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His stomach tightened. He’d been damned if he’d take the easy way, the handicap or whatever it was she was offering. “I thought we had to.”
“Not if you … I don’t want to … “
“You told me you’re not fragile. Neither am I,” he said. “I used to dance. I didn’t take lessons or anything, but especially during my university years in Europe, I danced quite a bit.” Not that he’d enjoyed it for its own sake. It had been more of a pickup technique. But it had worked.
“That surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t. Women like to dance and I always liked women.”
“And they liked you.”
“It seems another lifetime ago, but if I can ride a horse, I’m certain I can dance. Unless you don’t want to dance with a man who might limp through the steps.”
She frowned. “That’s not it. I don’t want to tax you, I … “
A shot of competitiveness sent a spark of adrenaline through him. “Latifa, you are welcome to try to tax me. I doubt you will be able to.”
A stubborn spark lit her eye, an answer to his challenge. Good. He wanted her to challenge him. To see him as a man, and not her patient. “I’d like to see some of these dancing skills,” she said.
“Not up to par with what you’re used to, I’m certain. But I know I still can.”
He held out his hand and she simply stared at it. “I’m not really used to anything. I haven’t done a lot of dancing.”
“That surprises me.”
“Why?”
“You’re a beautiful woman.”
Katharine cleared her throat and looked away, the compliment making her feel self-conscious. “Well, I am a woman who was promised to a sheikh in marriage. And who anticipated being used for another political union so … I was never really encouraged to dance.”
“And you need encouragement to do things? I thought you did as you pleased.”
“I do what my father asks,” she said quietly. “What makes him see some kind of value in me.”
Zahir’s eyebrows locked together, his expression fierce. He leaned in, cupping her chin and tilting her face up so that she had to look at him. “If he does not see the value in you, he is a blind fool. No, not even blind. I can’t see out of one eye, and yet I see your value.”
Katharine swallowed hard, her eyes riveted to his. “Do you?”
“You are the only person who has challenged me, on this side of the attack or the other. You have more tenacity than any man I have ever met.”
“Same goes,” she said, fighting to keep from crying, to keep from melting over the words he’d just spoken. They were balm on a wound she hadn’t realized was so raw. “Now,” she said, trying to change the topic before she dissolved, “dance with me.”
Eyes trained on her, Zahir bent and picked up a flat remote from the side table, pointing it upward and hitting one of the buttons. Slow, sexy jazz guitar filled the air. Not what she expected against the Arabic backdrop, but maybe even more fitting because of that. Because none of this was what she expected.
Zahir advanced on her slowly, his black eyes on hers, his movements languid, despite the limp. He held out his hand and she took it, warmth flooding her when his fingers entwined with hers. He pulled her to him, her breasts meeting his chest, and he wound his other arm around her waist. For a moment she saw it, the playboy he’d been. The man who’d had women falling at his feet, into his bed.
It coupled with the other things she knew about him, the intensity of the trauma he’d undergone. How far he had come since. As sexy as he had been before the attacks, as attractive as he’d been when he’d been a playboy dancing his way through the clubs in Europe, she knew that Zahir couldn’t touch the man he was now.
This Zahir possessed a fire. An intensity. He had clawed over every obstacle in his path. He had emerged with a strength and honor that made her feel so safe with him. That made her respect him in ways she’d never respected another human being.
And on top of all that, when he held her to the heat of his body, she felt a kind of desire she’d never even dreamed possible.
It made her shivery inside.
His movements weren’t completely smooth, his limp impossible to disguise entirely. But he had rhythm, more naturally than she did. Then, as she’d told Zahir, she hadn’t done a lot of dancing. This made her wish she had. Made her wish she’d pursued a little more than what duty asked of her.
This was a layer of life she’d never explored. She was starting to fear that there were many of them. Beneath that thin layer of what royal life offered her, there was so much more. A richness and depth she’d never yet reached.
She’d never been conscious of it before.
He moved his hand from her lower back, around to the curve of his hip, his fingers tightening there, gripping her. She looked up, met his dark gaze. She didn’t want to turn away.
She tightened her arms around his neck, bringing herself in closer. Needing to be closer. Needing to simply be near him. Needing something even more than that, and not quite knowing how to get it.
This wasn’t part of the plan. Any plan. Human touch, human warmth, was unfamiliar to her. And right now, Zahir was hot. And so very close.
She unclasped her hands and wove her fingers through his thick, black hair. A deep rumble echoed in his chest, his eyes hot on hers.
She slid her hand forward, up the side of his neck, cupping his cheek, his skin rough from stubble beneath her palm. She needed more. She needed closer. Needed to satisfy the empty well of longing that had opened up in her. A well she was afraid might be impossible to fill.
But she could try. She had to try.
She stretched up on her toes, pressing her lips lightly against his. It was like an electric shock, the current starting where their mouths met and skittering through her veins, sending a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart.
He was still beneath her lips, his fingers curling around the skirt of her dress, the material bunching in his fist. The rumble turned to a growl, low and feral. Sexy on a level she’d never imagined something like that could be.
Granted, her experience with men and kissing was limited. So limited it could almost be called nonexistent. Because she’d known that she would have to marry for her country. For many traditional leaders a virgin bride would be expected. It had been written into the contract hers and Malik’s fathers had signed.
She wondered why she’d stood for that now. Why she’d calmly let them decree something like that. Something so personal and hers. Because it had seemed right then. Like she had to do the best thing for Austrich, and if that meant not ever having a real relationship of her choosing …
She had done that. Sacrificed ever pursuing a man she was interested in because of a marriage contract drawn up six years ago.
The realization was obvious, but stunning. The sudden understanding of what personal, private things in her life had been controlled by those she trusted.
No one was making her do this. She wanted this.
She deepened the kiss, parting her lips and sliding her tongue over the outline of his top lip, over the slashing scar that ran through it. He shuddered beneath the touch, every muscle in his back shivering beneath her fingertips.
He tightened his hold on her, brought her tight against his body. She could feel his erection pressing firmly against her stomach. She broke the kiss to suck in a sharp breath and he took advantage, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, the curve of her neck. Teeth nipping, his tongue soothing.
He moved his hands from her hips to her waist, his hold tight, but good. She loved the intensity of it, him clinging to her as though she was bringing him life, as though she were water in the desert.
He was to her. His touch, his mouth. It was heady, intoxicating, far beyond anything she’d ever imagined possible. It was like having a veil torn from her eyes, seeing everything clearly for the first time.
Seeing how little she’d truly felt in her life.
She turned her head and captured his mouth again on a rough moan that would have normally shocked her, embarrassed her. But it didn’t. And it wasn’t because his kiss made things fuzzy—far from it. It was all sharper, more defined. Raw and real and all the better for it.
It was all instinct and feeling, lust and need. He was devouring her and she was willing, more than.
He slid his hand down and gripped her thigh, his fingers wrapping around at the sensitive spot behind her knee. He pulled up gently, opening her to him, wrapping her leg around his hip. It brought the blunt head of his arousal against the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs that was screaming for attentions, dying for satisfaction.
She rocked against him, following her instincts for once, leaving her head out of the equation.
This was about feeling. Not logic. Not duty. Not about pursuing worth.
She gave a slight growl of protest when he abandoned her mouth, and he laughed, pressing kisses to the side of her neck, her exposed collarbone.
“Zahir … oh, Zahir,” she whispered, tightening her hold on his shoulders, her nails digging into his muscled body.
He froze, pulling his head away, the expression on his face dazed, clouded. And then clarity returned.
He pushed away from her, his chest heaving. “Enough.”
“Zahir … “
“Why are you here, Katharine?”
“I … I wanted to read so I came down after dinner and … “
“No. Why are you here? In Hajar. With me.”
“Because of Alexander. Because … because I need a husband to protect the throne of Austrich.”
“If not for that, would you have come?”
She shook her head. “No.” She spoke the word on a whisper, her entire body trembling.”
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes bottomless wells of ink. Flat and empty. Her stomach tightened in on itself, making her fight to keep upright.
He nodded curtly and turned and walked from the room, leaving her standing there, cold and more alone than she’d ever felt in her entire life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE wasn’t used to saying the wrong thing. Or maybe she wasn’t used to people showing their disapproval as openly. Unless of course it was from her father.
This, with Zahir, went way beyond disapproval, though. She’d hurt him. At least, she thought maybe she had. She wasn’t certain that Zahir felt hurt anymore. She wasn’t sure if there was anything behind that granite wall of his.
Oh, no, there’s … there’s all that passion.
Just for moment, she’d seen Zahir as he’d been. Effortlessly seductive, charming and sensual. As he had been? He still had it. He’d all but turned her to mush.
But that was just physical. A kind of physical she wasn’t used to. But she knew enough to know that men didn’t really need emotion to get into the physical. She wasn’t entirely certain she needed it, either, considering how she’d responded to him.
Not that she was entirely void of emotion where he was concerned.
She thought back to that day in the market, his eyes like a hunted, wounded animal until she’d touched him. And when they’d cleared, in that moment, something had shifted in her. And it had only kept on shifting. The oasis. The dance. The kiss.
Nothing like the few chaste kisses she’d shared with Malik. Theirs had been an attempt to find some passion between them, and she’d been certain that she could, but it hadn’t been anything like being in Zahir’s arms.
With him, she’d gone up in flames.
She still burned. She squirmed slightly in her reclining position on her plush bed, a slight sheen of sweat breaking out over her skin.
She could still feel the imprint of his hands on her, sliding over her curves, his tongue against hers. So sensual, in a way she hadn’t imagined it could be. Her body felt overheated again, just like that. Just the thought of him.
Blinking hard, she turned her attention back to her tablet computer and swiped her fingers over the screen idly, flipping through a few more wedding gown designs. She wasn’t certain it really mattered what she wore, but her usual dresser had sent her some amazing sketches, and it would be great publicity for him and the fashion designer who’d created them. So in that way, it sort of mattered.
She frowned. She was always doing that. Looking for the meaning in what she did. The weight. A way to make herself matter. She rolled over onto her stomach and pushed the tablet out of the way. She would just have Kevin pick one. Because she really didn’t care. What did it matter anyway?
Zahir would rather not be having the wedding at all, and he wouldn’t care if she walked down the aisle in clear tape and packing peanuts. So truly, the wedding gown was moot.
It didn’t represent anything. A legal union that didn’t go beyond the piece of paper they would both be signing. A different set of documents, another pair of signatures, and they’d be unmarried just as easily.
She’d leave the cake flavors and the canapés up to the wedding coordinator, too. Because it just didn’t matter.
And it would matter even less if her groom couldn’t stand there long enough for her to make it up the aisle. If a flashback hit him there and then and he was assaulted by the kind of fear she’d witnessed in his eyes before.
He’d been doing well. They hadn’t taken a drive in a couple of days. Not since the kiss. But he had been doing well on them. His tension not as evident in his posture when they moved through crowded portions of the city.
If not for that, would you have come?
No.
The words repeated in her head over and over. Growing more and more acrid with each replaying. Of course, she’d had no other reason to come, but in that moment it had felt like a rejection to him.
It had been, but it had been to protect herself. Because she could so easily get lost in the kissing. In the passion and the desire, and forget that this was a temporary marriage. And that he wasn’t able to feel emotion for her. That he would never want her in his bed night after night. That even if they gave in, the arrangement wouldn’t last.
“I wouldn’t want it to anyway,” she said into the empty room.
She was headed to the light at the end of the tunnel. Except when she closed her eyes, she didn’t really see a light anymore. She saw a man with bleak eyes and an obvious despair that seemed to reach deep into his soul.
“Katharine.”
Zahir’s deep, strong voice pulled her out of the fuzziness of her dreams and back into the stark reality of wakefulness. The afternoon sun was pouring through the window and spilling on the edge of her bed, where her hand was resting, steadily burning it to a bright pink.
She tugged it back and flexed her fingers. “Yes?” She turned to face him and her heart nearly stopped. He was just so powerful, his presence so full.
“Why is there an army of press at the door?” “I don’t … my father,” she said, moving into a sitting position and scrubbing her hand over her face. “Such a good public showing, I’m sure, is important to him. A message sent to John. Letting him know that his hopes of gaining the throne are completely over.”
She looked at Zahir, at the wild look in those dark eyes, and she felt a sharp stab of pain her stomach unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She wasn’t helping here, that was for sure. She was dragging him into hell. For the sake of her own feelings of accomplishment?
No. This had been important. Real. John couldn’t take the throne, and he couldn’t be allowed to have influence over Alexander.
But the fact that Zahir had to get pushed into this … She gritted her teeth. “We can tell them to go away.” She watched him, his shoulders straight, his eyes glittering in the light. He slowly curled his fingers in, the tendons on the backs of his hands standing out, showing the extreme pressure he was putting on them, on his body. “No,” he said, his voice hard.
“Then we can ignore them.” She could picture it. They could go out the back. Ride to the Oasis. The Oasis of Hope. It could be their refuge. It was tempting, very tempting to just ride away from everything. But in her mind, she was with Zahir, not away from him.
“No. We will go and make a statement.” He flicked a dismissive glance over her. “Make yourself up, and meet me in the front corridor in twenty minutes.”
Katharine was in the entryway two minutes early, her hair pinned up, wearing a bright yellow dress with a thick white belt that cinched the waist in. It was sunny. Chipper, even. Maybe it would make her feel a little perkier. A little less like she was leading Zahir to the executioner.
Zahir walked in, clad in white linen pants and a sand-colored tunic that molded to his well-defined chest. He didn’t go in for traditional dress, which didn’t really surprise her. He wasn’t the type to do something simply because it was what others had done before him.
His short dark hair looked like he’d simply combed it with his fingers. He hadn’t tried too hard. In short, he looked like a man who didn’t really want to be here.
But he’d come. And that was really what mattered. That was where the bravery was.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes?” she said, her voice hesitant.
“Better than that, Katharine.”
“Yes. What exactly are we saying?”
“That we are getting married.” He turned and walked back to the door, his posture straight, the injury in his leg giving his gait an uneven rhythm.
Her heart swelled in her chest, so big it was nearly painful. She felt his effort in her, felt the strength it took him to walk with his head held high.
She had never seen a bigger accomplishment than she saw in those few steps from her side to the door.
Two of his security staff pushed the doors open and flanked them on their way out into the courtyard. The press was behind the gate, their cameras aimed at Zahir. There was a rapid clicking of shutters and she saw the faintest twitch in the muscles of Zahir’s face. But it was barely traceable. His expression remained mostly passive, his body stiff and straight.
“We don’t have to do this,” she said. “We can have a representative … “
“I will not walk away. I am not a coward, Katharine, whatever else I might be.”
She nodded once and took three quick steps so that she was at his side.
“We will take three questions,” Zahir said, standing in front of the massive, wrought-iron gate, his arms folded over his chest. The questions wouldn’t matter, not to a media obsessed with seeing the Beast of Hajar, the man who had sequestered himself in the palace for so long, never having more than a blurred photograph taken of him since the attack that had shaken a nation.
“It’s true? You’re marrying Sheikh Malik’s fiancée, Princess Katharine?” One of the reporters in the back shouted the question over the roar of voices.
“No. She is not my brother’s fiancée. My brother is dead. I am marrying my fiancée.” He barked the words, and she saw a group of sweat beads forming on his brow. She stepped closer, running her fingertips down his arm, the rough hair tickling her skin.
She felt him relax slightly beneath her touch.
“When is the wedding?”
“Just over a month away. One more.”
“Princess Katharine! How is it to bed the Beast?”
His muscles locked beneath her hand. Anger burned in her stomach, threatened to boil over.
“I would not be so crass as to answer such a question,” she said. She felt a slight tremor run through the hard muscle on his forearm. “But I will say this, it is a loss to women that I expect, and will receive, fidelity from my husband. A great loss indeed.”
She felt some of the tension ease, at least she thought she did … somehow. She felt it in her, an echo of his own emotion and stress.
“That’s all,” he said, taking her hand in his and lacing his fingers through hers. She followed him back, away from the gate and back into the cool sanctuary of the palace. When the heavy doors closed behind them, Zahir lifted his hand and ran it through his hair.
His fingers shook as he did it, the one real crack in his strength she’d witnessed.
The security guards faded into the background, gracefully making their exit without ever betraying that they’d seen any weakness in their ruler.
That left Katharine and Zahir standing alone in the corridor. She searched for words. Something about the lack of class some people exhibited. Or maybe a few foul names to call the reporter who’d dared to ask that question. Or a few foul names for her father. For putting them in this position, for exposing Zahir to the scandal hungry European press.
He turned to her and her words dried on her tongue, along with all of the moisture in her throat. Dark emotion blazed in his eyes, a fire, a hunger, that made an answering, heated ache begin to burn in her stomach.
She backed up a step, and he advanced, one step, then two, and she didn’t retreat again. He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him, her breasts crushed against his hard chest.
His kiss was a shock, no preliminaries, no hesitation. He simply took. And she took back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him as he clung to her. His hands were rough on her hips, gripping her firmly, his blunt fingertips digging into her flesh.
He backed her up against the wall, pressing her flat against the surface. She released her hold on him, turned her hands and pressed her palms against the cool inlaid gold and onyx, trying to find purchase, something to keep her from sliding to the floor. He released her mouth and curved his head, pressing hot kisses to her neck, down to her collarbone.
Zahir let go of her hips and moved his hand to hers. She wove her fingers through his, his weight keeping her pinned to the wall. But she didn’t feel trapped or frightened. She was with Zahir. And she was protected.
She felt the tension ebbing from his body, flooding away as his passion mounted. But it was replaced with intensity of a different kind. An entirely new kind of need.
And she felt it, too. Her body ached for him, with need of him.
“Zahir,” she whispered.
He went stiff in her arms, his intake of breath swift and harsh. And just like last time, he jerked away, his eyes clouded with desire. His erection was obvious, thick and ready, pressing against the filmy layer of fabric that concealed his body from hers.
He stepped back from her, his chest moving up and down sharply, his expression hard. “When you say my name,” he said, his voice rough. “I come back to myself.”
She didn’t know why he said it that way, as though it pained him. She had used it in the alley, had been able to shake him from the flashback that had held him in its iron grip.
“I don’t … “
“I do not want to come back to this body,” he said, the words forced out of his throat. He turned and walked away, leaving her there, her arms still pressed against the wall as though he held her there.
Leaving her cold and hot and wanting more than she knew she would ever have.
Zahir wasn’t a religious man. He never had been. Still, the habits of his people were ingrained in him, and drinking alcohol, especially to excess, had always been frowned upon by most in his culture. He had always frowned upon it.
He was tempted now. To drink everything away until it all faded from him. To find something to numb reality, to make it less … real.
No. When reality faded, he lost time. He lost parts of himself. He saw that day. Had to watch it all play out from beginning to end.
Ebn el sharmoota.
He couldn’t start down that path.
Instead, his thoughts turned to Katharine. He had been rough with her, worthy of his name. And yet she had given it all back to him. Her body so soft against his, soft but aggressive. Kissing her was anything but one-sided.
And she had been sweet. Five years without the touch of a woman. Without anything but the cold, clinical touch of doctors. But she was hot, her touch warm and so much more. Personal. It touched him beneath his skin, deep into him.