Royal Families Vs. Historicals

She didn’t know what she was doing. But she couldn’t seem to stop.

His mouth teased her breasts through her dress while his hands streaked beneath it, testing her shape, her heat. Learning all kinds of things about her. That she rarely bothered with a bra, even these days when her breasts were still bigger than they’d been before her pregnancy. That a careful pinch against one nipple and a deep tug on the other made her clutch her legs tighter around him and ride him shamelessly, rubbing herself against him as wantonly as she could—

And then it slammed into her.

Like a train.

She cried out, but he was there, licking the sound of it from her lips, moving his own hips harder against hers, making it go on and on and on.

Making her shatter, then shatter again, then shatter once more.

Changing everything.

Changing the whole world.

Turning Sterling into someone new.

And when it was over, he let her drop her legs from around his waist and took a step back while she simply lay sprawled there on the table in a thousand pieces, trying to breathe.

It took a while and even then, it was a shaky thing.

When she sat up and pulled her dress back down to cover her, Rihad stood there above her, his dark face hard and his golden eyes glittering. He folded his arms over his powerful chest and considered her for a long, breathless moment, as if he wasn’t still so aroused that she could see the proof of it pressing against the front of his trousers, hard and thick, and how could she still want him? Even now?

Even as the events of this morning flooded her, making her question a lot of things. Her sanity chief among them.

“Congratulations, Sterling,” Rihad said in that low, rough voice of his that kicked up that fire in her all over again. “You succeeded in distracting me. How long do you think that will work?”

* * *

It had worked all too well, Rihad thought a few days later, as he sat in his luxuriously appointed offices and found it impossible to concentrate on matters of state.

Because she haunted him.

Her taste. The sounds she’d made as she’d writhed beneath him. The scent of her skin. The sweet perfection of her touch.

He found he couldn’t think of much else. Especially during the meals they took together in his garden, where they both acted as if that scene right there on the table hadn’t happened. They outdid each other with crisp politeness.

But it hummed beneath everything. Every clink of silver against fine china. Every sip of wine. Every glance that caught and held. Every movement they each made.

It was a madness in his blood, infecting him.

Or she was.

Because Rihad hardly knew himself these days. His entire relationship with his brother had been a lie. He was hung up on a woman he’d married while he’d believed she was Omar’s mistress—and he had lusted after her while believing it. He was more enamored by the day with a tiny child who was not his in fact, but who felt like his in practice. He felt as if he was reeling through his life suddenly, unmoored and uncertain, and he had no idea how to handle such an alien sensation.

It was as if there was nothing left to hold on to. Or, more to the point, as if the only thing he wanted to hold on to was Sterling—as if he was as bewitched by her as he’d always thought his brother had been.

Maybe his enemies were not wrong to threaten invasion. Rihad was beginning to think it would be a kindness.

He was halfway through yet another inappropriate daydream about his wife when his personal mobile rang with a familiar ringtone.

Rihad dismissed his ministers with a regal wave and then swiped to open the video chat.

His sister gazed back at him from the screen, looking as defiant as ever.

“Amaya.” He kept his voice calm, though it was harder than it should have been, and he didn’t want to think about why that was, all of a sudden, or who was to blame for his endless lack of control. “Have you called to issue your usual taunts?”

“The quick brown fox always jumps over the lazy dog, Rihad.” Her dark eyes were a shade lighter than the fall of thick dark hair she’d pulled forward over one shoulder, and it irritated him that she was both unquestionably beautiful and entirely too much like her treacherous mother. Smarter than was at all helpful and not in the least bit loyal to the Bakrian throne. It made her unpredictable and he’d always hated that—at least, he’d always thought he had. “I’m only giving you a much-needed demonstration.”

“I feel adequately schooled.”

“Obviously not. I can see you scanning behind me for details on my location. Don’t bother. There aren’t any that will help you find me.” The light of battle lit her face, and he stopped trying to find any sort of geographic marker in what looked like a broom closet around her. “Are you ready to call off this marriage? Set me free?”

This was where Rihad normally outlined her responsibilities, reminded her that despite what she might have preferred, she was a Bakrian princess and she had a duty to her country. That it didn’t matter how many years she’d spent knocking around various artistic, bohemian communities with her mother pretending she was nothing more than another rootless flower child, she couldn’t alter the essential truth of her existence. That her university years in Montreal might have given her the impression that her life was one of limitless choices in all directions, but that was not true, not for her, and the sooner she accepted that the happier she would be.

He’d been telling her all of this for months. Years.

None of those conversations had been at all successful.

Today, he thought of the brother he’d treated as if he was a failure, the brother he’d claimed he’d loved when he’d never given him the opportunity to be himself. Not in Rihad’s presence anyway. He thought of the way Sterling, the only woman—hell, the only person—who had ever defied him to his face with such a lack of fear, had flinched as if she expected him to beat her, all because she’d told him the truth.

He thought that perhaps he had no business being a king, if he was such a remarkably bad one.

“I wish I could do that, Amaya,” he said after a long moment. “More than you know.”

She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d said that. He wasn’t sure he could, either.

He shrugged. “These are precarious times. The only possible way we will maintain our sovereignty is to unite with Daar Talaas. But you know this.”

“There must be another way.”

“If there was, don’t you think I would have found it?” He sat back in his chair, his eyes on the screen and on his sister. “It does not give me any particular pleasure to insist you do something you are so opposed to that you’ve been on the run all this time.”

“But…?” she prompted, though he noticed that defiant way she held herself had softened.

“But Kavian is a man who follows the ancient ways, and there is only one kind of alliance he holds sacred. Blood.” He studied Amaya then, saw the expression that moved over her face, that hint of something like heat in her gaze. “And I think you know this all too well, don’t you? Because while you were not exactly thrilled at the idea, you didn’t run away until after you met him at your engagement reception. Did he do something to you?”

Alliance or not, Rihad would kill him. But Amaya only flushed then, though she tried to cover it with a frown.

“The reality of the situation merely impressed itself upon me, that’s all. I realized that I’m not a Stone Age kind of a girl.”

He didn’t believe her, but that was hardly his business.

“I sympathize,” he said instead, and the thing of it was, he did. He truly did.

“And I’m skeptical.”

“Amaya, no one knows more about marrying for the sake of the kingdom than I do. I’m on my second such marriage.”

“That doesn’t exactly recommend the ordeal.” Amaya’s frown deepened. Her eyes searched his for perhaps a moment too long. “You’re not the happiest man I’ve ever met.”

And yet in comparison to Kavian, the desert warrior renowned for his ability to wage war like an ancient warlord, Rihad was a nonstop comedy show. Neither one of them pointed that out and yet it hung there between them anyway.

For a moment they only gazed at each other, separated by their years, the screen, her continued refusal to surrender to the inevitable.

“Don’t believe everything you read,” he advised her. “My marriage is not an ordeal.” He felt a sharp pang of disloyalty then, because he’d forgotten about Tasnim entirely. It was as if he really was a stranger, inhabiting the same body but utterly changed, all because of one lush woman and her artlessly addictive mouth. “And my first marriage might not have been a love match, but it was good. We were content.”

Amaya’s hand crept up to her neck and she cupped her hand there, then looked away.

“Kavian is not the kind of man who is ever going to be content,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. The old version of himself would have pretended he hadn’t.

“I wish I could call it off,” he told her quietly, and saw her swallow hard. Was he that harsh? That she had no idea that he wanted to protect her—that he would have if he could? “But you signed all the papers. You made your initial vows. By the laws of Daar Talaas, you are already his.”

She shuddered, and when she looked at him again, he felt that great loosening inside him again, as if he’d lost this, too. This relationship with the only sibling he had left. This sister who clearly had no idea that he loved her, too.

He felt an unknown and unpleasant sensation swamp him then and realized he’d felt it before. When Sterling had stood there before him with her eyes closed and her head bowed, visibly forcing herself to relax, the better to take a hit he hadn’t been planning to deliver.

Helplessness.

He loathed it.

“Amaya.” Her head jerked around and her eyes met his, and he saw confusion there. And something else, something a little more like haunted. “You are not a mere pawn. I care what happens to you. But I can’t fix this.”

“So I am doomed.” And her voice cracked on that last word. “There is no hope.”

“You can appeal to Kavian himself—”

“I’d have better luck appealing to a sandstorm in the desert!”

“Amaya.” But he didn’t know what to say. He was a goddamned king and what was the point? He couldn’t save anyone. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She shook her head, as if she was shaking something off. “I don’t want war, Rihad. I don’t want Bakri to fall. But I don’t want to be Kavian’s…possession, either. I won’t.”

And her screen went dark.

Leaving Rihad alone with his thoughts and his regrets, which were darker still.

CHAPTER NINE

THE SOUND OF the helicopter’s rotor blades faded off into the distance, taking with it Sterling’s halfhearted hopes that they might be called back to the palace to tend to some kind of governmental issue that simply couldn’t wait.

And then the only sound—in and around and between the brightly colored tents tucked there between the towering desert sand dunes and arrayed around the series of tree-lined pools that shouldn’t have existed in so arid a place at all—was the wind. It danced over the tops of the tents, making the hard canvas bend and stretch beneath the high sun far above, and then clattered its way through the palm trees.

Sterling was glad, because otherwise she was certain the only noise around for the miles and miles of uninhabited Bakrian desert they’d covered to get here would be the crazy pounding of her heart.

Rihad, of course, didn’t appear to hear any of it. He was conducting a conversation in rapid-fire Arabic into the satellite phone at his ear, striding toward one of the larger tents nearer the water as if he expected her to follow along obediently in his wake.

Instead, Sterling stayed where she was. She tilted her head back and let the desert sun play over her face. She liked the lick of heat, the tease of the dry wind against her skin and in the ends of the hair she’d scraped into a low ponytail beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She liked the murmur of the water from the nearby pools, the suggestion of cool, inviting shade beneath the trees and inside the tents. She would have been enchanted by the whole desert oasis thing altogether were it not for the fact he’d insisted she leave Leyla behind with the nurses, which was making her anxious.

And for what she suspected Rihad meant to accomplish here, which made her…something a lot more complicated than simply anxious.

“Maybe we can go in a month or two,” she’d said when he’d brought up their perception-altering honeymoon again at another one of their dinners. This one had been more intimate, set up in his private dining suite with the wraparound balcony that opened up over the whole of Bakri City, where all she could seem to think about was his hands on her body, his hardness clenched tight between her legs. “When Leyla is a little bigger and will be better about me going away for a night.”

Rihad had appeared focused on the food on his plate that night, not on her, though she should have known better than to believe that.

“It was not an invitation, as I think you know,” he’d said after a moment. “It was an order. A royal command, even.”

“Apparently, I have to remind you yet again that I’m not yours to command.”

He’d laughed, and she’d started in her chair, because it had been genuine. The sound of it had cascaded over her, as if it was poured straight from the sun. “Do you think so?”

She tried to sound prim. Not at all like the sort of woman who would climax all over a man on a wrought-iron table one summer morning. “I’m not one of your subjects, Rihad.”

“You are my queen.” His gaze had risen to meet hers then and she’d flushed hot and red. His dark gold eyes had been alive with something like merriment, and there’d been hints of that laughter in his voice when he’d continued. “And in the spirit of transparency between us, which I know is your dearest hope—”

“What’s wrong with murky?” she’d protested, aware she’d sounded as cranky as she had desperate. “I like a good swamp, especially in my marriage.”

His eyes had gleamed, laughter and light, and she’d felt undone.

He would unravel her completely. She had no doubt.

He’d already started.

“It will be more than a single night in the desert. I already told you it would be two weeks. And so it will.” When she’d started to argue he’d only smiled. “I’d resign yourself to the inevitable, Sterling. Have I yet to promise you anything that didn’t happen exactly as I said it would?”

She hadn’t been able to breathe. But that hadn’t stopped her mouth from moving.

“Are you going to command me to have sex with you, too?” she’d asked in that same absurdly overpolite tone, as if she was inquiring after high tea. “Consummation on demand?”

And she’d had no words to describe what his smile had done to her then, or how that lazy, predatory gleam in his dark gold eyes had made her feel. God, the way it had made her feel. How it had sneaked through her, tangling all around and making her hollow and needy, scared and yearning at once.

Did she want him to command her? Reach up, he’d ordered her that morning. Hold on. Was that why she’d asked?

“If you insist,” he’d said after a moment, in a dark-edged way that had made everything inside of her feel the way he’d sounded. Like honey, sweet and slow. She remembered shattering all around him, again and again. She shivered just remembering it. “Is that how you like it, Sterling? Do you prefer to give orders on the street and take them in bed?”

It was as if he’d read her mind, and she’d told herself stoutly that she hated that. And that he hadn’t, of course.

She’d sniffed as if she found this discussion crass beyond measure. “Not from you.”

Rihad had only smiled again, harder and edgier than before, and it had banged through Sterling like a symphony of gongs. “We’ll see. We leave in two days’ time. I suggest you resign yourself to the torture.”

And now she was far, far away from anything even resembling civilization. The helicopter ride had taken at least two hours and they’d left the city limits within the first twenty minutes. There was nothing for miles in any direction. There was nothing here except forced intimacy and, she thought while her stomach cartwheeled around inside of her, nothing at all to keep her from exploring the one man alive whose touch she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’ve dismissed all but the most essential staff.” His voice made her jump and she opened her eyes to find him propped up against the nearest palm tree, his dark gold gaze simmering as it touched hers. “There is no one else here but the two of us and, farther out, my security guards to keep watch over the perimeter.”

“You mean, to keep me from running away from you.”

He smiled again, and that other night at the palace hadn’t been a fluke. It was devastating. It was almost as powerful as his kiss. It made her feel that same mix of weakness and wonder, and she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about it.

“I mean, my most faithful and devoted guards are there to protect you whether you like it or not.” He’d let out a quiet sort of laugh. “But yes. Part of that protection would include returning you to my tender embrace should you wander too far from the oasis. The desert sands can be so treacherous.”

“How thoughtful.” But her mouth was pulling at the corners, as if her smile wanted to break free despite her own wishes. “Will you have men to guard the pools as well, in case I am tempted to drown myself rather than suffer your company?”

His laugh was deeper then. Richer. It was like drowning, indeed, in a masculine version of the best chocolate she could imagine, decadent and addictive.

She was in so much trouble.

“It depends which pool you mean to drown yourself in,” he said, as if he was giving the issue due consideration. “This nearest one will take some work. It’s barely knee-deep. You’re more likely to drown in your wineglass.”

“That can be arranged.”

He moved closer. He should have looked like any other man, the epitome of casual in nothing but a white oxford shirt and sand-colored trousers, but this was Rihad. He was the king. It didn’t seem to matter what he wore; nothing could conceal that low-edged hum of power he carried with him wherever he went.

“Shall we discuss our agenda, now that we’re here?” he asked when he was much too close. When she couldn’t seem to do anything but lose herself somewhere between that look on his face and the pounding of her heart.

“Our honeymoon has an agenda?” She fought to keep her voice light and airy—and to keep from leaping away from him because she knew, somehow, that he would know full well she wanted to do the opposite. “Royal sheikhs in their luxurious oasis retreats really aren’t like us.”

“Consider this nothing more than a statement of intent, Sterling.”

She wanted to throw something back at him, to make this interchange all about amusing banter and not about the rest of the things that circled all around them, pressing in on them, as flattening and searingly hot as the desert sun high over their heads.

“And what exactly do you intend?” she asked, but her throat was so dry, and he was so close. He stood there, much too near to her, so that she imagined she could feel the heat of him. So that her palms itched to touch him again—and that unnerved her more than anything else.

“I think you know what I want you to tell me,” he said quietly.

She didn’t want to meet his gaze then, but she did. And it shuddered all the way through her in a way that made her feel raw and vulnerable. But not afraid. Something else that she wasn’t certain she understood.

“No,” she said.

And she didn’t know what that meant, even as she said it. No, she didn’t know what he meant? No, she wasn’t going to tell him? No, in general?

But he smiled as if she’d whispered him a line or two of poetry and reached over to skate the backs of his fingers down the side of her face. Undoing her, she thought. He was tearing her down, pulling her apart, right where they stood.

“And I think you know the rest of what I want,” he said in a low voice.

“I know this will be hard for you to understand,” she said, trying to sound strong. Tough. Worldly and amused, in that way she’d perfected years ago. “But not everyone gets what they want all the time. Some people never get what they want at all. It’s a fact of life when you’re not literally the king of all you survey.”

Rihad smiled, and the heat where his fingers caressed her cheek blossomed deep within her.

“But I am.”

And still he smiled when all she could do was stare up at him, mute and undone and all those other things that tangled up inside of her and made her this shockingly susceptible to him.

Then he dropped his hand and stepped back, and Sterling felt that like a loss. She pulled in a breath, amazed she was still standing on her own two feet. Truly astonished she hadn’t simply keeled over from all that intensity.

“I have some things I must attend to,” he told her. “The sad truth is that the leader of a country is never truly on holiday, despite what he might wish. But you will join me for dinner. In the meantime, Ushala will lead you to your tent and see that you are settled in.”

“What if I don’t want to join you for dinner?” she asked.

She thought they both knew that she wasn’t really talking about dinner.

And in any case, Rihad only smiled.

* * *

Sterling disappeared into one of the sleeping tents that functioned as a luxurious guest room out here in his family’s private oasis. Rihad took a few calls as the afternoon wore on, impatient with this life of his that could not allow him anything resembling a real holiday. Not even a honeymoon.

He opted not to think too much about the fact that when he’d gone on a honeymoon previously, he’d welcomed the opportunity to work from the oasis, and neither he nor Tasnim had expected to see much of each other outside of their carefully polite meals.

But then, Sterling was different. Perhaps he’d known that from the first moment he’d seen her, so long ago now on that Manhattan sidewalk.

She did not emerge again until the sun dipped low and began to paint the dunes in the shifting colors of sunset. Reds and oranges, pinks and golds, and Sterling walking toward him in the middle of it all like another work of art.

Rihad sat in one of the majlis, a seating area marked off with a soft rug beneath him, bright pillows all around in the Bedouin style and a low table stretched out beneath a graceful canopy. It opened on the sides to let the evening in as he sipped a cool drink and watched the sunset outdo itself before him, as if for his pleasure alone.

After a glance to make sure she was coming to him—of her own free will, which pleased him, though he imagined he’d have sought her out if she hadn’t and he wasn’t certain what that told him about himself—Rihad didn’t look up as Sterling approached him, didn’t take his eyes off the horizon.

Almost as if he worried that if he did, his best intentions would simply crumble into sand and blow away.

He smiled at the glorious spectacle laid out before him instead, the colors changing and blooming as he watched. He never tired of the desert. How could he—how could anyone? The landscape was constantly shifting, yet always the same. The great bowl of the sky stretched high above with these magical, daily displays of fierce natural splendor. It reminded him who he was. It reminded him that Bakri was as much a part of him as he was of it. Just as the sky and the land were fused into this stunning unity twice a day as the sun rose and fell, so, too, was his family a part of this country. Twined together, made one.