CHAPTER SIX
KYLIE WAS TREMBLING like a leaf in the breeze. She stared straight ahead as seven attendants – seven! – moved around her body. Apparently the preparations that had been made for her to marry Fayez Hadded were not sufficient for this.
Her marriage to Khalifa.
No, no. Not Khalifa. Sheikh Sultan Khalifa Al Asouri. Or Sheikh, as Aïna had softly advised Kylie she should refer to her husband while in public. Sheikh!
“And what will he call me?” She asked with obvious umbrage.
“Whatever he likes.” Aïna’s amusement was obvious. “But usually this would be by your title too.”
Kylie had bit back another retort. None of this was Aïna’s fault.
She lifted her arms as one of the servants rubbed the orange scented oil into the flesh beneath her breasts, and she shivered.
Her body had been massaged and moisturised all over so that she practically glistened. Her hair had been redone, removing any sign of the mess Fayez had made of it. It was plaited now into a single long braid that had been wound around her head like a crown, and a fine rope of diamonds had been threaded through it, so that her hair shone as well. She lifted a finger to it and felt the little lumps with disbelief.
The overt wealth was something she wasn’t sure she could ever accept.
“And here?” She heard one of the servants ask Aïna in their native tongue.
Kylie frowned. “The bruise,” she murmured. She’d forgotten all about it.
The servant’s cheeks darkened to a mulberry stain and Aïna tsk-ed. “You speak to me,” she said softly. “Protocol prevents you from talking to any other domestic.”
“What? That’s stupid. These people are … have seen me naked.” Her own cheeks bloomed with colour. “But I’m not allowed to talk to them?”
“It’s an ancient custom,” Aïna sympathised. “Dating back hundreds of years when servants could be put in prison for talking to the royal family.”
“I’m not going to have anyone thrown in jail,” Kylie said with a shake of her head. “And I doubt Khalifa will either.”
The servants visibly reacted to Kylie’s use of his name and she winced. God. This was going to be a nightmare.
“It is an adjustment, I know,” Aïna soothed.
“Do you?” Kylie’s smile was dismissive, her manner unknowingly abrupt. “Do you have any idea what I’ve left behind?”
“Mmm,” Aïna’s smile was enigmatic. “You are not the only one who has been in training.”
Kylie stood as one of the servants held a loop of fabric for her, intuitively knowing to put her feet in the middle section. Three women pulled it upwards, over her sensitive, smooth, oily skin, until it was just beneath her bare breasts. And then they worked the ribbons, lacing it over her shoulders and under her arms, until her upper body was a delicate criss cross of fabric.
“What does that even mean?” She asked, momentarily distracted by the beauty of what she was watching. The fabric was a pearlescent cream, and the dress was so much more beautiful than that which she’d been given to wear to the first wedding. The real wedding. The ribbons were pale too, but on closer inspection there was a gold thread running through them.
“It is what you would have worn had your wedding been more … traditional,” Aïna blushed. “This robe is a ceremonial Argenese gown, reserved for royal occasions.
“Really?” Kylie frowned. “It’s kind of… revealing.”
Aïna’s smile was once more mysterious, as though she knew something that Kylie didn’t. It wasn’t ill-meant – but Kylie’s sense of being an outsider grew.
“It is not yet finished.” Aïna winked, her pretty dark face crinkling with the action. “See?”
And she turned away, retrieving a swathe of fabric from another servant, a smile still lingering on her face.
Kylie hadn’t got an answer to her original question. What had Aïna meant about their both having been in training? Only she didn’t get a chance to ask. In that moment, Aïna placed the fabric over Kylie’s shoulders, draping it simply, and yet with stunning effect. She looped it in front of Kylie and then wrapped it behind her back, tying it in a large bow that made her look like a butterfly. There was a stiffness to the fabric that held the ‘wings’ firmly in place.
She bit down on her lower lip, moving closer to the mirror. Her makeup had been removed, wiped off carefully, and in its place a layer of facial oil that smelled like rosehip and vanilla had been applied. The woman who stared back at her was familiar but completely unrecognisable.
“You are ready.”
“Am I?” She responded softly, lifting her fingers to her hair and feeling its bumps and curves, then lower to the fabric that swathed her body.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Aïna’s smile was encouraging. “Come.”
Kylie swallowed, nerves settling around her shoulder like a chain. She fell into step behind her Mistress, even as every bone in her body was filled with anxiety and adrenalin and something else, something warm and fluid that radiated from the pit of her stomach.
The room she’d been in was to be her wardrobe. And yet, it was unlike any wardrobe she’d ever seen. It was almost the size of her apartment in Sydney, with rows of shelves and hanging space, like a boutique. Shelves and shelves for shoes, and then, in the middle, two sofas and two arm chairs, with a low table between them. There was a wall for make up and hair, and an ensuite just for the wardrobe.
It defied explanation.
But then, so did the whole palace. On the edge of the city, it was surrounded by a moat – an actual moat – and there were alligators in the water. The very idea had made her throat hurt as they’d been driven over the bridge. The palace itself was enormous; a pale white in colour with a golden roof and tiny turrets everywhere. The garden was beyond beautiful, at least, what Kylie had seen of it, with palm trees making formal rows and bougainvillea planted over walkways. There was a sense of inside being a part of the outside too, Kylie had appreciated as they’d moved through the corridors. The windows were enormous – non-existent in some instances – and the night air had blown in straight from the desert, smelling like sand and the past and something else. Something indefinable.
Khalifa had parted from her almost as soon as they’d returned, his expression inscrutable, his bearing unapproachable. And his own army of servants had been waiting, forming a sort of line behind him.
“Aïna will bring you to me.”
She hadn’t known what to say and so she’d nodded, a response he’d apparently considered acceptable because he’d left without any further acknowledgement.
That had been hours ago.
Kylie had no idea of the time, only that it must have been very late because her body was tired, and she felt as though she’d been being beautified for hours and hours.
Still, she held her head high as she moved behind Aïna, willing to be distracted by the beautiful tapestries that hung from the walls, and the floors that were covered in ancient mosaics. Stories were in the tiles, but she had no ability to read them, as they moved too swiftly through the palace. She would do so another time, when she was at her leisure to explore.
It was not a long way from her wardrobe though, and before she knew it, Aïna paused outside a pair of golden doors. Wide and thick, they looked like they could withstand the force of a thousand storms. There were guards on either side but they didn’t acknowledge either Aïna or herself as they approached.
Aïna knocked on the door with the confidence of someone who knew her place in the palace.
She heard his call from within, and the sound of his voice, so deep and confident, and the knowledge of what would happen next, made her pulse trill inside of her.
Aïna smiled at her, and then pushed the heavy doors inwards with apparent ease. Like she’d done it before?
Kylie suppressed the little kick of envy.
It was misplaced and foolish.
And certainly unwanted.
But all thoughts – every single one – disappeared from Kylie’s mind when she followed her Mistress into the room. Could it be called that? ‘Room’ was such a bland word, so boring, and this was unlike anything she’d ever imagined. The ceiling was made of thick glass, so that the desert sky was visible above her. She looked up, catching the twinkling stars and held her breath as her gaze dropped lower. The walls were white, and yet there were inner-walls that delineated the space, and those walls were made of something almost like lace. Carved, and very fine, they cast shadows and caught light, and beneath her feet, the ground was marble. Only, in the middle of the room there was water, and it was lit from beneath so that it shone like turquoise. A pool?
And on one side there was a bed – enormous, just like the one on the boat. Her cheeks flushed pink with the unwanted memory. The bed could be reached by following the marble floor, but once in the bed, it would be a simple matter to dip into the water.
Candles had been lit against the walls, so that they flickered and cast golden balls around the room and there was music playing. Soft and foreign and magic. Flute? Guitar? She couldn’t pick the instrument; she knew only that she liked it.
It was a room fit for royalty, but so much more than that. It was a folly. An abstraction. A fantasy. The bedlinen looked to be made of gold, and there was a table just to her left which was full of fruit and breads.
And beyond it, her husband.
He stood watching her, still dressed in the ceremonial robes, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his face expressing nothing.
“You may go.”
He spoke to Aïna without looking in her direction and yet the Mistress bowed low, winking at Kylie as she straightened and stepped back through the doors. They were pulled closed behind her with a thud and Kylie jumped, despite the fact the noise hadn’t been loud.
Khalifa lifted his hand in the air, silently beckoning that Kylie should come to him. His finger crooked and his eyes held hers, but her legs wouldn’t move. Her body was frozen to the spot. She swallowed, willing herself to be calm, to remember that this had always been in her plans, and yet she couldn’t. She stared at him, but she didn’t move, so that he made a small noise of frustration and closed the distance between them.
God, he looked beautiful and he smelled even better.
At his nearness her gut clenched with an aching need to be in his arms, to be held by him. Only what was the point? In Sydney she’d believed they’d made love as the beginning to something special. But it hadn’t been. It had been a ruse. A plan to end the Haddad family’s claim to the throne.
On his part, it had been mercenary.
Nothing more.
The knowledge fired something like strength in her blood and she met his eyes with new-found confidence.
“Do you remember what I said to you, the first day we met?”
His fingers found the bow at her back and he pulled on it, his eyes lightly mocking in his handsome face.
“That you were the man I was going to marry,” she responded with a waspish sarcasm that brought a smile to his face.
“That you would be mine.”
Kylie sucked in a breath at the reminder – the words dug into her core, whispering through her.
“And I said people can’t own people.”
His smile was dismissive. “And what did I say to that?”
He removed the gold fabric easily, dropping it beside them. Her eyes followed it as it slithered through the air and then pooled at her feet. He took a step back to observe her, his eyes moving from the elaborate hairstyle to her bare face, to the body that was covered in fabric and ribbon, and she saw that admiration shimmered in his expression.
“For hundreds of years, this is what Argenese princesses have worn on their wedding nights.”
Her throat was thick with emotion, and amongst them there was a deep sense of awe. That she was a princess of Argenon now. That she had married its ruler and joined history. This would always be her truth, no matter what came next.
“It’s nice,” she said, wincing at the silly weakness of the description. Nice was fine for lemon cake or fires on cool days, but it was not sufficient to describe the dress she wore and the history it shrouded her in.
“Yes.” His fingers lifted higher but didn’t touch. He hovered them above her shoulders and she sucked in a breath, holding it in her lungs until it burned and thickened inside of her and then she expelled it, unsteadily, hurriedly. “Well, lanaria? Do you still think people cannot own people?”
She swallowed, hating herself for being uncertain. For hesitating and pausing when every fibre of her being was telling her to fight this point. That it mattered. And it did! Of course it did. Only she was silent for a long moment, and then, his hands dropped to her flesh, looping into the ribbons and separating them out, finding the knots that her servants had tied and loosening them one by one. His head was bent as he worked and she watched him, unable to speak – barely able to breathe.
Finally, though, he had loosened enough of the ribbon to pull the dress away from her body and he widened it, so that she was tempted to lift her hands and cover her front. But how could she? How could she show such juvenile weakness?
She didn’t.
She tilted her chin and met his eyes unflinchingly as he released the gown and it fell to the floor. She stood before him, naked and soft all over and didn’t cross her arms or so much as move.
Except for her knees, which were knocking together beyond her control.
“It smells like the ocean.” The words came from nowhere. Until she spoke them, she hadn’t even realised she’d been thinking them.
“It is the water.” He nodded towards it and she nodded. His voice though was gravelly. Thick with emotions she didn’t dare analyse.
He stood back, his eyes on hers as he reached for his own robes and parted them down the front, separating them fluidly and stepping out of them. They fell to the floor and her gaze dropped to his body against her will and certainly without permission.
His chest was glorious. Just as she remembered. Broad and defined by muscles, tanned, with a thick line of hair that ran down to the waistband of a pair of loose white pants. She swallowed, her eyes moving lower, down his legs to his bare feet.
Heat seared her flesh.
“Come to me.”
Say no! Tell him you’re not ready. But her hands lifted and he curled his fingers around them, drawing her naked body nearer.
“You’re nervous?”
She shook her head but the eyes that met his showed pure agreement. How could she be anything but?
“Don’t be.” He dropped his head lower, his mouth just an inch from hers. “You know I do not bite.”
She swallowed; her throat was dry though, dry like the desert sands that she knew blew just beyond the southern wall of the palace.
“This room is amazing,” she whispered the words, her body swaying closer, her nipples straining. Her chest was almost at his and she ached to close the last little bit of space between them, to feel skin on skin.
“Is it?”
He lifted a hand and distractedly swirled it over the side of her body, drawing imaginary circles on her hip and lifting it higher. Goosebumps sprung instantly, covering her naked flesh.
“You have been prepared,” the words were thick with something. Anger? Annoyance? Disapproval? Desire? And at her look of confusion, he dropped a hand to her womanhood, padding his thumb across the flesh that had been waxed earlier that day.
She moaned, the sound low in her throat, as she swayed forward. But before she could touch him, he lifted her up, cradling her against his chest, striding with her over the marble floor. She breathed him in, inhaling his scent, her head pressed to his chest hearing the thunder of his heart.
There was enough floor around the bed to make it easy for him to stand beside it and he placed her down gently, standing over her, watching her, his eyes heavy in his beautiful face. His hair was up in the same messy bun it had been the first day they met. She ached to touch it. To touch him.
She sat up, pushing onto her elbows at the same moment he pressed lower, his lips seeking hers and his body warm and heavy. Just as she remembered. She groaned again, the sound a carnal grunt from deep inside.
The water lapped softly around them but Kylie barely heard it. He caught her arms and pushed them over her head, his tongue thrashing hers, his body moving over hers, dominating her in every way.
“You want this,” he spoke the words yet paused, lifting his head, his eyes meeting hers. There was a challenge in them, one she didn’t understand but nonetheless raced to answer.
“You know I do.” And she did. It was the one thing about this that made sense. The rest? She would need time and space to unravel it all – and soon. The strangeness of that afternoon was chafing at the edges of her mind, foggy and demanding. But she knew she would need to unravel everything that had taken place.
“And what would you have done, azeezi, if I hadn’t appeared when I did?”
His fingers curled around her nipples, teasing her and tormenting her in equal measure. He flexed his thumb and forefinger over her hardened peak, and she arched her back, desire a torrent she was powerless to stem.
It was a good question. Kylie liked to think she would have been able to put a halt to the wedding until she’d ascertained just what the heck was going on. But having seen the way Fayez reacted to Khalifa, she wasn’t so sure.
“You hate him, don’t you?” She changed the subject instead.
“Yes.” Such a simple answer that surely hid a complex truth.
He dragged his mouth lower, his tongue teasing the sensitive flesh beneath her breasts before looping down her flat abdomen, circling her naval and then lower still. She ground her teeth together when his tongue flicked the naked flesh of her womanhood, his breath warm against her skin.
“Do you want to know why?”
Why the hell what? She was incapable of thought from the second his tongue pressed against her most sensitive cluster of nerves. It was a paralysing kind of pleasure and her body trembled as he ran his tongue against her, his movements fast-pace and hungry and her body in his thrall utterly.
But it was so intimate! So much! She dropped her hand lower, intending to push him away – needing time to process the enormity of what he was making her feel.
He didn’t give her time or space. He understood her ache – her fear – her powerlessness in the throes of such a primal passion, but he wanted her to feel it. He caught her hand and squeezed it, holding it aside as his mouth found the centre of her desire and tormented it mercilessly.
Her cries were high-pitched and loud – she didn’t realise. He let go of her wrist and she didn’t try to interfere.
She couldn’t.
She had surrendered to him and the power he wielded with every single cell in her body.
He caught her knees and pushed them outwards so that her body was completely exposed to him and now the sense of his lips against her body, the warm air from his nostrils, the tickle of his stubbled jaw on her inner-thighs, combined to create a melting-pot of fever and ache, or longing and lust, that was coiling inside her like a tightly-wound spring. She felt it growing, spreading through her and she held her breath and squeezed shut her eyes, waiting, knowing, understanding that pleasure was within reach – release was a hill down which she would shortly tumble.
And tumble she did – fast-paced and reckless, she screamed as finally her body let go of its orgasm; she dug her nails into the bedsheet and tilted her head back as far as she could, the diamond ribbon that had been laced through her braids bumpy beneath her – yet she didn’t feel it.
She felt nothing but the eruption of passion and the racing of her heart within her chest.
She felt nothing but him.
She was quivering, alive with sense and feeling. Had it really been a month since he’d made her feel like this? No, he’d never made her feel like this.
It was all new.
Different, strange and entirely welcome.
He undressed quickly – even before she realised it. The waves were hammering against her, pleasure making her eyes heavy and her brain fogged. She lifted her fingers and sought his chest. His eyes met hers and for a second she was sucked out of the fog of desire permeating her brain – there was a hardness in his gaze. An emotional distance that instantly chilled her. But then, he thrust inside of her in one hard motion, spearing her, taking her, making her body forget who she was – remaking her as his and his alone.
She groaned at the invasion; the sweet, sweet invasion, but there was no time to let the pleasure unfold. He thrust into her again and again, his body punishing in its intensity, her own body captive to his.
Breath burned in her lungs and desire was making her dizzy. She curled her legs around his waist but he wrapped his fingers around her thighs and pushed her legs wider before curling his hands around her butt and lifting her to meet his sweet, torturous invasion.
It was a different pleasure – so much more intense than the slow-building ache of his mouth on her body, this was fast and loud, like a balloon bursting. She pushed up to sitting when her orgasm reached fever pitch and he drew her body to his, his mouth seeking hers, his tongue lashing hers in time with his arousal’s possession. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and held onto him for dear life but he didn’t allow her the time to process the feeling. He held her against him for only a moment, enjoying the shuddering of her breath as it ripped from her body and the exaltations of her muscles, squeezing his length in frantic rebellion and then he lifted her easily, holding her to him, keeping himself deep inside of her as he stepped away from the bed.
The water against her feet was unexpected and she bucked in his arms, but he held her low on his arousal, his mouth still seeking hers. It was warm, though, and the feeling of being immersed in the pool as he buried himself in her was a pleasure she almost couldn’t fathom.
When he was waist deep, he tilted her backwards, so that she was floating on the surface, and he drove into her, holding her weightless form by the hips so that he could possess her with all of himself. She whimpered when his mouth crushed down on her breast and her next orgasm was the fiercest of all. He watched her, holding her still this time, holding himself still.
Her moans were soft and yet they filled the space, echoing around the ancient room. He rolled his hips and she shuddered with awareness.
And then he moved once more and his own body was tipping over, his seed spilling into her, his heart heavy in his chest.
There was silence afterwards, and an almost eerie stillness, heavy in the room.
He held her, watched her floating on her back in the crystal clear water, and gently eased her back to sitting, wrapping her around him. Her hair was wet, her body heavy with exhaustion.
And he understood that feeling – could remember his own sexual awakening, though it had been many years ago. He could recall that sense of having been drugged; the way pleasure spread through one’s body and weakened it. As opposed to how he felt in that moment – strong. Superhuman.
He carried her from the water in his arms and placed her on her feet back on the marbled tiles. It was the first time she saw the stacks of towels – a pale colour and enormous. He wrapped one around her shoulders, patting her dry, rubbing her body, crouching in front of her to be sure even her ankles were dried, and then he stood.
“There is a door to your room through here.” He put a hand in the small of her back, gloriously naked, her eyes holding the wall ahead.
She frowned as she turned to it.
But Khalifa was walking now, guiding her to it.
“Our rooms are linked through this corridor.” He turned a key in the door and it sprung open, revealing a small tunnel with dim lights on either side. She could just make out another door at the opposite end.
Kylie nodded, waiting for him to shut the door.
He didn’t.
“My days are busy. But I will send for you at night. Or come to your room.” He took a step back, his expression distant and unfamiliar. “Aïna will answer any questions you have.”
He was dismissing her?
She blinked up at him, her confusion obvious. “Are you … you want me to … you don’t want me to stay?”
His eyes drew together, his brows thick and low on his forehead.
“Why would I want you to stay?”
Colour stained her cheeks. Pain slashed her heart and her body, still weakened by his attentions, iced over. She bit down on her lip, searching for something she could say. Something brave and pithy.
And for a second she thought she saw a softening in his expression – a softening that promised humanity and normality. Then, it was gone.
“This is not a real marriage.” He spoke slowly, as though comprehension was an issue. “It is important that you remember that.”