by Tara Pammi
She was lying on her left side, her legs tangled with Azeez’s, her arm tight around his hips. She gasped as she realized how hard she was holding him, pressing her left hand into his damaged hip. She was about to jerk it back when he grasped her wrist and held it there. “That pressure feels good, habeebi.”
She stilled, a thousand different voices clamoring to be heard inside her head. And yet, not a single one of them was even a token protest. She only felt exhilaration, only the utmost lethargy. Not shame, or disbelief or any such thing.
Azeez Al Sharif, even when he considered himself a cripple, was a perfect specimen of masculinity that would induce knee-jerking reaction in any woman. And the intimacy of waking up next to him like this was like a drug that filled her with inexplicable longing.
What she felt, coiled against him, was healthy, thrilling, one of the few things that validated her femininity. After the last day of pain that was a reminder of everything she was not, the warm languor in her muscles, the slow burn of desire, she welcomed it wholeheartedly.
He was hard against her and warm. He smelled the way he always did—of sandalwood and exquisite heat and dark, sinful promises. She sucked in a deep breath, savoring the scent of him. Against the onslaught of those sensations, the dull ache in her lower belly was almost negligible.
Feeling his gaze on her, she glanced up. His features looked strained, dark shadows under his eyes. Had he slept with his torso leaning against the headboard? She made to move, but his arm around her didn’t budge. “I’m sorry. You must have been very uncomfortable.”
He shrugged, his gaze devouring her with a quiet intensity that should have alarmed her. Instead, it swathed her with an electrifying thrill. “I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night anyway. It was only a few hours. And every time, I tried to make myself more comfortable, you held on so tight that I was afraid to hurt you, or even worse, wake you up when it looked like you finally had some relief.”
She felt color swamp her cheeks. “Thank you for staying with me. I have forgotten how awful it gets.”
“And when you take these medications that you are waiting for?”
“It’s quite different because they are pure hormones, they make my body…” She blinked, trying to backtrack slowly. “The pain is quite manageable coupled with regular exercise and deep breathing.”
“All those trips you made in Dahaara and then overseas?”
She winced, remembering those trips with her father’s sister. The despair that she would never find relief, it was the thing she remembered most. “I had already seen every doctor I could in Dahaar. None of them ever gave me a conclusive diagnosis. Just kept telling me it was normal, that I had to just cope with it.
“That pain…it would cripple me every month.
“My father—” she cleared her throat “—I used to get so angry with him. My mother was already gone when the pains started and he…” She felt the force of Azeez’s anger and released hers. “He…couldn’t talk about it with me, wouldn’t even come near me. He was too traditional for that. But he didn’t give up on me, either. He sent me to New York with a family friend. Someone recommended a…specialist there. She ran a lot of tests. And within a week, she recommended these drugs and other measures.”
“This is why you became an ob-gyn?”
She nodded, glad to be able to share at least half the truth. “No one should have to go through this kind of pain for so many years. I want to bring more awareness to the condition. It’s already a hard subject for a young girl to talk about. Then when someone does have the courage to speak up, she is told again and again to just live with it, that it is natural. Nothing about this pain is bearable.”
His fingers tightened over her arms and she clasped them with hers. When he spoke, his voice was low, gravelly and full of pride. Her heart sang at it. “You will succeed, Nikhat. I have no doubt. Draw up a proposal. Vet out some experts in the field that would like to work in Dahaar. Think of every resource that you might need and put it on that proposal. You have my complete backing and my personal fortune at your disposal.”
Tears prickled at the back of her eyes, and this time, she didn’t stem them. They were not borne of pain or grief. Those first couple of years after she had left, being amongst strangers, thinking he was forever gone, she had lost her faith, doubted her ability to do what she had wanted.
The pride shining in his eyes felt like her true prize. He thought she was strong, but hadn’t she always measured her words, her actions, through his eyes, his honor?
“And here I assumed you were an impoverished, deadbeat prince,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I have to remember to be nice to you.”
His mouth curved into a smile, the long sweep of his lashes mesmerizingly beautiful as his gaze widened. “Charming the prince for money? Very disappointing of you, Dr. Zakhari,” he said with mock insult, and she laughed some more.
Giving in to the urge that beat at her relentlessly, she clasped his cheek. Traced his jawline with her thumb, the stubble on it rasping against her skin. She heard his breath hitch as she moved her finger to his mouth, saw the warning flash in his eyes, but she couldn’t stop.
His upper lip had a perfect bow shape to it, while the lower one had an indulgent lushness.
She had wanted to touch him for so long, without shyness, without being consumed by her insecurities. Just for how good it made her feel, just for how right he felt. He clasped her wrist, halting her. “Nikhat? Do not—”
She jerked herself up to a sitting position, traced the seam of his lower lip. His breath hissed out, the cushion of his lip soft and warm against her finger.
Her own breath rushing out of her, she slanted her head and touched her mouth to his.
He became incredibly still. If not for the rough rumbling sound he made in his throat, she would have thought him a block of marble, a hot one. Anchoring her hands on his shoulders, she pressed little kisses along the seam of his lower lip, along every inch of his perfect, bow-shaped upper lip. His lips were soft and rough at the same time, sending sparks of heat careening to every tip of her body.
Impatient for more, she licked his lower lip when he exhaled a jagged breath, and then tugged it with her teeth.
And he exploded like a volcano that had finally reached its erupting point. His hands found her hips and pulled her toward him so hard that her breasts slammed against his chest, and she fell onto him sideways. His fingers crept into her hair, held her tightly as he devoured her mouth with his.
He had kissed her once all those years ago. She had been avoiding him, going out of her way to minimize seeing the dark and blindingly beautiful prince she had foolishly fallen in love with.
And one afternoon, he had cornered her in the library where Amira and she usually studied, locked the door behind him and kissed her.
It had lasted maybe be a few seconds before she had pushed him away, shaken and overwhelmed at the maelstrom of sensations it had stirred within her. If that had been a minor tremor in an earthquake, what he did to her today with his mouth was a hurricane.
The scent of him filled her breath, his muscles digging and shifting against her body.
He nibbled her lower lip with a growl that gave her goose bumps, and a lick of heat swept through her, waking up every nerve ending. With his tongue, he laved her, pushing for entrance, and she let him in with a moan.
He licked at the interior of her mouth, tangled with her tongue with such erotic intent that her breasts felt heavy, and a different kind of ache began in her lower belly. Their teeth clanged and scraped, their tongues tangled. She was awash in such sensations, such mind-bending delirium, that it took her a moment to realize he had ripped open her tunic in the front. Her nipples tightened into needy knots as his gaze, hot and erotic, fell on her breasts clad in a lacy black bra.
Her gaze
flew to his, and held, a storm of desire gleaming in his. Never wavering from her, he moved his fingers to the seam of lace. The moment his fingers touched her flesh, everything inside Nikhat shuddered, gathered behind that contact, waiting for more.
Because, God, she wanted more.
Twin bands of color streaked his cheekbones, his breath sounding swift and harsh.
Anticipation coiled in every muscle, a feverish heat broke out on her skin.
His face taut with desire, he slowly set her away from him. Nikhat felt his retreat as sharply as if he had slapped her. “So I take it this…this sexual independence is another by-product of your relationship with your colleague?”
She laughed, hiding her unease at the swift change in conversation, and pulled the mass of her hair away from her neck and tied it up with her scarf. His gaze darkened, the stamp of lust on his face flooded her with utter satisfaction. He might hate her, but he desired her still. Even acknowledging that it was an utterly useless response, Nikhat reveled in it. “I am a doctor, and I am thirty years old, Azeez. I don’t find anything shameful about sexual pleasure.”
His fingers tightened over her arm, he dragged her until she hit the wall of his chest. The savage snarl of his mouth, instead of frightening her, thrilled her. “That’s quite a shame, isn’t it? Because eight years ago, I was on my knees, begging for a single kiss. I didn’t touch another woman for two years because I wanted you.”
Pushing away his resisting arms, she burrowed into his warmth. So many regrets and not a single one that she could explain. “You have no idea how much I regretted it.”
“What did you regret?”
She looked up at him, knowing that, once again, she was going to disappoint him. “Not making love with you. There were so many nights that I dreamed you were next to me, kissing me, touching me, so many moments when I wished…” She moved out of his reach, bitterness swiftly adding a chill to the air. “And in the morning, I would see another article about you with a new woman. The Prince of Dahaar sowing his wild oats in Monaco, leaving every single party with a new woman. What had they called you, the insatiable prince?” But still, she hadn’t been able to help herself, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from dreaming about him.
He frowned, his gaze drilling into her. “You walked away. I offered you everything.”
“So, of course, that means you can sleep with countless women, doesn’t it?” The words slipped out on a wave of bitter jealousy that scoured through her. She had no right to ask these questions. There was no need to add more bitterness to this fire between them. But she couldn’t stop. “Tell me, Azeez. Was it so easy to forget me, to wipe every thought of me from your mind, from your life?”
And the moment the words spilled out, she wanted to pull them back. Shivering at the slow dawning of anger in his eyes, she clasped her hand over his mouth.
He pulled her hand from his mouth slowly. “Afraid to hear the answer, ya habeebiti? Would you prefer it if I lie?”
There was no point in asking him to lie. Because he would not. The Prince of Dahaar never lied, not for his sake, not for hers.
“You think it was about hurting you, about proving that you were nothing to me?” His soft words landed on her like fiery lashes, burning into her skin.
“Every woman I slept with, I was only cheapening myself. Their faces faded one after the other, the pleasure I found with them transient and shameful…I would wake up in the middle of the night, tangled in bare limbs, sick to my stomach.” The set of his mouth matching the blazing disgust in his eyes, he shuddered. “In my eyes, what you didn’t want was worth nothing to me. I went on a rampage, wondering how I would fill the void, becoming reckless in pursuit of relief, raining down destruction on myself and…”
The shiver in his hands as he ran them through his hair, the utter loathing in his eyes, it was like a slap to Nikhat. How selfish and destructive was she to ask that question?
He slipped out of the bed and walked away. At the door, he turned back. “Let Princess Zohra know if you continue to be unwell. She should be able to arrange anything you need.”
The silence of the suite bore down upon her as Azeez closed the door behind him. Nikhat pulled the sheets toward herself and they bore the scent of him. She clutched it to herself.
What you didn’t want was worth nothing to me.
Those words lanced through her, leaving invisible, permanent marks on her. She had asked for it and he had given it to her, shredding the last thread of lies she had held on to all these years.
Telling herself that he had instantly cast her out of his mind after she left Dahaar, reading about his exploits almost greedily during that first year, she had found a kind of solace in the fact that he had moved on, fooled herself that she had been nothing but a novelty at a distance.
All of them delusions she had set in place to protect herself.
Now his words left her nothing to hide behind.
He had loved her, by his own confession, he had plunged himself into a reckless lifestyle to fill the void she had left…She hugged her knees, the pain of her body paling in comparison to the pain his words had unleashed.
Guilt tightened like an iron chain around her throat, choking her.
Staying here after learning that he was alive—what had she been thinking? How had she forgotten what it had cost her last time to walk away? How had she forgotten how strong this pull between them was?
Throwing the existence of her relationship, even a failed one, in his face, challenging him with her presence every step of the way, giving in to the urge to kiss him, to touch him, playing with his emotions and her own, there was no excuse for her behavior. When had she become so reckless as to tempt fate again, so selfish as to satisfy her own twisted sense of self?
She needed to remember why she was here, and what Azeez had already been through.
Learning that she might never conceive, accepting her inability to be the woman he needed her to be had wrecked her. For months, she had thought herself less than a woman, her entire identity as a woman fracturing because she might not be able to give the man she loved the heirs he needed. And in the end, her love for him had asked for a sacrifice of her own happiness.
She had, somehow, survived through it and built a life for herself. She couldn’t risk all that again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A WEEK LATER, Nikhat arrived at the breakfast hall in the morning, and came to a halt, her heart thudding.
Azeez and Ayaan stood on either side of the table, their hands fisted, their expressions similarly battling fury and more. Princess Zohra was standing by Ayaan’s side, her gaze flitting between the brothers.
A needle dropped into the room would have sounded like an explosion.
Nikhat’s gaze invariably went to Azeez. And first thing that came to her mind was how good he looked even as his face was currently wreathed in tension.
He wore a snowy-white cotton tunic that was open to his chest, the startling white of the fabric contrasting against his sunburned throat and face. His jaw shaved, the unhealthy pallor that had been there when she had first arrived was gone.
And his jet-black eyes had the biggest difference.
With each passing day, the arrogance, the confidence that had made him, came back.
Heat swamped her, but she couldn’t look away before stealing a look at that sensuous mouth. It had been just a kiss.
But it had started a fire in her that couldn’t be quenched, whatever she did. Not that there had been a hint of interest from him again.
His withdrawal was so absolute that there was no need for her to worry that she would weaken again. Not when he looked at her as if she was the plague he was determined to avoid. There were no more cutting remarks, no allusions to past or present, nothing but a polite, entirely painful, coldness.
&nbs
p; Taking a deep breath, she looked around the room, the tension in it sinking heavily into her shoulders. “Is something wrong?”
Nerves at breaking point, Azeez turned toward Nikhat and was instantly assaulted by the taste of her mouth, her soft curves that had fit so perfectly against his. Desire slumbered in his blood, a constant companion that mocked him.
This seesaw of emotions every time he looked at her was the last thing he needed in his life right now. He had to get away from the palace, from her, from his brother. He had to do something useful or go crazy.
“I proposed a trip to the desert and my brother is threatening to lock me up and throw away the key.”
She paled, her angular features even more stark. Dark circles hung under her bright eyes. For once, he didn’t feel the sadistic pleasure that she wasn’t handling this any better than him. “Why?”
“Because, as you are well aware, I’m going mad sitting here doing nothing.”
“I have to run this country, Azeez. I don’t have time to come looking for you nor an answer for Mother if you disappear again. You can’t do this to her again.”
Azeez flinched, even as he deserved his words. How did he explain to his brother how useless he felt here, even as every single palace matter around him seeped into his blood? His mind, not drenched by alcohol, and his body making slow progress toward less pain, he needed to get out.
He chose his words carefully, the very idea that had come to him this morning filling him with renewed energy. But he didn’t want his brother to latch onto it and use it as weapon to bind Azeez to Dahaar permanently.
“Khaleef said there have been problems with communications to the Sheikh of Zuran.”
Just as he expected, a light came on in Ayaan’s eyes. “I think Khaleef needs a lesson in protocol, and a reminder about who the Crown Prince of Dahaar is now.”
“I’m still the bloody Prince of—” Azeez gripped the back of his chair, fighting the urge to knock off that knowing smile from his brother’s lips. A lifetime of duty and privilege in his blood was hard to get rid of. “Is it true or not?”
