THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR

by Tara Pammi

  His mouth took on a bitter slant as he tugged her hands away from her. “Is this gratitude for ordering your father to send your sisters? Because I would have done the same for any loyal servant of the palace. A simple thanks is enough for that.”

  Hearing him put it in that stark way, it still didn’t douse the fire in her. He was creating distance between them, letting her down in the only way he knew.

  But he had no idea how much she had deprived herself of, how bereft her life had been of this compelling awareness she found near him. “You’re the man I’ve always wanted beyond reason and sense. What Richard and I had—”

  He cursed so colorfully that Nikhat forgot what she was saying for a minute. “Don’t manipulate me, Nikhat. I don’t want to hear his name.”

  “Our relationship was based on mutual respect and suitability. What I feel near you, I’ve never felt like that, ever.”

  “Why now, when you threw everything I offered you before at my face and went off to pursue your dreams?”

  Leaning into his body, she bent her forehead to his shoulder, the truth dancing on her lips. How could she tell him that she had never stopped wanting him? That it had never been the case of not wanting him enough. “This is not me trying to revert or start something new. This is me living in the moment.”

  Before her courage deserted her, before she remembered the thousand reasons this was unwise, she pulled his arm around her waist and did what she had been dying to do since she saw him, did what she had dreamed of a million times and more.

  She leaned into him, until her breasts were crushed against his chest, until his groin cradled hers. Until she felt the evidence of his arousal—hard against the V of her own legs.

  Air left her lungs on a long whoosh, her muscles liquefying with uncontrollable shaking. The shudder that went through him goaded her beyond reason. She pressed her mouth to his jaw, the stubble on his jaw rasping her lips in the most delicious way. “Tonight, you’re not the prince who’s bent upon walking away from the very thing you were born for, and I…I’m not the woman who walked away from you. For one night, will you not grant us both what we want, Azeez?”

  Her pulse ringing like an incessant bell in every inch of her body, Nikhat slipped away from him and left the courtyard.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ONE NIGHT, AZEEZ.

  Azeez stood outside Nikhat’s suite, her words ringing in an endless loop in his head, traveling through his blood, moving inside him with the force of a lightning bolt.

  Her proposal coming on the heels of the high he had found in uncovering information, in realizing that there was still a salvageable part of him, that he could still be of some use to his brother and Dahaar, was temptation he couldn’t deny.

  Standing there with her kohl-rimmed eyes staring at him with the brazen need dancing in her eyes made him feel fiercely alive, made him want to ride the wave, accept the escape she offered.

  For one night, she would be his.

  He pushed the door and stepped in, his gaze hungrily searching for her. She lay on the bed, her face bathed in a golden light from the bed lamp. The sheets rustled as he ventured farther in, and she rose to her knees in the middle of the vast bed, her gaze glittering with a bright hunger.

  Lust and something else hit him hard in the gut, little shivers sprouting everywhere, causing tremors in his muscles.

  A dazzling smile, edged with anticipation, thrill and even a flash of trepidation curved her mouth. “You came.”

  He felt his mouth twist into a bitter curve. “Did you doubt it?”

  Her eyes closed for a second, as if she wanted to shield something from him. And he realized that she was as conflicted about this as he was, just in a different way. She had asked for this night with that characteristic bluntness that he had begun to see, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous about it.

  “You’re trembling, Nikhat.”

  “I imagined this moment for so many years and in so many ways, Azeez, that the reality of it now, it’s a little frightening.”

  She wore a cream-colored sleeveless nightgown that almost blended with her skin, making him think she was naked for an aching instant.

  Blood rushed out of his head, leaving him with a dizzying desire. But this time, that rush wasn’t followed by that clawing void. This time, she didn’t disappear, this time he wasn’t left with cold sheets and empty arousal. This time he wouldn’t feel the shame that he felt when he looked down at the wrong face.

  He came to a stop at the bed. “After those months in Monaco, my father ordered me home. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed of myself, I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I haven’t touched another woman since, Nikhat. And I have been given a clean bill of health by the doctors.”

  He touched her chin, and tilted it up, his hand shaking. He felt her tremble, but the resolve didn’t falter in her eyes.

  “I’m in good health, too,” she said with a small smile. “And I’m protected by the drugs I take, so…”

  She placed her hands on his chest and moved them restlessly, the irises of her eyes bright like flames. She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed the edges apart. Her hands found his bare skin and he hissed out a sharp breath. Her fingers explored his chest with wanton thoroughness, curled into his chest hair, pressed into his abdomen, traced the seam of his low-slung pajamas.

  Back and forth, dipping into the band now and then, until every nerve in his body was tuned into the movement of her fingers. Every muscle in him curled with anticipation.

  She bent and kissed his chest, and a moan rumbled out of him. His fingers sank into her heavy tresses, the hold on his control wavering at her soft, feathery kisses. Her lips moved over his neck, his pulse, trailing wet heat all over his skin, setting a fire in its wake. The second he felt the stroke of her tongue at his nipple, he tugged at her.

  She looked up, a wicked smile on her mouth, her fingers clutching his waist. Her beautiful, kohl-lined, brown eyes shimmered with desire and glittered with a raw hunger. He tightened his fingers in her hair, waited for a flash of doubt or something that would puncture the spiraling need between them.

  Their hoarse little breaths whispered in the room.

  Still holding his gaze, her own hazy with desire, she sank her teeth over his nipple and sucked it into her mouth.

  The wet rasp of her tongue, the drag of her teeth, her soft curves rubbing up against his lower belly, right above his erection…Azeez lost the battle over his already frayed control.

  He pushed her back on the bed.

  Settling on his good hip, he ran his fingers over her cheek, over the pulse fluttering at her neck, to the neckline of her nightgown. Her skin was like raw silk, a sheen of pink dusting all over. The soft rise and fall of her lush breasts under the satin of her gown, her breath coming in fast little whispers, goaded him. He pressed his mouth to her neck, licked her skin, and her hands sunk into his hair.

  The sight of her nipples, tight and pressed against the silk of her nightgown sent lust stabbing at him. “Take off your gown.”

  She raised a heated glance to him, a soft whisper falling from her lips. “Are you not going to kiss me first?”

  He tugged her lower lip with his teeth, and she gasped, before grasping his shoulders with her hands and licking his lip. He pulled back, suddenly wondering if he really could be gentle with her. “Are you going to argue over every single point in this, too?”

  “I just don’t see why you are the one who decides what should—”

  With a quick movement that surprised even himself, he sat up and ripped up the nightgown with his hands. It tore apart, leaving her magnificent breasts tipped with dark pink areolas to his gaze.

  He pushed her back onto the bed with his body and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  She let out a long
, deep whimper and arched into his touch, shuddering uncontrollably under him.

  He rolled the tight bud with his tongue, suckled it, breathing in the scent of her skin, immersing herself in her soft curves. It was as if a fever had taken root inside him and only plunging into her, until he could forget, until he didn’t think, would help. “I get to decide because I’m the Prince, Dr. Zakhari. There are certain areas where I’ll never bend to your will, and a bed with both of us in it is the first one on that list.”

  She tasted better than the most erotic fantasy he’d ever had of her. In his darkest moments, he had wondered how she would taste, and yet not a single fantasy was close to the raw, earthy reality of her beauty.

  Struggling to his knees, he rent the nightgown all the way through. The sight of her entire body, the scent of her coating the very air he breathed, the slight quake in her toned thighs, it was a moment that blurred the memory of every other woman he had ever touched to replace her.

  * * *

  Nikhat could feel the intensity of Azeez’s gaze on every cell, every inch of her. She moved her hands instantly to cover her sex, shocked by her own audacity. Imagining him coming here, imagining his gaze on her…the fantasy had been easy.

  But the reality of his heated glance stroking over her nudity, of the trembles sparking across her skin, the need knotting her nipples, her sex aching and wet even before he touched her, completely another.

  He pressed a long, lingering kiss to her abdomen, and she writhed under his masterful touch, needing more, too awash in new sensations to even speak. “You thought this would be simple, didn’t you, habeebi?” He licked a wet trail around her navel, and every muscle in her body turned liquid.

  She nodded, the ease with which he read her thoughts not at all surprising her.

  He pushed her wrists out of his way. One hand moved between the valley of her breasts, locking her against the bed, while the other moved over her knees, her thighs, his breath whispering right between her legs. He flicked her knees open with the slightest touch and her thighs fell apart, her breath hitching in and out.

  Her spine locked, the soft nuzzle of his nose against her thighs making it hard to pull breath into her lungs.

  She was a practical woman, even with her traditional, conservative background, she hadn’t been shy or prudish when she had looked at a man’s naked body the first time.

  But now, knowing that the most intimate part of her was open to his hungry eyes, warmth filled her inside out. A heated kiss on her thighs branded her, his jagged exhale against her skin, the pads of his fingers digging hard into her flesh, told tales of his shattering control.

  And then his fingers found her core.

  She threw her head back on a long moan as every inch of her came alive, a searing combination of need and desperation covering her skin. His fingers brushed against the tight bundle of nerves at her core, his strokes, long, lingering, just this short of what she needed. “Please,” she said, ready to beg if need be. She pressed herself into his touch, but he wouldn’t let her move the way she wanted, with the speed with which she wanted.

  Every time he tugged at her nipple with his fingers, she felt an answering quiver shoot down toward her lower belly. But not enough.

  Then she felt his breath on her inner thighs, felt his fingers open her to him, felt a lingering stroke of his tongue against her as if she were a feast he intended to devour. Nikhat came in a splintering shaft of light and sensation, every inch of her sex contracting and releasing, pleasure waves coiling through her lower belly.

  And he still didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until he wrenched wave after wave of pleasure from her, until every inch of her was quaking from the unbearable intensity of her climax. Sweat dampened her skin, and the tremors slowly abated.

  Pushing onto her hips took more energy than she had, but she was determined not to be a passive participant.

  With her arms shaking, she clutched him and pressed a swift kiss to his mouth. She undid the strings of his pajamas, pulled them down, and the hard length of his arousal sprang into her hand.

  A fresh wave of desire bolted through her. He was like velvet-sheathed steel in her hands, and she wanted that hard weight inside her, possessing her, driving into her, and more than anything, finding his pleasure in her. She ran her hands over his shoulders, his skin stretched tight over his bones, and tugged him. They fell together back on the bed. Her legs parted instantly, cradling the weight of him.

  The clamoring ache began in her muscles again.

  With a whispered grunt, he pushed himself up and thrust into her welcoming heat.

  And Nikhat heard the long drawn-out moan that fell from her own mouth, her eyes drifting shut in exquisite pleasure.

  Opening them, she found his gaze boring into hers, his breath a harsh whisper in the silence, his face a stark mask of need and desire. With a hard groan, he took her mouth again, pulled her lower lip with his teeth, ravished her until the soft tug of need became a blazing inferno in her blood again.

  Digging her teeth into his shoulder, she tasted his sweat and his skin, filled herself with the scent of him. “Please, Azeez. I want more.”

  He entered her again, her breasts dragging against his chest, his hair-roughened legs rasping against her soft ones.

  She grabbed his hips to anchor herself and he instantly winced.

  “Azeez, I forgot,” she whispered. He touched her forehead to his and took her mouth in a tender kiss. Something glimmered in his gaze and Nikhat was a thousand times glad that she was here with him in this moment.

  Pain set his mouth into a tight line. “I cannot move like I want to, Nikhat. After the last two days in the desert, my hip…it’s unbearable to move, to bear my own weight.”

  With a frustrated sigh, he rolled off her, and Nikhat instantly felt his loss. Turning sideways, she kissed his cheek.

  She continued peppering kisses on his chest, on his throat, on his jaw. Throwing caution to the winds, she straddled him, heat tightening her cheeks.

  His gaze moved over her body with a thoroughness that had her sex wet again, his mouth curved into a wicked smile. “You’re a stubborn, determined woman. I forgot that.”

  “I want my prince and I will have him, come what may,” she said, more than glad to see his smile.

  A bone-deep joy flickered into life within her. Another man, she knew, would have found shame in his inability in that moment, lost his confidence. But he hadn’t. She couldn’t help wondering if he realized it, couldn’t help but hope that she had a small part in it.

  The joy that swept through her had a double edge to it because it also meant that the man she had loved long ago was beginning to come back, the man who had breathed and lived Dahaar, he was still alive beneath that clawing guilt and self-recrimination.

  She clasped his erection and slowly lowered herself onto him. Heat flared within the walls of her sex, a delicious friction gliding deep into her skin. She straightened her spine, and his gaze moved to her breasts, color riding those sharp cheekbones. He drew his hand over her midriff to the valley between her breasts.

  Moving to his elbows, he sent her a scorching glance. “Bend down, Nikhat. I want to kiss you.”

  When she dutifully did, he put that sinful mouth on her breast instead.

  And Nikhat arched at the sinuous heat that pooled low in her belly again.

  His teeth scraped her nipple and waves began building inside again.

  “Move the way your body wants you to,” he said, burying his face in her neck. “I’m all yours.”

  Giving in to her body’s instinct, Nikhat moved. Their gazes held, their breath hitched as she moved faster, finding a rhythm that sent her once again to the edge. “Come for me, Nikhat.”

  His words were a raw command. And to match his words, he snuck his hands to where their bodies were joi
ned.

  His dark, rough fingers on the swollen bundle of nerves, it was the most erotic sight she had ever seen. Another coil of pressure gripped her and she clamped her thighs and moved over him.

  And was rewarded by his deep, hoarse grunt of pleasure.

  Nikhat came in a deep, swift swamp of sensations that had her crying his name out loud. His fingers on her hips controlling her movements, Azeez pushed harder and deeper, the slap of his flesh against hers pinging around them.

  The sweat beading on his forehead, the dark fire in his gaze, the very starkness of his features, the way he lingered on that last thrust, the way every muscle in his body tightened and released as he climaxed, Nikhat watched him hungrily, even as her body felt as if it would come apart at the seams.

  His breath was loud and harsh in the silence, his skin sweat slicked, his chest rising and falling, every muscle and sinew hard and shuddering.

  That she had done this to this powerful, beautiful man, that it was her body that sent those spasms of pleasure through him, it was the most powerful, the most magnificent, moment of her life.

  She collapsed onto him, and thought she saw a flash of shock in his gaze. When he pushed her hair from her forehead and kissed her temple, she smiled, for once, in an utterly glorious place.

  Sweat coated her skin, her thighs still quaking with tiny tremors and still joined with him in the most intimate of ways.

  And for the first time in her life, she reveled in every sensation that pierced her body, every little quake and flutter, every little tingle and ache, for the first time in a long time, she loved her body, damaged as it was.

  Smiling, she kissed his warm skin and tasted his sweat.

  She had never felt more like a woman.

  * * *

  Adjusting their bodies so that she was on her back, Azeez slowly pulled himself from under Nikhat. Her soft snores made him smile, but his curiosity, now blazing like a wildfire, refused to be distracted. He turned on the bed lamp on his side. The feeble light threw her lush breasts into focus and for a few minutes, he was lost.