by Tara Pammi
She instantly turned sideways again, seeking warmth, and he stilled her with an arm around her waist.
And there it was.
The scar he had seen just as he had found glorious climax. Not that the blinding pleasure he had found in her was in any way blunted by his sudden observation. But now, the sheets cooling off around them, now that the edge of his hunger was blunted, he couldn’t stop wondering.
The scar was about a half inch wide and was right above the hair that covered her sex. It looked precise, and he realized it was the result of a surgery.
Instantly, he thought of the name she had given him for her condition, wondered at the seriousness of it.
Exhaling a harsh breath, he pushed out the concern and curiosity, too. They had both known that this was about one night.
Glorious sex after six years of abstinence was frying his brain, warping his mind. Nikhat and he were tied together by a curious twist of fate but nothing else. It had to be.
She shivered and he pulled up the duvet to cover her naked body.
He lay back down on the bed, on his side again, and gathered her close. The scent of sex and her, a delicious combination, settled deep into his skin. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she snuggled into him. Her eyes fluttered open, drowsy and sated, her mouth curving into a satisfied smile. “Can we do it again?”
He laughed and tasted her mouth again.
Her eyes fluttered closed. “All I need is a little rest, and I will be ready for round two.” She cracked her eyes open and winked at him. “Unless it’s your creaky joints that aren’t up to scratch, really. If so, we will—”
He sent his fingers on a search up her thighs, until they found her buttocks and gave her a little squeeze. She yelped and hid her face in his neck.
His throat clotted, and he marveled at how easily she had made him laugh at himself. And he stilled at another realization. Even the pain in his hip, his inability to move inside her as he wanted without pain shooting down his leg, hadn’t derailed him the way it usually did. And, of course, he couldn’t contest the fact that it was because it was her. He swallowed the bittersweet realization. “Sleep, habeebi.”
* * *
The next morning, Nikhat woke alone in her bed. Sunlight glinted across every surface in her room, touching everything with a golden glow. Moving to her side, she dragged the pillow next to her toward her nose and took a deep breath. That dark scent of Azeez, with undertones of sex and sandalwood, instantly evoked tingles across her skin. Smiling, she lay there for a few more minutes, reliving last night.
The same sense of lightness and contentment pervaded her as she showered and dressed in a long cotton skirt adorned with beads and tiny mirrors that fell to her ankles, and a thin silk blouse in a pale yellow. Adding large dangly earrings that she had bought in a quirky jewelry store in Brooklyn, she studied her reflection in the mirror.
Color filled her cheeks and there was a light in her eyes. She looked every inch like a woman who had been loved, very thoroughly, last night. Refusing to let her thoughts veer into negative territory, she pulled a comb through her long hair, pulled it to fall in an angled ponytail over her shoulder and set off in search of Azeez.
The vast marble corridors of the resort, the grand archways that filled every inch of it with light, the world itself, looked like a brighter place today.
She found Azeez sitting at a table filled with breakfast dishes in a veranda off the main lounge. As it was only nine in the morning, the heat was still bearable. Pausing to catch her breath, she leaned against a wall.
His head thrown back over his chair, his eyes closed, his face was covered in sunlight. Long eyelashes cast shadows onto his gaunt cheekbones, his prominent, crooked nose shading the other side of his face from view, and his mouth…
Honeyed heat gathered in her muscles at the thought of all the things that mouth had done to her. She clutched her legs together as if she could soothe the pulsing ache at the center of her sex, desperate to stave off the yearning before it turned into something else.
She had wanted one night and she had taken it. If she continued to play with fire, she would only get burned.
“You are welcome to join me, Nikhat.” The hint of teasing in his tone had relief sweeping through her. She exhaled deeply, and smiled, more than glad that he was in that wicked, humorous mood. It was only a fragile cover over the deep passion underneath, the heated intensity of his emotions, but she welcomed it anyway. “I won’t bite. Not now and not here.”
Simple, mocking words. Yet it felt as if he had caressed her with his fingers. She sat down on the opposite chair and met his gaze.
It swept over her slowly, as if he had been waiting to do just that. “You look very—” he inclined his head, still looking, still devouring, and her heart thudded “—carefree today. Very much…”
She raised a brow, loving the wicked gleam in his eyes. “Very much like a satisfied woman? I did score—” she scrunched her face into a mock frown “—four times.”
He erupted into rich laughter, and it was impossible not to join him.
Shaking his head, his mouth still curved into a wide smile that dug grooves on his stubbled cheeks, he leaned forward. “I was going to say reckless.”
“Remember that time when you came back from university and wouldn’t stop strutting around the palace, as though you were lord of everything you surveyed, and Ayaan and Amira bugged you incessantly—”
“I was the lord of everything I surveyed.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. The sheer, undiluted arrogance in his words, it was so much like the old him. “Fine. Like a….” She clicked her fingers. “You were like a peacock strutting your feathers or your mighty sword in this case,” she snorted in mock disgust. “It was so easy to see through you.”
Slashes of deep color marked his cheekbones. “Your vocabulary, I see, has become just as enriched as the rest of you, habeebi.” His eyes wide, he ran his fingers over his eyebrows, his mouth still wreathed in smiles. “Of all the things to remember, Nikhat? I never told them. At least, Ayaan, not until a couple of years later. I can’t believe you…”
Now it was her turn to blush under the dawn of a slow intensity in his gaze. “My obsession with you had already begun. I was years ahead of everyone else in biology. God, my fourteen-year-old self burned with jealousy. And I knew exactly what put that smug, self-satisfied smile on your face.” She pointed her finger toward her face, unable to stop smiling.
“I believe that’s what you see today.”
Shaking his head, Azeez studied her, wondered at how easy she made it to laugh, how she reminded him of everything that had been good about the past.
Because there had been good things in the past.
He could finally see the brilliance of Ayaan’s idea.
Nikhat, with her joyful stories about their family, with her infallible strength and loyalty, was the perfect medicine that his brother could have brought for Azeez.
And it was working.
Here he was, just weeks later. He had made love to a woman, the fact that it was she—he chalked it up to the curious quirk of fate—he had found invaluable information for Dahaar, he was laughing.
It would be so easy to get used to this. To having her in his bed, to laugh with her out of it. Already, she was insinuating herself into his life again, already the urge to share his shame with her, to find that relief, too, it was overwhelming.
She had him wonder if he wanted more from life, made him wonder about the future. And she made him want to forget and move ahead. And that hope, he did not deserve it.
He couldn’t let her be anything more than a temporary drug on the road to recovery, couldn’t let her distract him from his true purpose. He couldn’t let her believe that this had been anything more than a brief interlude. He would help Ay
aan and then he would leave.
Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to be his brother’s prisoner again.
She blinked as he stood up. A stillness emerged in her body, her laughter inching into something else as he moved closer.
He silenced the clamor of regrets inside.
It was better this way. He had nothing to offer her.
His fingers moved over her mouth as he settled on the table in front of her. Frantic for another taste of her, he took her in a devouring kiss that had their lips clinging, sucking, drawing breath from each other in seconds. She clasped his cheek as he trailed his mouth over her temple.
“Ayaan has got this whole science of managing me down very well, it seems. You were exactly what I needed. I have been thinking of myself as a cripple, have let everything about me filter down to just that one fact. I will never be able to ride a horse again, or run or, apparently, make love to a woman the way I want to…But you have also made me realize everything I can do. Maybe have even given me a new lease on life.”
He couldn’t hold back the warmth in his words. It was her due.
He pushed a tendril of her hair back. “Last night will be as memorable to me as it is to you, Nikhat.
“Now, it is time we returned. I have some time-sensitive information for Ayaan. And I am sure you can’t wait to get back to being the stern doctor who has to get the dissolute, arrogant prince in shape so that he’s off your plate and your life can get back on track.”
CHAPTER TEN
PRINCESS ZOHRA REQUESTS your presence at dinner tonight in the Royal Hall.
The palace maid’s softly spoken instruction ringing in her head, Nikhat followed her down a corridor she had never visited before. The maid, after showing her to huge double doors, partially open, left. Pushing one door ajar, Nikhat stepped in.
And her jaw met her chest at the sight that greeted her.
Every surface she saw was either golden or silver, including the edges of the huge rectangular table. Intricately wrought silver-and-gold knives and forks and plates glinted in the light thrown from the crystal chandelier overhead. The crystal had a gold tint to it, casting a bright yellow glow on everything in the room.
There were portraits of generations of Al Sharifs on the walls. Vases were overflowing with exotic flowers. Velvet-cushioned heavy chairs sat around the table, the back of each intricately carved with the Dahaaran insignia of a sword.
And on the table, an unending array of mouthwatering dishes beckoned.
Azeez stood in the darkened corner of the room, and yet she felt his gaze on her, as though he had touched her.
“Hello, Nikhat.”
Running a hand over her midriff, Nikhat nodded. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, pinned to the spot by the energy instantly crackling in the air around them.
They hadn’t seen each other since they had returned from the desert four days ago. She had no idea who was avoiding whom, or maybe they both were.
She had thought she would take the plunge and taste paradise for one night. What she hadn’t realized was how hard it would be to have tasted it once and then having to live with the fact that it would never be hers again. A fierce need to leave a mark on him, that’s what she had wanted. Instead, she felt as if she was the one who had walked away scarred, again.
She startled and turned as she heard Princess Zohra behind her. Greeting her with a nod, she walked back toward the entrance, realizing the significance of the occasion. Of course, the princess would want to celebrate.
Holding the wave of emotion threatening to pull her under, Nikhat was about to leave when the princess stopped her. “I had the servants invite you on purpose, Nikhat. My family is not with me and you have—” she flicked a knowing look toward Azeez, and Nikhat could only be thankful he didn’t notice “—brought peace of mind to me in more than one way.”
Her stomach twisting, Nikhat wet her lips. “I do not belong at this dinner.”
Before Nikhat could leave, Ayaan entered the hall.
Unable to excuse herself, Nikhat took the seat next to Azeez. His gaze took in her shaking hands, and she clasped them rigidly in her lap, wishing herself anywhere but here.
“You’re shaking. Are you in pain again?”
She shook her head. Ayaan dismissed everyone else, even the waiting servants. His hands on her chair, he leaned down and took Princess Zohra’s mouth in a kiss that sent heat rushing to Nikhat’s cheeks.
Next to her, Azeez leaned back into his seat, stretching his right leg. “Do you wish us to leave, Ayaan?” There was more than a hint of teasing in his voice and Nikhat instinctively turned.
He was grinning, and the joy in his face momentarily wiped everything else from her mind.
Leaning over the chair, his arm still around Princess Zohra’s, Ayaan smiled at Azeez. “We are celebrating and…we would like you to be part of it. Zohra had an ultrasound scan today.” He nodded at Nikhat. “We’re having twin boys.”
Nikhat wanted to look away and yet she devoured every expression, every nuance in Azeez’s face.
He became very still in contrast to the restless energy that poured off him; even the air around him seemed to hang in suspension. Slowly, he blinked, as though coming out of a deep fog.
His gaze caught hers for an infinitesimal second and the flash of something in it left Nikhat shaken to the core. She felt unbearably frozen inside. And she fought the feeling.
She had enough to feel guilty about, enough things that she couldn’t change about herself. She didn’t want the burden of his disappointment, the burden of his lost dreams.
Her hands gripped the hard wood at her sides and still, she could not look away.
Finally, when he recovered, it felt like a lifetime even if it had been nothing but a few seconds. When he looked at Ayaan, there was nothing but undiluted happiness there. “It is cause for celebration.” He cleared his throat. “The future king of Dahaar is going to be born,” he said with such pride, such joy, that tears rose to her eyes.
Why it should hurt so much after all these years, why it twisted her stomach in such pure agony, Nikhat couldn’t say. She had delivered babies, she saw pregnant women on a daily basis and yet, this time, she couldn’t stave off the pain no matter what she did.
Azeez walked to Ayaan and clapped him on the back. “You are a prayer come true, Princess Zohra.” His breath hitched on the words as he pulled the princess out of her chair and enveloped her in a fierce hug that had the princess staring at him with shock filling her beautiful eyes. “For Dahaar, for my family, but most of all, my brother. Even the doctor has to agree that this calls for a drink,” he said, throwing a look at Nikhat.
Nikhat nodded, her heart in her throat, her vision full of unshed tears. She forced herself to congratulate Ayaan, forced herself to smile even as her heart shattered in her breast again.
Pain sliced through her and she gasped for breath. How could this pain be as sharp as ever? How had she found herself in this moment again?
She felt Azeez’s continued scrutiny, his puzzled look at her petrified silence over the next hour, but there was nothing she could do. Every moment of the royal family’s happiness sent piercing pain through her and she sat through it all, wishing herself anywhere else in the world, yet bound to him, more by her own heart than any promise she had made.
* * *
Azeez finished his drink, the dark chasm of Nikhat’s heavy silence next to him grating on his nerves. She had hardly touched her food, hardly spoken a word all through dinner. They had shared one beautiful night. She was not his concern, he reminded himself.
He turned his attention to his brother. The ever-present shadow of tiredness gleamed under Ayaan’s wide smile. “You were not present during the scan?”
Ayaan shook his head and clasped Zohra’s fingers with his. “No. The
re was an official summons requiring Father’s presence in Zuran last night and I went. Thanks to you, I was at least prepared.”
“Zayed?”
Ayaan nodded. “He proposed changes to the economic policy Dahaar has with Zuran. He is threatening to declare war if we don’t alter the terms of the peace treaty.”
“That treaty was signed almost fifteen years ago. I remember Father telling me how he had to force Sheikh Asad not to gamble away all of Zuran’s oil to fill his treasury.”
Ayaan looked at him with increasing interest. “Then Zayed has conveniently decided to forget it. He claims Father bullied him into signing bad terms for Zuran with the threat of Dahaar’s army. It’s clear he views our alliance with Siyaad as a threat.”
“It’s just a threat to get Dahaar to—”
“I don’t think you can make that claim anymore. He’s not the man our sister was going to marry, Azeez. You saw him. Assure me he’s not changed and I will…”
Azeez shook his head, knowing that Ayaan was right. The man he had seen had been but a shadow of his old friend. And suddenly, for the first time since he had been shot, Azeez realized what a gift he had in his family, in Nikhat.
Zayed was, and had always been, truly alone in the world.
“I will not call Father back for this. Not after everything he’s shouldered alone for all these years. I need help, Azeez.”
“You have experienced staff for—”
“You have a bloody doctorate in trade policy and economics. Father prepared us to complement each other, Azeez. For you to rule and for me to aid you. If you’re determined to leave, at least help me while you are here.”
As though Ayaan had rolled a small explosive amidst the gleaming silverware on the table, the air leached out of the room. Princess Zohra’s gaze clashed with Azeez’s, a defiant challenge blazing in it.
Instant denial rose to his lips. He felt Nikhat shift closer to him just as he opened his mouth. Beneath the table, she clasped her fingers with his, and he wondered if she realized what she was doing.
