The sound of breaking glass stopped the man in mid-tirade.
Zakir turned toward the sound, his hand reaching instinctively for the sword at his hip. But a hush was rapidly spreading, which didn’t indicate assassins or any other hostilities he might have to respond to.
A hush that had its origin in the space before his throne. Which could only mean one thing. Felicity.
He brushed aside his complaining minister, moving swiftly through the crowd, anger coiling in his gut. What had she done? Hadn’t he told her what she was supposed to do? And hadn’t she promised that yes, she would do it?
The crowds parted for him all of a sudden to reveal her advancing on Faisal, one of his most vociferous critics, a look of fury on her face, her robes stained and dripping red. The color of blood. The color of Maysan’s blood on the white sheets of her wedding bed.
A rush of adrenaline filled him, his body already responding before his mind caught up and it wasn’t until his sword was already naked in his hand that he realized it wasn’t blood that was staining her robes but wine.
Old Faisal was with his cronies, shouting about how it wasn’t his fault, she’d rudely knocked into him and spilled his wine. Faisal, who’d made it very clear he did not approve of Zakir’s choice of bride, and who was only one of a large group of them who also didn’t approve.
And Felicity was approaching him, shaking with fury, her mouth opening to say something that would absolutely not help the situation.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded before she could speak, his voice making everyone in the vicinity freeze.
“She rudely spilled my wine,” Faisal said in heavily accented English, his mouth drawn up in a sneer.
Felicity’s eyes widened. “I did not—”
“Silence,” Zakir ordered harshly, noticing as he did so the dark pile in front of the cushion. Not gifts. They were rocks. And worthless copper coins. And…dirt.
And the red staining her robes. It was a reminder to everyone in the stone hall of what happened to the last sheikha to wed an Al-Nazari. A bad omen and one deliberately caused by Faisal, of that Zakir had no doubt. Just like the pile in front of her was deliberate.
It wasn’t just a mark of their disapproval. It was an insult. To her.
It was also an insult to him.
Faisal fell silent as he realized his sheikh was staring at him, but he didn’t look away, the arrogant dog. Nearby was Jamal, looking furious, but he was supposed to be watching out for and protecting Felicity. How had he not noticed the pile of insults in front of her? And why had Jamal not come to get him?
He does not approve, you know this.
Anger, dark and intense, flared inside him.
Zakir tightened his grip on his sword and lifted a hand. Instantly the entire room fell deadly silent, broken only by the sound of the booted feet of his guards as they flowed like water amongst the crowd.
“My intended bride has been insulted,” he said quietly and with menace, making sure his words carried. “Which is an insult to me. In my own house. At my own feast.”
Faisal, showing himself to be a man of little brain, opened his mouth. “Sire, you cannot expect—”
“Silence!” Zakir repeated, louder this time. “Get out. You are no longer welcome here. And take your friends with you.”
Shock began to spread outward amongst the guests but he ignored them. Because Felicity was standing there still in her stained robes, all that red dripping on his floor, fury in her eyes, and he had to get her out. Get rid of those robes and the reminder on them before more people realized and recognized the bad omen. Not to mention before Felicity herself exploded with rage.
Sliding his sword back into his scabbard, he strode forward before anyone else could move and grabbed Felicity by the arm, sweeping her toward the doors that led to the big stone terrace outside the hall.
She didn’t say a word, her slippers making scuffing sounds on the polished stone as he pulled her through the doors and out into the cold of the night.
The stone terrace wasn’t like the small, quiet courtyard where they’d had breakfast that morning, with its sheltering walls and heat. This was wide, with stone benches scattered here and there, bounded by a low parapet that was all that stood between any observer and a dizzying drop into the valley below. The stone beneath their feet was warm from the day but the air had already taken on the chill of a desert night.
“That wasn’t my fault,” she began hotly, almost as soon as they’d gotten outside. “I just went to stand up and my foot was a bit numb from sitting so long so I stumbled. But I was nowhere near him. He deliberately spilled—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “I know he did.”
Her eyes widened, as if she hadn’t expected him to believe her. “Oh. Well…” She stopped, then said, “I’m sorry. I did what you told me to, but I guess they didn’t like me.”
There was a note in her voice he didn’t quite understand, so he didn’t say anything immediately, merely tugging at the soaking white silk as a shiver shook her.
“Hey,” she said as she realized what he was doing, her hands coming up to bat his away. “Stop that. I can do it.”
He ignored her, deftly unwinding the silk from around her and discarding it onto the ground, leaving her in the white shift she wore underneath it. “Zakir, don’t…” And then she stopped as he shrugged out of his black robe and put it around her narrow shoulders, wrapping her up tight in it so that all he could see of her was her pale, delicate face in amongst the swaths of black fabric.
She looked like she was wrapped in darkness.
How appropriate.
“Um…thanks,” she said, drawing the robe more firmly around her.
He stepped back to give her some space. “Tell me what happened.” It came out as a demand, but he was so furious he couldn’t quite temper his voice.
Wariness crept into her eyes. “You’re angry with me. I’m sorry; I really didn’t do anything, scout’s honor.”
“I am not angry with you. I am angry at him. Tell me what happened.”
She let out a breath and abruptly turned from him, moving over to one of the stone benches and sitting down. And it caused him a peculiar kind of satisfaction to see her wrap his robe even tighter around herself, as if she was cold.
“Like I said, I got up off the cushion because I needed a drink of water. And I stumbled. Then all this wine came down on top of me.” She looked at him. “You know he did it on purpose, right?”
“Yes.” He leaned back against the parapet, ignoring the drop on the other side of it, and folded his arms. “Faisal did that deliberately.”
A shadow flickered across her delicate face. “I knew it. They really didn’t like me, did they? I didn’t think those ‘gifts’ in front of me were supposed to be dirt.”
Again that note of what sounded like old pain in her voice. It made him uneasy, unsettled. “It was not personal, Felicity. The insults were directed at me. You were just unfortunate to get caught in the crossfire, so to speak.”
She glanced down at her feet, her shoulders hunched. Huddled beneath his black robe, she looked very small. “You were going to present them with Princess Safira. No wonder they were disappointed.”
He frowned. “There are reasons for that. They have nothing to do with you.”
Her head came up. “Don’t they? I’ve seen her. I know what she looks like. I’m also an outsider and…” Abruptly she stopped. “God. I don’t know why I’m arguing. I don’t actually care about this.”
A strange urge to explain himself came over him. “I have told you why the Princess Safira is valuable to us. She is a warrior, as well as of noble blood. They do not want an outsider, regardless of who she is.”
Felicity gave a little shake of her head. “It’s okay. It’s no big deal. I don’t care, I really don’t. Anyway, it’s just another reason why you shouldn’t marry me.”
His anger, still simmering away, flared up for some inexplicable r
eason, and he’d crossed the space between them before he quite knew what he was doing, standing in front of her, reaching down to take her pointed chin in his fingers and tilting her head back.
Her eyes went wide, silver in the light of the stars above his head, staring up at him. And he saw it, a spark of response in the gray depths, a stain of red rising in her cheeks.
Desire.
That is very, very bad.
It was bad. He knew how to manage desire, but knowing she felt the same? Catastrophic.
But he didn’t let her go. “You think I would let those dogs have power?” he said quietly, fiercely. “Let them insult me in my own palace? Let them insult you? They will not question me, Felicity. I will not permit it. And I will marry you regardless of what they think.”
Her jaw had tensed beneath his fingers and he could feel the subtle strain of her trying to pull away. He liked it. Another very bad sign.
“So you’re going to marry me just to prove them wrong?” Familiar sarcasm edged the words, despite the fact that he held her chin in his hand and he was in a towering rage. He couldn’t decide whether that made her brave or stupid.
“I am going to marry you because you have assets they do not recognize. Assets that will help me bring this country into the twenty-first century. You have brains and an understanding of the modern world that Princess Safira cannot match. In fact, the more I think of it, the more worthy a bride prize you are.”
Her mouth had gone tight, but she was blushing again, he could feel the heat of it beneath his fingers. Her skin was so soft. The smell of spilled wine was strong, but beneath he could almost catch the sweet, flower scent of her. Her throat moved and he couldn’t help himself. Releasing her chin, he let his hand slide down her neck, his fingers trailing on either side over her skin, before dropping to press his palm to her pulse at the base of her throat.
She went very still, her eyes like great silver coins. “Zakir…”
There had been many women who’d whispered his name, moaned it, screamed it. But none of them had made it sound the way Felicity said it in that moment. Soft. Hoarse. A protest and yet…not quite.
It was the most erotic thing he’d ever heard.
The sound of it pulsed down his spine, roused the dark animal he kept locked away inside him. Made it wake, made it growl with hunger.
Let her go. You are dangerous and she is breakable.
Yes, he knew all that. Yet perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to test himself. He was a soldier. He was strong. But he’d never met a woman who’d tested that strength in quite the way she had. Maybe now would be a good time to try it. Because, when it came to the getting of heirs, he needed to know he could hold himself back when required. Better to know now if he could do this, what his limits were than when it was too late to do anything about it.
He moved his hand from her throat to around behind her neck, spreading his fingers out, sliding up to cradle the back of her head.
Her breath caught, he could hear it in the quiet of the night, and her eyes became even wider, the silver slowly being consumed by the darkness of her dilated pupils.
“W-What are you doing?” All her earlier anger and sarcasm had dropped away, her voice sounded shocked and now more than a little hoarse.
Didn’t she know how that sounded to him? How it whispered across his nerve endings like the brush of the softest fur? Sensual. Erotic. Soft. Everything a woman should be.
His heartbeat had accelerated and he could feel himself hardening, and somewhere inside him the animal was howling to be released. But he wouldn’t let it out. He’d resisted for two years and he was still strong.
He didn’t reply, curling his fingers into her hair instead. It was so soft, silky, and smooth against his skin. He’d forgotten how soft a woman’s hair could be, how sensual it could feel. How he’d liked to take handfuls of it in his fists and hold on tight. Some women had moaned when he’d pulled their hair, had panted when he’d wound it around his wrists. Would Felicity like it?
Her mouth had opened, her lips full and pink. “I don’t know w-what you’re doing but m-maybe you should stop.” Again, that throaty edge to the words.
“Why?” he murmured, and he tightened his fingers in her hair. “Are you afraid?”
A flicker in her eyes, a flash of the temper he knew was lurking just below the surface of her. “I… No.”
“Then I don’t think you want me to stop, little one.” Applying pressure, he brought her slowly to her feet. “I think you want me to keep going.”
He was standing close, which meant what little distance there was between them closed as she rose. And then he felt the heat of her as her body pressed to his, how it burned through the robes he’d wrapped around her, burned through the tunic and the loose cotton pants he wore. He could smell her even beneath the wine and sweet flowers—the stronger, muskier scent that was…arousal. Ah, yes, he remembered that, the smell of a woman full of desire for him.
She gave a small gasp, her hands coming up instinctively and finding nothing but his chest to steady them on. And as her palms came down on him, she made another sound and he felt her body tense in reaction, as if she’d accidentally touched a hot stove and was trying to jerk away to keep from burning herself.
His fingers curled deep in her hair, holding her still and a tremble went through her. “I thought you were not afraid?” he asked softly, a deliberate challenge.
At the base of her throat, her pulse beat hard, her breathing sharp and fast. But there it was, the answering spark in her eyes again. “I’m not.”
“You are. I can see it in your face.” He studied her. “Are you a virgin, Felicity?”
The sparks in her eyes glittered sharper, brighter, her body stiffening even more, her palms pressed hard against his chest. “That’s none of your business.”
“It does not matter to me either way.” And it didn’t. He didn’t care if she’d had no lovers, one, or even a hundred. “But if you are inexperienced, it is better for both of us that I know.”
“No, it isn’t.” Offense laced her tone, her little body almost vibrating with anger. “Mainly because I will not be sleeping with you. Not now. Not ever.”
He ignored that because he really didn’t need her answer to know the truth. Of course she was a virgin. “Why have you not been with anyone, little one? You are beautiful, intelligent. You surely would have had your pick. Or is it because you just have not found the right man?”
Her chest heaved, the softness of her breasts pressing against him. Even in the dark he could see the deepening blush in her cheeks. “It’s because men are bastards. Especially men like you.”
But he was starting to get her measure now. He knew where her anger was coming from. She was out of her depth and that made her afraid. And angry. Which was understandable, given what he’d done to her. Yet she wanted him too, that was obvious. She wanted him and didn’t know how to deal with it.
Well, he would teach her. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, putting all his authority into his voice.
“But I—”
“I know what I am doing, little one. And you do not. Let me show you something new.”
She stared at him, thoughts flickering through her gaze like quicksilver. Then, slowly, she relaxed against him and her lashes fell.
He grinned in the dark, a feral sense of triumph twisting inside him. Then, gently, he applied more pressure to the hold he had on her hair, pulling her head back farther so her long, white throat was arched and exposed. She gasped.
Stop. Let her go.
But he didn’t. The animal inside him was hungry, but he was strong. He could withstand it. He just had to prove himself a little more. So he bent his head, pressed his mouth to the spot where her pulse fluttered, tasted her skin. Sweet, with the sharpness of salt. Like her. Would she taste like that everywhere? If he tasted the heat between her thighs, would she taste like that there, too?
Her whole body shuddered and when he bared his teet
h and bit her lightly, where the tendons of her neck met her throat, he heard the sharp sound of her outrushing breath. Felt her fingers curl into the cotton of his tunic, gripping him. Holding on.
He waited a beat, but she didn’t push him away and she didn’t make any more sounds. Only trembled in his arms like a tree in a high wind.
So he licked up her throat, nuzzled beneath her ear. Then, with his fingers tight in her hair, he positioned her head where he wanted it, and took her mouth with his.
It should have been nothing, just another way to test himself. To prove himself like he did in his training room. In fact, this should have been just another training exercise.
But Felicity made a sound, a soft groan, and all the remaining stiffness holding her rigid against him, melted away. She became pliant and supple in his arms, her body pressing against his, her hands clenching tightly to his tunic.
And her mouth, holy God, her mouth. It opened beneath his, the heat and the taste of her hitting him like he’d been struck over the head with the hilt of his own sword.
The animal inside him rushed its cage, rattling it, bending the bars. Wanting to tear the robes from her body, bend her over the bench, push inside her, take her hard and fast with one hand buried in her hair till they were both screaming.
He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. That kind of loss of control led to madness. Led to a bridal bed covered in blood and a woman dead.
She is not strong. You will break her.
Because that was the way with the Al-Nazari. They broke things they shouldn’t.
But, oh, the taste of her, the heat of that lovely mouth. It had been so long since he’d kissed a woman and he’d forgotten that—the sweetness. It made him kiss her harder, deeper, ruthless and hungry with it, devouring her like a lion devours its prey.
Her hands were gripping him tighter, her whole body trembling. Then she touched her tongue to his, a tentative, cautious response, and something exploded through him, desire flaring like a bonfire.
Never Resist a Sheikh (International Bad Boys) Page 8
