As their heartbeats synchronized and slowed, she knew, at long last, she would sleep without dreams, for everything she could have hoped for was right there next to her.
CHAPTER TEN
DAWN WAS ONLY just creeping into the room when Idris inhaled a deep breath of wildflowers and sunshine—the scent of heaven if ever there was one. It took a moment or two to realize he was still holding Robyn in his arms. If anything, she had nestled in closer in the course of the night; their limbs were softly tangled. Her soft curls tickled and teased the side of his cheek and life seemed near enough perfect until he realized, with a deafening pound of his heart, that Amira might come in at any moment. It happened more often than not. When she’d had a bad dream, or a question about a book she was reading.
Mouth dry, pulse racing, his mind thundered with possibility.
Would it be so bad if she were to find them?
He had ached for the fact his daughter had no mother figure. Someone to speak with about the myriad things only women share with one another. Someone to light up her somber world. Someone who would be there for her when, one day, Amira ascended into womanhood. He knew playing the roles of both mother and father only went so far, and yet... He was already asking her to trust in Robyn regarding the operation. If that were to fail...?
He extracted himself, as gently as possible, from the weave of their limbs, not wanting to wake her before he knew where he stood on...what exactly? It wasn’t as if he and Robyn were going to have a life together! She lived in England—in Paddington’s by all counts. He had a nation to rule, a daughter to raise—to the very best of his undivided attentions.
The decision to make love to Robyn suddenly seemed careless. Not a decision at all but an impulse. A matter of the heart he should have overruled with his conscience. Falling in love with Robyn—what could that lead to?
A jagged slash of pain rent through him so completely he could have sworn he’d been split in two. Physical proof he had nothing to offer her beyond a heart battered and singed by life’s crueler turns.
Robyn. Beautiful, sunlit, optimistic Robyn, who had brought nothing but kindness and light into their lives.
He took another step back from the bed and began yanking on his trousers and then his shirt, as if they would shield him from the desire to crawl back into her arms and give himself over to the unknown.
His lips pressed and thinned against each other.
Robyn deserved more. And he had to slam shut the windows of opportunity that kept blinking at him. Hope. Possibility. Love.
He must lead, if he were to make good on the promises he’d made to the memory of his wife.
Everything for the past seven years had been solely for Amira and Da’har. Blood and country. It was how he’d survived. There hadn’t been room in his heart for anything more.
He looked down at Robyn, her face soft with the innocence of sleep.
How reckless he’d been! Selfish even, to have pulled her so close to him when he didn’t have a full and open heart to offer her. Robyn deserved every bit of a man’s heart. His heart. But after all he’d been through, it was no longer his to give.
The thoughts whirling in his brain began to compound with viselike strength. How was he going to get out of this without hurting Robyn?
He shook his head knowing damn well how he would deal with it. Precisely the same way he’d made it through the tragedy that had blindsided him all those years ago. By steeling his heart and realigning his focus. Blood and country. Nothing more.
* * *
It didn’t take Robyn long to figure out something was wrong. Her legs and arms were wriggling about in a luxurious stretch when, still half-asleep, she realized the sheets she was tugging up and over her shoulder were the ones in her own bedroom. She sat bolt upright, her heart stopping dead still, then unleashing in a series of staccato pumps. One for each question flying through her mind. How did she get here? Where was Idris? Had last night been a dream?
She threw back the covers and tugged on some clothes, barely noticing it was perfectly natural for her to reach for the formfitting leggings and loose tunic native to Da’har. All she could think of was whether or not she had done something wrong. Had she upset Idris in some way? Spoken in her sleep about—what? Paddington’s?
She tried to push away the hurt she was feeling, certain there was some sort of simple explanation. It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting rose petals, a perfect cup of Earl Grey and a plate of freshly baked scones to arrive on her lap, but after the night they’d shared she’d expected...something.
No. That wasn’t right, either.
She’d expected someone.
Idris.
This was a message. It had to be. A cruel one. Depositing her back in her bed after—A shiver of response slipped along her spine at the memory of her night in Idris’s arms. Only to be left on her bed as if it had meant nothing?
She sped along the corridor toward his office, little snippets of possibility taking form in her head, then reshaping over and over as she blindly made her way past the tiles, fountains and tumbles of lush vegetation that, until now, had never failed to enchant her.
Was he ashamed of what they had done?
Fear stole through her at the thought, chased cruelly by the anguish of loss. The same hollow feeling she hadn’t experienced since her hysterectomy.
She’d been right two weeks ago. To want to stay in the UK. She’d told everyone! Coming to Da’har was ridicu
lous. She’d be out of her depth. Destroy any good that might come of doing Amira’s operation.
Amira.
Paddington’s.
The tight squeeze in her heart made her gasp. She’d let Idris’s beautiful little girl slip too far into her heart, as well.
Idris.
A low moan escaped her lips as she thudded her forehead with the ball of her hand. How could she have let this happen when the only thing she should have been thinking of was saving Paddington’s?
Idris had it all. Her heart, her body. What she had left of her mind was going to have to be put to exacting use, to regain what little control she had over her future. Over the future of Paddington’s. If she had to fall on the sword of sacrifice, she would do it.
Her knuckles stung as she rapped on the carved wooden exterior of Idris’s office. Too impatient to wait for a response, she pushed open the thick wooden door only to find a very officious-looking Idris sitting at his desk, pen in hand, a sheaf of papers laid out before him as if it were any old day.
Didn’t he know her world had changed when she gave herself to him?
“Is that your luggage?” she asked inanely as a luggage-laden servant walked past from the room where they had spent the night wrapped in the other’s arms.
“Yes,” Idris replied, looking up from his paperwork as if her presence in his office was a complete mystery. Those dark eyes of his, so expressive the night before, were now impenetrable in their inky darkness. The glacial reserve she’d shivered under upon their first meeting was icily back in place. “It would probably be a good idea to get your things together. I can have someone else do it if you’re busy. The plane will leave today at lunchtime.”
