by Annie West
Had some lover been fondling those breasts? Was that why her hard nipples thrust against the silk?
Heat drenched Karim as he flexed his hands and made himself turn from temptation. He strode into the sitting room, giving it a cursory survey before following the light into her bedroom. The bed was still neatly made, but a pile of pillows was propped up on one side. She’d been sitting there alone.
The knowledge smacked him in the chest, stealing both his air and his sense of indignation.
‘What are you doing?’
Her voice came from just behind him. It sounded husky, and something drew tight in his groin.
‘Nice suite.’ He turned and gave her a bland look. ‘I hadn’t seen it before.’ With luck she’d think that as the hotel’s new owner he was simply curious about the accommodation.
He walked back into the sitting room and heard the bedroom door snick shut behind him.
Wise woman.
‘What is it that can’t wait?’
Karim swung round to find her closer than he’d expected. She’d adjusted her robe so barely a sliver of flesh showed beneath the collarbone and she was busily knotting the belt cinching her waist. As if a layer of silk could conceal her seductive body.
‘Things are moving quickly.’
That was one thing his deliberations and a second discussion with the Assaran envoy had made clear. If he was going to accept the crown he needed to act fast—before Shakroun got wind of the attempt to bring in an outsider. The man could stir all sorts of trouble.
‘I need your answer now.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘My answer.’
Safiyah looked distracted. As if her mind were elsewhere, rather than on the honour he’d done her by suggesting marriage so she could retain her royal status.
Karim gritted his teeth, fury rising. She acted as if his suggestion they marry was trivial. Not enough to hold her interest when she had more important things on her mind. And this after the insult of her desertion five years before. It was more than his pride could bear.
Something ground through him like desert boulders scraping together, the friction sparking an anger he’d harnessed for so long.
Karim had spent a lifetime being reasonable, honourable, and above all rational. He’d been trained never to act rashly. To weigh his options and consider the implications not only for himself but for others.
Not tonight.
Tonight another man inhabited his skin. A man driven by instincts he’d repressed for years.
‘What is it, Safiyah?’ He took two paces, stopping only when she had to hike her chin high to hold his eyes. ‘You’ve got something else on your mind? Is it this?’
He cupped one hand around the back of her head, anchoring his fingers in that lush, silky hair.
No protest came. His other arm wrapped around her waist, tugging her close. He had a moment of heady anticipation as her soft form fell against him, her eyes growing huge and dark as pansies.
Then his mouth settled on hers and the years were stripped away.
CHAPTER FOUR
SAFIYAH CLUNG TIGHT, her fingers embedded in the hard biceps that held her to Karim’s powerful frame. It was so unexpected she had no time to gather her thoughts. No time to do anything but bend before the force of sensations and emotions that made her sway like a sapling in a strong wind, her body arching back over his steely arm.
To her shame it wasn’t outrage that overwhelmed her. It was shocked delight.
Because she’d never been kissed like this.
Never felt like this.
Not even in those heady days when Karim had courted her, for then he’d been considerate and careful not to push her into a compromising position. She’d been innocent and he’d respected that.
Even when she’d married she hadn’t felt like this.
Especially when she’d married. She’d felt no passion for Abbas. No desire except the desire to do her duty. And Abbas, though he’d enjoyed her body, hadn’t expected anything from her other than acquiescence.
Which made the fire licking her veins unprecedented. Totally new.
Safiyah shivered—not with cold, but with a roaring, instantaneous heat that ignited deep inside and showered through her like sparks from a bonfire, spreading incendiary trails to every part of her body.
This was passion.
This was desire.
It was like the yearning she’d once felt for Karim, multiplied a thousandfold. Like the difference between the heat of a match and the scorch of a lightning strike.
Her mouth opened, accommodating the plunging sweep of his tongue, relearning Karim’s darkly addictive taste. It was a flavour she’d made herself forget when she’d told herself to stop pining for the mirage of true love. When she’d given herself in a dutiful arranged marriage.
Because to hold on to those broken dreams would only have destroyed her.
Now, with a force that shook her to the core, Safiyah felt them flood back, in a deluge of sensation to a body starved of affection, much less delight.
Once Safiyah had yearned for Karim with all her virgin heart. Now, time, experience and loss had transformed her once innocent desire into something fierce and elemental. Something utterly unstoppable.
Instead of submitting meekly, or turning away, Safiyah leaned into his hard frame. It felt as natural as smiling. As necessary as breathing.
Her tongue slid the length of his, exploring, tasting, enjoying the rich essence of sandalwood and virile male that filled her senses. She revelled in the feel of his taut frame solid against hers and rose onto her toes to press closer.
A shudder passed through him and his hands tightened possessively, as if her response unleashed something in him that he’d kept locked away. He leaned in, forcing her head back, deepening the kiss, and she went willingly, exulting in the breathtaking intensity of the moment.
Past and future were blotted out. The present consumed her. Her need for this, for him. Nothing else mattered except assuaging that.
Karim’s arm slid down her back, his palm curving over her backside, lifting her towards the drenching heat of his muscled frame. Excitement tore through her, a fierce exhilaration as she read the tension of a man on the brink of losing himself.
Then, with an abruptness that left her swaying, he released her.
Blinking, Safiyah watched him step back. Saw his mouth lengthen in a grimace. Saw him shrug those broad shoulders and straighten his jacket as if brushing off the imprint of her clawing hands. Then he shoved both fists in his pockets and lifted one eyebrow in an expression of cool enquiry.
Flustered, Safiyah felt her heart smash against her ribs, her breasts rising and falling too fast as she tried, unsuccessfully, to get her breathing back to normal.
Her robe had come undone and she knew without looking that her nipples were hard, needy points against the thin fabric of her nightdress. Worse, between her legs was a spill of dampness. Restlessness filled her, and the need to climb up that big body and rub herself against him, chasing the fulfilment that no-holds-barred kiss had promised.
Instead she stood stock-still, feet planted. Mechanically her hands grabbed the sides of her robe and tied it tight. Because, despite the thwarted desire churning through her, Safiyah read the chill in those green eyes surveying her like an insect on a pin. Her skin turned to gooseflesh and the fine hairs at her nape stood on end.
Karim wasn’t even breathing heavily. He looked as calm and remote as a stone effigy. And as welcoming.
Looking into those austere features, Safiyah felt all that lush heat dissipate. Instead of his deliciousness she tasted the ashes of passion. She might have been swept away by forces she couldn’t control but Karim hadn’t.
‘Well, that little experiment was instructive.’ His voice came from a great distance, like low thunder rolling across the wid
e Assaran plain. ‘It’s as well to test these things in advance, isn’t it?’
‘Test what?’ Her voice was husky, but reassuringly even. She’d had years of practice at perfecting a façade that hid her feelings.
Those powerful shoulders shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Our physical compatibility.’ He paused, his gaze capturing hers as he continued with conscious deliberation, ‘Or lack of it.’
Deep, deep inside, in that place where she’d once locked her secret hopes and cravings, something crumpled and withered. There was an instant of shearing pain, like a knife-jab to the abdomen. Then it morphed into an unremitting ache that filled her from scalp to toe.
He’d kissed her like that as an experiment?
Safiyah wanted to scream and howl. To pummel that granite-hard chest with her fists. But that would achieve nothing except further embarrassment.
A new kind of fire bloomed within her and seared her cheeks. Shame. Shame that she’d responded to this man who now surveyed her with such detachment. Shame that she’d ever been attracted to him.
Swallowing the tangled knot of emotion clogging her throat was almost impossible. Finally she managed, though it physically hurt.
Pain was good, Safiyah assured herself. Pain would make it easier to strip away the final fragments of feeling she’d harboured for Karim.
She’d repressed her feelings for years, told herself she couldn’t possibly still want this man who’d rejected her. Whose abandonment had devastated her and branded her with a bone-deep disdain for him and his callous ways.
Yet once in his arms, once his mouth had met hers, she’d responded with an ardour that had been nothing short of embarrassing.
Even now part of her protested. He had responded. He’d wanted to follow that kiss to its natural conclusion just as she had.
Then her brain began to work. People pretended all the time. Hadn’t she pretended enthusiasm for Abbas in her bed even when she’d far rather have slept alone? Just because Karim’s kiss had been passionate, it didn’t mean he’d felt anything but curiosity.
The inequality of their experience told against her. She’d only kissed two men in her life: Karim and her husband. And no kiss before today had awakened such a powerful response in her. Whereas Karim had had women following him, sighing over him and trying to capture his interest for years. No doubt he’d kissed hundreds of women and could feign sexual interest.
He wasn’t interested now.
Safiyah’s mouth firmed. ‘If I were to marry you...’ her words dripped acid ‘...it wouldn’t be for the pleasure of your company.’
Let him read what he liked into her response. She refused to admit anything. After all, she could claim that, like him, she’d been experimenting, searching but not finding a spark between them.
Except she’d never been a liar. The knowledge of her complete submission to Karim’s demanding kiss devastated her. She wanted to turn tail and hide.
‘Then why would you agree to marry me?’
It was a timely reminder, and it stiffened her wobbly knees. She met Karim’s stare head-on. ‘For my country and my son. I’m afraid of what might happen to both if Shakroun becomes Sheikh.’
Slowly he nodded. ‘I understand. I’ve been hearing more about him this evening.’
Relief made her shoulders sag. Karim sounded like a man who’d changed his mind. If he took the throne Tarek would be safe.
‘But what I’ve heard only reinforces what I said earlier. He’s from a powerful clan. If I became Sheikh I’d need to do everything I could to shore up local support. Like marry you.’
Karim’s deep voice and narrowed eyes held nothing soft. His needle-sharp scrutiny grazed her skin and her pride. Safiyah might have let him make a fool of her years ago, and again just now, but no more. Enough was enough.
‘If I were to marry you...’ How the thought appalled. But Safiyah would sacrifice her freedom ten times over for her son’s life. ‘I’d expect you to take your pleasure outside the marriage bed.’ She almost choked on the word ‘bed’, but forced herself to carry on as if unfazed by that kiss. ‘Discreetly, of course.’
‘Would you, indeed?’ Something dark flashed in Karim’s eyes. ‘And where would you...take your pleasure?’
Safiyah stood as tall as she could, lengthening her neck and calling on all the lessons in dignity she’d learned in the past few years. ‘That needn’t concern you. Rest assured I won’t cause any scandals.’
Because sex with Abbas hadn’t left her with a burning desire for more. And the one man who’d had the power to wake her libido was staring at her now as if she were something he’d picked up on the sole of his shoe.
Safiyah blocked the jumble of hurt and indignation writhing within, shoving it away with all the other hurts and disappointments she couldn’t afford to think about. Instead she concentrated on playing the part of Queen, as her dead husband had taught her. And instead of her usual composure, she aimed for a touch of Abbas’s condescension. Presumably it worked, for Karim’s dark eyebrows climbed high.
‘And if I want pleasure within the marriage bed?’
The silky words drew her up short, made her pulse accelerate wildly.
Karim wanted sex with her?
Or was he just trying to make her squirm?
Her hair brushed her cheeks as she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Because you don’t want me, Safiyah? Or because you’re scared you want me too much?’
‘Your ego is monumental, Karim.’ Adrenaline shot through her and her jaw tilted imperiously.
He merely shrugged. ‘I call it as I see it. From where I stand I suspect you’re not as uninterested as you say. But I would never force myself on an unwilling woman.’
Safiyah exhaled slowly, trying to banish that panicky feeling. ‘I have your word on that?’
‘You do.’ He paused to let her absorb the words. ‘No sex unless you want it, Safiyah. Does that satisfy you?’
She surveyed him carefully. Surely this was just macho male posturing because she’d said she didn’t want him. Karim would soon find some ravishing mistress to keep him occupied.
He might be the man who’d dumped her, but she believed him too proud to break his word. Clearly the Council thought the same. And when it boiled down to it what real choice did she have? She needed to save Tarek.
Finally she nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘You actually trust my word?’ His cool tone and the jut of his jaw spoke of haughty male pride.
‘Yes.’
Still his frown lingered.
‘After all, I’d be entrusting you with my son’s wellbeing.’
Saying it aloud sent a shiver rippling down her spine. Not because Karim would hurt them, but at the idea of tying herself once more to a man who saw her as a mere convenience. But she’d survived that once. She could again.
Safiyah returned his stare with one of her own, trying not to catalogue those spare, attractive features she’d once daydreamed about. She reminded herself that he was arrogant and unfeeling, a man who’d toyed with her.
What had happened to the man she’d fallen for at twenty-two? Had she been completely misled by his charm and apparent kindness? What had made him cold and bitter? The same mysterious thing that had driven him to give up his throne?
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to pry into his past or his character, beyond the fact that he would do the right thing. When it came to his honour, and his work for his people, Karim’s record was strong. The Royal Council wouldn’t have made its offer if there were doubts. It had deliberated carefully before approaching Karim, investigating not only his years in Za’daq but his recent activities.
Nevertheless...
‘If you become Sheikh, what about my son, Tarek? Are you serious about adopting him?’
Karim inclined his head. ‘I told you before—I’m not t
he man to steal your son’s birthright. He’ll still be in line to become Sheikh eventually.’
It seemed too good to be true. If anyone else had said it Safiyah would have doubted they meant it. But Karim had already walked away from one throne. It was still on the tip of her tongue to ask what had prompted that action, but she kept silent. That didn’t matter now. As he’d said earlier, the past was best left alone. All that mattered was Tarek’s safety and Assara’s.
She clasped her hands at her waist and stood silent, watching him. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he saw marriage to her as a necessity, not a pleasure. And she should be used to being viewed as a political expedient.
Yet still it hurt!
Abbas had married her because it had suited him to build an alliance with her clan, so when the time had come for him to marry he’d turned his eyes to her family. At first he’d been interested in her clever younger sister, studying at university in the capital. When that hadn’t been possible he’d made do with Safiyah.
To accept a second marriage of convenience, to another man who had no feelings for her, was a terrible thing. So terrible Safiyah wanted to smash something. To tell Karim in scathing detail what he could do with his marriage plans.
But she loved her son too much. She’d do anything to keep him safe. Her happiness meant nothing against that. And as for the dreams she’d once harboured of finding love...
Safiyah shuddered and rubbed her hands up her arms. As a twenty-seven-year-old widow she’d be a fool to believe in romance.
‘What are you thinking?’
Karim hadn’t come closer, yet his voice curled around her. She stiffened and moved to the window, needing distance from his looming presence. She looked out at the sprinkle of lights in the darkness, where the town bled down the slope towards the lake.
‘What if you have children? Wouldn’t you want them to inherit? I can’t believe you’d put your own flesh and blood second to someone else’s.’
Safiyah spun around to find him watching her, his expression intense yet impenetrable. Before she could puzzle over it he spoke.
