by Olivia Gates
Malek dismounted, reached up for her, lifted her down, his effortless strength, the cherishing in his every glance and touch as she slid down his body a constant current jolting through her heart.
And she asked something that had been on her mind from day one there. “Uh, Malek, I realize the people here are nowhere as conservative as any I’ve seen throughout Damhoor, still, how—how did you explain my presence here?”
“I told them you are my wife.” She gasped, and he pressed her harder into his embrace. “You are my wife, ya janaani. Did you think I was spouting platitudes when I said that?”
“No—no, it’s just I didn’t know what you meant when—when…”
“I promised forever?” he completed for her after a fierce kiss aborted her stammering distress. “I meant everything. All the way. Always. I must have it all with you. I can’t live otherwise. And once we’re away from here, I’ll see to all the formalities and procedures. But here I married you with the oasis people, all twenty thousand of them, as witnesses. Here marriage is just this, what we have, what we did, a man and a woman being together before others, pledging to be each other’s alone…” He paused at her widening eyes. “Yes, alone. Polygamy may be sanctioned in Damhoor, but here it’s unheard of. Here a man weds for life. As I do you. I’ll protect you, honor you, worship you all through this life. And into any other life beyond. I’d die for you.”
The tears that had filled her eyes brimmed, slithered down her cheeks. “Oh, Malek, don’t say that. I’d lay down my life for you to be whole and happy.”
He pressed her head hard into his chest, his rasp full of remembered dread. “You already did that. Never again. No more sacrifices, ya hayati, of any kind.” He put her away a few inches, looked down at her with possessive, entreating eyes. “Now, enough talk. I need to worship you again.”
“Here?” She jerked out of his arms, looked around in alarm. She’d lost just about every inhibition with him, but she drew the line at having an audience, non-conservative or not.
Malek took her lips, began to undo the strings lacing her traditional toab’s front, pushing it off her shoulders, spilling her breasts into his palms, weighing and kneading them until she felt they would burst if he didn’t devour them. Then he did, and she changed her mind. She would risk anything.
She could try to be quiet, and if he didn’t draw out her torment like he so loved to do, maybe they could get away with it.
He returned to her lips, his tongue surging inside her, taking every intimacy she lavished. Her moans of stimulation became wild keens. They would get caught.
“Shall I take you now?” She could only nod her assent, her legs buckling. He held her up, smiled. “I only wanted to know if you would do anything to be with me.”
“You mean this was a test?” His smile widened and she bit into his maddening lips. “Now you’d better ride us back home quickly. I have this elaborate revenge to exact on you!”
“Wouldn’t you rather exact it here?”
“But you said—”
“If you think I’d ever expose you to any discomfort, you still don’t realize a fraction of the depth of my love for you. We have the place to ourselves, ya hayati.”
“What did you do?” She gaped at him. “Send twenty thousand people out on an errand?”
“I only put their wish to bestow any privilege on me to good use, to make a fantasy of mine come true. Making love to you out in the open, under the sun and moon, melding with nature. No one will come within a mile of here till dawn. Now enough talk, I’m hungry for you again, ya mashoogati.”
Her toab snagged on her hips. He reversed his efforts, to get it over her head and she croaked, “Rip it.”
His eyes widened. Then with a growl of voracity he ripped the red satin in two. She lurched and moaned to every ripping sound, relishing his frenzy, fueling it.
He could have taken his own white toab off in one sweep. He gave her a ferocious strip-shredding show instead. Sunshine trickled between the breeze-swaying palm crowns, an hypnotic light show accompanying his performance. Passion rose from her depths at the savage poetry of his every straining muscle. To her disappointment he was still wearing jeans underneath.
Before she could beg him to complete his show, he rushed to Zeenah, brought back a thick spread, threw it over the sand at her feet. He came down before her, buried his face in her flesh, muttered love and hunger, dragged her down, spread her on her back, eliciting more frenzy as he probed her with deft fingers.
He growled his satisfaction at her response as her slick flesh gripped his fingers. “Do you know what it does to me—to feel you like this, to have this privilege, this freedom? Do you know what it means to me that you let me, that you want me, that you’re mine?”
Sensation rocketed, more at the maelstrom of emotions and passions fueling his words than at his expert pleasuring. She screamed, opened herself fully to him, now willing to accept pleasure any way he gave it, knowing he craved her surrender, her pleasure. She’d always give him all he wanted.
His tongue thrust inside her mouth to the rhythm of his invading fingers, while his thumb ground her bud in escalating circles. He swallowed every whimper of agonized pleasure, every tremulous word detailing it, every tear at its overpowering effect, until she shuddered in his arms.
She collapsed. Totally nerveless and sated. For about two minutes. Then she was kneading his masculinity through his jeans, and he rasped, “Release me.”
She undid the zipper with shaking hands. Her mouth watered as he sprang heavy and throbbing into her hands. He groaned in a bass voice that shook her insides, spilled magma from her core.
“Play with me, ya galbi. Own me. I’m yours.”
“And do you know what hearing you say that means to me?” she groaned back, her hand nowhere near closing around his girth, again stunned that her hunger was so vast it accommodated so much demand. “This, you, are literally to die for, ya habibi.”
He snatched her in his arms, groaning with revisited anguish. “To live for. Live for me, be happy with me, be mine and let me be yours, Janaan.”
He roared as her hands traveled up and down his silken steel shaft, pumping his mind-blowing potency in delight. Then she slithered down his body, tasted him all the way down to his hot, smooth crown. His scent, taste and texture made her whimper with need for all of him. She opened her mouth and took all she could of him inside. Growling his ecstasy, he thrust his hips to her suckling rhythm.
Suddenly, his hand in her hair stopped her. Then she was beneath him, impaled, complete, the pleasure of his occupation insupportable.
“Ma’boodati,” he ranted in her mouth, driving deeper and deeper into her. “Hayati elek—my life is yours, ya habibati…”
Answering pledges spilled from her until she felt the pulse of pleasure tighten, the heat focused in her loins desperate for one more stoke to burst into the fire that would consume her. He gave her just what she needed for her world to implode, fed her convulsions, slamming her into the soft sand, pumping her to the last abrading twitches of fulfillment.
Then he surrendered to his own climax, and the sight of him, the sound of him reaching completion inside her, the feel of his seed jetting his passion into her, filling her to overflowing, had her in the throes of another orgasm until she was weeping, unable to bear the stimulation.
Still buried inside her, he withdrew to view her tear-drenched face. His eyes promised more, all the time, languid and proprietorial, with that added imperious gleam of his Middle Eastern blood. Royal blood to boot.
Carrying her nerveless body, he prowled to Bir Al-Shefa, the warm sulfur spring outside the grove where he’d soaked her so many times, completing her healing. Its waters had done wonders. It was aptly named the well of healing.
He stepped into the water, waded in until he was knee deep, took her down into it, laid her between his thighs, her back to his front, sat supporting her as she half floated.
He moved water over her satiated body,
massaging her with it, and she hummed to the bliss reverberating in her bones, in her blood.
She would have taken this if he’d only promised this week. She would have lived on the memories forever. But this was forever. It was so unbelievable she woke up suffocating, believing he’d vanished, had never been hers, that it had all been a delusion. She had to touch him to assure herself he was really there, had to remind herself that he’d promised.
Her heart suddenly started hammering. Felt as if it would ram out of her chest. As if she was having a panic attack. She’d never had one. God—what was wrong with her?
Oblivious to her condition, Malek sighed in contentment, whispered, “Aashagek.”
Aasahagek. Mashoogati. The verb and adjective of esh’g, a concept with no equivalent in English. Far more selfless and intense than love, too carnal for adoration, and as reverent as worship and as impossible to shake. It fit perfectly what she felt for him.
She struggled to bring the quaking that was threatening to break to the surface under control, turned her face into his cushioning chest and whispered back, “Wa ana aashagak.”
Then they heard it. The single-tone ring of his cellphone. Zeenah. She’d trotted after them, bringing it to him.
Malek exhaled a rough breath. “No way am I answering that.”
The quaking broke free. She shook, struggled to sit up.
“It could be important.”
“I called the palace before lunch,” he muttered, his voice thick with displeasure. “Surely the kingdom can spare me longer than six hours at a time.”
“Please, Malek, answer it.”
The moon was blazing now. He could no doubt see her twisted face, her body now shaking in earnest.
He rose out of the water, swooped down, half carried her. “Ma beeki, ya habibati? What’s wrong?”
“Noth-nothing.” Her teeth clattered with a surge of agitation, foreboding nearly strangling her by now. “Just—just…”
He rushed her back to Zeenah, dried her, dressed her in an extra toab of his, his eyes growing more anxious as he took in her deteriorating state. The phone didn’t stop ringing.
Just to end its disconcerting effect on her, he snatched it out of his backpack, barked into it, “Aish betreed ya Saeed?”
Jay heard the rush of agitated speech on the other end. Stopped breathing as Malek lurched under the barrage, froze.
An eternity later, he raised blank eyes to her. She almost fell to her knee with the impact of dread.
Then dread became reality, rasped on a voice that had turned darker than the desert’s moonless nights.
“My father is dead.”
Long live the king boomed in her head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE NEXT TWO weeks were a nightmare.
Seeing Malek’s grief deepening as the knowledge of his father’s death and that he was the last of his family, the king now, was her first real glimpse into hell. She stood helplessly by as all through the funeral and the initial days of mourning, matters of state deluged Malek, keeping him from her. But he swore it was her nearness that made him able to bear it all, begged her to stay near. He needed her.
It was all she lived for, to be there for him when he came back to her, seeking solace.
She stayed in his residence, a secluded building connected to the palace by a grand passageway, waiting for him to come to her, exhausted and anguished, surrender it all in her arms for short hours before rising to continue dealing with the demands of a kingdom that was suddenly in turmoil.
She asked what was happening. He only said not to worry. He was handling everything. His answer, made with a guarded eye and leaden voice, made her worry rise to insurmountable levels.
He hadn’t come back to her at all last night. He’d even turned off his cellphone.
She was just about to lose her mind with a thousand nightmares when she heard his convoy arriving at the palace.
She exploded out of their quarters. She had to beg him to include her, let her help, in any way.
She rushed out into the spacious corridors leading to his stateroom, saw nothing of the impossible grandeur of her surroundings. The guards stood at attention as she approached, opened the door of the antechamber with all the ceremony they showed Malek. She went in, heard Malek’s raised voice through the ajar door of the stateroom—and froze.
He sounded furious, cornered. Oh, God—what was wrong?
“So you will really risk a civil war for your bastard, half-breed whore?” another man’s voice demanded in Arabic.
A sudden explosion of violence answered him. The muffled sound of an unstoppable force hitting flesh and bones, the sound of a heavy body crashing to the ground.
Deathly silence fell, interrupted only by the heavy breathing of those inside with Malek. She’d stopped breathing.
Then Malek’s voice broke out, drenching her in shivers at its murderous coldness. “I didn’t kill you, Zayd, because I know you’re a fool. But being one will not grant you a second chance. As long as I live, you’re never to enter this palace again, and you’re relieved of your position, which demands wisdom and control and diplomacy, everything you so grossly lack. And if you ever repeat your opinion of Janaan again, in any form, anywhere, I will have you tried, and convicted, for defamation. You know the sentence.”
A long silence followed, punctuated with what she knew was the struck man’s efforts to pull himself up to his feet.
Then Malek spoke again, and she wondered if they all fell to their knees as she wanted to. “Janaan is the reason you have a king today. You should pray in thanks for her.”
Another voice, precise and tranquil with age and wisdom, rose. “Zayd was criminally slanderous. You were merciful in your decrees. But as your late father’s advisor, I urge you to consider our solution. If your beloved is the matchless woman you paint her, she’ll appreciate the magnitude of your duties, will help you carry them out. And then she will be honored, given a life of untold luxury. What woman can dream of more than that?”
Malek let out an ugly laugh. “Offering Janaan luxury is like offering a perfect falcon extra wings. And how will I honor her without proclaiming her mine to the world?”
Jay couldn’t hear more. Shouldn’t have heard it at all, hadn’t meant to hear it. She just couldn’t move.
She had to.
She forced her legs to move but she stumbled, bumped into a pillar with an urn on top of it. The crash sent her collapsing on the nearest divan, brought men rushing in from every direction. She only saw Malek, saw how his face contorted the moment he saw her.
With one fierce order, he cleared the room. Then, wordlessly, he scooped her up in his arms, took her to the stateroom, closed the door securely behind them. He lowered her onto another divan, came down on his knees before her, clutching her hands, his face clenched in agitation and entreaty.
Before he could say anything, she rasped out weakly, “Your problems—the uproar in the kingdom—they’re all over me, aren’t they?”
“No, no.” He rose, kissed her all over her face. “I promised I’ll take care of it, and I will.”
She shook her head and he brought an urgent hand to her face. A cry of horror tore out of her. She groped for his hand, slid shaking fingers over his swollen, discolored knuckles.
His irreplaceable hands, his surgeon’s miraculous tools, injured in her defense. He could have impaired them forever. What more injuries and losses must he endure on her account?
“What I would give for you not to have heard that, ya habibati.” He kissed her hand, a knuckle at a time.
“I didn’t mean to, but I did, and I need you to please tell me the rest.”
For a long moment he struggled with loathing to inflict more on her. Then he finally exhaled, heavy and resigned.
“There’s no dispute that the house of Munsoor Aal-Hamdaan, my great-grandfather, is the rightful one. But there are other branches of the Aal-Hamdaan family, as well as ancient tribes who have always had a par
t of the rule through marriage into Munsoor’s line. I told the elders of the candidate houses that I won’t have sons of their blood, that when I’m dead they should decide who will rule after me.”
“Th-that has only made the dispute over who will rule after you start right now, threatening a civil war.” He acknowledged the accuracy of her conclusion with a curt nod, his color now deep copper. “What is the solution?”
He gritted his teeth. “They suggest I first take a wife the kingdom will accept, then, as our religion permits in extreme conditions, to invoke my right to take you as my second wife.”
“And this is the only way, isn’t it?”
This was a rhetorical question. He still answered it, vehement, final. “No, it isn’t. I haven’t accepted their solution. And I won’t. I will find another way.”
Suddenly he crushed her in his arms. “I will find a way—just give me more time. La t’seebeeni ya rohi—don’t leave me, don’t even think it. I can see you, feel you thinking it.” He crushed her harder into him, his hand burying her face in his neck, every convulsion of his Adam’s apple, every break in his ragged voice a shock wave of misery and desperation. Her heart bled, tears escaped down her face. He shook her, frantic to drag her back to him, to keep her there. “Promise me you won’t leave me. Give me your pledge, Janaan.”
She only nodded, buried her face in his neck again.
A harsh exhalation spilled from his lips, relief made audible, before he tilted her face up, poured love and dependence over her. “Ashkorek, ya mashoogati—thank you. I will never let you down.”
“I will never do what you’re asking, ya doctorah!”
“You must, Saeed.” Jay heard the manic edge lacing her shrill voice. She was going crazy with fear that he’d refuse her. Run to Malek. That she wouldn’t be able to run away. “You must help me get out of Damhoor.”
“But why?” Saeed’s desert-hardened face for once reflected his emotions. Confusion, agitation. Disappointment.
“Because my presence is blinding Malek to the fact that he has far more important things than me to worry about—a whole nation’s peace and future.”
