She tried to smile, but her features were too tense.
His eyes, blacker than the night sky, widened, and his brow furrowed. “This is not what either of us expected,” he agreed. He had long, dark hair, and he wore it pulled into a somewhat messy bun on top of his head. Addan had been neat. Trim. Well-groomed. The opposite to his brother.
A shiver ran down her spine as again she saw her intended groom as some kind of wild creature, feral and free-roaming, dragged in from the desert, barely contained by this exquisitely beautiful palace.
“You know how the wedding ceremony will go?”
She swallowed, closing her eyes as she tried to push the details from her mind. But she couldn’t. They were there, as she’d understood them for years. And again, when she’d been going to marry Addan, nothing had worried her; she’d welcomed every intimacy.
Standing opposite this man though, singing to him in his native language, reciting the ancient poetry of the Bedouins who’d first inhabited this prosperous land, she felt like a part of her was going to be stripped raw for him to see.
“Yes,” she nodded, concealing her fear with care.
“And you know what comes afterwards?” His nostrils flared with the challenge, as he studied her with deep concentration.
The tradition was one she and Addan had laughed about, like school children planning to fool their parents and stay up until midnight for the first time. The idea of a couple being locked in a tower for twenty four hours to consummate their marriage had seemed silly, but for a culture that saw its regal bloodline as its most valuable asset, it was one they’d been prepared to honour.
Now? Being locked in a tower with Sheikh Malik bin Hazari? Her nerve endings jangled inside of her, and her stomach was in knots. She’d hinted to her valet that perhaps it wasn’t necessary in the twenty first century – the very idea it could be dispensed with was met with incredulity.
The tower was happening.
“Yes,” she dropped her gaze, unable to look at him.
But he closed the distance between them and lifted her face to his, holding her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her gaze to lock to his. “You are apprehensive about sleeping with me?”
Heat suffused her cheeks, his directness completely unexpected. “I’m…” she bit down on her lower lip, then stopped when his eyes chased the movement and she felt the whip of electricity slash her spine. “We hardly know one another.” She shrugged her slender shoulders.
“And you knew my brother,” he said, the words blanked of any emotion.
“He was my best friend,” she whispered, and tears thickened in her throat. She blinked her eyes furiously, not willing to destroy the make up artist’s work nor to show any hint of weakness to this man.
Her groom was quiet a moment, his jaw clenched, a muscle throbbing at its base.
“We do not need to know one another.” His gaze moved over her face. “This is a political marriage, a treaty of sorts. You will have your duties, and outside of them, your own life. You will carry on much as you did before.”
Her heart stammered inside her chest. “Except for the whole having sex together thing?” She pushed, her eyes holding his, a silent challenge in them.
His expression shifted to one of distaste. “Yes.”
Great. He was as reluctant to go to bed with her as she was with him. Only Sophia knew that deep down, her reluctance had a more troubling root, that there was far more to her hesitation.
Hadn’t she always found him compelling? Hadn’t she found one look from him could make her knees tremble? Her pulse race? Her reaction to him had terrified her, so she’d done her best to stay away from him, avoiding him assiduously whenever he was due to be at the palace. “It’s nice for you and your brother to have time together,” she’d teased Addan, when he’d tried to include her in their lunches. “Besides, I have reading to do.”
“Always reading,” Addan had teased back, kissing the tip of her nose before turning back to Malik, who had been watching the interaction with that same look of steely disapproval on his features he always held.
“With Addan’s death, the need for an heir became more pressing. We cannot afford to wait. I am the end of this family’s line – we must have a child, and fast.”
Her stomach looped in on itself. “I know that.” It was a whisper. A soft plea.
“You hate the idea of it, don’t you?” he asked, grimly, his eyes sweeping over her. “You hate the idea of sleeping with the brother of the man you loved?”
Her eyes fell closed, her heart stuttering.
She had loved Addan. She had loved him, depended on him, adored him. Not in a romantic way, though. Theirs had been a friendship, first and foremost – deeper than any she’d ever known.
She didn’t have a chance to answer – there was a knock on the door a moment later and Malik straightened, taking a step back from her. “Come,” he spoke in English for her benefit, despite the fact she’d been fluent in Abu Fayan for years.
A servant entered, bowing low. “Majesty, Sharafaha, it is time.”
“One minute,” Malik dismissed, turning back to face Sophia.
“You were engaged to Addan,” he said, when the door was closed once more, leaving them in privacy. “And though I am about to pledge myself to you, to declare myself your husband, and you my wife, let us both say, in this room, that I will always consider you his.” His eyes bore into hers, hot and yet somehow making her cold all over.
“We will have sex tonight, but it will never be the love making you and he enjoyed.” He expelled harshly, his expression showing true disgust. “I regret the necessity of this. If only you and he had been married, we would never have been forced into this marriage.” He turned his back on her, looking towards the windows. “The idea of taking you from him, even now in death…”
The words were strange, discordant, and her heart ached. She’d been so focused on her own grief and adjustments that she hadn’t even thought about how this must have been for Malik. And though she hardly knew him, she was a compassionate and empathetic person, and she moved towards him, coming to stand in front of him, more conscious than usual of the difference in their size.
“We didn’t…”
He jerked his head towards her.
“We never slept together,” she said quietly, dropping her gaze and missing the way Malik’s expression shifted, tightened, darkened. “Our relationship wasn’t… I loved him very much, Malik, but we hadn’t… been physically intimate.”
A hiss escaped from between his teeth and he gripped her face with both hands, staring at her as though he’d never seen her before. “I don’t believe you.”
She frowned. “Why would I lie?”
“I cannot say. But I saw you together. I heard the way he spoke about you. You and he were an item for years.” The words were imbued with harsh anger. “There is no way you had not been to bed…”
She sighed quietly. “We were getting married. We knew that from a young age. It seemed right to wait…”
He swore in his own tongue, and then a harsh laugh escaped him, humourless, laced with pain. “So he was denied even this?” He shook his head angrily, and took a step away from her and his whole body was tight with feelings and they were echoing inside of her. He spun around to face her. “You are a virgin.”
It was a statement, so she didn’t answer.
“This,” he spoke slowly, enunciating the word carefully, “is not how it is supposed to be.”
* * *
The tower was beautiful. An ancient section of the palace carved from marble, it stood high above the earth like a beacon, an ancient monolith, reaching for the azure sky. There were no lifts. Hundreds of steps – carved from stone – led to the top, with a dip in the centre of each, from centuries of use. And at the very pinnacle of the tower, an enormous room, sparsely furnished, except for an enormous bed at its centre.
A carved, timber door led to a bathroom, with a large bath – almost
like a small swimming pool – a shower big enough to accommodate two, and all the amenities.
“There are clothes in there, for you,” his voice came from across the room. She turned, almost guiltily, to see him watching her. He’d removed his ceremonial robe, leaving him in just loose white pants.
His bare chest wanted to drag her eyes downwards but she resisted the temptation, even when her mouth went dry and her pulse shot into overdrive.
“So we’re locked in here for how long?” She asked, though she knew.
“When darkness falls, tomorrow, a bell will toll, and we will be released,” he muttered, and she would have laughed for how absurd all of this was – for how little pleasure her husband obviously took in the idea of going to bed with his wife.
And she understood – he didn’t want her. She’d seen the women he ordinarily dated. Women who were glamorous and exotic, incredibly sophisticated. Sophia was nothing like that, nothing like them.
Neither of them had chosen this, but here they were: husband and wife.
“I suppose we should just get it over with then?”
At this, she had the feeling he was holding back a laugh. “Do you now?”
“We have to sleep together; I get it. You need a little Sheikh or Sheikha to groom in your own image. And I married you knowing that. So?”
Another laugh. “My young, innocent wife,” he murmured, prowling across the tiled floor, shaking his head. “I thought you were concerned by the fact we aren’t acquainted?” He stood so close she could feel the heat of his body and breathe in his woody, alpine scent. So close her knees were shaking and she had to push aside the horrible wave of guilt towards Addan. She wished she could summon more resistance, more cool disdain, for what was about to happen. She wished her pulse wasn’t a firestorm within her soul.
Contradictory feelings scored deep into her heart.
But she had married Malik, and she knew Addan would have wanted this. Duty had bound him, deepest of all; his country had been his true love. He would be pleased she was using what she knew of Abu Faya and her training for this position. She’d been raised to be Sheikha, and she was simply fulfilling her destiny.
In a strange, uneasy world, Addan would have wanted this.
“We don’t need to know one another,” she pointed out, lifting a hand up to the wedding outfit. The henna ink was all over the backs of her hands, leaving intricate patterns that had captivated her as the illustrations had been rendered.
“True,” he said, watching as she pushed the sleeves down. But before she could slide it over her breasts, he shook his head.
“Let me.”
Her tummy knotted. “Why?”
“A groom should have the honour of undressing his bride,” he said, simply, moving behind her and standing so close his powerful thighs brushed the backs of her legs and bottom. His hands came to her bare shoulders, and she sucked in a large gulp of air as he ran his fingers over her flesh, exploring, investigating, familiarizing himself.
She bit down on her lower lip, aware a groan was making its way from the pit of her stomach to the tip of her tongue, and wanting to contain it as long as possible. He ran his hands lower, to the tops of her arms, before connecting with the lace of the fabric and sliding it lower and lower, slowly, so, so, slowly, so the dress shifted downwards, over her breasts and back, revealing her to the room, if not to him. And she was grateful he was behind her, so she could take a moment to get used to this, to brace for the fact he was going to see her naked.
He moved his hands to her waist, holding the dress there, leaving it, as his fingers feathered over her skin, brushing the smooth, creamy flesh. She held her breath as his fingers crept upwards slowly – so slowly – until they brushed the underside of her breasts and she could no longer stave off the groan. It escaped low and hungry. His head dropped lower, his breath fanning the sensitive flesh at the side of her neck as his hands lifted higher, brushing over her breasts so lightly she pushed forward, needing more.
She thought she heard him laugh, but perhaps she’d imagined it, because when she leaned back, pressing against him, surrendering to what he was doing to her completely, she felt his rock hard body behind her – all of him, so hard, so incredibly hard that her cheeks flushed pink. And now his hands weren’t slow, nor gentle. They cupped her breasts, feeling their weight in his hands and he spoke to her, low and soft, in words that were familiar yet not, words that were close to Abu Fayan but must have been a dialect for she didn’t know them; words that sounded magical and breathed magic all around her.
When his fingers curled around her nipples, squeezing them, she let out a cry of surprise, hoarse and low at the same time, and then her body was writhing and she wanted more of this, more of him plucking at her nipples, pulling at their sensitive tips, flicking them with his insistent fingers. She pushed her body backwards and one hand dropped lower, to the dress, and inside it, gliding down her flat stomach to the flimsy lace thong she’d been dressed in that morning.
Per Abu Fayan traditions, she’d been waxed bare, and his fingers glided over the flesh of her womanhood, parting her seam as his other hand continued to torment her nipple. He brushed her sex until he found the sensitive cluster of nerves at her clitoris and he moved faster, and now his tongue lashed her neck and she whimpered, her body quivering and shaking for a completely different reason.
Pleasure built inside of her like some kind of wave; a wave she’d never before surfed and yet it had no care for her lack of experience, it was grabbing her and dragging her along the surface, so she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. She tilted her head back and now his teeth clipped the skin at her neck, just enough to make her cry out and then he was sucking, while his fingers plucked her nipple again and again and his hand drove her higher and higher and she was – in that moment – incoherent, and completely his, just as she’d vowed in the ceremony.
“Look at yourself,” he muttered, turning her slightly, angling her so she could see their reflection in the mirror, placed in the corner of the room.
Her instinct was to look away, but he growled. “Watch yourself come, watch what your husband can do to you.”
And then, she couldn’t look away, she was mesmerized, as his dark head dipped forward and he chose another place on her shoulder and began to suck and she saw he’d marked her flesh, marked her with a pale, pink circle from his ministrations, and he was doing so again, and a rush of pleasure fired inside of her at this – at being marked. It wasn’t worthy of her and in a calmer moment, she might push the idea away but in this mad slice of time, high in a tower above Abu Faya, she felt it all.
She felt the depravity of having sex with someone she didn’t know, of having married a stranger. Worse, a man she actively despised! And she gave herself over to it.
He moved his hand lower, then drove a finger inside of her and she bucked backwards as stars filled her eyes at this unfamiliar invasion. He lifted his head, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror, and he spoke low and huskily in the strange, ancient dialect and with a finger inside of her and his hand moving over her breasts, he held her tight, he watched her, as her very first orgasm drew her onto the top of the wave and tumbled her deep, deep under the surface…
Her innocence was startlingly obvious, even if he hadn’t known as many women as he had. The way she trembled and shook, the wide-eyed look of surprise as her orgasm wrapped around her, he felt her inexperience in every single minute change of expression, every husky exhalation, every movement.
He stared at her, his eyes devouring her reflection as wave after wave of pleasure had her face crumpled and her body vibrating in his arms.
Malik loved sex.
He’d loved it for as long as he could remember.
And because he’d never had the pressure of carrying on the royal lineage, he’d been happy – and free – to sleep with whomever he wanted. Addan had turned a blind eye to his younger brother’s ways, even when Malik knew how little Addan approved.
&nb
sp; Malik loved sex. But sleeping with this woman, the woman his brother had loved?
It tore through him, he was sickened by the very idea – worse, he was sickened by how much he wanted her.
Sex is just sex, he told himself, staring at her pale, near-naked body – so American, so different to his caramel complexion, skin that had been ordained for this desert country’s climate.
This woman was like satin and moonlight, the petal of a fragile, cream-coloured rose. Her hair was the colour of the beaches of Tharani, all gold and glossy with silver strands flecked through. Her nipples were pale pink, so sweet, giving new meaning to the idea of strawberries and cream. They were hard too, begging for his touch. Her body was covered in goose bumps. He stared down at her, telling himself she was Addan’s, she would always be Addan’s, except in this one way.
Her body had to be his.
It was unavoidable.
This was just sex.
He’d had enough meaningless sex to be able to add this – to add her – to the catalogue. Addan had never slept with her – no one had. They were married, and within moments, he would possess her completely.
He could absolve himself of any guilt here, and yet he didn’t. Guilt was there, possessing him, controlling him, tormenting him. She was Addan’s.
Sophia’s lips parted and her body shifted, the shock-waves of her first orgasm making her moan a little.
There was nothing for it – they would sleep together until she was pregnant and then he would go back to pretending he could ignore her.
Chapter 2
HE HATED HIMSELF, BUT he pushed that aside, telling himself he needed to do this, telling himself they both knew why this was important. He watched as slowly, her breathing returned to normal, as the muscles spasming around his finger calmed; he watched as her eyes went from the fevered wildness of a moment ago to a look of confusion, and then the dawning of embarrassment, and he refused to let her feel that.
The Evermore Series II: Books 4, 5 and 6 Page 16
