The Defiant Princess Read online

  “You’re so responsive,” he murmured appreciatively.

  Every muscle burned as he reined in his own needs. He wanted to bury himself in her silken heat but she was so tight, so slender. He knew she had to be ready to accommodate the full length of him.

  She smelled erotic. The oils that had been massaged in by the Bedouin women made her smell spicy like a rare desert flower. The spice combined with her own musky scent …

  She would taste even better.

  He made his way down her body, replacing his thumb with his mouth. Her writhing told him that the stimulation of his fingers and hot lave of his tongue tortured her in the best possible way. Her thighs quivered. Her fingers tunnelled through his hair. She uttered a husky, incoherent plea. Every muscle tightened and she bucked as he darted his tongue in and out of her sheath. The taste of her honeyed sweetness climaxing against his mouth was the most satisfyingly erotic experience of his life.

  He didn’t allow her to come down fully from her ecstatic trip to the heavens. She was ready for him. In one smooth movement, he shifted his body over hers and placed one arm beside her body to take his weight. Sliding his other arm under her bottom, he lifted her hips. She needed no urging. Instinctively, she angled her hips to seek the ultimate connection with him. The solid ridge of his penis settled at her opening and he throbbed painfully as his blood thundered through his veins.

  He watched the quick changes on her face, saw her eyes widen in anticipation. She moved her hips in enticement. Her body strained toward him. His fantasies merged with reality as she lifted her legs and wound them tight around his waist.

  “Please,” she gasped. “I can’t wait.”

  He remained still, teetering on the brink of gliding into her body and sharing the most intimate contact of all with her.

  “Say my name,” he commanded. He felt the beads of sweat on his brow as he continued to leash the beast that raged within him. One thought could not be obliterated from his head. He needed to know that he was the one who absorbed all her thoughts—not the man she’d saved herself for. Not Hazim.

  “Khalid. Please, Khalid. I need this,” she panted desperately. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer, urging him on.

  The rapier-sharp blade of his desire stabbed through him, barely able to be controlled. “We are married, habibti. Now it’s time for you to be my wife.

  Her tight muscles stretched to accept him as he nudged forward through the silken folds of her body and entered her wondrous, intimate embrace.

  He heard her swift intake of breath, felt her pull her hips back and her muscles flinch as she gave a sharp cry of pain.

  He stilled and shifted his weight onto his forearms so he could cradle her face in his hands. “The pain is over, Sabihah. Now there will be only pleasure.”

  She breathed out in what seemed to be relief, but he still saw the agonised uncertainty conflicting with her yearning for more.

  “Relax, Sabihah. Trust me.”

  She looked up at him and he wished to remember the expression on her face forever. “I do trust you, Khalid. Implicitly.”

  What passed between them was much more than their physical union. It confused him momentarily but there was no analysing it as his physical needs took over.

  She shifted her hips experimentally. “I need … more. I want more.”

  It was just as well. Khalid doubted he could torture himself any longer by holding back. On a splintering groan, he moved inside her, withdrawing almost to the brink then plunging back within her slowly. But Sabihah wasn’t content. Her legs tightened around him and urged him to increase the pace until they melded together in an age-old rhythm and his thrusts were fast, hard and deep.

  His mouth scorched a pathway along her collarbone, up the sensitive column of her neck and along her jaw. She moved her head and claimed his lips with her own. Urgent, passionate kisses with their tongues tangling and surging in time with the thrusting of their hips.

  Then, her rhythm broke. Her body tensed and her inner muscles clenched and tightened around him. The internal spasms and shuddering of her body went on and on. She dug her nails into his shoulders, her breath rasped against his ear and he felt the moisture of her climax as a wild sob of pleasure broke from her mouth.

  He couldn’t hold on. The cataclysmic explosion of her orgasm triggered his own release and he felt the white-hot force of his eruption splinter through him. He threw his head back and groaned her name as he drove into her one more time, the contractions of her aftershocks milking the last male essence from his body.

  Never had he felt his world implode around him so completely. The level of pure ecstasy was stratospheric and beyond all his previous experiences. His gaze lowered to where they were still joined and he felt himself begin to pulse and firm again. Reluctantly, he withdrew. As he did so he saw the evidence of her virginity on her inner thighs. She would be sore after their lovemaking—he needed to tend to her.

  ***

  Sabrina looked up at the starry sky through tear-glazed eyes. Had there just been a meteor shower, or had all the exploding stars been a result of his lovemaking? The world as she’d known it had just shattered around her. Her limbs were heavy, her body fulfilled in a way she’d never dreamed possible. Yet there was an aching, weighty sadness in her heart. The knowledge that she’d connected physically with every atom of her being to her lover but that they were basically strangers was almost soul-destroying.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “No, you didn’t.” She shook her head then amended, “Well, only momentarily.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “You said you wanted my honesty. Do you think you can handle it?” she asked.

  The smile he gave her seemed just a little cautious. “Try me.”

  “I’m crying because … because damn it all, Khalid, that felt sensational.’ She reached up and placed her hands on his shoulders, tracing absently over his collarbones with her thumbs. “You were incredible and I loved every second of it.” She sighed. “How am I supposed to go back to a normal life in Australia now when we divorce and you marry … someone else?”

  Khalid levered himself up to sit beside her. “You won’t be returning to Australia.” A fierce, intense possessiveness burnt in his eyes and he looked like an all-conquering desert warrior. “You are my wife, Sabihah. We made vows today that I intend to keep.”

  Confusion clouded her mind and she scrambled to sit up. “No. We agreed to get a divorce.”

  “Don’t be perverse. You just acknowledged how good we are together,” he bit out with impatience. “By your own admission you wondered how you would give up this ecstasy and go back to your former life. Don’t speak of divorce.”

  What? She couldn’t compute what he was saying. Self-conscious now, she drew her knees up and propped her arms on them in an attempt to cover her nudity. “We might be good together as lovers but we know nothing about each other in any way that really counts.”

  “We will learn to know each other.”

  “No.” Her denial outweighed her modesty and she jumped to her feet. “I won’t be trapped into a life that isn’t of my choosing. I have a life Khalid.”

  He stood to face her. “A life that’s nothing compared to what it could be.”

  “I resent that!”

  “But you know it’s the truth.” He wasn’t giving an inch. “In Australia, you’re a school teacher who influences the lives of children in a small town. In Rhajia, you will influence the lives of citizens of an entire nation—people whose needs have been sorely neglected by Mustaf.” He half turned away from her then turned back. “In Australia you would go back to your celibate existence in that small country town. In Rhajia, we will share endless nights of ecstasy.”

  She crossed her arms over her naked chest. She couldn’t argue with what he said, but she did have a right to choose life in Australia if that was what she wanted—and who the hell was he to say that she’d go back to being ce
libate? “You promised me a divorce.”

  “No,” his denial was categorical. “You spoke of divorce. I agreed to marry you. There can be no divorce.”

  And suddenly Helen’s anxiety hit her with the full force of a freight train. “Oh God,” Sabrina groaned. “Helen tried to tell me you wouldn’t divorce. How did she know?”

  “The Turastani royal family don’t divorce.”

  Her body went completely rigid as horror pervaded every cell. She shook her head continually as she faced him. “No. Damn it, Khalid! You said—”

  “I did not agree to your terms. I would never agree to a divorce.”

  Her fists clenched at her sides and her lips tightened as she tossed her head back. “You knew very well I married you today expecting a divorce.”

  For a split second his jaw clenched. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You lied by omission.” She was yelling at him in accusation, slashing her hand angrily through the air. She turned her back on him and scrambled to retrieve her Bedouin wedding clothing, relieved to slip the garment over her head. She rounded on him once again as soon as she was clothed, wishing he’d dress as well.

  “Why won’t you divorce me?”

  “It’s an archaic law, but one that states if a ruler or destined ruler divorces, he or she must give up the right to the throne.”

  Helplessness, disbelief and anger all combined in the churning cauldron at the pit of her stomach. “There’s a simple solution, you change the law.”

  “It cannot be changed. Turastani people value the sanctity and fidelity of marriage. If one cannot commit to one’s spouse and make things work, one cannot commit to the ruling of a nation.”

  “To think I trusted you!” Tears of bitter regret ran down her cheeks. “You were the one who told me honesty was everything between us! You let me believe you would assume the rulership of Rhajia.”

  “You proposed that. Had you thought it through, you would’ve realised only a blood relative of your father can rule Rhajia. If you went through with your plan of abdication, Mustaf would be back on the throne immediately. I could never be ruler.”

  The red heat of rage pulsed through her veins. “You bastard. You could’ve pointed that out to me before we were married, before you brought me here to Turastan.”

  He closed his eyes briefly and told her quietly, “You would never have come to Turastan with me if I hadn’t let you believe what you wanted to.”

  “Exactly.” If she thought that stamping her foot against the cool desert sand would make him see her point, she would’ve done it. Instead she ran her hands roughly through her hair, willing a solution—a way out of this situation—to come to her. “That admission—the fact you tricked me into this intentionally—makes your actions just now even worse. If you were any sort of gentleman you would’ve told me before we … before we had sex.”

  Khalid looked agitated. “Don’t turn around and pretend now that you regret what we’ve just shared. I made certain you wanted our lovemaking.”

  “I like making informed choices.”

  Grabbing her upper arms, he railed at her. “Don’t you get it, Sabihah? You have to be alive to make choices. Had you not come to Turastan with me, you would’ve ended up dead. Mustaf would’ve sent another assassin after you.”

  “No. You don’t know that he would’ve killed me rather than accepted my abdication. Don’t try to justify your actions by pretending you were trying to protect me. There’s no way you can justify this.”

  “What we’ve just shared is something good.”

  “Let me go!”

  He released her immediately.

  “Take me back now, Khalid.”

  “No.” His features may as well have been carved in granite. The tautness of every muscle of his body told her he would never give in.

  “I insist.”

  “I told you last night, habibti. What I have, I keep and I protect. You are my wife now.”

  “You can’t just treat me like some possession.”

  He cursed in Arabic. “Did I just treat you like a possession? Is that how you felt when you were moaning in my arms and begging me for more?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Did you not just feel that I care for you as well as desire you? That I will consider your needs, protect you and keep you safe?”

  He cared for her? Maybe he did, but he wouldn’t deny this marriage was a duty to him.

  It wasn’t enough. “We don’t love each other.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “No. We don’t love each other, but we make love beautifully.”

  She tilted her head into an angle of defiance. “That was just sex.”

  “That was far from just sex. That was the most incredible sex I’ve ever had.”

  His admission pulled her up and away from all her arguments and made her forget all that she was actually fighting for. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Imagine how much more incredible it would be if we really loved each other,” she voiced aloud.

  The noise he made scoffed her words. “There is no such thing as romantic love.”

  “I believe there is.” She did and she wanted it. “I’m not going to settle for a marriage where love doesn’t exist. I certainly don’t want to be the wife you had to stay married to when you didn’t even want to marry me in the first place.”

  He let out a frustrated breath as he retrieved his pants and began pulling them on. “I resented the idea of taking you as my bride initially but I’m content to keep you as my wife.”

  “Well, that’s just great, Khalid. It makes me feel so much better!” Of all the arrogant—

  He ignored her sarcasm. “We have this attraction between us and you’ve proven you have the necessary qualities to be my queen.”

  “Of course,” she said. “By marrying me you get me to depose Mustaf and solve the problems between Rhajia and Turastan. I’m the perfect queen.”

  “I didn’t think you’d need flattering, Sabihah, but I was referring to the qualities of compassion and caring you’ve shown,” He tied the strings at his waist. “I admire the way you’ve handled yourself at official occasions.”

  “So I tick all the boxes,” she said, fuming at his matter-of-fact statements. “That’s really good for you, but not so good for me.” She jabbed a finger in his direction as she continued, “You don’t tick all my boxes, Khalid.”

  The tension of his body in response to her words was only slight before he was completely still. His eyes held hers with such intensity that she swallowed nervously. Time seemed to stretch and she was as paralysed as a mouse confronted by a cobra waiting to strike.

  “I may not tick your boxes, Sabihah, but I certainly satisfy you.”

  “It’s not all about sex,” she refuted as she felt the blush heating her face.

  “No. It’s about sex, trust, and respect.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly blown the last two.”

  He shook his head with impatience. “Grow up, Sabihah. This is bigger than just the two of us. Being born royal means we’re expected to make sacrifices for the good of our people.”

  So, we’re back to duty again? “I want to marry someone who loves me.”

  “That’s rubbish. By your own admission, you would’ve married Hazim.”

  Oh, Lord! How could she wriggle out of that? She’d already admitted she’d expected to be Hazim’s bride. As she sought for a feasible response, she trailed a foot in the sand and made a small pattern. She hoped he wouldn’t realise just how much he’d rattled her.

  “I … adjusted my mindset when Hazim married Barika,” she invented quickly. “I realised he must’ve loved her to have broken our betrothal and it made me understand that love was a much better reason than duty to make a lifetime commitment to someone.”

  “Love is an illusion. Get over your romantic fantasies and be happy with what we have between us.”

  Unhappy with his decree, sh
e turned and looked at the still water of the oasis. “If I had a pebble handy, I’d skip it across the surface,” she mused aloud. She needed to do something frivolous to escape the tension that had mounted between them. She wanted to think about something else and to leave their impasse behind. “A friend taught me to do that when I was growing up in Australia.”

  It had probably sounded inane—a comment right out of the blue when they’d been in the thick of their argument. She’d just decided he must think she was a nutcase, when he responded.

  “My father brought Hazim and me here when we were just boys.” His words came from just behind her, and she nearly bumped into him as she turned toward him. “He tossed a coin into the water and told us how one action can have a ripple effect and disturb everything around it.”

  Unsure of what to do next, Sabrina sat on the sand at the edge of the water.

  Silent as a jungle cat, Khalid sat beside her.

  After a while, she ventured, “You looked upset today as I approached the altar. If love is an illusion, why did you look like you regretted our marriage?”

  His entire frame tensed but he said nothing in response.

  “I thought it was because you were marrying me instead of Inaya.” She was determined to draw him out of his silence. “But now you’ve told me you don’t love her. So what were you thinking that made you look so grim?”

  He took a handful of sand and let it slip slowly through his grasp. “When I stood at the altar, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. But when you joined me, I was thinking of Hazim. When my brother was alive, I didn’t once envy anything he did or had. Today, I found myself disturbed by the fact that had he been alive, I would’ve been the best man and not the groom. I don’t know whether I could have stood back and let him claim you as his wife when I wanted you so badly.”