The Sheikh's Virgin Hostage: Seducing her was never part of the plan...

by Clare Connelly

  So she shook her head. “I can’t think why.”

  “Don’t be obtuse, little one. Did you really think I would let you come back here and not have a long overdue conversation?”

  She shivered, in little doubt of his determination. “I came back to meet Aliyah.” She raised her chin at him, a defiant expression on his face. “I don’t care if I never see you again.”

  His eyes scanned her face and he sighed. “Why do you always tell these little lies?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I’m not lying.”

  He growled. “You know what I am capable of doing to achieve my goals.”

  “Don’t.” She hissed. And then, as if remembering where they were, she pushed her finger into his chest to move him away from the corridor. It just happened that they moved in the direction of the lifts. He jabbed the button and stared down at her.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t act as though we’re where we were six months ago. We’ve both moved on. If you really wanted to talk to me, you would have called. You would have come.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And you wouldn’t have left.”

  How could he say that? After hearing what she did, that he never intended to marry her, how could she have stayed and lived with her embarrassment? “It’s ancient history,” she said quietly.

  “Is it?” And, as the lift opened with a bell-like sound, he barreled her inside and pressed her against the wall. Reaching behind him, he pressed the emergency stop button.

  “You can’t do that.” She said, flummoxed.

  “You forget who I am,” he said through gritted teeth.

  With his body against hers, and his arms on either side of her head, she was trapped. “Holding me hostage again?” She said through lips that were dry.

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “If that’s what what takes?” She demanded huskily.

  “For you to have a proper conversation with me.”

  She lowered her eyes, cursing her stupid body for responding to him so fast. Her nipples were stretched taught against the simple cream dress she wore. Her hands were sticky with anxiety and she was flushed with desire.

  “I don’t want to talk to you!”

  “I don’t want to talk to you either.” He said, dragging a hand through his hair. “At least, it’s not the top of my priority list.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “If you think I’m going to let you touch me, you’ve got another thing coming, buster,” she said, her defiant words somewhat deflated by the way her hand had come up and was pressed against his chest. When had that happened?

  “And if you think I’m going to let you go again, you can think again.” And before she could even guess what he intended, he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her high over his shoulder. For the second time in her adult life, Emma Anderson was being kidnapped, and she felt just as infuriated second time around… or at least, she ought to have.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A very fraught, quick car trip later, they were back in a place Emma would always know. The Ruins of Shilleth.

  “Why here?” She demanded in a strangled voice.

  Rafiq didn’t answer. Hell-bent on getting it right, he opened Emma’s door and reached across her, unbuckling her seatbelt and lifting her out of the seat.

  “I can walk, your highness,” she muttered sarcastically.

  He cast a look at her filled with such passion that she immediately forgot to be indignant or sarcastic, and felt only lust.

  He carried her inside the walled city. Her heart was iced with dread as she realized he was taking her back to the amphitheater, where they’d first made love.

  “Sit.” He said, once inside the space.

  “Stop ordering me around like a child.”

  “Please sit,” he amended with obvious effort.

  Rolling her eyes, she did so, crossing her legs and staring up at the star-spangled sky. She was too nervous to admire the beauty of it. Too aware of the man beside her to do anything but feel.

  “Why have you brought me here?” She said, when the silence was too taught to bear.

  “I need to speak to you away from distraction.”

  She lowered her head. “You’re so fond of reminding me how powerful you are. Couldn’t you have just emptied the palace? The city? The country?”

  He let out a long, harsh sigh. “Emma, I should never have kidnapped you. I look back on my actions now with regret, and shame.”

  Her heart turned over in her chest. Regret. Regret for kidnapping, or for the whole damned mess? “And yet you’ve just done it again.” She pointed out caustically. Then, when he didn’t respond, “Is that an apology?”

  “Yes.” He turned to look at her. “I do not apologize often; perhaps I’m not good at it. It was wrong of me. I see now how scared you must have been.”

  He took her hand in his, and stroked each of her fingers with his, silent as if mesmerized by just the sight of her.

  “Of course I was scared! You lied to me! You brought me to a foreign country and you made it sound like you were going to keep me here for the rest of my life. I was terrified.”

  He closed his eyes, nodding slowly. “I know. I wish I could take it back. I have to know something. Something I have been wondering since you left.” He squeezed her hand then lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss against the soft flesh of her inner wrist before releasing it. “Did you sleep with me out of fear?”

  She knew this man better than anyone else on earth, and she knew what pain the question alone had brought him. “Of course not,” she immediately demurred. “Oh, Rafiq, whatever else happened between us, that day was about desire, and nothing else.”

  His eyes flew open and he looked at her, relief etched in every line of his face. “You don’t know how grateful I am to hear you say that. I couldn’t have forgiven myself…if I thought…”

  “No.” She shook her head firmly.

  “Cassandra tells me that you have been dating a literature professor.” He said, a hint of anger in his voice.

  “What I’m doing in my love life is none of your business now that I’m no longer your hostage,” she said, her cheeks glowing in the moonlight.

  “You’re wrong,” and now there was more than a hint of anger in his voice. “Don’t you understand that you are mine?”

  She leaped to her feet, too angry to be still. “I am not property, get that through your thick skull, your highness.”

  “You do not belong to this teacher. You do not belong to anyone but me.”

  “Didn’t you just hear what I said?” She yelled into the star-lit night. “I am not property!”

  “You are, and always will be, mine!” He stood and pulled her into his arms, and as his lips crushed down on hers, he said, “And I am yours.”

  She wanted to kick him. She wanted to claw at him. But she was simply drunk on finally being able to taste him again. Their lips meshed with fierce need and her hands danced over his body, aching to find skin. She lifted her legs and he pulled her easily around his waist, holding her there with his hands firmly on her butt. With a groan, he dropped to his knees, laying her back on the grass and coming to lean over her.

  “Emma, your body is in charge of me. I have thought of you every day since you left.”

  He was talking about sex. About their red-hot chemical attraction. Hell, she needed him, too, but sex wasn’t enough for her.

  “But we both know how this ends,” she said quietly, unwrapping her legs from around his torso. She turned her face away, and closed her eyes, refusing to cry. “I want you too, Rafiq, but I can’t do it. I can’t be jerked around like this, like Minky’s ball of string.”

  He frowned at the analogy. “I don’t want to jerk you around, Emma.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want to marry you.”

  Shocked, she stared up at him. “But why?”

  “Why do you think?” He said seriously, his eyes scanning
her face.

  “Because of sex? Come on, Rafiq. You’re this super sexy, gorgeous, rich, powerful King guy. You could get any woman you wanted.”

  “I want you.”

  Her pulse was racing, her body felt filled with warm, bubbly water. But she wouldn’t allow herself to forget. The pain she had felt was like a scar, and being back with him now was like reopening the wound. “Damn you, Rafiq! Then why the hell did you let me go?” She pushed at his rock hard chest with all her strength, but it was ineffectual, for he stayed right where he was, only inches above her.

  “You said you wanted your freedom. You said it over again. Your argument was compelling,” he grunted.

  “I explained that! I didn’t want to be here against my will. That’s not right.”

  “Are you saying you wanted to stay?”

  “No.” She glared at him. “I don’t know. All I remember is you insisting we were going to marry, one day, sending me back to the palace to plan the wedding. Then, the next thing I know, you’re telling Mansour that you never wanted to marry me in the first place; that you weren’t sure why you’d even brought me to Amar’a!”

  He at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “I did not mean that.” With a sigh of self-derision, he rolled away from her, onto his back, but he took her hand in his. Side by side, they looked up at the stars. “Before I met you, my path was laid. I knew I would rule Amar’a. That one day I would take a suitable wife, for whom I would feel nothing. I was angry, that day, because you had undone my whole future, just by being you. If I hadn’t brought you to Amar’a…”

  She swallowed. “And so you contacted Cassandra, and thus got rid of me.”

  “It wasn’t about getting rid of you. The whole idea of our marriage was not worthy of me. I’ve always, always opposed forced marriages, habibte.”

  She turned to face him, one brow arched in ironic disbelief. “Really?”

  “Yes. Until I met you, that is. It took me a while to remember myself, that’s all.”

  “Well, you did a pretty good job at pretending to be their number one champion.”

  “I know, I know. As I said, I bitterly regret putting you through that.”

  “Why did you?” She said, seriously, propping up one elbow and looking down at him.

  Rafiq reached up with both hands and cupped her face. Staring into her eyes, he spoke softly in Arabic. There was such tenderness in his face that Emma almost wanted to pinch herself.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “It is an old Amar’an proverb. Roughly translated it means, with love comes an understanding that ends wars and makes men from boys.”

  Her breath hitched in her throat as her brain tried to register his meaning. The first computation she got – that he’d just said he loved her – made no sense, so she tried to refute it.

  “You don’t believe in love.”

  “I didn’t believe in love,” he corrected softly. “Until you left, and I realized that I would have walked a desert of hot coals if it meant just one more day with you.”

  She closed her eyes, and her heart, against his words. “I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you.”

  “I think I always loved you,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. “From our first conversation, when you, tiny little you, with your silly plait and your spectacles, argued with me about our foreign aid liabilities. I saw you laughing with another member of staff the next day, a man, and I was filled with a murderous rage. At the time, it was easy to think it was just lust. But once we got to Amar’a, I knew I did not want to let you go. Though even I was surprised by the lengths I went to.”

  And though she was trying to think with her brain for once and not her heart, she asked, “I still don’t understand why you did. Let me go, I mean.”

  “I kept remembering an old adage… something about letting free those things you love. Only those that return your love will fly back to you of their own will. I suppose I hoped that you would refuse to go. Or that you would come back.”

  “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”

  “That’s it. And so I let you go.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I couldn’t come to you. I didn’t dare, after what I had put you through. I have you every reason in the world to hate me. All I could hope was that you didn’t. I told myself I would wait for you. That eventually, you would feel for me as I do for you. I’m not a patient man, little one, but for you, I tried. Weeks turned into months, and still I hoped. But you didn’t come back,” he pointed out. “Until today.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said, tears thick in her throat. “You big idiot! I loved you, too. I knew that I wouldn’t be strong enough to leave you again. And I couldn’t stand the thought of marrying you, when you didn’t appear to care for me at all.”

  “Did not appear to care for you?” He said in disbelief. “You were all I thought about!”

  She lowered her eyes. “I mean beyond sex.”

  “As do I. Don’t mistake me, what we shared here, and in the desert, changed who I am. Being with you made me realize where I want to be for the rest of my life. But it’s everything about you, Emma. With your heart and your mind and your strength and resilience, you bewitched me.” She looked at him, disbelief dancing in her eyes. He kissed her softly, on each eyelid. “And though it will bring me great physical pain, I will abstain from seducing you until our wedding night, if that will convince you. Only please say you’ll marry me soon.”

  Try as she might, she couldn’t think of a single reason to refuse him. And there was one huge reason for accepting. “I love you,” she said simply.

  “Does that mean…”

  She nodded, and now she did let the tears spring to her eyes. “Yes. I’ll marry you, your highness.”

  And as she kissed him on his lips, she whispered, “But please don’t wait until our wedding night. We’ve already wasted far too much time.”

  PROLOGUE

  Aliyah slept peacefully in her nanny’s arms, looking every bit the little princess-in-waiting, in a custom made Dolce & Gabbana flower girl dress that shone like her glorious strawberry blonde hair. As Emma walked through the centre of the rose garden, down what had been turned into a makeshift aisle for the day, she couldn’t contain the joy she felt to be marrying her soul mate. A movement in the distance caught her eye and she saw Minky scamper away from the crowds. He was certainly enjoying life in the palace gardens, since Rafiq had organized for him to be moved over.

  In the end, it had taken six months to arrange the wedding. Amar’a did so love their ruler, and Rafiq was advised time and time again that it would not be fair to have a rushed wedding, thus taking the pleasure and anticipation of a royal wedding from the population at large. Though he was so desperate to make his love for Emma official that he would have eloped to Las Vegas if she had shown any inclination to do so.

  But she didn’t.

  In her truly indomitable way, she’d taken it all in her stride. The hundred and one dress fittings, the florist who had turned the simple designs Emma wanted into creations that loomed large throughout the palace and garden, and the guest list which had grown from a few hundred officials and friends to over a thousand well-heeled guests.

  Emma had not cared about the details. For the last six months, she had been floating on air. With her blue eyes locked on the man of her dreams now, she continued to float, this time, down the aisle, towards her future.

  When she reached the front, she smiled broadly at Cassandra, whose eyes were suspiciously moist. With a kiss for her sister, Emma handed her bouquet over and then placed her hands, and her life, in the hands of the man opposite.

  The wedding ceremony was long, but Emma did not care. She could have stared at Rafiq and pledged her love for him day in, day out. When it was over, and they were announced as the royal couple, the crowd erupted with cheers so loud that Emma wanted to block her ears.

&nbs
p; “You are my soul,” Rafiq whispered to her, above the din of their guests and the throng of people assembled beyond the palace walls.

  “Right back atcha,” she said with a cheeky wink.

  He took her hand in his and as they walked down the aisle, congratulated and hugged by everyone who could get near them, he did not let his grip slacken.

  Later that night, as they danced at the reception, full of fine food and happy to the brim, he looked down at her. “Aliyah has done very well today, with all the fuss and noise and attention, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes, she’s almost the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen.”

  “Almost!” He said with a laugh. “Do not let my brother hear you say that. He’ll never allow your affection to be divided! Or anyone’s, for that matter.”

  “I was only thinking how adorable our own children will be…”

  And in the middle of spinning her, he froze. “You’re not saying you’re…?” He let the question hang heavy in the air, barely daring to hope.

  “No,” she said with a smile. “But I would very much like that to be our first order of business, your highness. I presume you’ve no objections?”

  His smile, as always, made her heart contract with desire. “I relish the opportunity.” He kissed the dainty tip of her nose and wondered how in the world he’d got so lucky.

  One year later, to the day, their royal highnesses of Amar’a expanded their family - by two! The twins, a prince and princess, were dainty like their mother, dark and determined like their father. And while they had their whole lives ahead of them, and futures to write as they would, one fact would never be in doubt: that they were the apples of their parents’ eyes from the moment they first took breath.

  THE END

  If you liked The Sheikh’s Virgin Hostage, you’ll love The Sheikh’s Arranged Marriage. Have a look at the first two chapters now and fall in love with another dark, devastating and determined desert King.