He was powerful and tanned, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. A light dusting of hair bisected his flat belly, drawing her gaze to his impressive, throbbing need. When she reached out to touch him, he drew back.
“I couldn’t stand it,” he said simply, returning to her side and lowering his mouth to hers.
His fingers trailed down, once again finding that one spot that made her strain toward him and beg.
He worked slowly, arousing her to a fevered pitch, then backing off until she was nearly calm. Again and again, she felt herself building. She moved her hands over him, discovering the feel of his warm skin and the way his muscles bunched at her touch.
She’d forgotten what it was like to be with a man, she thought hazily, as once again she spiraled higher and closer to the goal of her release. She’d forgotten about the warmth and the weight and sense of well-being. Except this wasn’t exactly what she remembered from her past. It was altogether much better.
And then he brushed over that one place and she couldn’t think anymore, because regardless of what happened in the rest of the world, her course had been set. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, then shuddered as her body contracted and released in a rhythm that made her feel as if she were bathed in the most perfectly exquisite light. Pleasure rushed through her, emptying her of tension, of worry, of everything but the glory of having Malik touch her in this way.
He continued to touch lightly and evenly until she had finished her climax, then he moved over her and pressed himself against her.
He paused long enough to put on protection.
She would have thought there wasn’t anything left inside her, but as he entered her so very slowly, filling her, stretching unused muscles in the most delightful way, she found herself collecting to tense and release again.
She opened her eyes and their gazes locked. He breathed her name and shuddered.
She tilted her hips to accept all of him. He felt so right. She adored the weight of him, the way her body trembled and the building pressure that promised she was far from finished.
He bent low and kissed her, then raised himself again so he could watch her face.
The swift but gentle action made her body contract in an unexpected spasm.
“Again,” he demanded and she found herself doing as he wished, until she was caught up in a cycle that made her release with each thrust.
“I can’t,” she gasped, knowing that her body was no longer hers to control. “I’ll die of it.”
Malik said nothing. Instead he continued to move, watching her. She was sure he could both see and feel her releases. She felt wanton and sensual and more feminine than at any other time in her life.
And then he was moving faster, and she felt him ready himself. She prepared for him to thrust deeply one last time. He stiffened and groaned. Her body contracted around him, pulling him in, and she held him close as he relaxed against her.
Happiness filled her. Perhaps this wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done in her life, but she refused to have any regrets. Even if it was just for tonight, making love with Malik had been glorious.
“Not bad for two out-of-practice people,” she murmured, then nibbled on his earlobe.
“You were most adequate,” he told her teasingly.
She laughed. “As were you, my handsome prince. As were you.”
Malik sat in the low cushioned chair across from the bed and watched Liana sleep. After making love, they’d pulled up the covers and rested together in each other’s arms. But although she’d drifted off, he couldn’t stop the whirling thoughts in his head.
There was no excuse for what he’d done, he told himself. When she found out the truth, which would probably happen in the morning, there would be hell to pay. If Liana hadn’t appreciated his attempts to get her to live at the palace, she was hardly going to forgive his latest transgression. He should have more forcefully told Bilal no.
Malik closed his eyes. But instead of picturing the leader of the nomadic tribe, he saw Liana as she’d lain naked in his arms. He replayed the memory of how it had felt to slide into her waiting body. For that single moment, they truly had been one being.
She was so many things, he thought watching the way the faint light from a glowing lantern caught the golden blond in her hair. Beautiful, affectionate, intelligent, caring, humorous. How was he supposed to resist her? For a man who had lived alone for most of his life, the promise of her acceptance had been more than he could resist. He’d known it wasn’t going to last, that it wouldn’t last even now, but he’d been unable to walk away from her. For the first time in his life, he’d understood what it meant to be intimate—in more than a sexual sense.
So for this evening, and for as long as she would let him, he would pretend that it was real. That she cared about him and wanted him and that they were together. It wasn’t love. It could never be love. But it was as close as he was allowed. Surely his duties and responsibilities could excuse him this one time—for these brief hours—and he could be like other men.
“What are you thinking?”
He looked up and saw that Liana had awakened. She sat up, watching him, her hair mussed and her eyes still half closed.
“I’m thinking about you,” he said honestly. “About how we were together.”
“Oh, are you? And how was that?”
“Amazing.”
“Hmm, my thoughts exactly.” She pushed back the covers and rose to her feet. Naked, she crossed the carpeted floor and stopped in front of his chair.
He remembered that she’d worried about her body—that she’d borne a child and wasn’t as slim as she would like. But when he looked at her, he saw only perfection. The full breasts of a mature woman. Rounded hips, long legs and one or two marks that proved she was a fertile, vital goddess.
“You are a fantasy,” he said, leaning forward and pressing his mouth against her belly.
She cupped his head, then tilted his chin so that he stared up at her. “Somehow I think you’re the winner in the fantasy department,” she told him. “Very few men daydream about schoolteachers, but nearly every little girl in the world has dreamed about a prince.”
“A man from a fairy tale. Not someone real.”
“You’re real?” she said, teasing him with mock disappointment. “And here I thought you were the manifestation of every childish daydream.”
She sank to her knees and pressed her palms against his bare thighs. “Although the good news is if you’re real, you won’t disappear at midnight or whatever it is fantasy princes do when they leave.”
“It’s past midnight and I’m still here,” he said.
“Good, because if you were a fantasy, I might just shock you by doing this.”
He sat naked in the low chair. Liana gave him an impish smile, then leaned forward and took his rapidly swelling arousal in her mouth. The combination of movement, moist heat and her long hair brushing against his inner thighs made him swear aloud. He tensed as a wave of pleasure rushed through him. In less than a heartbeat he was as hard as he’d ever been. Pressure built quickly and purposefully and he knew he had to distract himself or he would give way in a matter of seconds.
He closed his eyes and thought of other things, but the relentless movement of her mouth as she raised and lowered her lips against him was more than he could stand.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he put his hands under her arms and drew her up from her sensual task.
“Just giving in to temptation. When I woke up and saw you sitting there all naked and thoughtful, it seemed to be an invitation.”
Malik rose and drew her to her feet. He studied her face. “You are a woman of many surprises.”
“Why? Because I enjoy making love?” She shrugged. “I’ve never been opposed to it, in the right circumstances. My experience was limited to my marriage, but while Chuck and I were getting along, I rarely told him no. If you’re going to complain that I’m too wild, it’s
your own fault. While I’ll accept responsibility for long-denied desire waking up, you’re the one who made it so good.”
Her words made him swell with pride—in more than just his chest. He had a fierce need to claim this woman again, to take them both to paradise and back. They might have only this night, but he wanted to use every minute to his advantage.
“I want you,” he said, moving close and kissing her.
With their bodies still pressed together, and their mouths joined, he moved them toward the bed. When she tumbled onto the mattress, he followed her onto the yielding surface, but he didn’t kiss her again. At least not on the lips. Instead he did to her what she’d done to him.
He licked the soft, quivering skin of her inner thigh, then moved higher to her woman’s place. There he parted the blond curls and studied her beautiful body. He used his tongue to find all the places that made her gasp and call out his name, knowing that her body, unlike his own, could be coaxed by him to experience ultimate release, only to have it happen again and again when he was inside her.
He licked her thoroughly, plunging his tongue into her waiting depths. She was sweet and hot, and he knew he would never forget a single moment of their lovemaking—not in this life or the next. He circled that one point of need, teasing it until she trembled and pulled her knees back toward her chest.
“Malik, please,” she pleaded, her voice soft and shaking, her breath coming in gasps.
He slipped two fingers inside her and pressed up, stroking her from the inside as he matched those movements with his tongue. She cried out. The single sound tore through him like a blade, finding sanctuary in his heart. Then all was forgotten in the convulsion of her muscles as her body contracted in waves of release. She pulsed around his fingers and he moved against the beats, drawing out the moment to make it last longer. He touched her more and more lightly until she was still, then he rose over her and plunged himself inside.
She grasped him to her and spoke his name over and over, like a talisman against the dark. As he moved in and out of her, the contractions began again, the quick, deep pulses making a mockery of his attempt to make it last longer this time. Instead he found himself speeding toward his own release, lost in the pleasure and the welcome he saw in her blue eyes.
She was, for this one brief, glorious night, his very own. And he would lose her in the morning, with the surety and speed of sand slipping through an hourglass.
Last night had been, hands down, the absolutely most amazing experience of her life, Liana thought hazily, some time the next morning. She lay on the soft bed and stared up at the tent’s ceiling. She knew that she was grinning like a fool and she couldn’t stop herself.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that to me,” she said lazily.
Malik had already risen and dressed. The man had more energy than was human, she decided, watching him pull on his boots.
“I would say we did it to each other.” He looked at her and smiled. “But if you want me to take all the credit, I don’t mind.”
She rolled over and onto her stomach and pressed her cheek into the pillow. “I’d been married and I didn’t know it could be like that. Obviously Chuck and I needed to take a remedial course in sex or something. I had no idea my body was capable of doing that.”
And with a virtual stranger, she thought, still bemused by all that they’d been through together.
“I’ve always thought those romance novelists were lying,” she murmured as Malik sat next to her on the bed and rubbed her bare back. “I mean they write about all that great sex stuff and I figured it was just poetic license. But now I have to say those ladies do their research.”
Malik leaned down and kissed her. “While I want to take all the credit for last night, I can’t. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, either.”
She turned to face him. The sheet didn’t travel with her, and she was naked under the covers. When she realized her breasts were now bare before his gaze, she found she didn’t much care. Especially when he began to gently stroke the full curves.
“So it’s chemistry?” she asked.
“Or fate.”
“Fate, huh?” She kind of liked the sound of that.
Liana closed her eyes, giving herself over to Malik’s sensual touch. Maybe she’d been hasty to assume they couldn’t have any kind of a relationship. Maybe a short-term affair wasn’t out of the question. She was going to be in El Bahar for two years, and if he wanted to be intimate with her for a few of those months, was she crazy to agree?
The trick would be to keep her heart firmly out of reach. She couldn’t risk caring about him. In fact, if she were completely honest with herself, she was already a little nervous about having bonded. She didn’t think she was the one-night stand type. So she would have to be careful to keep her heart firmly locked up. Still, it might be worth it. After all how often did a woman like her get to—
A young woman stuck her head into the tent. Liana dove under the covers while Malik rose. “Good morning,” he said. “Have you brought coffee?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the woman said in slow, careful English. She nodded at Malik, then moved toward the low table and set down a tray.
She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. The shapeless robe and veil over her face made it difficult to tell.
“Don’t worry,” Malik told Liana. “This is simply desert hospitality at its finest. It’s a great honor for her to serve us coffee.”
“Yeah, and she caught me in your bed. What on earth are the tribespeople going to say about that? Aren’t they fairly traditional in their beliefs about sex?”
Malik didn’t meet her gaze. “It’s not a problem.”
She opened her mouth to question him more, but the young woman claimed her attention by approaching the side of the bed. She stopped and knelt on the thick rugs, then, with a glance back at Malik as if confirming he would stay where he was, she dropped her veil and smiled.
“Good morning, Princess Liana,” she said, speaking slowly, as if reciting a prepared speech in a language that was difficult for her. “Best wishes to you on the event of your marriage to the lion of the desert.”
Chapter 9
“Married? Married?” Liana knew she’d been repeating the word over and over, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s not what you think.”
She glared at Malik from her corner in the rear of the limo. She’d been silent for the first hour or so of their trip, but she couldn’t contain herself anymore. “Are we or are we not married?”
“We’re married.”
“Then it’s exactly what I think.”
This was not happening, she thought frantically as she stared out the window at the desert stretching to the horizon. It was a horrible dream brought on by lack of sleep, or too much sex or something, because she refused to believe it was real. She and Malik could not be married because there hadn’t been a ceremony. She was sure she would have remembered participating in one and reciting her vows, but she didn’t.
Of course she didn’t remember much of anything from the last hour except getting close to hysteria and insisting they return to the palace immediately. She wanted everything settled as soon as possible, and she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen while they were out in the desert. She wanted to get back to the safety of the city. Once there, all this would make sense. She would find out there had been some kind of a mistake. That was it. A mistake. And soon everything would be put to right.
“Liana, you have to let me explain,” Malik said.
She spun to face him. “Explain away. I would love to hear how you and I got married, because I sure don’t remember it happening. And let me assure you, I’m not going to sit idly by while you attempt to run my life again. I don’t know what this game is, but I’m not playing.”
Malik reached for her hand, but she pulled her arm out of reach. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “I’m not doing that again, e
ither. You might be a wizard in bed, but I won’t let myself be caught in that trap a second time. I can be seduced, but I’m not stupid.”
He stiffened and glared at her. “I didn’t seduce you. I made it very clear that whether or not we made love was completely up to you.”
She pressed her lips together. Damn the man, he was telling the truth. “All right. I’ll give you that one. I did agree.” She’d more than agreed, she thought grimly, remembering their second time. She’d been the initiator. And it had been amazing. “But I never said I would marry you. This whole thing is probably a joke to you, but it’s serious to me. We’re talking about my life. I don’t appreciate being made a pawn in some twisted game.”
Malik started to reach for her hand again, then stopped. “I didn’t trick you,” he said, then paused. “At least, I didn’t start out that way.”
“How kind of you,” she said sarcastically. “So it was an accident?”
“Do you want me to explain or not?”
She pressed her lips together. “Fine. I’m listening.”
“I invited you to join me for a welcoming ceremony,” he began. “That’s what I expected to happen. But when we arrived I saw right away that Bilal had arranged a desert wedding instead.”
He stopped talking. She waited, but after a couple of minutes of extended silence she knew he’d finished. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say. Oops, there was a mistake? Did it ever occur to you to explain it to me? To let me in on what was happening?”
“I knew you wouldn’t go through with it.”
“No kidding!” She was so frustrated she wanted to toss him out of the moving car. “Of course I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I don’t want to marry anyone. I certainly don’t want to marry you! I can’t believe you just blindly led me into this situation. Who do you think you are?”
Malik straightened in his seat. Even though she knew it wasn’t possible, she would have sworn he grew taller and more powerful as he spoke. “I am Malik Khan, Crown Prince of El Bahar. I am the future ruler of this nation, and I have done you a great honor by taking you as my wife.”
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