by Annie West
For years she’d believed him callous, even cruel. Yet he’d adopted her son, made Tarek his heir. There’d been acts of kindness enough to make her think this forced marriage wouldn’t be all bad.
Safiyah thought of Karim’s very obvious erection as he’d gathered the horses and helped her up, of his grimace as he’d mounted and turned his horse towards the palace. She thought of his ebony head buried in the V between her thighs and the extraordinary experience he’d bestowed upon her.
Karim was a conundrum. But one thing was obvious—he didn’t follow Abbas’s rules. Whatever rules they followed in this marriage were for her and Karim to decide.
The realisation made her feel suddenly strong.
Toeing off her shoes, Safiyah rose and marched, heart hammering, to the bathroom door. She opened it and slipped in. There was no steam to obscure her husband’s naked body. He stood, palms flat on the tiled wall, head bowed beneath the sluicing water that trailed down over wide shoulders and a tapering body to firm, round buttocks and long, muscled legs.
Ignoring the doubts pecking at her determination, Safiyah stripped off her clothes, shivering as the fabric scraped across her hyper-aware flesh. Nervousness almost stopped her, but determination won out. She padded across to the shower, opened the glass door and stepped in.
An arctic chill enveloped her and she yelped as the water sprayed her.
‘Safiyah?’
Stunned eyes met hers as she recoiled from the cold water. But when she tried to retreat she found her way barred by one long arm. The other reached for the taps. Seconds later the water turned warm.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing standing under cold water?’
One black eyebrow crooked. ‘Why do men usually take cold showers?’
Involuntarily she looked down. The cold water had done its job. He was no longer rampantly erect. But, she realised with a rush of heat, Karim still looked well endowed.
The restless feeling between her legs intensified and she shifted her weight—only to brush up against that brawny arm stretched between her and the exit, reminding her abruptly of her own nakedness.
Her brows knitted. She didn’t understand him. ‘You don’t want sex, then?’
Her stomach plunged. It was like when they’d courted. She’d believed then that Karim cared for her, might even love her. She’d daily expected him to propose. Instead, when she and her father had been called away because Rana had needed them desperately, Karim hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. She’d gone from happiness and breathless expectation to disbelief and hurt in the blink of an eye.
Safiyah reached for the door.
This time he didn’t just bar her way—he took her shoulders and turned her to face him. ‘Of course I want you. Didn’t I tell you so?’
Her heart gave a little shimmy when he said he wanted her, not merely sex. Oh, she had it bad. But she couldn’t find the energy to worry about that now.
His gaze dropped to her bare breasts and Safiyah saw the spark of masculine appreciation in that look. A pulse ticked at his temple and suddenly she felt his stare. His eyes met hers and her breath snagged. Such intensity, all focused on her.
‘Then why don’t you do something about it?’
His laugh was like a crack of thunder, sharp and short. ‘Because I want to make it good for you, not explode the minute I touch you.’
That was the second time he’d said that. She couldn’t decide if she felt flattered or frustrated.
‘You’ve already made it good for me.’
Better than she’d ever experienced, though she didn’t say that. It was bad enough that he’d guessed her relative inexperience. She refused to act as if this was a big deal.
Safiyah reached for him, her eyes rounding as she discovered him already growing hard.
Karim’s smile was a tight twist of the lips, then he leaned in and whispered, ‘There’s more to come.’
But instead of turning off the water and opening the shower door Karim crowded her back against the tiled wall. He was all heat and slick muscle and she trembled at the feel of skin sliding against skin, heat against heat. Excitement spiked a fizz of effervescence in her blood.
The flesh in her hand was heavy now, soft skin over rearing steel, his erection larger than she’d expected.
As if reading the scurry of sudden anxiety along her spine Karim stilled, then pulled back so he was no longer pinning her to the wall. ‘We’ll go back to the bedroom and take things slow.’
He reached out an arm to switch off the taps, but Safiyah wrapped her fingers around his wrist. ‘No.’ Those remarkable eyes met hers, ripe with question. ‘I don’t want to wait.’
To reinforce her words she pulled one of his hands towards her, planting it over her breast. Instantly his fingers moulded to her with exquisite pressure and the flesh in her hand swelled as Karim stepped closer and his erection slid against her.
Safiyah bit her cheek against the sudden wash of delight.
‘Don’t.’
Karim’s other hand brushed her cheek, her mouth, pressing her bottom lip till she opened her mouth and tasted him with her tongue.
‘Witch!’
Those green eyes seemed to eat her up. A hairy thigh, solid with muscle, insinuated itself between her legs. And a moment later she felt his touch in that most intimate place.
Safiyah’s gaze clung to his as he deftly stroked her, evoking a response that made her hand tighten around him.
‘You like that, don’t you, Safiyah? And you liked it when I kissed you there too. Didn’t you?’
She swallowed, trying to find her voice and failing. Instead she nodded, wondering how much longer she could stay on her feet when each deliberate slide of his fingers made her feel weak and trembling.
She loved what he was doing but she didn’t want to be weak. She wanted to participate. So she took him in both hands, cupping and stroking, delighted when his eyelids lowered, turning his eyes to gleaming slits.
His nostrils flared and his strong features looked stark and tight. He groaned. ‘So much for taking it slow.’ Swiftly he moved her hands away, placing them on his shoulders and then lifting her up off the floor. ‘Hook your legs over my hips.’
The words emerged as a terse order, but Safiyah read his juddering pulse and the convulsive movement of his throat as he swallowed. Karim was at the edge of his control, just as she’d been on the beach. The thought thrilled her and she complied, wrapping herself around those tight hips, clinging to his wide shoulders.
But there was no time for triumph. Instead she bit back a gasp as he brought them together in one slow, deliberate thrust.
Safiyah’s eyes were snared on his and she couldn’t look away. She fancied she saw his darken as a second thrust unlocked something deep within her and sensations rushed through her. This felt unfamiliar and a little scary—especially as she was pinned high against his tall frame, not even supporting herself. Yet at the same time she exulted in it when she moved to meet him and felt a shudder rip through him.
‘Yes,’ he whispered through gritted teeth. ‘Like that.’
His big hands held her hips, helping her angle herself to meet him. Instead of feeling used, Safiyah felt powerful. She’d chosen this. Nor was it solely about Karim’s pleasure. She craved this with every cell in her body. And, impossibly, the flames she’d felt on the beach were flickering again deep inside her.
Those flames skyrocketed when Karim palmed her belly and pressed his thumb down on that sensitive bud between her legs. Safiyah jerked as lightning sheared through her.
Karim grinned, the picture of male smugness.
She responded by tightening her muscles around him.
His grin solidified and his powerful thrusts turned jerky.
Safiyah saw the bunch of his muscles, the tendons standing
proud in his neck and his eyes glazing.
But this wasn’t a contest. Nor was it duty. This was what she’d craved for so long. This was Karim and her together, connected in a way that felt almost too profound to be just sex.
Then all thinking stopped as Karim changed the angle of his thrusts. For a moment everything stilled. A second later she was flung into a cataclysm that melded delight and something much more far-reaching.
Safiyah heard a deep shout, felt the hard pump within her and fell into ecstasy, holding Karim tight as he gathered her in.
* * *
They lay sprawled sideways across the bed. The pillows had long since disappeared, but no matter. Karim felt as if it would take a tsunami to make him move.
He lay on his back, his bones melting into the mattress, his body limp with satiation. With a supreme effort he slid his hand through the spill of Safiyah’s hair, lying like a silken cloud across his chest and shoulder. Predictably, even that simple caress stirred an eagerness for more.
She lay draped over him—a lush, erotic blanket. If he’d had more energy he’d have devoted himself to exploring that delectable body again. He’d been fascinated by her reactions, a mix of wholehearted responsiveness and shyness. But after a night devoted to carnal pleasure, giving in again and again to the urge for just one more taste of his bride, he’d have to wait to summon some strength.
That didn’t stop his mind from working. On the contrary, it was busier than ever, trying to make sense of tonight’s events with something that in another man might have come close to panic.
But Karim never panicked. He assessed, reviewed, and determined the logical course of action. It was what he’d been trained to do.
Right now logic wasn’t helping.
Sex with Safiyah was phenomenal. Urgent and explosive, yet deeply satisfying. Terribly addictive. The more they shared, the more they wanted.
Karim had been taken aback by the demands of his libido, as if after years of denial he was making up for lost time. As if sex with Safiyah was more real, more satisfying, than with any other lover. Even when they did no more than lie together, body to body, sharing the occasional gentle caress, it felt different from previous experiences.
The notion was unsettling. Karim had expected their first night together to be memorable. He’d waited long enough for it, having never quite managed to excise her from his memory. But this was so much more than he’d anticipated.
He thought back over his actions.
The way he’d denied himself instant gratification on the beach because he’d decided on a whim that their first time needed to be memorable. It had been memorable, all right. Harder and hotter and more intense than anything he could recall, with Safiyah’s lush breasts jouncing up and down against him, her welcoming body wrapped so tight around him he’d detonated with the force of a rocket.
The way he’d spent so much time denying his own pleasure in order to bring her to climax again and again, despite her pleas and her pouting demands that he take her fully. And his desperation whenever he’d relented and joined her.
He’d taken his fill but he’d done far more. It was as if he’d tried to imprint himself on her consciousness, to make her associate ecstasy with him and only him. As if he’d wanted to obliterate any memory of her first husband.
Was he jealous of a dead man?
Of course not—especially since he’d learned that Abbas hadn’t had the sense or generosity to please his wife in bed. The idea of him using Safiyah for his own satisfaction but giving none in return twisted like a drill boring through Karim’s gut. He hadn’t liked the man but now he despised him.
Yet that didn’t explain the other riddle. Why it was that with Safiyah sex seemed more than just an expression of lust and physical pleasure.
He frowned into the darkness, telling himself there was a reasonable explanation. Release after the stress of recent weeks, perhaps?
Safiyah shifted as if to roll away and he stopped her. ‘Stay.’
‘You’re awake?’
‘Barely.’
She chuckled, the sound rich and appealing, but it was the way he felt the vibration of her laugh through his body, his hunger to hear more, that threatened to undo him.
Why, he didn’t know. Except suddenly there came the certainty that this sense of closeness, of emotional intimacy, was dangerous.
Through the night physical desire had been transformed into the illusion of something more profound. Something akin to what he’d felt when he’d first known Safiyah. When she’d had the power to hurt him—and not just his pride, he finally admitted, but something buried even deeper.
That wouldn’t do. No matter how spectacular the sex, Karim needed to remember who he’d married and why. He couldn’t allow himself to be lured into thinking this was more than sexual attraction.
‘Tell me about Abbas.’
Safiyah stiffened and he heard her indrawn breath. Then she rolled away to lie on her back. Though he’d decided to establish some distance, Karim had to make a conscious effort not to haul her back into his arms.
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ He turned towards her, pillowing his head on one bent arm.
‘You really want to do this now?’
He couldn’t read her features but the discordant note in her voice sounded defensive.
‘Your first marriage is hardly a secret.’ He kept his voice even, though it still rankled that she’d gone straight from him to Abbas.
That last night, when she and her father had stayed at the Za’daqi palace, she’d agreed to meet Karim secretly. She’d been his for the taking, though no marriage contract had been drawn up.
Except Ashraf had found him in the secluded garden instead, breaking the news of the medical results that had proved he wasn’t the Sheikh’s son.
The shocking revelation had pushed everything, even Safiyah, from Karim’s head. It hadn’t been till later that he’d realised she must have come to their rendezvous and overheard their conversation. After learning he was illegitimate, she’d dumped him for Abbas.
Now she scrabbled for a sheet, dragging it up to cover herself. ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ Her voice was brisk. ‘He wanted to marry into my clan.’
‘Go on.’ Was it masochism that made him want to hear more?
‘Rana, my sister, caught his eye first. She was studying in the capital and she was...is...intelligent and pretty.’
Her words struck Karim. It sounded almost as if Safiyah believed her sister outshone her.
‘But then she got sick. Marriage wasn’t possible. And so—’
‘And so you jumped at the chance to marry a king?’
For a second she didn’t answer. Then, tucking the sheet close around her, she rolled to face him. They were less than an arm’s length apart, yet it seemed like more. Even in the darkness he felt the chill in her stare.
‘When I was in Za’daq you weren’t the only one whose father was unwell. My father had received a terminal diagnosis, though he didn’t tell me straight away. He knew he’d be dead within months.’
Karim frowned. He’d never have guessed. Safiyah’s father had looked so hale and hearty.
‘He was old-fashioned in some ways, and desperate to get Rana and me “safely settled”, as he called it, before he died. When Rana got sick...’ another pause, ‘...all his hopes rested on me. He wanted me to marry well—not just for myself, but so Rana would be cared for while she recovered.’
Karim thought of the woman he’d met during the wedding. If she’d been seriously ill it didn’t show now.
‘So it was all your father’s doing?’
On learning of Karim’s illegitimacy her father would have pushed her towards another man. But if Safiyah had loved Karim she’d have stuck with him. She wouldn’t have let herself be driven into another man’s bed. The fact she’
d done just that still stuck in his gullet.
‘My father suggested it. Abbas agreed and I...consented.’
Karim cursed the darkness that prevented him reading Safiyah. Something in her voice intrigued him. Despite his residual anger he felt reluctant admiration that she’d admitted it had been her choice.
He breathed deep. Time to let this rest. Yet...
‘It was a happy marriage?’
* * *
Safiyah scanned the dark form before her, trying and failing to read his expression.
A happy marriage?
She almost laughed. She’d believed once that she’d have just that—with Karim, of all people. The absurdity of those dreams tasted like ash on her tongue.
She’d been all but forced into marriage. Technically, she could have said no. But with her father fading before her eyes and both of them worried about Rana, Abbas’s offer had been a fait accompli. Karim had turned his back on her. Her father’s health had been spiralling down as worry increased and they’d struggled to find the care Rana needed after her breakdown.
Abbas had taken care of everything. He’d got Rana immediate entry to an exclusive clinic renowned for its excellence. A clinic which usually had a long waiting list. Safiyah had been so grateful, and in the circumstances what reason could she have given for rejecting him?
‘It was a good marriage,’ she said finally.
If by good she meant that it had conformed to expectations.
Publicly, Abbas had honoured her. Yet otherwise he’d had little to do with her except when he’d wanted sex or needed a hostess. He’d helped her support her sister, and in his own way had been pleased with his son—if disturbingly distant. And if he had been too autocratic for her taste and hadn’t loved her—well, he’d been the King and she’d never expected love. She’d done her best to play her royal role.
‘A good marriage? Not a happy one?’ Karim leaned close, as if intent on her answer.
