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‘I have no condoms here,’ Zarif groaned in frustration and he levered himself off the bed.
Ella blinked as she struggled to emerge from that frighteningly intense climax and suddenly reached out to close a hand over his before he could move out of reach. ‘I’m on the pill...it’s safe,’ she muttered, assuming it would be safe, then certain it was because she had, after all, been taking the mini pill for years to regulate her periods and surely all those years had to count for something.
For a split second, Zarif hesitated and then he came back to her with alacrity. ‘It’s a very long time since I had sex without a condom,’ he confided, pulling her close to his warm, musky male length, his erection pressing against her lower stomach. In that instant her hunger for him rose to such a height that she felt weak and dizzy with it.
‘You can be assured that I am clean and healthy,’ he murmured, studying her with scorching dark golden eyes fringed by quite ridiculously long black lashes. ‘And you?’
‘I’ve never had sex without a condom,’ Ella replied, trying not to laugh because, of course, she had never had sex at all but she was convinced he would not be able to tell the difference between her untried body and a more practised woman’s.
He captured her lips in a soul-shattering kiss and deep down inside her the tingling and the prickle of awakening heat and the awful aching emptiness began to fire her up afresh. He was so hot, she reflected helplessly, so hot that he made her crave him like a sunburn victim craved ice. She quivered below the hard, warm weight of his lean, powerful body, entranced by the intimacy but nervous of what the next step entailed, regardless of how much her body seemed to yearn for it.
He tilted her up to facilitate his entry and nudged at her entrance before pushing in, filling her completely and stilling to give her time to adjust.
‘You’re very small,’ Zarif husked, his black hair brushing her cheek. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
Ella was all bound up in the alien sensation of his intrusion in that wildly sensitive place and in the same moment he pulled back and then drove forward, thrusting into her with primal force. A strangled shriek of shocked pain escaped her and he froze over her.
‘What the hell?’ he breathed rawly, frowning down at her in consternation.
Ella gulped and regrouped. ‘It’s been a while for me,’ she told him weakly.
Ebony brows pleated, Zarif began to withdraw and her hands whipped up instinctively to close over his muscular forearms even as her hips lifted to contain him. ‘No, don’t stop,’ she protested, incredulous at the idea that he could go so far and then stop without letting her experience what she had ached to share only with him for so long.
That would be another rejection and just then she couldn’t face that prospect; no, not to be left with the suspicion that she was so much less than other women and so useless that she could not retain his interest even until the act was finished. She could not bear that her only sexual experience should end in failure and shame.
The muscles in his arms strained and Zarif groaned, fighting for control until the shift of her hips embraced him and sent him beyond the point of return. He sank deep and she was tight and hot and wet and he knew nothing else because much more basic instincts had taken over by then. His hands gripping her hips, he plunged right into the heated core of her with a shout of shuddering satisfaction. The slap of his flesh against hers joined with the sound of her sobbing breaths and helpless cries. He pushed her legs over his shoulders and drove hard into her tight sheath. She shuddered, feeling the gathering surge of excitement coalesce inside her again as he upped his tempo. It was all too much for her and as he slammed into her one last time she felt the hot blast of his release. Bucking wildly under him, her hips writhed as he thrust her into an indescribably powerful orgasm.
Afterwards the silence was so intense that the sound of her own breathing felt like a roar in her ears. Zarif settled her back down on the bed with care, resisting the urge to hold her close, and sprang off the bed at speed. He was feeling far too much all at once, too many thoughts screaming through his mind. He was shocked, appalled, drowning in guilt and regret. Snatching up his clothing, he began to get dressed.
‘So...that’s it, is it?’ Ella heard herself say limply, hurt winging through her in an enervating surge. ‘No cuddling afterwards?’
‘It would not alter what we just did,’ Zarif breathed curtly, brushing straight his robes with unsteady hands and heading for the doors that opened out onto the stairs down to the courtyard beyond, desperate for some fresh air and clarity of thought.
Ella’s body ached: she was sore. Strange how she had never suspected that the first occasion might hurt so much, she acknowledged numbly. So, of course, Zarif had guessed her deepest darkest secret. She had let the cat out of the bag herself. He was shocked. And he wasn’t pleased, of course he wasn’t. Clearly he had wanted an experienced lover to entertain him for a year, not a first-timer unfit for a repeat encounter or more carnal games.
* * *
Zarif came to an abrupt halt by the central fountain, which played its water in the shade of a clump of palm trees. A virgin. Ella had been a virgin and he had taken her with all the finesse of a rutting beast and naturally he had hurt her. He recalled how careful he had been as a newly married teenager with Azel in spite of his colossal ignorance and he recoiled in disgust at his lack of control with Ella. He had hurt her, wronged her... Was there to be no end to the mistakes he made with her?
In public life, Zarif had made very few mistakes. He was highly intelligent and naturally cautious and he had learned early how to think ahead and protect himself from missteps. A king couldn’t expect second chances, a king needed the support of his subjects and had to stay in touch with their prevailing mood to retain the right to rule. He knew for a fact in that instant that he was a better king than he was a husband.
But then, in truth, he had not been fit to touch an innocent woman in the first place and that inescapable awareness tormented him. She had stayed pure in a much more liberal culture than his own, setting a standard he had strikingly failed to follow. For so long he had blamed her for that reality because it had been her rejection that had sent him careening off the rails of restraint. Unbearable as it was to acknowledge, he had been weak where she had been strong. Shame drenched him like perspiration in the heat. He had tried to bring her down to his level by treating her like a sex object and he had failed. But why had she refused to take advantage of the escape clause he had offered her?
Ironically, he had never understood Ella and was indeed beginning to suspect that she was a complete and utter mystery to him. Yet he had often assumed that he did understand her and just as often read her entirely wrong, only to discover too late that he had made yet another miscalculation.
She seemed so deceptively open, he acknowledged broodingly. He had believed she was playing games with him three years earlier when she said no to his proposal. He had believed she wanted him to propose purely to relish the narcissistic charge of her power over him. Now he doubted that hypothesis and found it quite a challenge to fit an innocent young woman into such a scenario. Perhaps she had said no to marrying him for the very reasons she had stated...the same reasons he had arrogantly dismissed as offensive red herrings. Perhaps she had genuinely feared having to adapt to a culture and royal expectations so far removed from her own experience and he had said and done nothing to soothe her concerns.
But why was he looking back to the past when he had created so many more problems here in the present? He had essentially forced her to marry him and forced her into his bed because, loving her parents as she did, she had not had a choice. Possibly that was also why she had urged him to continue in bed, believing as she must have done that sooner or later she had to surrender her body to his to meet the terms he had demanded.
Zarif swore below his breath, recognising how complicated everything had become and knowing he had brought it down on himself with no help from anyone else. But then guilt had, for so long, been Zarif’s constant companion in life that he almost welcomed it back like an old friend. He was in the wrong. Once again he was in the wrong.
A hundred years ago, one of his ancestors would have dealt much more easily with such a situation, he reflected with sardonic humour. He would have kidnapped her, offered her family handsome compensation for the loss of her and hidden her in the harem, eventually offering her marriage as a reward for her acceptance. It would not have been considered dishonourable. That approach would have dealt practically with a man’s need for a woman he could not otherwise have. Zarif knew that his contemporary solution had crashed and burned at spectacular speed, particularly when all he could think about in spite of all that had gone wrong was climbing back into that bed with Ella again and proving that in some fields he could get it right.
* * *
Ella lowered her body into the bath of warm water and hugged her knees. Well, it was done, she had met the conditions of their agreement and he had no reasonable grounds for complaint now. Seemingly he had not enjoyed the sex as much as he had thought he would, but that was the essential flaw in male fantasy, Ella thought grimly. Fantasy wasn’t real. He’d had a fantasy about what she would be like and she had failed to live up to it, which wasn’t really surprising when one considered that she was simply an ordinary young woman and neither stunningly beautiful nor amazingly sexy.
The bedroom was filled with flowers when she finally emerged from a long soothing bath, wrapped in a towelling robe. Innumerable baskets of white roses sat on every surface and she frowned. Someone knocked on the door and she opened it. An envelope and a gift box were extended to her by a maid.
The envelope contained a plain white card. ‘Forgive me,’ it said and she compressed her lips into a rigid line. She would have been more inclined towards forgiveness had Zarif stayed around in the flesh to be forgiven. She unwrapped the jewellery box and flipped it open on a breathtaking bracelet shaped like a glittering white river of diamonds. She detached it, fastened it round her wrist and rolled her eyes at the extravagance of his apology. She was very much aware that everything Zarif and she herself did was the focus of all too many watchful eyes and wagging tongues amongst the palace staff. People would know he had given her a gift and she had to wear it.
The maid reappeared and opened the closets in the dressing room to withdraw a selection of outfits. Ella stared in surprise at the unfamiliar and obviously brand-new items sheathed in garment bags. Clearly they were for her. She pulled out her phone and called Zarif.
‘Did you buy me clothes?’ she asked bluntly.
‘Ella...how are you?’ Zarif enquired smoothly.
‘The clothes?’ she prompted impatiently.
‘Yes. I asked my mother, who is very much involved with the fashion world, to choose a new wardrobe for you.’
‘Your mother?’ Ella repeated, disconcerted, for the older woman had not even been present at their wedding the day before.
‘I assure you that she was happy to be of assistance.’
‘But I don’t need anything. I have my own clothes.’
‘I doubt very much that your present wardrobe will meet the standard of quality and formality which will now be required from you as my queen,’ Zarif informed her wryly.
Wandering round the spacious suite of rooms as she talked on the phone, Ella stiffened. ‘Is that so?’
‘I did not intend to offend you. I merely spoke the truth.’
Ella’s vexed gaze fell on a silver-framed photo sited on a corner table in the dining room where they had had breakfast at the start of the day. She stared in dismay at the photo of an attractive brunette with beautiful almond-shaped dark eyes smiling into the camera as she held her equally dark-eyed son.
‘Thank you for the flowers, the clothes and the bracelet,’ Ella said woodenly, still gaping at the photo of what could only be her predecessor.
‘I should have stayed to speak to you.’
‘No, saying it with flowers was better,’ Ella broke in. ‘We really don’t have much to say to each other.’
Not giving him the chance to respond, she tossed the phone down and lifted the photo of Azel and her infant son, Firas. Of course he kept a picture of his late wife and child in his private suite and why wouldn’t he? It was a perfectly normal thing to do. He wouldn’t want to forget them and he would want to show respect: of course, he had retained a photograph and she couldn’t begrudge him that. But she knew the image would very likely haunt her. Zarif’s first wife, and cousin, had been an undeniable beauty and the baby was downright adorable but rather too young to be showing any resemblance to his parents in his indeterminate features. Ella returned the portrait to its place, deciding there and then that she didn’t want to share living space with Zarif in what was still Azel’s place.
There was no reason why she and Zarif should share a bedroom, she reasoned feverishly. Good grief, had he taken her to the very same bed he had once shared with Azel? She swallowed hard, scanning the decoration of the rooms suspiciously and feeling very much like an intruder. Naturally she would neither ask nor expect him to put the photo away. At the same time, though it possibly wasn’t very nice or sympathetic, she worried immediately why she was so determined not to live daily with that reminder of Azel or inhabit the same rooms.
Smartly garbed in a tailored cotton dress, Ella went off to explore and soon discovered that there were so many rooms available that she could probably choose a different one for every night of the year she was to spend in Vashir. She picked a set of interconnecting rooms on the other side of the corridor and was engaged in removing her new clothes from the dressing room when Hanya joined her.
‘You are packing to go somewhere?’ the tiny brunette asked in surprise.
Ella studied Hanya for a split second, recalling the misunderstanding about how much vodka she had drunk and she still forced a smile. In the future she would watch out for Hanya but for as long as she was forced to consult the other woman as an interpreter and for advice, it would be wiser not to make an enemy of her. ‘Just across the corridor. I like my own space and Zarif likes his,’ she said lightly.
Hanya called for two maids and, without Ella having to say a word more, she and her belongings, old and new, were resettled across the corridor.
‘Queen Azel planned to turn this suite into a nursery because it had more space,’ Hanya confided. ‘So sad. I expect had my cousin survived she would have been the mother of several children by now.’
‘Yes.’ Ella refused to let the gloss be stolen from her new accommodation by the news that Azel had hoped to site a nursery there.
‘My uncle and the King were inconsolable.’ Hanya sighed. ‘I wept most for the baby. He was so little and cute.’
‘Yes,’ Ella responded a little gruffly, finding her own vocal cords tightening when she thought of that tiny face in the photo, a life taken before it even got properly going.
‘Azel was much older than I was and because of that we weren’t close,’ the other woman admitted honestly. ‘But we all knew how much she adored the King. For a long time he was lost without her.’
‘It was a huge loss,’ Ella conceded and then she quite deliberately busied herself putting away her toiletries in the cupboard in the spacious bathroom. In the same bag she came on her contraceptive pills and realised that she had missed one the day before. She took another and hoped that her having missed one would make no difference. She vaguely recalled being told something about having to try and take it at the same time every day and she shook her head ruefully. Two weddings in forty-eight hours and an apparent allergy to shellfish had destroyed her usual routine.
Around ten, Ella went to bed. She had dined with Hanya after Zarif phoned her to tell her that he wouldn’t be back until late. She wondered if newly marrieds usually went straight back to work after the wedding in Vashir. Certainly, Zarif did not seem to be acknowledging any need to change his schedule to accommodate a wife. But then why would he? she asked herself irritably. Zarif was well aware that she wasn’t a proper wife and that within a year she would be gone, so, even if it was boring and lonely for Ella, it made sense that he should see no point in altering his usual habits.
Just as Ella was contemplating reaching out to douse the bedside light her bedroom door swung open without warning. Startled, she sat up.
Zarif stood poised in the doorway, breathing heavily, his spectacular cheekbones scored with colour. ‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded.
‘Is there some reason why I shouldn’t sleep in another room?’ Ella asked shortly, colliding with the fiery golden eyes pinned to her and challenging that look.
‘You’re my wife. I want you in my bed.’
Ella was astonished by his attitude. ‘Surely you can visit me here?’
‘But I do not want to visit,’ Zarif derided with savage distaste, stalking to the bed, thrusting the sheet back with impatient hands and snatching her up off the mattress without ceremony. ‘I want you where I know I can find you twenty-four-seven.’
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