by Dani Collins
“I missed you,” she confessed, because if she didn’t say that, she would say something else. I love you.
He brought his hand to the side of her head and tucked his chin to look into her eyes. “I missed you, too.”
His face spasmed anew. “But I still can’t make you any promises.”
“I know.” It was a knife, twisting in her heart, but she only said, “We’re together now, though. Even if it’s only for an hour, Kasim...”
He groaned and she tasted the longing in him as he covered her mouth with his.
Joy quivered through her, blocking out the future and fear of loss, brimming her with happiness at being in his arms again. Pain ceased and all was right in her world.
They kissed without hurry, breaking away to look into each other’s eyes, caress a cheekbone or the shell of an ear, then returned to another kiss of homecoming. She couldn’t get enough of him. There would never be enough.
He rose, keeping her in his arms, and moved to the bed where they stretched out alongside each other with a sigh of relief. Together again, at last.
He jerked back. “I don’t have condoms. I don’t bring women here. I’ll have to ask—”
She touched the side of his face. “I’m on the pill. It’s okay.”
“You never told me that before.” He frowned.
“PMS makes me really emotional. That’s the only reason I take them.”
She would have pointed out that she didn’t have them here because she hadn’t been given an opportunity to pack, but he smiled and kissed her again, which distracted her from anything but how wonderful it was to lie with him again.
When he drew her onto her side so he could unzip her dress, there was reverence in his touch. He took his time, took great care as he stripped her dress down to her waist and unhooked her bra. She tugged it away herself and tossed it aside, smiling as he gave her breasts the possessive, hungry look that tightened her skin all over her body.
Heat pooled between her legs and she had to press into his groin with her own, had to.
“You have missed me,” he said with satisfaction, cupping a swell and lowering his head to capture her nipple.
She gloried in the sensation, unable to get close enough to him. As her dress rode up, so did his thobe. She scraped her legs against his hair-roughened ones and used her hand to climb the fabric higher. His thighs were hot steel, but she was seeking that other column of strength.
He abruptly pushed onto his knees and threw off his thobe, revealing his sculpted form, the dark tone of his skin seeming extra dark as the light faded.
“You were naked under there,” she commented, a little dazed by the idea. Her gaze slid past his six-pack to the thrust of his erection, so aggressive and familiar.
She was compelled to reach out, claim and squeeze. He was velvet over steel, smooth and damp at the tip. She wanted that turgid heat moving inside her, soothing and stoking.
“Ah!” He reacted with a clench of his abdominals and fisted his hand over hers, eyes glittering fiercely at her.
“I will have my way with my harem girl first,” he told her, thrusting in her grip a few times before peeling her hand off him and leaning to press the back of her hand to the mattress above her head. Then he tugged to remove her dress and underwear. “So many wicked pleasures...”
He stroked his hand from her collarbone over her breast to her hip, arranging her to best please his eye.
“Kasim.” She writhed, loins clenching and aching as he skimmed his touch past her sensitive folds. She tried to guide his touch back to where she wanted it. “Please.”
He caught her hand and tucked it beneath the small of her back. Then he gathered the other and did the same as he rolled atop her, using his legs to part her own.
“Don’t tease,” she protested. Caged beneath him, she rubbed her inner thighs against his, lifting her moist center to invite the penetration she longed for.
He shifted down a few inches and stayed propped on his elbows, admiring the way her hands beneath her back arched her breasts to him.
“Better,” he said, and cupped both, lifting them for his delectation. He licked and teased and sucked, moving back and forth between them until she hugged her knees to his ribcage, shamelessly offering herself, begging, “Kasim, please.”
He laughed and smoothly slid down even farther, licking at her very lightly, just once. She was so aroused, she had to catch back a cry.
“Don’t be shy,” he ordered, drawing a circle with his fingertip. “No one is listening but me. Do you like this?”
He pressed a finger inside her and tasted her again as he did.
She groaned in encouragement.
“You do,” he said with satisfaction, and pressed two fingers inside her, making her moan with intense pleasure as he set about lavishing such attention she quickly shuddered with climax. Oh, she had missed him so much.
“So beautiful,” he told her as he kissed his way up her belly. “You please me very much, my little harem girl.”
“Your harem girl is going to tell you to go to hell if you don’t quit calling her that,” she panted.
He chuckled and rolled to her side, allowing her to free her arms, caressing himself with two fingers as he looked at her sprawled next to him, slumberous from climax, but aroused and filled with desire for him.
“Do you want me to do that to you, My Prince?” She rolled into him so her breath was humid against his chin. She nipped lightly. “Would you like me to pleasure you with my mouth until you can’t even speak?”
“Yes.” He gathered a fistful of her hair, holding her still for his kiss, pressing over her and parting her legs with his, thrusting in and shuddering, lifting to look into her eyes as they absorbed the feeling of being joined without a barrier between them. “Later,” he breathed. “Later I want you all over me. I want you to ride me and give me your nipples and I want you on your knees in front of me. I want you every way I can have you.”
“I’m yours,” she vowed. “All yours.”
For now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I’VE NEVER SKINNY-DIPPED BEFORE.”
“No?” Kasim wondered how she was swimming at all. He was worn right out, barely able to sit upright on the natural rock ledge that hung just below the waterline.
He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn’t sleep even if they went back to the tent. And he didn’t want to miss a moment of her slick form twisting in the inky black of the water, rippling the reflection of the moon and stars. His midnight mermaid. He would remember this forever.
He wanted this night to last forever.
“Tell me something else about yourself,” he coaxed.
“Like what?”
“Something about your childhood. Before.” Before her sister’s kidnapping he meant, when she had been carefree.
“Um...” Her voice hummed across the water like a musical note. “Oh, this is something not many people know. My father spoke French and my mother spoke Spanish, even when they spoke to each other. The boys grew up thinking that if Mama spoke to them, they had to reply to her in French and Spanish with Papa. If they spoke to each other, Henri used French and Ramon used Spanish. Then we came along and did the same thing.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know. The boys knew better by then, but they thought it was funny. We girls grew out of it once we realized it wasn’t normal for other families.”
Thinking of herself only as a piece of the collective wasn’t normal, either. He wondered if she realized that.
“Now tell me something that is just about you,” he commanded.
A pause, then a dreamy, but rueful, “I like birds.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them. I’m weirdly fascinated and have dozens of boo
ks about them. I listen to recordings of their songs and study the patterns of their feathers. I love that they fly and always know where they’re going. I’m intrigued by how they build their nests and I always imagine that when I’m old, I’ll be one of those odd people squatting behind a log with binoculars, excited because I can tick off red-throated warbler in my birding book. Are you laughing at me?”
“That would make me a hypocrite. I own falcons.”
The water rippled as she let her feet sink and brought her head up, swirling around to look at him. “Really?”
He had to smile at her excitement. He suspected he had just won her over for all time. For good measure, he added, “My mother has an aviary.”
“Can I see it?” She skimmed closer in her excitement, then paused to tread water. “Never mind. I’d probably cry because they’re caged.”
He held up a hand to warn her as he noticed a servant coming toward the shoreline.
The report didn’t surprise him. Nor did the apologetic way it was delivered. Fortunately he was too relaxed to order a beheading of the messenger.
He responded with a flat “Thank you,” and jerked his head to indicate they should be left alone again.
“What was that?” Angelique asked, turning to watch the retreat.
“My father is not grinning and your brothers are not bearing.” And he was not interested in talking about reality. They had stepped beyond time, at least until morning. He wished to enjoy it.
“Relaying my safe word didn’t reassure them?” She sounded genuinely surprised. Small wonder.
“I didn’t relay it.”
“Kasim! Don’t do that to them.” She swam a little closer.
He reached out his feet, but she was too far away to catch and drag close. “Your sister knows you came with me willingly. What do they think I’m going to do with you?”
“Just tell them I’m all right,” she said impatiently, looking again to where the servant had disappeared.
“My father knows where I am. He can arrange to transport them here if they need proof of life so badly.”
“Or you could send a message.”
“I’m just as happy to let them pressure him into having you returned to the palace.”
“You’re using me,” she said with a lilt of outrage. “Using them to back your father into a corner. I thought you didn’t play those games.” She made a V in the water as she headed away from him, toward shore. “What would that even accomplish? He can still disinherit you, can’t he? Are you going to risk that so I can stay for the wedding? For one day?”
She was really asking if he was fighting for a broader future with her. And she was right that he would be disinherited for that sort of transgression. He was playing a dangerous game as it was, thinking he could steal this night with her.
“Why can’t you just enjoy what we have?” he challenged. That’s what he was doing.
“I was. Sex and skinny-dipping is great. But apparently I’m not here for that. You want to punish your father. You’re using me to embarrass him because you’re angry about Jamal.” As she climbed from the water, her shoulders hunched, even though the air was still velvety and warm.
“Stop accusing me of only wanting sex from you.” He pulled himself up and out, pushing to his feet so water sluiced off his naked body in a trickling rush. “I brought you here because this is where I’m happiest. I wanted you to see it.”
He waded along the ledge until he reached the path on the shore, then he circled through the high grass to where she stood, towel wrapped around her middle, arms hugged over it.
“Will you take me back? Please?”
“To the palace? You’re going to choose a night with your family over one with me? Live your own life, Angelique! Quit hiding behind your sister.”
She recoiled like he’d taken a swing at her.
“This is me. I don’t hurt the people I love.”
“Meaning I do?” Now who was delivering the sucker punch?
She dropped her gaze so he only saw her pale eyelids, not whatever emotion might be glimmering in her eyes.
“You’re better at holding yourself apart from things. I even understand why you had to become that way. But I feel things, Kasim. Do you think I came to Zhamair for a midnight swim in an oasis? No. I came because my heart was torn apart by a family so broken I couldn’t stand it. I came despite knowing I would probably wind up in your bed and be shattered at having to leave it again.”
“Then don’t,” he growled, hating to hear that he was hurting her when it was the last thing he wanted to do. He thought of her sitting in his lap, crying for him, and his guts twisted.
“And what?” she challenged softly. “Become Wife Number Two? Look how well that turns out!” Her profile was shadowed with despair as she gazed over the moonlit water.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The last time they’d had this conversation, he had fought to exclude one day from their lives. Now he saw the single day they might steal—only a night, really—slipping away.
“You want me to call your brothers with your code word, fine.”
“Your father will still know I’m out here and resent it. Do you really want to fuel the fire? I don’t want to be the reason you two went to war the day before your sister’s wedding. Kasim, I love you.”
The words struck him with such a blast of heat and light, he rocked back on his heels, speechless at how powerful the statement was.
* * *
“I know you don’t feel the same,” Angelique rushed to say, appalled that she had spilled her heart out at his feet like that. Crushed that he only stood there looking stunned. How could he not have expected this?
“I don’t want to know how you feel,” she added quickly. “It would make this even more impossible to deal with,” she babbled on, drowning in yearning. “But that’s who I am. If you think I hide behind my sister, it’s because I don’t know how else to protect myself from feeling so much. You get past even that and it makes me feel so defenseless.”
She wanted to look at him, but was afraid what she’d see. Pity? Weariness with yet another woman falling at his feet?
“You could talk me into being a second wife, and we’d both lose respect for each other for it,” she said, feeling as though one of his falcons had taken her chest in its talons and was squeezing relentlessly. Her voice thinned. “So I’m asking you not to wield your power over me. Be the man I love and show respect for someone weaker than you. Don’t use me in your fight with your father. Take me back and make peace with him for your sister’s sake.”
He let out a breath like she’d kicked it out of him.
“Don’t be selfish like my parents,” he summed up, voice as dry and gritty as a wind off a sandstorm. “You should give yourself more credit, Angelique. You’re plenty brutal when you need to be.”
* * *
He took her back to the palace and let her go without so much as a reluctant “goodbye.” She didn’t suppose she would ever forgive him for that, even though it was exactly what she had asked for. She had hoped for some kind of miracle though. Foolishly hoped.
Henri met her off the helicopter and escorted her wordlessly back to their suite where she half expected Ramon to be waiting up. He wasn’t. They were all asleep.
“Is Trella okay?” she asked as Henri firmly closed the door behind them.
“Bien. She’s your champion. You know that.” He unstoppered a bottle, smelled the contents, and set it away with disgust. “Cordial. How do they survive without a decent brandy? Do you want to tell me what you were thinking, disappearing like that?”
She lifted a hand and huffed out a breath of despair. “Do you want to tell me what went wrong between you and Cinnia?”
He jerked his head back. “Non.”
She tilted her head. He knew how she felt then. Sometimes things were far too painful to share.
He sighed and held out his arm. “Je m’excuse, Gili. Come here. I hate fighting with you. It just makes me feel like a bully.”
She laughed faintly. “Because I don’t fight back?”
“You just did. Most punishingly.” He hugged her. “But it tells me how hurt you are when you hit below the belt like that.”
“I’m sorry about you and Cinnia,” she murmured as she hugged him back. “It’s so hard to find people we can trust. Even harder to keep them,” she added in a voice that thinned to a whisper.
He squeezed her and set her away. “You should get some sleep. We may be packing to leave first thing.”
* * *
They didn’t. Kasim pulled strings and Angelique was allowed to stay for the wedding. At least, she assumed Kasim had arranged it, until she and Trella caught up to the bride to help her dress.
Hasna had been crying, as most brides were wont to do, and was running late while her makeup was fixed. Her suite was being cleared, everyone leaving to take their seats. Angelique offered Fatina a smile as the woman hurried past her, but Fatina didn’t even acknowledge her. She was ashen beneath her olive complexion. She looked both wispy and frail, yet had an incandescent glow behind the wetness in her eyes.
Angelique’s blood chilled with premonition, but she was pulled back to Hasna’s reflection as she spoke.
“I told Mama to tell Papa I want you both at the wedding. I realize there are politics, but...” She touched the pendant at her throat and Angelique wondered if there were other reasons for the smudged mascara and puffy eyes, the haunted shadows behind Hasna’s somewhat shell-shocked expression.
Oh, Kasim. Angelique wished, illogically, that she could have been with them when he’d given Jamal’s gift to his sister, to hold his hand and bolster him as he had made his explanation.
“That’s fine,” Hasna said with a flustered dismissal of the makeup artist, sounding very much the princess as she said, “Go. I just want to be married and live with my husband. Help me dress.”
