Handcuffed to the Sheikh, Too Read online

  Too trusting? Where had that come from? But those weren't the only unspoken questions hanging in the air.

  A single word, and it meant everything.

  Love?

  ***

  Ithnan knew what Gwendolyn wanted him to say. But he could not return her feelings.

  "I care more for your well-being than anyone else in my life, even for myself." He had come to know her well over the past few days. She deserved the truth. Or perhaps he had simply been unable to lie to her anymore. So he had crafted these words to tell her what he offered.

  Now he had spoken words the words out loud, though he recognized the truth of them, they stabbed at him. He had also treated her more poorly than he had treated anyone else in his life. "You will lack for nothing and you will always be safe. You will have my loyalty, honor, and respect. I will never take another wife or mistress. All I am is yours."

  "Sounds like you practiced your speech for a while," she said.

  Harsh words, spoken out of her frustration. He could not fault her for feeling like a caged animal. In many ways, she was. "I will not lie to you, Gwendolyn."

  She blew out an aggravated sigh. "I know you wouldn't. Sorry for snapping at you. I didn't picture my life like this. And I have to be honest with you, Ithnan, I’m afraid to."

  "You may speak your mind, Gwendolyn. You have nothing to fear from me."

  She sucked in a deep breath. "I don't know if you're capable of loving anyone, not really. Your time in Hidd and the way your father treated you may have taken away any capacity you once had to love and trust people. You can't even see your own brother for what he is."

  Ithnan bristled at the mention of Walid. She was the one who did not see that his brother played some long game. What Walid had done was one move in some unknown strategy.

  "Perhaps you are right. But if anyone could inspire such things in me, you could. Let us find out, Gwendolyn."

  He wanted to reach for her, to create some more connection between them. They were married, linked, yet he felt he was on the verge of losing her, of her walking away from what would be best for both of them. Part of him wished to stop her, to force her to stay, to make her see reason. But he found he wished her to remain with him of her free will.

  "I guess," she said, sounding reluctant. "I'll stay for a while."

  He had won.

  "Don't look so smug," she told him. "I said I'd stay for while."

  "Very well." He attempted to keep his elation hidden.

  He had scaled an incredible mountain, and he now stood at the peak, looking down on an amazing feat he had accomplished. As loyal as she was to her father, if Gwendolyn said she would stay for a while, she would stay forever.

  Her statement that he was not capable of love bothered him—not from his own point of view, but from hers. He understood she wished to be loved and he could not offer her it. Yet he could make her see she had chosen the best possible life, and never give her cause to regret.

  She would never know he had been behind the kidnapping. He had accomplished his goal and all would be well.

  A lightness came over him, an unaccountable relief.

  "I am pleased," he told her, in his best exaggerated royalty impression. "We will have many fine sons, strong as eagles soaring above the desert."

  Without hesitation, she punched him in the arm.

  "I am joking, of course," he stated solemnly. "I will also permit one daughter."

  She punched him again, harder.

  "Very well. Two daughters."

  "Be serious." She paused. "Or don't. I kind of like when you're not. I get the feeling there hasn't been much to laugh about in your life."

  He reached for her and pulled her to his side. She felt right there. He couldn't help his body's response to her closeness, as he hadn't been able to control himself when they had been handcuffed to each other.

  He knew he should not push her for physical intimacy. He should wait. Give her time. Let her come to him. But the sensation of her body molding to his own was too sweet to refuse, and she did not resist him as he slipped his hand under the back of her jacket.

  Her silky skin warmed to his touch. If he proceeded, would she walk away from the bed, or would she turn to him? He would respect either, of course, but he wanted more than anything to touch her, to truly make her his.

  She twisted onto her side, turning to face him. The pupils in her lovely blue eyes dilated, reflecting the passion that no doubt showed in his own.

  Anticipation burned like a fire inside him. He had never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. His experience of the women in the Hidd royal court was they wanted to use the son of the Prince of Askar to their advantage, to find out information they could use, or to feed him false information in the endless dance of Hidd court politics. When he'd come into his kingdom, he'd had affairs based on mutual satisfaction and discreet need. But he had never allowed any person to become close to him.

  Gwendolyn was different. He wanted to sleep with her, but he also wanted her to be there when he woke in the morning, to enfold her into his life. An odd sensation, and a bit uncomfortable.

  "There are many advantages to you staying—"

  She opened her mouth, clearly to interrupt him, but he did not pause to permit her to speak.

  "—for a while." He stressed her word. "We did not have the opportunity to do this."

  As he took her mouth, he hooked his leg between her thighs, and slipped his hand beneath her bra. Nothing had ever felt as good to him as her breast, soft and pliant as he caressed. Her nipple instantly hardened under his palm.

  She tasted like mint toothpaste, and like something he couldn't identify. Like Gwendolyn. She threw herself into the kiss, all passion and desire. With every motion of her lips, she expressed what she'd told him. She loved him.

  Knowing how she felt made him even more eager to possess her.

  He rolled to his back, grasping her hips and guiding her. She gave a little cry of surprise at the sudden change, but she ended up right where he wanted her—one thigh on either side of his hips, spread wide and open to him. Her loose skirt flew wide, splaying out over the bed. She had looked so proper in her skirt and button-down jacket. Now she looked like a woman whose veneer of elegance had been stripped away.

  She was glorious, sitting above him, her auburn hair in a tousled sleepy mess framing her face.

  "You smell like citrus again," he observed.

  A smile lifted her eyes. "They moved my soap to your bathroom."

  "I will import a hundred cases from your friend so you can always smell this way."

  She leaned down to him. Their tongues met and twined. He explored the secret places of her mouth, wanting to know all of her.

  The sensation was too much for him. He had to get to her body, to touch every inch of her bare skin. He needed to make her fully his in every sense.

  There had been a time in his life when nothing belonged to him. When he'd watched as strangers had taken everything from him just to prove they could. That he was nothing.

  And now this beautiful woman lay in his bed, willing to give herself to him. All of herself. She wished to belong to him.

  She'd consented to be his wife. For now, she said. But he would turn that into permanently.

  He flicked open the buttons of her jacket and opened the garment wide. Underneath, a flesh-colored bra cupped her beautiful breasts.

  Her breasts fit in his hand like they were made for each other. Her nipple hardened against his palm, straining the lace of her bra.

  He divested himself of his shirt and reached underneath her skirt for the soft skin of her thighs. She scraped her fingernails down his abs, over his stomach. No, she was not a proper lady tonight. Not the way she tangled her fingers in the hair on his chest.

  He leaned up and found himself face to face with her delicious breasts. Through the lace of her bra, he took one of her flawless pink nipples into his mouth, kissing and flicking the tip with his tongue.

>   She whimpered with pleasure as he slipped her jacket then the rest of her clothes off.

  When he had her the way he wanted—naked, and in his bed—he flipped them over. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her soap and her skin as he removed his pants.

  He thrust his sex against her wetness. He dragged his teeth against her neck, tasting the salt on her skin. The sounds she made, little gasps of anticipation, made him even hungrier for her. She lay underneath him, open and willing. Her hands explored his back, dragging her nails against his skin to urge him closer.

  His. She was his. Many women had been in his bed, but this woman meant something different to him. His belly tightened with the visceral knowledge that Gwendolyn offered him more than just sex. She offered him herself. Fully.

  "Mister." The way she whispered into his ear and ground against him told him she was ready. "Please."

  He scrambled to roll a condom over his cock. Someday, he would not have to cover himself. Someday, they would make a child, one who would rule Zallaq and carry on his legacy. For now, she wasn't ready.

  With one smooth thrust, he entered her. Her warmth surrounded him, welcomed him. She enclosed him with her sex and wrapped her legs around him.

  On a long moan, she released her breath. Open desire filled her sea-blue eyes as she gazed up at him.

  "Gwendolyn." He said her name, stunned by the honesty of her need. His heart panged in response, sharing the passion they stoked in each other.

  "Please, Ithnan," she begged. "Please."

  He began to move inside her, plunging deep into her sweet heat. All he wanted was to drive her to the brink of pleasure and then to hear her cries as she spun out of control. She moaned, low in her throat. He could listen to that beautiful sound for the rest of his life. Her hands moved over him like she was trying to pull him in closer, trying to absorb him into herself.

  Pleasure burst through him, but the familiar sexual satisfaction mixed with something more he could not identify.

  His hips set an increasing rhythm as the two of them merged. She met every thrust with one of her own, joining with him. Their bodies moved together like familiar lovers, ones who knew each move the other would make, and yet everything seemed new to him. The sounds they each made, the fiery sensation of being inside her, their damp skin sticking to each other.

  Pressure built, a throbbing tension hardening in anticipation with each thrust. When she tightened her inner muscles against him, squeezing him as he was deep inside her, he nearly lost his control.

  "Come for me," he told her.

  She responded by going over the edge. Her sex beat and throbbed around him. Her orgasm, and knowing she had come in response to him alone, was the greatest foreplay he could imagine.

  He followed her. She still pulsed as sexual energy poured out of him in a surge of satisfaction. He roared his release and spilled inside her.

  When the wave had subsided, he looked down at her to see a lovely flush of sexual fulfillment on her face. He lowered himself beside her, his satisfaction complete. Gwendolyn would feel herself linked to him now, he had no doubt, in a way she had not before. Did he feel linked to her? She saw him more clearly than anyone else, and he had shared with her things he had never meant to tell anyone.

  Surely that meant something.

  He put his arm beneath her head so she might rest her head. She looked at him with clear admiration in her eyes.

  Ithnan ran his finger along the line of her jaw. "So, you love me," he said.

  Her smile teased him. "So you're the kind of guy who needs to be reassured after sex."

  Something tensed in his stomach at the implication she had been with other men. He wanted to have been her first and only lover. Such a thing was not possible, so he had to try to see the good in her experience.

  "I do love you," she told him. "I think you've had a hard life and no one to share it with. But I worry your past means you can't truly connect with someone."

  "I believe we have connected nicely," he pointed out.

  She kissed him. "You were amazing. And you know that's not what I mean. I want you to love me, too. Now we're back in the palace, there's nothing to force you to open yourself to me. I'm afraid you'll go back into your closed-off little bubble and never come out again."

  "You are my wife. You are different. I will tell you everything you wish to know." Everything but the truth about their kidnapping, of course.

  "Yeah, you say so now."

  "I will say so always."

  From her skeptical look, she did not believe him.

  "Anyway." She frowned. "You've managed to get everything you want out of me."

  He poured his sexual contentment into his voice. "Yes, I have."

  "What I mean is I got you your pipeline."

  The hairs on the back of his neck spiked. The pipeline. The whole point of the abduction, of the great risk he had taken, and he had forgotten it. Kidnapping Gwendolyn had never been about her, but about acquiring the pipeline.

  Now, what he desired most was in his hand. His goal had been accomplished. Gwendolyn was his bonus. Yet as she lay in his arms, the pipeline seemed distant. Not something he could touch.

  "Are you certain?" His throat seemed drier than normal. "Your father—"

  She rolled on top of him. "My father understood. Consider it his wedding gift. I mean, even if I don't stay here. Then I guess the pipeline is a gift for bringing me back to him safely."

  "You should have been safe in my country from the start." As he said the words, he realized they should have been true. Gwendolyn was precious to him, and he had put her in danger.

  He had many sins to atone for.

  ***

  For the first time in four days, Gwen felt truly free.

  When Ithnan had told her Her Royal Highness Princess Maxine al Zahar of Ramadi had asked if she was busy for the day, he hadn't expected her to jump at the chance to get out of the palace. Confusion had marred his face. All she'd wanted to do was to get outside, to interact with people. People without guns, preferably.

  Unfortunately, people with guns were required when a pair of royals went to the market to try to shop like normal folks. Their bodyguards managed to blend in at the same time they controlled the space around Maxine and her, even in the close quarters of the souk.

  Princess Maxine was a stunning brown-eyed blonde who managed to make seven and a half months of pregnancy look sexy. Her gorgeous royal husband doted on her. Before they'd left, Prince Sayd had kissed her thoroughly and whispered something private in her ear. She'd laughed and blushed.

  Despite her clear happiness, something hung in the air around Princess Maxine. As they moved through the market, Gwen waited for her companion to cut the small talk and get to the core of what bugged her.

  Nothing in the States could really compare to the souk. The market was as if a grocery store and a technology shop had lost a fight with a flea market. And a maze. The souk consisted of hundreds of micro stores butting up against each other, warring for the attention of the shoppers. In every nook, she found a surprise. She never knew if she'd traveled through time into some exotic past where the Silk Road ruled, or if she was rooted in a present dominated by knockoff iPads and international calling cards.

  Next to a stall brimming with carpets from Turkey, she'd found a store full of pirated Blu-ray disks. Hello Kitty posters sat next to pottery hand-crafted by local artisans in traditional blue and white.

  Constant noise sang. The sound of owners calling her into their shop, offering amazing deals, first in Arabic, then French, then English. People argued over prices, doing the dance of friendly haggling, telling each other that offering such a bargain took food from the mouths of their babies. In the end, the opponents settled on the price, then shared a cup of some strange kind of red tea.

  Princess Maxine stopped at a stall displaying every herb Gwen could name, and some she couldn't, in waist-high bags. The biggest bag held dried flowers the color of dark
blood.

  "This is what I’m here for," Princess Maxine declared.

  "Really?" Gwen's tone came out sharp as a blade.

  The princess turned to her, her pink lips parted as she drew a surprised breath. Gwen realized the level of sarcasm she'd put into the word. Her entire body stiffened, at sudden alert.

  Oh man, she'd screwed up. With one word, she'd leveled relations between Zallaq and Ramadi.

  She rushed to apologize. "Your Highness—"

  Before she got there, Princess Maxine waved a hand to dismiss the groveling. "Don't. You're right. A dried flower isn't the reason I dragged the queen of a foreign country out of her palace the day after being rescued when she should be spending time with her new husband. And call me Max, please."

  "Whew," Gwen said. "I thought I'd caused an international incident."

  Max grinned. "I've had more of those days than I can count."

  Gwen had been briefed on Max's background. The woman was missing two years of her life due to a kind of amnesia. She'd been taken from a hospital when she had her first child and given a memory-killing drug. She'd disappeared for weeks until her husband had found her, but he'd brought home a woman who had no recollection of him, or of the last two years of her life.

  Somehow, everything had worked out, but Gwen could imagine a woman with amnesia worrying about diplomatic situations.

  "Max, we can talk about whatever you want."

  Max gave a grateful nod, and proceeded to arrange for the store owner to deliver his entire stock of the dried red flowers to her at the palace. She bargained hard, fighting for every penny, switching between Arabic and English as needed.

  "I hate the bargaining," she admitted to Gwen later. They'd found a private café serving tea and pastries. The security force had insisted on clearing the place of other customers before they entered, making Gwen feel awkward. But Max had agreed, so Gwen followed her cues. "I live in a freaking palace. I don't have to argue over a few bucks. I'd rather pay whatever price the shopkeeper wants. But if you do, people think you're an easy mark. Can't have anyone thinking I'm stupid. Looks bad on Ramadi."