Never Refuse a Sheikh

by Jackie Ashenden

  His temper, already fraying, stretched thin and tight. He didn’t want to be hungry for some wild, passionate girl who couldn’t keep her emotions in check. Who argued and fought him at every turn. Hunger was something he couldn’t and shouldn’t feel.

  “There you are,” he said curtly, controlling the desire. “We have been looking for you for at least two hours.”

  A quiver ran through the horse at the sharp sound in his voice and it snorted, pulling away from Safira’s hand. She turned, frowning. “Why did you do that? You startled him.”

  He ignored her. “You should not be here. You should be with the team I sent to you. Didn’t you check the schedule I sent you?”

  Her chin came up, a stubborn look in her eyes. “Yes, but I decided I did not feel like being dressed up like a doll today and I’m sure they did not want to spend hours dressing me. I thought I would visit the stables. See what kind of horses you have.”

  His temper was sand, slipping grain by grain through his fingers. “The horses can wait. Tomorrow night you will be presented before the court and assembled media as the lost princess and my chosen bride. Which means today you will learn how to comport yourself and be dressed accordingly.”

  She turned away from the stall, her arms folded, facing him down as if he was her enemy. There were familiar blue sparks of anger in her eyes.

  Yet in the car, when he’d taken her chin in his hand, they’d burned emerald. And it hadn’t been with anger. Green sparks, for desire …

  Heat and hunger twisted against the leash he’d put on his emotions.

  “Oh, I will, will I?” Challenge rang in her tone. “So far you have not agreed to my terms, which means I do not agree to yours.”

  So, she was spoiling for a fight. Why did that not surprise him? She was a little sand cat, full of hiss and spit, wildly clawing at anything that threatened her freedom, anything that tried to limit her or restrain her.

  But limits and rules were part of life. Controlling oneself and accepting that were vital, especially for a royal. It was a lesson she clearly had not learned as a child. Which meant she had to learn it now.

  “That is something we need to discuss.” He would not give her the target she wanted. “Perhaps somewhere less public?”

  She made a show of looking around. “I’m quite happy here. Only us and the horses.”

  “And my entire staff of stable hands. My office would be more appropriate.”

  A crease appeared between her brows as she studied him. “You really do not like people refusing you, do you?”

  “That makes two of us, princess.” He gestured toward the doorway. “Come. I am sure you do not want the whole stable to hear the details of our wedding night.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Please tell me we are not discussing that.”

  “We will discuss whatever I wish to discuss.” He caught her gaze. Held it. “Unless you are afraid?”

  The look in her eyes flared, her spine straightening. “Of course not. Lead on.”

  Which meant, of course, that she was.

  Once again those traitorous, soft emotions flickered through him. Undermining the strength of his control. Sympathy and the ever-present guilt that he could never and would never shake. But he let them pass through him, leaving him untouched.

  All he allowed himself, as he led the way back through the palace corridors and courtyards to the vast room he used as his office, was to savor the small victory he’d gained over her. And not, he realized with some surprise, merely because it was a victory. But because it had given him a little piece of her.

  A little piece he hadn’t even realized he wanted.

  Oddly disturbed by this thought, he glanced at her as they entered the room and noticed that her expression had become tight, as if she was in some kind of pain. She didn’t look around as he shut the door behind them, her gaze fixated on the huge, antique wooden desk he customarily used. Her arms were folded again, but this time it didn’t look like a challenge. It looked like she wanted to protect herself.

  Another little piece of her fell within his grasp.

  This had been her father’s office once and she must recognize it. And judging by the look on her face, that recognition hurt.

  Are you surprised? The palace is where her parents were killed. Because of you.

  Altair stopped the thought dead in its tracks.

  “Sit.” He gestured to a low sofa near the desk.

  She shook her head, her gaze dropping to her feet for a moment before rising to meet his again. This time the look of suppressed pain had gone. Now she looked as if she was steeling herself to repel an attack.

  Clearly she didn’t think much of him, not that it mattered. He wasn’t a likable man. Ten years of war and another five of rebuilding his country whilst keeping hold of his throne had ensured that.

  But then he wasn’t here to be liked. He was here to rule.

  Altair leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “So, let us have this discussion then. Have you thought about my requirements?”

  “Have you thought about mine?”

  “Yes, you can go riding at approved times. Yes, I have a training room where you can practice self-defense, though again, that will only happen at approved times. Yes, you may have free access to the libraries and a laptop for your personal use has already been purchased for you. No, you cannot go haring off into the city whenever you feel like it.”

  She blinked at him, clearly not expecting him to have given her terms any kind of thought. It made him feel unreasonably smug. “But I—”

  “I can only give you what is within my power to give. Horses, gyms and computers I have in abundance, but giving you complete freedom to do as you please is not within that power. I have a country to run and now, so do you. Sacrifices, princess. Everyone must make them.”

  A familiar, angry flush had crept into her cheeks. “What about being free to study? To find a job? To travel?”

  He could give her nothing but the truth. “As I said to you yesterday, I cannot allow you freedom of movement, not with half of the Al-Sakhran army searching for you, not to mention the rebels here. It is too dangerous. You can study of course, but a job is impossible. You will be my sheikha.”

  Her lips compressed. “So I have no freedom at all then? You have taken just about everything else and you would take that too?”

  At first he thought it was frustration glittering in her eyes, the blue contrasting with her flushed cheeks to make them seem electric. But then he realized it wasn’t frustration at all but tears.

  Something tightened his chest.

  “You think this is easy for me?” she said suddenly, her whole body quivering. “Coming here? To the place where my parents died? Given no choice in the matter, given no say at all?”

  “Of course I don’t think that.” His voice grated on the tight thing in his chest. God, but he was a fool. He could not feel sorry for her. He could not be soft. “But there is no point railing against something you cannot change and have no control over. You are not a child and as I have already told you, choice is a luxury we cannot have. It is time to forget who you were out in the desert and become who you were born to be.”

  Her arms dropped. “I was not born to be your wife.”

  “Nevertheless, that is what you will be.”

  “I am not one of your horses.” She took a couple of steps forward and slammed her hands palms down on the desk, leaning over it. “I am not a broodmare you can take for my blood and my name. Use my womb for your heirs. You need my consent to all of this, sheikh, and right now I am in no mood to give it.”

  Her face was lit with anger. So bright, like the sun after an eon of darkness.

  And he wanted suddenly to reach out and touch it, take some of that passion for himself. Fill the void that suddenly yawned wide inside him.

  Do not touch her. She is dangerous. Control in all things.

  He stilled, meeting her furious gaze as his whole body gathered t
ight, his laced fingers abruptly clenching hard. “You seem to be mistaking a royal marriage for a real one. Blood and heirs. The security of the throne. That is all a royal marriage requires.”

  She stared at him, her eyes full of wild storms. “And what about me? What about my life? Is that all I am to be? A sop to the rebels. A figurehead to the loyalists. Your passport to legitimacy. Is that it?”

  He remained motionless, trying to hold on to the last threads of his patience. Silently reminding himself of what was important, the way he always did when he was tested. Rebuilding the country. Securing the throne. Imposing peace.

  That usually focused him, honed him. Gave him the cold purpose he needed.

  “What more do you want?” he said, the cold note in his voice helplessly threaded with the heat he couldn’t quite mask. “You will be my wife, mother to my heirs, and you will be Al-Harah’s queen. Your life will be spent in service to the throne. That is what royalty means.”

  Something crossed her face at that, surprise or shock, he couldn’t tell which. “I do not accept that.”

  “It is not for you to accept or otherwise. It merely is.”

  “No.” Her eyes glittered, a fierce light in them. “I want more.”

  The frayed threads of his patience began to draw tight. “What more is there? What more do you want?”

  Abruptly she leaned forward even farther, her body halfway across the desk, the long, thick rope of her golden braid slipping over her shoulder to brush against the wooden surface of the desktop. The look on her face blazed. “I want to be more than the duty I was to Sayed. More than an obligation. That is not the life I wanted, sheikh. I wanted to have a purpose. I wanted to change things, help people.”

  It did have a purpose. Until you took that from her.

  Guilt rolled over inside him, pushing against the icy walls he’d closed around it, and along with the guilt came the rage.

  Because he couldn’t change what he’d done all those years ago. Because she didn’t know the part he’d played in the deaths of her parents, which had ensured her fifteen years of exile in the desert, and she never would, not if he could help it.

  Because all he could do was push aside the guilt and the pain that dogged him and continue down the path he’d set himself. No shortcuts. No alternatives.

  He was responsible for the death of her family. For his country’s plunge into civil war. For the years of turmoil that had brought his country to its knees.

  Him. And no other.

  He could not give back what he had taken from her. Not ever.

  But he could give her something else.

  Altair reached out and took her braid between his fingers. Wound it around his hand and held it fast. “You will change things,” he said and this time he didn’t stop the edge of heat that threaded through his voice. “You and I. Together. We will change an entire country.”

  Then he drew the braid tight and closed the space between them.

  Her mouth met his.

  And the fire leapt high.

  * * *

  Safira froze in shock as his mouth covered hers. Pain and frustration and anger all burned in her chest, a raging bonfire she couldn’t put out.

  Here in this room, where her father had once worked, were so many memories. Where she’d used to sit on his knee as he’d met with his advisors. Where she’d been chastised more than once for running in the corridors and shouting in the gardens. Where he’d held her after she’d fallen in the hall outside.

  She didn’t want the memories or the pain they’d caused. Memories of a time she wasn’t anyone’s obligation or duty. When she’d had a purpose and that was to be a daughter and be loved.

  It hurt. And yet the memories had given her strength too, at least enough to lay it all out for this seemingly cold and emotionless sheikh, to tell him what it was that she really wanted.

  It had felt like revealing a vulnerability to a predator, but she’d done it anyway because that intent focus of his made it seem like he might actually listen to what she had to say.

  Then he’d taken her braid in his hand and slowly drawn it tight, making everything in her go still. And he’d looked at her with those golden eyes and told her they would change things together, with so much certainty, so much authority that she knew he’d heard her. That he’d listened.

  So she hadn’t moved. Just waited.

  Because she could see something else in his eyes. That hot, burning look, the one she’d seen in the tent back in the desert. The one that looked straight through Safira the princess, to the woman she was underneath. A woman desperate to be touched, desperate to be kissed. A woman who didn’t want to be an obligation or a duty. A woman who just wanted to be wanted.

  And he took the kiss like he’d been dying for it.

  The memories vanished like smoke. Everything vanished. The room, the desk, the entire palace itself. There was nothing but this, the place where their lips met. An ignition point for a conflagration that burned her alive.

  For a woman who’d barely been touched in fifteen years, let alone kissed, it was like eating chocolate after starvation. Too much. Too overwhelming. Too intense.

  And yet she didn’t pull away. She gloried in it instead, opening her mouth and touching her tongue to his, wanting even more. Craving it.

  He made a sound deep in his throat, a husky growl that shivered over her skin, raising goose bumps everywhere. The hand holding her braid pulled hard, his mouth opening, the taste of him burning through her senses, setting her alight. A smoky, heady flavor, like the fiery liquor Sayed had let her try once. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

  She lifted her hands to his face, desperate to touch him to see what he felt like. Whether he was as hard as he seemed and whether his skin was as hot as his mouth.

  And suddenly she was being pulled hard across the desk and into his arms, into his lap, his hand at the back of her head holding her still as he bent her over one arm to devour her completely.

  There was no distance now. No separation. Only heat, everywhere. The hard length of his body, the overwhelmingly sensual mouth ravaging hers, the palm cradling the back of her head. It made the flames in her blood burn brighter, hotter.

  This was what she’d glimpsed back in the tent and in the car too, on the way back to the palace. The passion beneath the ice and rock of his exterior.

  Here it was unleashed. And for her.

  She tried to lift her hands, wanting to plunge them into his hair, only to find them pinned between them by one of his. She made a sound of protest, straining against his hold, but bending steel would have been easier. His teeth sank into her lower lip as punishment and a bright, exquisite spark of pain joined the fire.

  She groaned, a soft, hungry sound escaping her, because the small pain only made the flames brighter, the burn sweeter. God, she had to touch him. She had to.

  With an extra burst of strength, she twisted, managing to rip her hands away from his imprisoning hold, then she pushed her fingers into his hair, holding on tight, catching his lip between her teeth, nipping hard, giving back as good as she got.

  He cursed and an electric charge shot through her at the rough heat in his voice. She tightened her fingers, his hair like raw silk against her skin. Her heartbeat thundered in her head and there was a storm inside her that she was desperate to unleash.

  Beneath her she could feel the hard length of him pressing against her buttocks and it made her want to move, rub herself against him, relieve the rapidly growing pressure between her thighs.

  She tried to sit up, straddle him, but his hold suddenly became iron.

  “Stop.” His voice was thick and dark, the word vibrating with command.

  Without thought she stilled, obeying instinctively.

  Then suddenly she was free, lifted up onto the desk, his hands dropping away, and he was shoving himself from her as if she’d burned him.

  She blinked, her breath coming fast and hard, wild heat still singing i
n her veins and an ache between her thighs.

  What had just happened?

  He’d turned away from her, facing the high, arched windows that looked out onto a leafy, green courtyard, giving her his broad back, his hands in fists at his sides.

  A terrible feeling of vulnerability began to creep through her. As if everything that had kept her hidden and safe had been ripped away from her.

  She had no idea what to say or what to do. “S-sheikh?”

  “My name is Altair,” he said coldly, all trace of heat utterly gone. “You will use it when you speak to me. You will also let the team I have assigned to you do their work. You will do what they tell you to do. You will wear what they tell you to wear. Is that clear?”

  A strange pain caught in her chest, like she’d revealed herself to him in some way and had been found wanting. Which shouldn’t have hurt because what did she care what he thought of her? She didn’t care, not in the slightest.

  Yet telling herself that made no difference to the pain. Or the sudden need to hide, to protect herself.

  So all she said was, “Yes. It’s clear.”

  Then she slipped from the desk and ran from the room.

  Chapter Four

  Half an hour before the formal court presentation of the lost princess and his bride-to-be, Altair strode down the corridors on his way to Safira’s apartments. He’d given specific instructions to the team prepping her that she needed to be ready with half an hour to spare so he could inspect her and give his final approval.

  Anything concerning Safira could not be left to chance. And as the kiss in his office had already proved, that included his own reactions.

  He’d been a fool to reach for her braid and tug her close. Put his mouth on hers then haul her into his arms. A fool to try to give her something in return for what he’d taken. He’d thought his guilt leashed, the softer, betraying emotions of sympathy and compassion buried.

  But you forgot desire. And that’s really why you kissed her wasn’t it?

  He’d moved without thought or heed to the consequences, and the heat of her mouth, the lithe shape of her body, and the feeling of her hands in his hair had nearly consumed him whole. And it had been only the discipline of nearly a decade that had stopped him from ripping her robes aside and having her on his desk right then and there.