To escape a father who saw me as a bargaining chip. To find out who I was away from the manipulation of others. Don’t flatter yourself by making it so personal.”
He tightened his hold on her, his gaze intense. “You think it’s not?”
She shook her head.
“You are a liar,” he said, leaning in, his lips skimming her cheek. “I think the things you feel toward me are very personal.”
Why did he do this to her? Why did she have such a hard time resisting him? She didn’t even want to resist. She tilted her head and kissed him, her eyes closed tight. She pulled her head back, her breathing shallow.
“What am I to you, Angelina Carpenter?” he asked, tracing the line of her lips with his finger.
“You are—” she cleared her throat and tried to disguise the quiver in her voice “—you are a mystery to me, as is my attraction to you. That’s why I keep coming back to fate.”
For a moment, he looked stunned. Then in one fluid movement he picked her up from her position on the fountain and stood, striding across the courtyard. She looped her arms around his neck and held on.
“That’s a good enough answer for me,” he said, stopping in front of a divan that was shrouded in palms. He set her down on the velvet surface and pulled his shirt over his head, coming to sit down beside her. “Is it enough for you?”
She nodded, unsure she could make her voice work.
“Good,” he whispered, lowering his head and kissing her.
She slid her hands to his chest, reveled in the feeling of his muscles beneath her palms. He was everything she’d ever fantasized about. He was…Taj. And even though so much of what she wanted from him was going unmet, she knew that for now, for this moment, she would give everything.
One moment to lay herself bare, in a physical sense, to hold nothing back, before she retreated behind her emotional protection. She couldn’t love him for their whole marriage, not without his love. It would destroy her.
But she would do it right now. Unreservedly.
While his guard was down. While he was unprotected, too.
He pulled off her robe, then her flimsy top. The cold air hit her bare breasts and she gasped. Taj laughed and bent his head, drawing a tightened nipple into his mouth. She clutched his shoulders, his name on her lips, her body on fire with need for him. All of him.
She pushed her pants down her thighs and kicked them off while Taj worked to free himself of his own clothes. When his skin pressed against hers, she sighed in relief. How did he feel so essential? How did being with him make her feel like something that had been missing all her life was present in a profound way?
He lowered his head and kissed her neck as he settled between her thighs, sliding into her slowly. A short sigh of pleasure escaped her lips and he caught it with his, the kiss deep and sensual, working with his thrusts.
She kept her eyes open, locked with his as she rocked against him, driving them both higher until they reached the peak together. He held her against him, his heart thundering, his skin slicked with sweat.
She felt empowered by it. By the fact that she’d affected him. By the fact that she wasn’t in it alone. She’d wondered if it had all been in her head. For so long she’d wondered that. If she’d been the only one who’d felt anything. If he’d had to close his eyes and think of Rahat when he kissed her back in Texas.
But she knew now, knew it with even greater certainty than she had that night in Santina. She knew that while he might not love her, he desired her. That it was the kind of desire that went beyond simple lust and set out to drive a person crazy.
She knew, because she felt it, too. Because she recognized that what she felt lived in him, too.
She could hold on to that. She could forget about the love thing and pretend that lust was all that mattered. She closed her eyes tight and tried to cling to the lie.
“The wedding will take place in two weeks.” Taj walked into Angelina’s quarters and a hard slug of arousal hit him in the gut.
They’d stayed out in the garden until the sky had started turning pink at the horizon line, bleeding up into the inky blackness, washing it clean. He’d held her until he was certain they would be missed, and possibly discovered, naked on the divan, covered only in her robe.
Then he’d sent her back to her room, and he’d gone back to his. And his body had burned. He’d ended up in an ice cold shower, gritting his teeth as the water hit his skin like a thousand needles and his erection ached, finding absolutely no relief.
He’d ended up shivering and horny.
What was it about her? How was it she’d managed to burrow her way under his skin all those years ago? It was as though she lived in him. A strange thought. A foolish thought, and yet it seemed the only explanation for what he felt when he was around her.
Angelina looked at him, her lush lips shaped into a perfect O. “What? Why so soon?”
He looked pointedly at her stomach.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I won’t start showing for a while. I mean, I knew you wanted to marry quickly but…two weeks? In the States I would have a hard time getting a wedding cake on two weeks’ notice!”
“You underestimate the power of money.”
“No. I don’t. Trust me. My family is practically made of money.”
“Then you underestimate the power of the sheikh of Rahat. I will have my staff see to the wedding feast. The ceremony will be held here at the palace. Small by royal standards but it cannot be helped.”
Her smooth brow crinkled as she drew her eyebrows together. “Oh, yes. It can’t be helped because I’m disgraced. Can’t have people thinking I’m pregnant, it would reflect badly on me. Not on you, of course, but then, isn’t that the way of it?”
Anger curled his stomach. Anger at whom…Angelina, his country and its traditions, or himself, he wasn’t sure. Possibly all three. “If you had married me three years ago you could have had the finest wedding imaginable,” he said through clenched teeth. “A parade through the city. A handmade wedding gown. Thousands of attendants ready to pay homage to the new queen.”
If she had married him three years ago he would have spared so many sleepless nights, so much longing.
At least he had her now. She would have to stay with him. She would be his wife and the mother of his child. She could not leave him now. That brought a slight sense of a relief, took away some of the pressure in his chest.
“Oh, yes, that’s what I need, Taj. A bigger wedding. That’s the problem. It simply won’t be grand enough if I’m not brought into the church on…on…camel back.” She stood, her pale cheeks flushing a dark rose. “How did you know that was the most essential thing to me? I should have married you three years ago, if not for the wedding, so my wardrobe would be more current.”
He stepped back, the heat in his stomach spreading now, a blaze of anger streaking along his veins. “Is that what you want? More gowns? I will give them to you. I can give you anything. Everything. I am Sheikh. I can provide you with things no other man can.”
“Oh, is that so,” she said, hands on her shapely hips. “Well, I believe that, sugar, I do. But there are men who could provide me with things you will never be able to give me.”
“I think not,” he said, striding forward and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him. Her eyes widened and he gentled his hold, his heart hammering. “I think not,” he said again, his voice softer.
He