Demanding His Desert Queen

by Annie West

  Tarek giggled, and Karim felt the strangest flutter in response. Even knowing it was the right thing to do, Karim had had qualms about adopting the boy. His experience of kids was limited. He was still learning how to interact with his little nephew on his rare visits to Za’daq. But Karim was determined to do right by Tarek—which meant taking time to build a relationship with the boy.

  Finally Zephyr consented to be introduced, bending his head gracefully so the child could rub his palm over the grey’s long nose.

  ‘He smells funny.’

  ‘Not funny,’ Karim amended, watching, bemused, as the most highly strung horse in the city consented to the child’s rough pats. Clearly the little Prince had his mother’s knack with animals. ‘That’s how horses smell.’

  ‘I like it.’

  Tarek beamed up at him and Karim was surprised at how much he was enjoying the child’s pleasure.

  Karim caught movement in his peripheral vision and saw the steward scowling at his watch.

  ‘Okay, Tarek. It’s time for you to go with your aunt.’

  The boy nodded enthusiastically and it was the work of a moment to settle him in the car next to Rana. When Karim turned back towards the waiting horses it was to find Safiyah watching him, her expression serious.

  What now? Was she going to complain about him holding her son? She’d have to get used to it. Tarek was officially his son now too.

  The idea elicited a welter of unfamiliar emotions.

  ‘Ready, Safiyah?’ He made to walk past her, heading to where their mounts stood.

  ‘Yes, I...’

  Her words trailed off and Karim paused. It was unlike Safiyah to hold back. She said what she thought—particularly when she disapproved. He was sick of her disapproval.

  Repressing a sigh, he turned. ‘What is it? It’s time we started.’

  Their route was to take a circuitous route through the city. It would be at least an hour before they arrived at the open-air venue where the celebrations would commence.

  Her eyes met his, then swung away. Yet in that instant Karim was surprised to discover not anger but uncertainty. He took in her heightened colour and the dimple in her cheek and realised she was gnawing the inside of her mouth.

  She moved closer, her hand hovering for a moment over his before dropping away. His flesh tingled as if from her touch.

  ‘Thank you, Karim. You were so good with Tarek. Not stern or disapproving.’ She smiled tentatively. ‘It’s more than I expected and I appreciate it.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say of course she should expect people to treat her boy well. Except he recalled what Tarek had said about his father. And how much he sounded like the man who’d raised Karim. Sometimes common courtesy and kindness to children weren’t the norm.

  Had that coloured Safiyah’s view of Karim? The thought snagged in his brain. Maybe that explained some of the anomalies he’d noted in her behaviour.

  It also made him wonder about her relationship with her first husband...

  ‘I told you. I aim to do my best for the boy.’

  If his tone was gruff she didn’t seem to notice. She nodded, but didn’t move. Harnesses jangled nearby yet still Karim waited, knowing there was more.

  ‘I wanted to thank you, too, for bringing Rana here.’ The words spilled out in a breathless rush. ‘It was the most wonderful surprise. I...’ She paused and looked down at her hands, clasped tight before her. ‘I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have her here.’

  Safiyah lifted her head and her gaze met his. Karim experienced that familiar sizzle, but this time her curious expression—a mix of joy and nerves—didn’t just ignite the accustomed flare of sexual anticipation. It made some unidentified weight in his chest turn over. The sensation was so definite, so unique, it held him mute.

  For a long moment—too long—Karim felt the deep-seated glow of wellbeing he’d known only once in his life. In the days when he’d believed Safiyah to be a sweet, adoring innocent. But, despite her pretty speech of thanks, those days were dead. It was important he remembered that.

  He nodded briskly and turned towards the groom, gesturing for him to bring the horses. They’d delayed longer than planned. It was time to ride out.

  Suddenly Karim was itching to be gone, to be busy with his new work, his new people. Not second-guessing Safiyah’s motives or his own feelings. He didn’t have time for feelings—not personal ones. He wasn’t here for old times’ sake. He was here to rule a nation.

  Yet when another groom approached, to help Safiyah into the saddle, Karim shook his head and offered his own clasped hands for her foot, tossing her up into the saddle. It was hardly an intimate caress. Just a fleeting touch of leather on skin. Yet the air between them shimmered and thickened as she looked down from the saddle and those velvet eyes met his. They’d darkened now, all trace of gold highlights disappearing. Her gaze felt intimate and full of promise.

  Was it genuine or fake?

  Marrying Abbas’s widow and adopting his child had never been a straightforward proposition. Yet he hadn’t realised how difficult it would be. For, despite years of experience in distancing himself from entanglements, this felt...personal. And complicated.

  Karim had walked into a throne but also into a family. Into a place full of feelings and shadowy hints of past relationships that still affected Safiyah and Tarek today.

  Suddenly the work of ruling Assara seemed easy compared with playing happy families.

  Yet there was one aspect of family life Karim looked forward to with searing anticipation.

  Bedding his wife.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘THANK YOU.’ SAFIYAH nodded to the maid who was turning down the bed. ‘That’s all for tonight.’

  With a curtsey the woman left. Instantly Safiyah put down her hairbrush and shot to her feet. She was too restless to sit.

  Each passing day had fed the awful mix of anticipation and dismay that had taken root inside her. The three days of public celebrations had passed in a whirl of colour, faces and good wishes. At the end of it, almost swaying with exhaustion and nerves, Safiyah had prepared herself for a showdown with Karim.

  He’d said he’d come to her when the wedding was over. To claim his marital rights. As if she were his possession, to do with as he wished.

  Inevitably the idea had stirred anger. Yet if she were totally honest it wasn’t just anger brewing in her belly.

  But Karim hadn’t come to her room on the final night of the celebrations.

  Nor had he in the ten days that had passed since the end of the festivities.

  Ten days!

  Each night she’d prepared to face him and each night he’d failed to show.

  He’d clearly changed his mind about his demand that she sleep with him. Or maybe he hadn’t been serious at all—had just wanted to watch her squirm.

  What had she done to make him despise her so much?

  Safiyah felt her thoughts tracking down that well-worn trail, but she refused to head there again. Instead she crossed the room, hauling off her robe and nightgown as she went, tossing them onto the bed. Seconds later she’d pulled on trousers and a shirt. Socks and boots.

  She’d had enough of being cooped up with her thoughts. Her sister had gone home after the wedding and Safiyah, always careful not to burden Rana, had smiled and sent her off rather than beg her to stay. How she wished she had someone to talk to now.

  What she needed was to get out. At least here in the summer palace, just beyond the outskirts of the capital, she had the means to do just that. For her lovely chestnut mare, a wedding gift from Karim, was stabled downstairs.

  To anyone who cared to enquire, the Sheikh and Sheikha had begun their delayed honeymoon today. The small, secluded summer palace was close enough to the city for Karim to be on hand should anything significant need his at
tention, but the location between two idyllic beaches was totally private—perfect for newlyweds.

  If the newlyweds had been at all interested in each other!

  She hadn’t seen Karim since they’d arrived. He’d headed straight to his office, trailed by a couple of secretaries, leaving Safiyah, Tarek and his nanny to settle into their rooms.

  With a huff of annoyance Safiyah decided she’d rather be with her horse than stewing over whether Karim would deign to visit her. For ten days she’d been torn between anticipation—wanting to cut through this unbearable tension that ratcheted ever tighter—and dismay that finally she would give in to what she could only think of as her weakness for her necessary husband.

  Twenty minutes later she was astride her mare as they picked their way down the path to a long, white sand beach that shimmered in the early-evening light. Once clear of the palace and the protests of the groom, who had been dismayed that she chose to ride alone and bareback, Safiyah drew in a deep breath. The scent of the sea mingled with the comforting aroma of horse, lightening her spirits.

  After all, there were worse things than a husband who didn’t want sex and left her completely alone.

  Safiyah shuddered, remembering the avid way Hassan Shakroun had eaten her up with his gaze in the days following Abbas’s death. The idea of his fleshy paws on her body was almost as horrible as the thought of Tarek’s safety being in his control.

  Marriage to Karim had been the only sensible option. Tarek was protected and she... Well, she’d survived one loveless marriage and she could do it again. She’d happily live without sex. A marriage on paper only was what she’d stipulated. She should be glad Karim didn’t want more.

  Safiyah squashed the inner voice that said perhaps there was more to sex than she’d experienced with Abbas. Perhaps with another, more considerate lover, there might even be pleasure.

  ‘Come on, Lamia,’ Safiyah whispered to her mount. ‘Let’s go for a run.’

  They were halfway down the beach when the sound of thunder reached her. It rolled along the sand behind her. Safiyah looked up but the sky was filled with bright stars, no sign of clouds. Besides, this noise kept going—a rumbling that didn’t stop.

  Pulling back on the reins, Safiyah looked over her shoulder. Instantly she tensed. Galloping towards her was a tall figure on a grey horse. An unmistakable horse and an unmistakable man.

  Karim.

  Together they looked like a centaur—as if Karim were part of the big animal. Their movements were controlled, perfectly synchronised and beautiful. Yet the urgency of their sprint down the beach snared Safiyah’s breath.

  A frisson of excitement laced with anxiety raced up her spine to grab at her nape and throat.

  There was nothing to fear from Karim. Only from herself and the yearning he ignited in her. Yet she couldn’t shake her atavistic response. The instinct to flee was overwhelming. She was desperate to get away from this man she hadn’t been able to escape even in her thoughts. He crowded her, confronted her, made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. Even after ten days of waiting for him to come to her she found she wasn’t ready to face her weakness for him.

  Safiyah turned and urged her horse faster, first to a canter and then, as the thunder of hoofbeats closed in, to a gallop. The mare leapt forward and Safiyah leaned low, feeling her hair stream behind her as they raced away, exultation firing her blood.

  But they weren’t fast enough. Even over the sound of Lamia’s hooves and her own heartbeat Safiyah heard the grey close in. Each stride narrowed the gap.

  Her breath was snatched in choppy gasps. Her pulse was out of control. Still she sped on, desperate to escape her pursuer and all he represented. The man who threatened her not with violence, but because he’d awoken a need inside her that wouldn’t let her rest.

  He’d stolen her peace.

  She had to get away. To preserve her sanity and the last of her self-respect.

  Eyes fixed on the end of the beach, and the narrow ribbon of track that rose from up to the next headland, she wasn’t aware of how close he was till a dark shadow blocked the silver of the sea and the thunder was upon her, filling her ears and drumming in her chest.

  Even then Safiyah wouldn’t give in. If she could get up on to the headland track before him—

  It wasn’t to be. One long arm snaked out and grabbed her bridle, then they were slowing, her mare easing her pace to match that of the stallion.

  Safiyah’s heart hammered. Her flesh prickled all over as the fight-or-flight response still racketed through her.

  Finally they came to a halt in the shadow of the headland. Safiyah’s blood pumped too fast and her breath was laboured. Each sense was heightened. The mingled scents of horse, sea salt and hot male flesh were piquant in her nostrils. The brush of Karim’s leg against hers unleashed a storm of prickling response.

  She stared at the sinewy strength of Karim’s hand and wrist, clamped like steel on her reins. The silence, broken only by the rough breathing of the horses, grew louder.

  ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ The words sliced like a whip. Karim’s eyes glittered diamond-hard even in the gloom.

  Safiyah sat straighter, refusing to be intimidated. ‘Going for a ride. Alone.’ Was he going to take issue with that? After the thrill of being allowed to ride again for the first time in years, it was too much.

  ‘You were heading straight for the rocks.’ He sounded as if he was speaking through gritted teeth.

  ‘You think I couldn’t see them?’ She shook her head, too annoyed to be quelled by the warning jut of his arrogant jaw. ‘I was about to take the track up the headland.’

  Karim’s grip tightened on the reins and her horse sidled, pushing Safiyah closer to the big, glowering form beside her.

  ‘Not at that speed. You’d break your neck.’

  Safiyah glanced towards the pale track. This time the route didn’t look quite so easy. Yet she refused to explain the urgent impulse to escape at any cost. She knew it would only reveal the fear she’d vowed to hide from Karim. That if she wasn’t careful he’d overwhelm her and all her hard-won lessons in self-sufficiency.

  She’d learned to cut herself off from the thousand hurts of a casually uncaring husband. She couldn’t afford to lose that ability now when she most needed it.

  ‘I’m more than capable of deciding where I ride. I don’t need you dictating to me.’

  A sound like a low growl emanated from Karim’s throat, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She’d never heard anything so feral. Karim had always been the epitome of urbanity, always in control.

  ‘Do you have a death wish? What about Tarek? How would he cope if you broke your neck up there?’

  Red flashed behind her eyes. ‘Don’t you bring Tarek into this!’

  How dared he accuse her of being an irresponsible mother? Her mouth stretched into a grimace and her belly hollowed as she thought of the sacrifice she’d made for her son. Giving up her freedom for his sake by yoking herself to a man who disliked her.

  Fulminating, Safiyah released the reins and vaulted from her horse.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Safiyah set her jaw and stalked away. Let him work it out for himself.

  She’d only taken half a dozen steps when a hard hand captured her wrist, turning her to face him. He towered above her, imposing and, though she hated to admit it, magnificent.

  ‘Don’t turn your back on me, Safiyah.’

  His voice was soft but ice-cold. It sent a shiver scudding across her skin. Even Abbas at his most imperious hadn’t affected her like this.

  Karim’s hold was unbreakable. She’d look ridiculous trying to yank her hand free. Instead she chose defiance cloaked in a façade of obedience.

  She sank to a low curtsey, head bowed. ‘Of course, Your Majesty. How remiss
of me to forget royal etiquette.’

  She heard a huff of exasperation and for a second his hand tightened around hers. Then, abruptly, she was free.

  ‘Don’t play with me, Safiyah. It won’t work.’

  She rose, but found Karim had stepped right into her space. They stood toe to toe, her neck arching so she could look him in the eye. She couldn’t fully decipher his expression but saw enough to know she’d pushed him dangerously far.

  Good. It was time someone punctured that ego.

  ‘I’ll get the horses.’

  She made to move but he caught her upper arms. His clasp wasn’t tight but for some reason Safiyah couldn’t break away.

  ‘Leave them. They won’t go anywhere.’ He paused. ‘Why did you run, Safiyah? You knew it was me.’

  She shrugged. ‘I wanted a gallop.’

  ‘Don’t lie.’ Gone was the icy contempt. In its place was a piercing intensity that probed deep.

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Was it because of this?’

  Before she had time to register Karim’s intention he hauled her up onto her toes. His head swooped low and his mouth crashed onto hers. Safiyah felt pressure, tasted impatience and hurt pride.

  His anger fuelled hers, made it easier to withstand him. Even so, her body quaked with rampant need from being pressed up against his hard frame.

  She just had to hang on a little longer, till he grew tired of this and pushed her away. He was angry. He didn’t really want her.

  Except even as she thought it everything changed.

  Those hands wrapped over her arms turned seductive as they slid around her back. One slipped up into her loose hair, tangling there possessively and cradling her skull as he bent her back. His other hand skimmed her hip bone, then moved to cup her bottom. His fingers tightened as he pulled her up against a ridge of aroused flesh so blatantly virile that she gasped.

  That gasp was her mistake. It gave Karim access to her mouth, where he delved deep, evoking shuddery thrills of excitement.