JEMMA WAS SPEECHLESS as Mikael escorted her into the tent. Plush crimson carpets covered the sand. Rustic copper lanterns hung from the tent’s wooden poles. More lanterns and candles glowed on low tables. From the fire pit outside the tent she caught a whiff of roasted lamb. As if on cue, her stomach growled.
Mikael looked at her. “Ready to eat?”
“Starving,” she admitted.
“You’re in luck. Our first course is ready.”
The grilled vegetables and meat were served with a couscous flavored with slivered almonds and currants. They scooped up the couscous and meat with chunks of warm sesame bread and Mikael was fascinating company, as always.
Jemma welcomed his stories about Saidia’s history and tribal lore, understanding now why he’d worn his robes tonight. This was his desert. His world.
Just then the evening breeze played with the sheer silk panels lining the tent, parting the material, giving her a glimpse of the white moon and the deep purple black sky.
The night sky was so bright and the stars dazzled. The sky never looked like this in London or New York. But in the vastness of the desert, with darkness stretching in every direction, the sky literally glowed with light.
“Beautiful night,” Mikael said, following her gaze.
She nodded. “Amazing. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale.”
He hesitated a moment. “I think after the honeymoon, we should go visit your mother. I don’t want her to worry about you. She has enough worries already.”
“You’d let me travel with you?”
“With me, and without me. Marriage isn’t a prison, and I’d never keep you from your family, or opportunities, provided you were able to fulfill your duties as my wife and queen.” He paused, studying her. “I have a house in London. It’s large, and comfortable. Well located. It needs you. Someone to fill it with people and parties.”
Jemma looked away, emotion making her chest ache. “Now you’re just teasing me. Tempting me with possibilities that are...impossible.”
“How so?”
“You shouldn’t dangle things before me. Or opportunities. I’m strong, but not that strong. If I stayed here, it shouldn’t be for things.” She turned to look at him again, her gaze locking with his. “It should be for the right reasons. It should be for you.”
For a moment there was just silence. And then Mikael leaned forward, captured her face in his hands and kissed her lightly on the lips before releasing her.
Jemma’s heart turned over. Her lips tingled. She nearly pressed her fingers to her mouth to stop the throbbing.
“Next time I see Sheikh Azizzi I must thank him,” Mikael said, his deep voice pitched even lower. “I was angry with him in Haslam. I was angry that he’d try to saddle me with you, but obviously he knew something I didn’t.”
“Saddle doesn’t sound very complimentary.”
“You weren’t happy about it, either.”
No, that was true. She was shocked, angry, desperate. But happy? No.
But she almost felt happy right now. For the first time in months and months she felt calm. She felt content. She felt as if she could breathe.
Which is why she had to be careful. She needed to keep her guard up. It was vital she not let Mikael get too much closer.
While they’d talked a servant had removed the dishes, replacing the platters and bowls with trays of delicate biscuits and dried fruits.
“You really like London?” Mikael asked her, taking one of the dates stuffed with cheese and rolling it between his fingers. “It was never a culture shock?”
“I liked it from the start. No one paid me any attention. I felt free there.” She selected one of the flaky almond cookies and broke it in half. “It’s different now. I’m known, and more alone than ever.”
“You’re lonely?”
She nodded. “Yes. I miss what I had. Not the things, but the friends, the activities, the energy. I used to wake up every day, excited to see what the day would bring. Now I just get by. Push through.”
“Once we return to Ketama, once everyone knows of our marriage, you will discover that doors presently closed to you, will open. As my wife, you will be welcome everywhere. As my wife, no one would dare to shame you, or exclude you.”
Jemma popped half the cookie in her mouth and chewed, but her mouth had gone dry, and the cookie tasted like sawdust. “I don’t want to be accepted because people are afraid of alienating you. I want to be accepted because people like me.” Her eyes suddenly burned and she took a sip from her golden goblet. “It hurts to be scorned.”
“Which is why you need my protection. I do not want you to suffer more than you have.”
His gaze met hers and held. His dark eyes burned into her. She felt her pulse quicken, and butterflies flit wildly in her middle, her body humming with awareness.
Mikael would be a protective husband. He would probably be generous to a fault. He’d already showered her with gifts and trinkets, and was good at paying her compliments.
She wondered what marriage to him would be like. Not the honeymoon part, but the ever after part.
What kind of husband would he be?
Would he have expectations for his wife’s behavior? Rules for the relationship? What would he not permit, or tolerate?
Mikael’s eyes met hers, and held. “You have something on your mind.”
“You can read me too easily. Have you always been so attentive to women?”
“No. Never.” He leaned over and refilled her goblet. “I’m usually accused of being insensitive and self-absorbed.”
“Are you different with me?”
“It would seem so.”
“Because I am your wife?”
“Because I can’t help but pay you attention. You command it.”
“I command it. Interesting.”
“You are a queen now. You are in a position of significance.”
“Careful. The power might go to my head.” But she was laughing as she said it, and from his lazy smile, she knew he was amused. “Do you enjoy your power?”
He thought about the question for a moment and then nodded. “Sheikhs are allowed to be as demanding as they like. It is the benefit of being royal. But power carries responsibility to provide for one’s family, and people, and protect them as well. This is where my father failed. This is where I cannot fail.”
“I do not think you will. You have the right mindset. You are focused on the right goals.”
“I am less focused now that you are here,” he admitted. “With you here I find I only want to think about you.”
“It is your honeymoon.”
“Our honeymoon,” he corrected, reaching out to stroke her cheek, and then press his thumb to her lips.
Heat raced through her, followed by a frisson of sensation that made her breasts tingle and her legs quiver. She felt so aware of him and the awareness was a bittersweet tension, her body humming in response. She ached inside, at the place where her thighs joined, and she hated wanting...needing...
Jemma squeezed her thighs together, denying the need, and struggling to ignore the way her skin tingled, sending fresh darts of sensation from her breasts to her belly.
His gaze met hers and held, and he couldn’t know what she was thinking or feeling, but she blushed anyway, heat racing through her, making her hot and cold.
She was attracted to him. She was responding to him. It crossed her mind that she just might be in over her head.
“Yes, laeela?” he asked, reclining against the cushions. “What are you thinking?”
She shouldn’t have agreed to this. She shouldn’t have played this game. It was a game she could lose. “You...your government,” she stuttered, thinking she could never admit that sex was on her brain. Sex, seduction, sensual lovemaking...no, better to keep the conversation away from the personal.
“Our government?” he repeated, eyes crinkling. “Politics intrigue you?”
No, but you intrigue me. You make me wonder about everything I do not yet know. Instead she crossed her legs and tried to calm herself. “Did you inherit your power?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were first born, of the first wife?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. Many.”
Interesting. “Are any of them in a government position?”
“There are three that have inherited significant tribal power and wealth, but so far these half brothers prefer to avoid work and responsibility.”
“They are the sons of your father’s second wife?”
“She had three boys in quick succession. They are handsome, popular, and quite headstrong.”
“You like them?”
“I love them.” He hesitated, smiling wryly. “And I imagine I will like them even better once they begin to grow up.”
She grimaced. “It’s easy to be self-indulgent when you’re given everything. I grew up in a wealthy family, surrounded by peers from equally wealthy families. It’s not the real world. As difficult as it’s been this past year, I’m glad to be living in the real world. I know now who my true friends are. I know what matters.”
“I hope one day my brothers discover what’s true, and real.”
“Perhaps they need an incentive to mature. Perhaps it’s too easy for them...being young, handsome, and wealthy.”
“They do have it too easy. Nothing is worse than a spoiled, billionaire prince.”
“Were you ever like that? A spoiled, billionaire prince?”
“It was different for me. I’ve always known I would be king. And I’ve always been conscious that I was the son from the bad first wife, the American wife. I’ve tried hard to do the right thing, to avoid additional scrutiny and criticism.”
She studied him, still warm, still so fascinated by this man and how he made her feel things and want things. But she had to be careful. She needed to remain in control. “We don’t hear much about Saidia in the news in the US.”
“That’s because we try to stay out of the news, and we are a stable country. Historically, the Karims have gone to great lengths to ensure our people’s happiness.”
“So people are happy?”
“Yes. We have excellent schools and health care. Girls are actively encouraged to attend school, even pursue higher education. Marriage is forbidden under the age of eighteen, without parental consent.” His dark eyes glowed. “Does that answer all of your questions? Or is there something else you’d like to know?”
The gleam in his eye was dangerous. It made her pulse leap, and her stomach lurch. Just like that, she felt him...near her, around her, as if they were connected. One. Which was ludicrous. She barely knew him and they weren’t touching. He was reclining four or five feet away.
And yet her skin tingled and her insides felt strange, her nerve endings wound too tightly.
The desert wasn’t safe. Not with Mikael in it.
“And what are you thinking of now?” he asked, his deep voice pitched low, making her think of dark sensual things that she shouldn’t be thinking, not when alone with him.
“What is your seduction plan?” she asked. “What’s supposed to happen tonight?”
He didn’t smile, but she could have sworn he was laughing at her.
“What do you think is going to happen?”
She hated it when he answered her question with another question. “No idea. That’s why I asked.”
“I have an idea of how I think the evening will go,” he said, watching her with that lazy interest, which she knew now wasn’t lazy at all.
He was paying close attention to her, listening attentively to everything she said, observing everything she did.
He, too, was aware of the energy between them. Something was happening. She felt the heat and tension, the prickling awareness. It was sexual. And tangible. Her gown which had been so comfortable earlier now felt hot and tight, constricting.
“You are impossible,” she whispered, breathless. He made her breathless.
Did he know the effect he had on her? Did he know that he made her curious? Weak?
She felt weak now, and hot, so hot, as tiny tongues of desire made her nipples tighten inside the delicate fabric of her dress.
“Yesterday was touch,” he said. “I gave you a massage.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was an incredible massage, too.”
“Today...what have we done so far?”
“Kissed,” she whispered.
“Exactly. Today I can only kiss you.”
“Oh.” She tried to stifle the stab of disappointment.
“Fortunately, there are many different ways I can kiss you.”
He stood up and walked around the perimeter of the tent, dropping the heavy panels, making the soft sheer silk curtains flutter in as the outside covers fell. “Different places I can kiss you.”
Jemma held her breath as he continued to walk around the tent, closing them off from the night, and his staff, tying the cords on the inner panels, sealing them into a private world.
Soon the tent was a cocoon, and darker, with the loss of moonlight.
Mikael reached for a lantern and moved it, hanging it a little behind her. “Different places you might want me to kiss you.” He moved another lamp, bringing it closer to the table next to her. “The lamps are so I can see you,” he said. “I want to see you.”
Her insides wobbled. She bit down on the inside of her lip to hide her flurry of nerves.
“I want to see you as I make you come,” he added.
Her lips parted, shocked. She sat up taller, her hands going to her knees.
She shouldn’t like it when he talked to her like this, but she did. He was untamed. “You think I’m joking?” he asked.
She didn’t know how to answer, wasn’t sure what to do or say, so she simply looked at him, chewing on the inside of her lip, nervous. Anxious. Excited.
This was his night. His game. He held the power.
“I have waited all afternoon for this,” he said, prowling around her again, dark eyes burning, emphasizing the high hard lines of his cheekbones, jaw and chin. “Waited to see you naked. Waited to taste your skin.”
A funny pang pinched her heart. She struggled to breathe.
He was frightening, arrogant, headstrong.
He was also overwhelmingly powerful, physical, and sexual.
She’d never met another man like him and she shouldn’t be drawn to him, but she was.
For some reason she responded to him, to his edges and complexity. She was intrigued by his harsh justice, as well as his sensual nature.
She craved the sensual side of him. She wanted the sensation and pleasure of being bedded by him. She wanted to sleep with him. Wanted him naked against her, wanted his bare hands on her breasts and his mouth on her body. Wanted to be pinned beneath him and feel him thrust hard and deep, burying his body inside hers.
He moved in front of her, crouching before her, and tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. “I want you,” he said, his deep voice velvety soft. “But I want your pleasure more.”
And then he kissed her, deeply, the kiss so slow and so erotic that it immediately torched her senses, making her head spin.
He pressed her back against the soft carpet, and stretched out over her. She could still feel the press of his arousal through his robes. He was long and thick and hard.
His hand found her breast through her thin gown, his fingers rubbing and pinching and kneading her taut nipple. She trembled and sighed as he focused on one breast, and then the other.
She was hot and wet and aching for more.
Jemma pressed her thighs together, craving satisfaction.
“Don’t come,” he murmured against her mouth. “Relax. Let me enjoy your beautiful body.”
“You’re turning me on,” she answered.
He shifted his weight, his hips grinding against hers.
The head of his arousal pressed against her pubic bone. His warmth made her want to open to him. She wanted him inside her, not on her. “This is torture,” she whispered.
“Good torture,” he said, drawing away, and placing a kiss on her chin, and then her neck, and he kissed his way down to her breastbone, and then lower, over the fabric of her gown covering her belly and then lower still, kissing the V of her thighs, his breath heating her skin, making the silk gown warm and damp. Making her warmer, damper.
She groaned as his teeth lightly nipped her. “Please,” she whispered. “Be nice.”
“I’m being very nice,” he said.
And then he shifted his weight off her completely, and he reached for the hem of her gown.
Her heart slammed into her rib cage as he pushed her skirt up, and carefully tugged her lace panties down, sliding them off her ankles, over each of her jeweled shoes. Then he parted her thighs, pushing them wide, and settled between them to kiss the inside of her knee, and then continued kissing her inner thigh, slowly working his way to her most intimate place.
Jemma gasped as his warm mouth settled on her, his tongue sliding up and down, stroking her.
She shuddered with pleasure, overwhelmed by the intense sensation. His mouth and touch made her feel so many different and disorienting emotions and sensations, filling her head with pictures and colors, all intense and vivid, electric and erotic.
The eroticism exposed her. The eroticism challenged her.
Who was she? What was she? What was true?
Jemma cried out as his tongue pushed deeper, his mouth cool where she felt so warm, his tongue circling provocatively across her taut, sensitive nub. At the sound of her cry, his hands pushed her thighs wider, his thumbs pressing against her bottom, holding her open.
It was shocking. Shocking because it was him, doing this to her.
She’d been raised to think for herself, raised to be independent, successful, and her brain told her she shouldn’t enjoy this...being handled, managed, seduced. But her body liked it, and she was beginning to realize there was another side of her, a side she found rather frightening.
It was darkly sensual, and wanton. Illicit, too.
It was almost like an erotic dream...sexy, and sensual, and intense...
So intense, especially when he sucked and there was no holding back. The tension and pressure grew, electric sensation shooting through her. She couldn’t resist it, couldn’t resist him. With a cry she climaxed, shattering from his expert tongue and the intimate kiss.
For a moment after, Jemma didn’t know who she was, or where she was. For a moment, she was just part of the night and the diamond studded sky. She felt endless, and open and free.
And then little by little she returned to herself, and him.
Opening her eyes, she looked at him, unsure as to what his reaction would be.
His dark eyes were hooded, his expression watchful. But protective. Maybe even a little possessive.
“Say something,” she whispered.
“You’re beautiful.”
Her cheeks burned. “I don’t even know how...or why....” She licked her upper lip, her mouth dry, her heart hammering. “Or what happened.”
“I do.” He crouched next to her, lifting a strand of hair from her warm, flushed face. “I wanted you to feel good. Did I make you feel good?”
“Yes.”
“Then I feel good.”