Royal Families Vs. Historicals

The limousine wound down a narrow street that widened into a highway, leading them from the outskirts of the city down into its heart. It was much more urban than Alansund, and while she had known that, seeing it was an entirely different matter. Living with Tarek as she did, in a palace that was a relic from another time, it was easy to forget that the country itself was a major world power. A capital of finance and technology.

They moved down deeper into the central business district, the buildings rising around them like sharp, slate-gray waves, threatening to close in on them. She had been raised in New York, upstate, but also partly in Manhattan. She was accustomed to cities. And yet, right now this felt a more foreign landscape than the barren desert that provided her view out her bedchamber at the palace.

It was strange how quickly that place had become her home. Her world.

Strange how quickly Tarek had managed to weave himself around her existence.

The entire car ride was silent. Filled with tension, her head filling with things she would never speak. Finally, they arrived at the memorial statue of a man riding a horse, symbolizing the nation’s strength. This was where his speech would be held. Already a crowd had assembled, and security detail was on hand.

The bodyguards approached the car, opening the doors for them and flanking them both as they made their way to the podium that was prepared for Tarek’s speech. She removed her sunglasses as they walked to the front, taking her position at his right shoulder, a pace behind him. She knew this pose. The pose of any royal spouse or politician’s wife. She had assumed it many times for Marcus.

But it had felt different.

Because now, watching Tarek speak, words she didn’t readily understand due to her poor command of the language, she felt a burst of pride unlike anything she ever experienced before. This wasn’t easy for him. This was not his forte. He was a man who had barely spoken to people for the past fifteen years, much less spoken in front of a crowd of them. And yet he was doing it. Because he loved this country, because he cared for it.

He was changing everything about his life, everything about himself, to become the leader that Tahar needed.

Life was always a challenge, even when you were doing all that you had been created for. All that you had been made for.

But how much more challenging must it be to perform tasks you had never imagined being asked to do?

She watched his every dynamic action until he was finished, until thunderous applause filled the air around them. And then, only then, did she look at the faces of those in the crowd. And she saw their hope. Saw their admiration.

Her heart fluttered against its cage.

After that, she was caught up again in the rush of security detail, ushering them back to the limousine. When they were safely inside, Tarek let out a breath she imagined he had been holding for the past twenty minutes.

“You did well,” she said, forgetting her annoyance for a moment.

“Now we must go to a hotel a few blocks downtown. It has something to do with tradition. Some sort of honor for the owner. It is the oldest hotel of its kind in the city. Of course, it has been greatly modernized, I have been assured. Not that I much mind if something isn’t modern. I’m used to caves after all.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” She looked down. “Did you secure us separate rooms? Or did you give consideration to the gossip that might stir up?” she asked, breaking their momentary truce.

“We have been given the penthouse suite. I imagine that will give us adequate space.”

“I don’t know. I hear you’re very resourceful. Or did you pack your sword?”

“Do not test me, Olivia. I am aware that I have given you the impression that I’m some sort of house cat. Because you have caught me attempting to become domesticated. But I assure you, I am more tiger than tabby. Do not make me demonstrate it.”

“You show rather more restraint than a tiger. You allowed me to spend two days ignoring you, and you never once challenged me.”

She suddenly found herself pressed against the door, Tarek’s hands on either side of her, his body against hers. “Do not think you can manipulate me. You have seen me at a disadvantage, acclimating to a position that I was not created for. But I am not to be toyed with. I am not to be teased. I am not your aristocratic husband. Never forget you cannot play the same games with me.”

“No worries. I am in no danger of forgetting that you aren’t Marcus.” She would let him believe whatever he wanted to about that statement.

“See that you don’t,” he bit out.

The limousine pulled up to the front of the grand stone building. It reminded her more of places she had seen in Europe than she had expected it to.

“A holdover from our brush with colonialism, I believe,” he said.

“I wondered,” she said, because she had. And architecture was a welcome subject change. Really, anything was a welcome subject change at this point. Her irritation with him was betraying too much, not only to him, but to herself. She didn’t want to analyze her feelings as deeply as her anger was commanding.

Tarek didn’t wait for their driver. He opened the door to the vehicle, rounding the back of it and holding hers open, as well. She exited, and he looped his arm around hers, taking hold of her and leading her into the building.

There was little evidence of modernization in the lobby. Golden revolving doors led into a grand marble showcase. Crystal chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling, curved staircases flanking either side of the room.

Every member of staff in the room stood at attention, but none approached. It was the owner who made his way through the center of the room, approaching them with a wide smile on his face and his hand outstretched. Tarek shook it, and Olivia did the same.

“Welcome, Sheikh Tarek. Sheikha.” He swept his hand wide, indicating their surroundings. “We are most pleased you have joined us. As you may know, this hotel has housed every member of the royal family since it was built. We have readied our finest room. This is doubly special, as we are not only celebrating a new leader, but a new marriage.”

“Thank you,” Olivia said, certain she didn’t sound very convincing at all.

“The suite is on the top floor,” the man continued, handing Tarek a key card. “Would you like us to show you there, or will you make your own way?”

“I think we can make our own way,” Tarek said. She wondered if playing at civility was starting to chafe.

She knew it was for her. She couldn’t stand there smiling at him as though their interaction in the car hadn’t happened. As though the past few days hadn’t happened.

“We will have your luggage sent up directly, after you’ve had a moment to settle in.”

“Appreciated,” Tarek said.

He sounded less than appreciative. But at least he had tried. She was just standing beside him, silent, still. She may as well have been a pillar of salt. But she was a pillar of salt who could walk. She followed Tarek to the elevator bank and stepped into the lift with him, her breath freezing in her chest as the doors slid closed behind them. Here she was again, back in an enclosed space with the man who was driving her crazy.

This was ridiculous. She didn’t get crazy over men. She didn’t get crazy over anything.

Except Tarek. She had already admitted that everything about him was different. That he was reaching places she’d thought unreachable. There was no point playing as if she was confused now.

They completed the elevator ride in silence, and Olivia wondered what had happened to all of her social graces. She’d had them at one point, she was certain. In another life she had been a queen, confident both in her position, and in how to deal with her marriage.

Because you wanted nothing from it. But you need to matter to him. And you want to understand him.

She blew out a harsh breath, singularly frustrated with herself. She didn’t want deep personal insight. Not now, possibly not ever. But then, reflecting on the past wasn’t really very helpful, either. Particularly, because when she thought of the past, she felt as though she was pondering a different woman. She barely recognized that woman. In many ways, she barely recognized the woman she’d been when she’d walked into the throne room to tell Tarek she thought they should marry.

Because her reasons had been different then. They had had nothing to do with Tarek and everything to do with herself. With her desperation to find a place in life. To keep herself surrounded by enough things, enough people to feel as if she wasn’t alone. To cover up the yawning pit of need that was in the center of her chest.

Suddenly, Tarek mattered. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about not being alone. Though she was tired of that, too. Because she realized that she’d been alone for a very long time. Even when surrounded by people. Even when sleeping next to the first man she had married.

She watched her current husband, the only one who mattered, walk out of the elevator and up to the only door in the narrow hallway. He used the key card in the lock, the light turning green instantly.

“You know how to use one of those?”

He raised a brow. “It’s fairly self-explanatory.”

“Well, I’m having a hard time figuring out what is self-explanatory for you and what isn’t. The female body, obviously, was fairly self-explanatory. Female feelings, on the other hand…”

He held up the key card, the strip facing her. “I dare say this is a much more simple device than your inner workings. Also, if I could swipe this across your forehead and gain access to your secrets, I would.”

“Are you saying women are complicated?”

“I am simply saying I do wonder sometimes if life is better lived alone. And if sex is perhaps not worth the trouble it causes.”

“One time and you’re an expert in the consequences of sex?”

“I am living them,” he said, his tone telegraphing his foul mood. Well, she was just as foul. Fouler even.

“If it was just sex it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Is it not just sex?”

She shook her head. “No. Don’t you know that?”

“How would I know? I don’t know what only sex is supposed to feel like.” He pushed the door open and revealed an opulent suite, beautifully appointed.

It was indeed the epitome of modern luxury. But as she had spent most of her life steeped in modern luxury, there was a limit to how impressed she could be. Particularly when she had other matters on her mind.

“Are you supposed to feel as though your internal organs were ripped out through your chest and displayed for all the world? Are you supposed to feel like you can’t breathe whenever you remember what it was to be skin to skin with another person? Are you supposed to ache down to your very bones? If so, then I suppose I have an all right understanding of what it means to engage in sex.”

“No,” she said, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. “Just sex makes you feel good. I don’t even know what this is.”

“You will see that I am delighted to be unique to you, my queen.” He sounded nothing close to delighted at all.

“Oh, you could never be anything but, my sheikh,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I have never experienced anything remotely similar to you.”

“For a start,” he said, his tone brittle, “I do not know how to smile.”

She took another step toward him. “Not well.”

He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and held her fast, dipping his head suddenly and kissing her, hard, deep. The kiss bruised, wounded. And she didn’t mind. Because it reflected what was going on inside her. And then, just as abruptly as he descended, he pulled away. “I need a shower,” he said, turning and walking from the room.

He left her standing there, feeling dizzy. Angry. What was happening to her? Why was this man…this…virgin…causing her so much trouble? She had been married to a man whose skills as a lover were world renowned. Why was she so much more affected, why was she destroyed, wrecked, by a man who had never even kissed a woman before her? Her heart twisted tight. That was why. That was why she was so affected. She was unique to him. She made him feel. She reached him.

Had she ever been special to anyone else in her entire life? Had she ever been special to her parents? Had she ever been special to her husband?

Had she ever been special to herself? Or had she simply been so afraid she’d set about to make herself whatever she needed to be in order to keep from feeling lonely? Keep from feeling exposed? Had she ever mattered enough to her own self to demand a thing?

Not beyond that one failure.

Because in that moment, when she’d shouted her parents down for missing the party she’d thrown for herself, she had to face the fear that she wasn’t worthy of all she craved.

Face it. Live it. Accept it.

But it didn’t stop her from needing. And she’d been so sure that her neediness was wrong, shameful, because no one would ever want to meet it.

But now she was tired of it. So tired of feeling as if she was living behind a wall, with the walls of everyone around her standing between both of them. She was tired. Tired and alone, and she hated it. She wanted to be touched. She wanted to touch someone in return. She didn’t want nice; she didn’t want pleasant. She wanted real.

She stripped her jacket off, letting it fall to the floor, followed by her gold top, and her pants. As she made her way into the bathroom she rid herself of her undergarments, opened the door, stopping when she saw the broad expanse of Tarek’s naked back. He was standing beneath the hot spray, water droplets rolling down his skin.

And she was transfixed. Not just by the beautiful musculature she saw there, not just by his bronzed skin and the perfection of his butt.

It was the scars.

She had examined the front of him, his chest, his abs. Had touched him there. But she realized now she had never really looked at his back. He had been whipped. More than that, tortured. And it was written across that beautiful flesh, as bold as any pen stroke.

Olivia had never hated before. She did right now. Right now, she hated the man who would have been her brother-in-law. Hated him with a scorching fire that would never be satisfied.

He had done this. She knew he had.

She would kill him herself were he not already dead, and not lose any sleep over it.

She said nothing, approaching the shower and opening the solid glass door, stepping inside behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his scarred body. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know if she was apologizing for the words they had exchanged outside or for the atrocities he had endured. Possibly both. Possibly for everything, even things she didn’t know about yet. Things she hadn’t done yet.

He was unique, this man. So special. And she had been petty. Of course he didn’t respond to things in any way she could anticipate. He was an entirely new creature to her. There was no past experience to call on to help her here.

He stiffened beneath her touch. But he didn’t pull away, and nor did he turn.

“I am very likely the one who should be sorry,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do with you.”

“If you are lost, I don’t know what hope the rest of us have.”

She smoothed her hands over his chest, the water making his skin slick. “What does that mean?”

“You always know what to do, Olivia.”

“Not right now. Right now, I’m just as lost as you are.”

He shifted then, turning and backing her against the wall, his erection hard against her hip, his dark gaze intense on hers. “I know what I want.”

“What?” she asked, her voice thin.

“You.”

“Have me.”

On a growl, he lowered his head, kissing her, harder than he had done out in the living area. This wasn’t a kiss filled with anger, but of desperation. Desperation that reflected her own. She smoothed her hands down over his back, the scar tissue beneath her hands obvious now. She had missed it the first night they’d made love. She’d had her hands on his shoulders as he’d thrust deep inside her, but she hadn’t realized what it meant. She did now. And she ached, not just with the need for him, but the need to heal him. The need to reach him. If she had to crack herself open wide, show him by example, she would. She would.

She reached down, grabbing hold of his thick arousal, shifting their positions and widening her stance, placing ahead of him the slick entrance to her body. “Please,” she whispered.

He flexed his hips, finding her center unerringly, moving deep within her.

Hot water rolled over them, his kisses raining down on her face to match each drop. Tarek was inside her. And she wasn’t alone. Wasn’t separate from him. She opened her eyes, meeting his dark, raw gaze. He saw her. She was not just a body, not simply a pleasant diversion, or a duty. He needed this; he needed her.

And she needed him. For the first time in her life, that idea didn’t terrify her to her core. She needed him, and it made her feel wonderful. Made her feel beautiful. Made her feel strong.

Because if she didn’t give up herself, Tarek would never be able to release the walls that surrounded his own heart. She knew it then, as sure she knew anything else.

She moved her hands down, grabbing hold of his behind, tugging him hard against her, gasping as her orgasm washed over her, the pleasure blinding, like nothing else she had ever experienced. She didn’t hold back the cries on her lips, didn’t hold back anything. She poured herself, all of herself, into it. And when he found his own release, she gloried in it. In the way he trembled, in the way he held her, his big hands braced against her hips, holding her steady as he rode the wave that threatened to consume them both.

Afterward there was no sound except for the water hitting the tile, their breath echoing in the small space.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said, her voice soft, firm. “Together.”

He let out a ragged breath, kissed her neck. “For a while,” he said, his tone cautious.

He turned the water off, and they got out of the shower. She took a crisp, folded white towel and began to drag it over his skin, erasing the water drops that covered his body. And he stood, allowing her to do it. As she did, she explored the scars that covered him. Memorized them. She felt honored to witness them. To feel them. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to look away, to pretend she hadn’t seen them.

But that was wrong. Someone had to see this. Someone had to care.

And she had to stop being so afraid to care.

Because she could no longer pretend that caring meant never asking questions, never asking anything of each other. That was benign neglect at best, masquerading as love simply because there was undemanding sex thrown into the mix.

A sharp pain worked its way through her, starting in her temples and spreading down, the ache blooming in her throat, then hitting hard in her chest. She had loved Marcus. She couldn’t deny that. Not when the loss of him had thrown her into months of darkness, serious anxiety that had been difficult to shake. A feeling of loss and hopelessness that had been very real.

But she doubted in this moment if she had ever been in love with him. Their relationship hadn’t allowed for feelings that cut half so deep. They had been partners, lovers, but it had been nothing like this. Tarek’s pain lived inside her. Her triumph felt bound to his.

Do you still think of yourself as with him?

She flashed back to that question he’d asked her weeks ago during the coronation party. The answer had been simple. And it had been no. Because she had not been a part of Marcus.

Tarek was a part of her. Whether she was that for him or not, he was for her.

If she lost him, she knew very well that it would be like having her heart wrenched from her chest. It would be much harder to go on living. And that was the cost of love.

She loved him.

She wished, very much, in that moment, that she did not.

He took another towel from the counter and made it his mission to dry her. And by the time he was finished, by the time he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom, placed her gently on the bed, she knew that whether she wished it away or not, it was true. There had been no protecting herself from this. Nor from the pain that it could potentially bring.

Her desire to breach his defenses had caused her to lower her own.

She lay down on the bed, completely naked, unashamed, watching as he lay down beside her.

“Tell me about your back,” she said, her voice hushed.

Because she wanted the hard things. Because she wanted everything. Even if it was hard; even if it hurt. Even if it made her vulnerable.

“I told you. He tortured me.”

“Why?” she asked, knowing she sounded broken, devastated. Perhaps that wasn’t fair, when he spoke of it so calmly, but someone had to weep for him. It would be easy for her to do so.

“He said…he said the death of my parents was caused by weakness in the nation. He said I would have to be made strong. He said he did it because he loved Tahar. Because he loved me. He said it was the only way to protect the both of us.”

“What did he…?”

He reached out and touched her breast, his thumb gentle as it slid over her nipple. “You are so soft, Olivia. So beautiful. I do not want to fill your head with the things that were done to me. There is only darkness and ugliness there. Nothing more.”

“Don’t hide from me. Please. I don’t want that. I’m tired of pretending that someone lying next to me means I’m not alone. Especially when I realize that it isn’t true.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re lying next to someone, clearly you aren’t alone.”

“No. Trust me. Someone can lie next to you and still be miles away.”

“Marcus?”

“This is our bed,” she said, “I mean, this isn’t our bed, it’s the hotel’s. But you know what I mean. I don’t wish for him to be between us.”

“I understand. But is that what you’re talking about? Answer my question just this once.”

“Yes. Him. But don’t blame him. I never asked for more. And he never offered. I think he was protecting himself, as I was.”

“There is certainly wisdom in protecting yourself.”

Yes, but she was starting to see that she had been keeping herself wounded. Protecting herself from a fatal injury in her mind, but never fully healing the ones she’d already sustained.

“It’s much better to protect other people, don’t you think? You’ve certainly spent enough of your life doing that.”

“With a sword. It’s easy to protect yourself while you do that.”

“I suppose it would be.” She moved her fingertips over his arm, glorying in the feel of his bare skin beneath hers. “My parents didn’t come to my fifteenth birthday. It’s such a small thing compared to this.” She brushed her palm over a raised scar on his arm, continuing, “But it hurt me. Scarred me. Scars you can’t see. Our housekeepers made my birthday cakes. At least I had them. You didn’t, I know.”

“Olivia,” he said, his voice rough. “My pain does not erase yours. Do not make what is so large for you smaller just because I, too, have suffered.”

She swallowed hard. “You are…a wise man.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“So you have.” She hesitated. “For my fifteenth birthday I made my own cake. My own dinner. I told my family it would be special. I knew…I knew Emily couldn’t come. She’d been in the hospital for a week. Her platelets were low and…anyway, I just asked my parents to come home for dinner. For my party.” She blinked against a dry, painful stinging in her eyes. “They didn’t come.” The words were a whisper. “I waited and waited. They didn’t come.” She could feel his muscles tense beneath her touch. “I threw the cake away. I couldn’t bear to eat it.”