CHAPTER TWO
At dusk, the sky above Ishala seemed to throb with the weight of gold and glitter. Shades of peach and purple swirled together, sparkling knowingly at the people of this ancient land. Evie breathed in the magic, wondering if it was strong enough to fill the sadness that had coated her organs in misery and grief. If anywhere in the world was capable of helping, surely it was here, high above the sea, in the middle of an ancient city, surrounded by thousands of years of love and loss.
It had been days since she’d taken part in a fiery debate with the ruler of this land. Days in which she had begun to hope against hope that this was her new home. After all, how could she leave Kalem to that cold, heartless man?
A shiver ran down her spine.
Malakhi was cold and heartless; he was ruthless and a control-freak.
But he was also passionate and fiery, heat and flame.
Memories of that scorching kiss and almost-irresistible temptation flared through her, sending her pulse into overdrive. He had kissed her as she’d imagined he would make love. His tongue had clashed with hers, his hands had pulled through her hair, his firm, strong body had pressed to hers, making her ache for more, more, more. Until sanity had intervened and Evie had pulled away, her lips swollen, her body weak.
She had never told anyone about the kiss. What would the point have been in alerting Sabra? As for Dave, how he would have laughed at her stupidity and naivety in sparring with the ruler of this land?
Sweat trickled down Evie’s spine, pooling in the small of her back. Her nose had little beads of perspiration across it and she stared longingly at the ocean. What it would feel like to step into its shallows so that the gentle waves could caress her feverish skin?
“Na, na,” Kalem’s little fist pointed through the air and she drew her gaze down to her nephew. His sweet earnest face wasn’t sweaty like hers. Though he’d been raised in Australia, he seemed to have effortlessly adjusted to this foreign land.
It was in his blood, she supposed. His cell memory and DNA. He was very like his uncle, with his thick hair that was curling around his nape and enormous eyes so dark they were almost black. But his smile was Dave’s, and it was hers. Impish, with little dimples in his cheeks that showed mischief making to be afoot.
She followed the line of his finger, towards a pot plant in the corner of the terrace. It was filled with flowers Evie had never seen before. Round, white heads that, as she drew nearer, were made up of thousands of individual gossamer-like threads. They were beautiful and fragile, yet with a stoicism inherent to their nature. Long stalks waved them high off the soil, and their leaves were gentle and pale. Evie crouched down beside them, marvelling at their beauty.
They were no match though for Kalem’s chief form of inquiry: his determined fist crushed around one before Evie could stop him. He pulled it from the soil and lifted it into the air. His smile showed how greatly he admired the bloom, with no concept of the fact that he had killed it. The beauty in the flower would soon wither and die. Death. It was everywhere she looked.
“Leave the others, darling,” she murmured, stroking his head and pulling his hand away, acting as a shield between his interest and the strange, exotic blooms.
He lifted the round flower to his nose, sniffing it exaggeratedly. His eyes crinkled at the corners as a smile flicked over his lips. The contented expression brought relief to her heart. To see that he was able to feel happiness despite his great loss was a blessing, indeed. How pleased Sabra would have been to know her son was able to continue finding joy in life.
A lump formed in Evie’s throat and she looked away, angling her head to the craggy mountains that formed a natural border to this capital city. To the south, she knew, it was a vastly different landscape. The river that carried prosperity and livelihood to the northern villages didn’t make it far past the mountain ranges and the earth was dry and brown. Still beautiful, Sabra had stressed, but far more of a desert kingdom than the north, where the ancient shipping routes had brought wealth and power to a small country. The stories of Ishala had travelled far and wide too, and there had been centuries that were almost completely marked by wars. A brief Spanish occupation in the seventeenth century had resulted in the Moorish architecture and a dialect that had been heavily influenced by European language.
Now the mountains were bathed in the duskiness of evening, their harshly angled tops were leaden and seemed to whisper strange secrets into the dawning night.
Far above the terrace, in his private apartment, Malakhi’s gaze didn’t falter. He had been watching his nephew and Evelyn for almost ten minutes. Her petite frame was curled like a conch shell, her feet flat on the ground and her bottom poised inches above it, as her arms were curled around her legs to hold her balanced. She was graceful and neat, but when she’d turned away from Kalem to the El-Asyout ranges he saw the way her face momentarily contorted with dark emotions.
What must it be like to be able to express so freely the weight of one’s heart? To give free reign to whichever feeling tugged most sharply?
A movement to the edge of the terrace caught his eye. He was easily able to recognise the form of one of his most trusted aides. Fayaz had worked for the palace for over a decade, and his father before him.
“Oh,” Evie startled as the man she vaguely remembered from the wedding shifted into her line of sight. “I didn’t realise … I thought we were alone out here.”
“Na!” Kalem pointed towards the servant, his head tilted to one side as he undertook a detailed scrutiny of the invader.
Fayaz smiled kindly. “Hello. My name is Fayaz,” he said in a thick accent that was reminiscent of the Sheikh’s.
“Fayaz?” Evie nodded. “You were a friend of Sab’s.”
He nodded his head to hide the effect her words had on him. “Indeed.” It was a murmured agreement. “I knew her all our lives.”
“She spoke of you,” Evie said softly, standing and wiping her hands on the front of her dark dress.
“That is kind of you to say,” Fayaz acknowledged.
Evie put a hand down and Kalem faithfully added his to her palm. She walked slowly towards Fayaz; Malakhi watched, observing the elegance of her movements. “She said you can count to one hundred in one hundred languages.”
It was such an unexpected statement that he burst out laughing. “I had forgotten about that. We were children.” He shook his head from side to side, a smile still broad on his handsome face. “She dared me and I was never one to shy away from a challenge.”
“That’s quite a challenge.” When Evie smiled she had the same dimples as Kalem; they lit up her face now, changing her face from sophisticated sadness to something else entirely. Malakhi saw it at the same moment as Fayaz; both men appreciated the unique beauty of her features.
“Yes,” he laughed again. “Sabra loved to tease me.”
The pleasure of speaking of Sabra with someone else who had loved her! Evie lifted Kalem up to her hip, holding him close. “She loved to tease everyone,” Evie said with a smile. “I’ve never known someone so good at making you laugh at yourself.”
“For a princess she was a study in kindness,” Fayaz agreed.
“I remember the first time I met her, I thought my brother was kidding. He was very like her,” Evie said softly. “He loved to play practical jokes. I spent the whole night calling Sab ‘Your Highness’, imagining that I was simply playing along in the ruse.”
“When did you find out the truth?”
“When she gifted me a diamond necklace a week later,” Evie said with a shake of her head.
“Ah. Generous to a fault.”
“A little too generous at times,” Evie nodded.
“And this is her little man?”
She linked her fingers with Kalem’s and nodded. “Yes. This is His Tiny Highness.” Her eyes met his with apology. “It’s what we used to call him. Sab, Dave and I.”
Kalem lifted his hand in a pudgy wave, his intelligent eyes searching the man’s face. He lifted a hand and ran a finger along the man’s cheek bone, fascinated by the differences and similarities to his own face.
“I understand you have expressed a desire to remain in Ishala indefinitely?” Fayaz prompted, gesturing with his hand that they should move closer to the intricate wrought iron balustrade of the terrace.
She fell into step beside him, easing Kalem back to the ground once they were at the edge. His hands gripped the railings and he peered through, wondering at this new landscape. Did he remember the steep hills of Brisbane? The way he would call with delight as his pram was pushed down those hills and back up them again? Did he recall reaching his hands out to feel the air in his fingers? How he’d run sticks along the timber fences and pick tropical flowers?
“I’m here as long as Kal is,” she agreed, a hint of iron-like resolve in her voice.
“And are you settling in?” Fayaz side-stepped the apparently prickly response.
Evie nodded. “The heat is unbearable.”
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “My home is no slouch in the heat stakes. But it’s humid and tropical. This is so dry I feel like my eyes are being scorched out of their sockets.”
He grimaced. “Yes. That’s true. But here we have at least some breeze from the ocean.”
“Not enough.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to complain. I’m being ornery, I know.”
“Not at all,” he assured her, putting a hand lightly on hers. It was completely inappropriate for Fayaz to touch her. They were not friends. He was a servant and she a guest of the Sheikh. And yet they had both loved and lost a dear friend in Sabra and a closeness seemed to swirl around them through her. Nonetheless, he pulled his hand away so quickly that Evie almost doubted the gesture had taken place. “There have been many changes for you since …”
“The accident,” she supplied when his sentence faded into nothingness.
“The accident,” he agreed. Together they stared out towards the sea, their minds unified in regret and bitterness. For a simple accident had robbed them of their friend, her brother, and Kalem of his parents.
“Did you know there’s a gymnasium with a swimming pool?”
“No,” she shook her head.
Fayaz rested an elbow on the railing so that he could turn to face her fully. “There are several pools in the palace, in fact. While the gymnasium boasts an Olympic length pool there is a diving pool, and a recreational pool that is filled with salt water.”
“I had no idea,” she mumbled, thinking that she’d barely explored beyond the wing of rooms to which she’d been assigned.
“I would be happy to show you how to find them,” Fayaz offered.
Evie nodded gratefully. “Thank you. I feel like a little marble in this huge, huge marble run. Kalem and I have been rattling around these last few days and it’s hard to know how to spend the time.”
“Of course,” he agreed softly. “You are used to working, no?”
She nodded.
“Your life is busy?”
“Yes.”
“And now it is not.”
“That’s exactly it,” she sighed with relief. “Kalem has nannies who leave me with huge swathes of free time and I’ve already read every book in my room.”
“I will speak to His Highness about furnishing you with greater occupation.”
“Oh!” She shook her head and put a hand up to Fayaz’s chest. It was a perfectly natural gesture to someone like Evie who’d been raised to think and act as she felt. But to Fayaz it was a gesture that would be seen as completely inappropriate if an outsider observed it. “Please don’t bother him with this. That’s the last thing I want.”
“He considers you his guest. He would be displeased to think you are idle and bored.”
“I’m not,” she attempted to backtrack, dropping her hand and squirming her fingers together in front of her. “I’m fine. Really, please, just leave it.”
Fayaz studied her determined profile, then dropped his attention to the little boy. “On one condition,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes?”
“When next Kalem’s nannies are on duty, I will show you where the swimming pools are.”
Evie nodded gratefully. “That’s a deal.”
* * *
“Madam?”
Evie spun around, a guilty expression on her face despite the fact she had been doing nothing wrong. She had only just got back to her room, having thanked Fayaz for his kindness in offering to help her settle in. She had expected to be left alone for the rest of the night, now.
“Amina.” She smiled, softening instantly. “I’ve been hoping to see you. I wanted to thank you for your help the other night.”
Amina’s eyes dropped. “Of course.”
There was something in her bearing that unsettled Evie. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course, madam.”
“Please, call me Evie.”
Amina shook her head. “That’s not possible. Madam, His Highness has sent for you.”
“Oh?” It was instant. The quickening of her heart, the racing of her pulse, the heat between her legs. She felt desire, unmistakable, lodge inside of her.
“Yes.” Amina nodded. “He is in his office.”
This could mean only one thing: he had made a decision. Having been waiting for the executioner’s axe to drop all day, she was now desperate to know her fate.
“Thank you.” She moved with quick determination but as she passed Amina she paused suddenly, extending a hand to Amina’s. “Did I get you in trouble?”
Amina’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Of course not, madam.”
Evie shook her head. “Are you being truthful?”
Amina’s smile was tremulous. “I will be moved to the kitchen team,” she said softly. “But it is nice to have a new experience.”
Indignation fired through Evie. “We’ll see about that.”
“Please don’t interfere,” she whispered. “It will make it worse.”
Evie’s cheeks were scored pink. She moved quickly through the palace. Only when she reached the doors to his office did she wished she’d reserved her strength. She was hot, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and upper lip. She dabbed them away and then knocked sharply on the imposing doors.
He opened them instantly, as though he’d been waiting.
They were chest to chest, so close she caught a hint of his tantalisingly masculine fragrance. “You summoned me?” She muttered darkly, her mind still reeling from Amina’s demotion.
“Yes.” He was angry too! Good. Far better to feel the force of his anger than the heat of his seduction.
“I want to speak to you about a servant who’s been helping me.”
He shook his head. Visions of the way she’d laughed with Fayaz burned into his brain. “Not now.”
“Oh? Because you are the King and you can say and do whatever the hell you want?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes sparked. “Ridiculous. How can any man think he should have such control of people?”
“You, of all people, will come to understand this intimately.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shut the door tightly and spun around, his hands on his hips. Evie’s breath was burning in her lungs, and though it had little to do with the heat, she fanned her face. “God, this place is hotter than a barbecue plate.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yet you want to stay.”
“You know I do. For Kalem.”
His smile showed how little he believed her motivations. “And what will your husband think about this, Evelyn?”
“Leave worrying about Nick to me,” she said haltingly, taking a step backwards and turning into the room. His desk was littered with condolence notes now.
“Yet you do not seem to be worrying about him at all. You have not once mentioned how he would adapt to life here. He is a surgeon; presumably it would be difficult for him to simply leave his business in Australia?”
Evie nodded. “He knows what Kalem means to me.”
Malakhi was very quiet but his silence was loaded with emotions he couldn’t convey. Finally, wordlessly, he pulled a piece of cream paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
Evie recognised it almost instantly. She’d helped select the stationery design, after all. “Nick.” She ran her finger over the silver details and then read the words. Tears sparkled on her eyelashes. She pushed it back to Malakhi.
What had he made of the words?
Had he realised she was not the wife he referred to?
“It was a strange note to receive,” he murmured, taking a step closer towards her. “After all, why send condolences on behalf of himself and his wife, when you are already here doing so in person?”
Evie walked quickly to the window, hoping for some relief from the fever that was in her blood. None came. The dusk breeze was still hot, no hint of the cool change that night would bring.
“Tell me.” The demand in his voice surprised her.
A sob was burning through her. Evie bit down on her lower lip, waiting for the words to form inside of her. They didn’t come. Betraying Sabra was a hard task; one she did not relish.
“You are not married.”
Evie shook her head, glad that she wasn’t looking at him.
He was right behind her though; she could feel him at her back.
“Yet you wear a ring.”
She nodded.
His sigh was a sound of impatience. “What happened?”
Evie shook her head and lifted shaking fingers to her lips.
He pulled on her hand, tugging her around to face him. The fury in his face surprised her; she hadn’t expected such a visceral reaction.
“For two months you have been lying to me. Why?”
The tears were falling freely now. “Sabra … Sabra said you could never know that I was … that I had … divorced.” She sobbed, dipping her head forward on the admission.
Silence sparked from Malakhi. Only Evie’s gentle cries broke it.
“When did you divorce?”
Evie kept her eyes shut. It was easier to blot him out that way. “Almost two years ago.”
“Two years ago?” He did the math quickly. “You only got married two years ago. Your wedding was right after theirs.” He thought of the photographs Sabra had innocently emailed, having no idea of the wound she had aggravated. For he had wanted Evie, and she had not been available. It was the first time he’d known the power of denial, and he had not relished its cruel flavour.
Her heart twisted in her chest. “I know that.”
“So? This fiancé you were so in love with suddenly lost his appeal? Or was it the other way around? Did he discover you had a penchant for making love to other men and decide he did not wish to be married to such a woman?”
“I did not,” she interjected angrily. “It was only you, only once and we certainly didn’t … make love.”
“We have already agreed that kiss was a prelude to sex. Had I not done the honourable thing, you would have spread your legs for me that night, engaged or not.”
Her fingers trembled and she lifted her hand sharply in the air. She hadn’t realised her intention until he caught her wrist just before it connected with his cheek. He pulled on it hard, bringing her body hard against his. He twisted her hand behind her back, holding her tightly to him. His chest was moving quickly; a sign of how difficult he was finding it to control his own emotions.
“So? What was it? He did not like the idea of being married to a woman with no morals? I cannot say that I blame him.”
“How dare you?” She cried, pulling at her wrist.
He didn’t release her. “Oh, I dare. You played with fire when you taunted me.”
“I didn’t taunt you!”
“Of course you did. You offered me what you knew I could not take. But now? You are divorced. What reason do we have for fighting this?”
“Plenty,” she responded sharply, her whole body slick with anticipation at the possibility of finally getting what she had longed for from this man. But like this? With his anger a palpable force?
“Yes, you’re right.” He crushed his lips to hers. It was a punishing kiss of possession; a kiss born of frustration and resentment, of need and want. She moaned into his mouth and kissed him back just as hard. The saltiness of her tears fell into their mouths but neither broke free. His body pushed hers backwards, and she went willingly, until she connected with the glass window. He held her wrist behind her back still, and with one powerful leg he splayed her legs. She couldn’t help it, she writhed against his muscle, trying desperately to cool the throbbing heat of her womanhood.
He lifted his head abruptly, his eyes glinting like onyx in his handsome face. “It would feel good to take you now,” he muttered. “But I am not a man who enjoys that which other men reject.”
She drew in a breath sharply, her whole body shaking at the horrible insult. Shock had stalled her tears but her face drained of all colour and she wondered, briefly, if she might faint.
“Why did he leave you?” He asked, not moving his body away from hers.
Her breaths were loud, wretched husks. “None of your damned business.”
When he stepped away from her, she felt ice-cold. She brought her wrist around and rubbed it without thinking. His eyes dropped to the small gesture. A natural instinct to apologise for having hurt her was quelled by his disgust. With her, and certainly with himself.
“Fine.” He spun around, putting vital distance between them. “I will have my jet fuelled. You can leave tomorrow.”
“No,” she shook her head, and chased after him. Her throat moved as she swallowed furiously. “Please. Let me stay with him.”
Malakhi stared at her with such coldness that Evie wondered if she’d imagined their impassioned embrace only a minute earlier.
“Why did your marriage end?”
“You can’t be serious?” She bit down on her lip, her heart shredding painfully in her chest. “Are you actually saying you’ll let me stay if I tell you?”
“No.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “But I will let you stay a little longer.”
“I won’t be your Scheherazade,” she murmured with obvious anguish.
“Won’t you?” He lifted his hands to her shoulders.
The gauntlet had been laid. Evie trembled under his touch. “There must be another way.”
“Why are you so eager to hide this truth from me? Is what you did so shameful that even I, who thinks you are the worst kind of woman, might still be shocked?”
She sobbed. “No. It’s just private.” She lowered her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see the lie for what it was. After all, Malakhi was the beginning and end of why her marriage had failed.
“So is your body and yet you seem willing enough to share it around.”
“Don’t.” She snapped, lifting her hands and rubbing her temples. “Just don’t.” She crossed her arms across her slender chest and moved back towards the window. Her handprint was still marked on its glass surface; she traced it distractedly.
“Well?”
She nodded. “We were never well-suited,” she said finally, the words pulled from her like weeds in the soil. “But we had been friends a long time. We liked and respected each other.”
Behind her, Malakhi was very still, every fibre of his being concentrating on this story that had interested him since meeting her.
“You spoke more passionately about him that night.”
Evie’s cheeks flamed when she remembered that night. How much champagne she’d drunk and how she’d thrown herself at the handsome ruler, only to panic and confess her engagement before things could go too far. But oh, they’d done that the minute she’d first met him, in that horrid Eagle’s enclosure.
“I know. I remember.” She shook her head wearily.
“Did you love him?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, without hesitation.
“You still wear his ring.”
She dropped her gaze to her hand and nodded. “Not all the time.”
Malakhi was an expert in reading people. He heard what she wasn’t confessing. “You wore it especially for my benefit. You thought it would keep me at a distance.”
She laughed, a hollow sound of miserable confusion. “Yep.”
“Your actions should have been enough to do that,” he growled. “What you did disgusts me. I meant what I said before: I am not interested in women that other men have rejected.”
“You’re a pig,” she interrupted angrily. “What a disgusting thing to say.”
He spoke as though she had not. “And yet I want you. I hate myself for feeling this for you, of all people. But I do.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. She had nothing to offer in response. For she wanted him too, and she suspected it made a mockery of all of the things that mattered most to her.
“Stay in Ishala as my lover.”
The words rang through the room like a tiny, horrible challenge. Evie turned to face him, her eyes shimmering with tears, her lips parted.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. I wanted to sleep with you that night, and I am surprised to discover that desire has not abated.”
“What about your other women?” She snapped. “Are they not doing it for you?”
“This isn’t about them,” he said with an insouciant shrug. “Wanting you does not preclude a desire for them too.”
She drew in a deep breath as pain quickly chased desire. “So you’re saying you want me to sleep with you … but you’ll still be … seeing them?”
His lips twisted in a wry grimace. “You need only think about your place in my bed. No one else’s.”
“I thought you were worried about gossip and rumours?”
“You are a divorced woman. There is no shame in making you my mistress now.”
“No shame for you,” she drawled, shivering at the clinical way in which they were discussing her body. Not just her body, but her pride. And though he didn’t know it, her virginity.
“The decision is yours,” he said with a careless shrug.
What could she do? She was torn. A love for her nephew and a desire for this man stood on side of her equilibrium. On the other? The rational voices of all those she loved and who had loved her. Her parents, her sister in law, her brother: all gone from this earthly sphere, but still very much alive in her mind. They shouted their objections at her now and she was disgraced to realise that, despite their number, her own desires held greater sway.
“So, Evelyn? What do you decide?”
“You give me little choice,” she said stiffly. Though she’d had a choice. To walk away from him and this life. It just wasn’t particularly palatable.
“Good. So it is done.” He was business-like, as if they’d done little more than arrange a property transaction.
It is done.
She nodded thickly, her mouth dry. “What happens now?”
His eyes glittered, his cheekbones were slashed with dark colour. There was a tangle of dark emotions firing through him that she couldn’t comprehend. “Take off your dress.”
Her breath was impossible to catch. “N-now? You’re going to do this now?”
He moved closer and looped his fingers through the straps of her dress. “You do not question me.” His eyes were fierce as they clashed with hers. He slid her dress down her body slowly, tightening instantly when he saw she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“I’ll say whatever I damn well want,” she contradicted, but the words had no sting. Her nerves were making her voice shiver.
“And now your underwear.”
Evie was torn. Her desire to be visible to him and to finally feel him moving inside of her was being drowned out by feminine pride. How dared he speak to her like a piece of meat?
“I am not going to take you here.” His fingers in her underwear were relieving her of their covering. “I simply want to see you naked.”
“It’s not right,” she whispered, haunted.
He felt pity for her. Pity, and something else. Something that made his whole body flex and contract painfully. With a sombre quietness to his voice he responded gently, “Allow me to see you. I need to see you. For years I have imagined. I have dreamed. Let me finally see.”
It was a horrible hell they’d found themselves in. She understood the desperate passion in his words for the same need was thick in her blood. It defied logic and sense.
Her nod was a concession not simply to the act but also to the pain. But any shred of self-consciousness was wiped away by the incredible moistness and heat between her legs.
She stood before him, undressed and naked to the core – she had faced her own demons and allowed them to thrive in her. She was not strong enough to set herself to their opposition.
“There.” Her breath was soft. She flashed him a sarcastic smile, but it was without strength. “Happy now?”
His lips lifted in a half-smile but he said nothing to reassure her. Had she been hoping for a compliment? For praise? Admiration, even? His eyes gave little away.
“It is a shame that you have not treated your body with more respect,” he said after a minute. “To marry a man you do not love, and cheat on him with others in the meantime. Your view of sex is distasteful.”
It smarted. She responded with an attack because she needed time to process the wound he had inflicted. “Says the man with a harem.”
“Yes.” He shrugs. “You’re right. It’s a double standard.”
“You can say that again.” She felt so incredibly exposed. “Can I get dressed now?”
“No. I want you like this.”
“Like this?” She looked down at her naked body. “What do you mean?”
“Sit.” He nodded towards the chair on the other side of his desk.
“Like this?”
“I know you are low on moral fibre but I did not also take you for dumb.”
“Don’t speak to me like that,” she glared. Her fingers shook as she lifted them and ran them through her fiery, titian hair. “Whatever you think of me you should remember that I was Sabra’s best friend and that she loved me.” Her voice cracked when she spoke of their link – the dead woman who had brought them together.
It took every ounce of Malakhi’s willpower not to be cowered by the invocation of his sister. The words breathed reality into the cold, aching soil of his soul. Roots dug deep and the truth of his actions began to sprout plants he couldn’t ignore.
He cleared his throat and carried on with determination rather than conviction.
“Sit down.”
“Why?”
He made a noise of frustration and scooped her up, lifting her easily and placing her over his shoulder. So close to him, and completely naked, she froze. He walked swiftly to the desk and placed her down beside the chair. “Because there are things you need to learn and you will be more comfortable if you are seated.”
“But not if I am clothed?” She demanded angrily.
“I care about my entertainment more than your comfort, in that regard.”
“You are such a chauvinist.”
“Sit.”
When still she didn’t, he shook his head. Unused to being challenged, he wasn’t going to admit what a novel and pleasing experience it was. “Fine. Stand.” He put his hands on her hips and pulled her hard against his body. He dropped his head lower, taking one of her nipples into his mouth. Having never been kissed so intimately, she jumped out of her skin.
“Oh my God,” she cried, arching her back and giving him greater access to her body. “Shit.”
He laughed against her chest, his stubbled chin rough on the sensitive flesh.
He rolled her nipple with his tongue and bit down on it with his teeth, while his fingers crept to the apex of hair at the top of her legs. He teased it with his fingers, marvelling at her responsiveness. Suddenly, the idea of waiting at least a day to possess her was anathema.
“If you do not sit down I will make love to you right here,” he promised darkly, hoping she would stay standing.
It was like ice water on her libido. He’d be in for a rather nasty surprise. She collapsed into the chair, her whole body on fire. Did she need to tell him the truth? The actual truth? Or could she pretend she was experienced? Would he notice she was a virgin? She’d read so many conflicting reports she had no idea what to expect.
“Shame,” he said with a tight smile as he took his seat opposite her.
“So? What do I need to know?”
“Before coming to my bed, you will need to be … groomed.”
“Groomed? Are you fu… kidding me?”
“No.” He laughed at her outrage. “It is an ancient ritual of purification, not one of aesthetics. Women who are to make love to the Sheikh of Ishala are to be hairless. It’s an old custom that is supposed to prevent … unwanted complications.”
Her jaw dropped. “Let me get this straight. If I get all plucked like a chicken, that’ll stop me from getting pregnant somehow?” She slapped her palm to her forehead in an exaggerated gesture of mockery. “What a shame the western world doesn’t know this. Birth control stocks would plummet.”
“Very funny.”
She rolled her eyes. “What else?”
“Beyond that, I don’t know. You can tell me tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” She swallowed, nervous suddenly. “You want this to start … so soon?”
His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Yes.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “So where do I go for my plucking?”
His lips twitched. “A servant will come to you in the morning.” He stood, and apparently feeling there was no further need for communication, crossed to the door.
“Wait. When do I … what time should I …”
“Nine o’clock,” he said, his hand on the door knob.
“Nine o’clock? What... I don’t even get dinner first?”
He raised his brows. “Do you want to share a meal with me, Jamila?”
Her heart turned over in her chest as she shook her head from side to side.
“Nine it is then.”