At the Sheikh's Bidding(23)

I am convinced that  her love for Kazim is genuine. Zahir recalled his   father's words, and  his eyes narrowed on Erin's tear-streaked face. She   wasn't lying. Even  he, hardened cynic that he was, could see that her   desperation to be  reunited with the little boy was not some ploy   designed to persuade him  to offer her more money. She'd said she would   give up Ingledean and her  inheritance, and he could no longer deny  that  whatever else she might be  she was a truly devoted mother. But he   could not simply drive her back  to the palace. The situation was more   complicated than she knew.


‘Take me back with you,' she whispered, her eyes shimmering with tears. ‘Please.'

‘I  can't.' Zahir jerked upright and reached down to help her to her   feet.  ‘My father is aware that you fled from the palace with Kazim,' he   said  heavily. ‘He also heard that we had been alone in my office and   that you  were later seen looking … ' He paused fractionally and even in   the dark  Erin could see the tide of colour that ran the length of his   cheekbones.  ‘Looking distressed. The King believes that I have   dishonoured you  simply by the fact that we met without the presence of a   chaperone. To  protect your honour and prevent further gossip in the   palace he has  decreed that I must make arrangements for you to return   immediately to  England. The only way you can continue to live at the   palace,' he went  on, when Erin opened her mouth to protest, ‘is if you   become my wife.'                       
       
           



       

Erin  shook her head, as if she could somehow retrieve her sanity. But   the  grim expression on Zahir's face told her she wasn't losing her   mind. He  was deadly serious. ‘I don't want to marry you,' she faltered,   wondering  if she had cracked a rib when she'd jumped from the car,   because it  suddenly hurt to breathe. ‘And I'm quite sure you don't want   to marry  me. If you explained to your father that nothing happened   between us,  and that my … ' she flushed ‘ … my honour is intact, surely he   would  relent … ?'

‘No,' Zahir snapped with a finality that made her heart  sink. ‘Besides,   I would be lying if I told the King that nothing  happened between us.   If we had not been interrupted I would have made  love to you, and we   both know it.' He shrugged his shoulders and stepped  closer, his eyes   suddenly gleaming with sexual promise.

In the  velvet-soft silence of the desert Erin was acutely aware of him;   of the  way that his breathing had quickened, and the sensual heat  that  emanated  from his lean, hard body.

‘I would also be lying if I told my father that I did not want to marry you,' he murmured.

Erin  gaped at the utter unexpectedness of his statement, and a quiver   of  longing ran through her. He couldn't possibly mean he had fallen in   love  with her, she told herself sternly. Fairytales were for   children-and  she didn't even want him to love her. Which was just as   well, she  acknowledged, as his next words swiftly put paid to her silly   dreams.

‘I  cannot risk you ever trying to take Kazim again,' he said harshly.   ‘As  my wife, I will know exactly what you are up to every hour of the   day  and night-particularly at night,' he added, his voice thickening   with a  primitive need he made no effort to disguise. ‘You cannot deny   the  attraction between us, Erin-not now, and certainly not when you are   in  my arms. When I kiss you I know you share my hunger. And a mutual   need  for sexual satisfaction is as good a reason as any to get   married,' he  stated bluntly.

‘You can't marry for … for sex,' Erin argued,  desperately trying to quell   the rush of sensual awareness that was  making her heart race. ‘What   about love?'

Bisma had said that  Zahir had been in love with the bride his father   had chosen for him. She  did not know why he had not married her, but   surely it proved that he  could fall in love with the right woman-and   he'd made it clear that that  woman was definitely not her.

Zahir's brows winged upwards in  the look of haughty arrogance she knew   so well. ‘Love is a vastly  overrated emotion, I've always thought,' he   said coolly. ‘But if you  need another reason other than the fact that   we practically combust  whenever we're within five feet of one  another,  you can console yourself  with the knowledge that we both love  Kazim and  we are both determined  to be good parents to him.'


He reached out suddenly and  caught her chin, tilting her face so that   he could stare into her eyes.  Erin immediately focused on his mouth,   and her tongue darted out in  unconscious invitation. She was facing the   most serious decision of her  life, but part of her wished he would   stop talking and just kiss her  senseless, before tugging her down onto   the sand and making her his  beneath the brilliant stars that studded   the night sky.

A slow,  satisfied smile curved Zahir's lips. ‘You can always close your   eyes and  pretend that you've sacrificed yourself for Kazim when I  make  love to  you every night,' he taunted. ‘Or you can behave like an  adult  and admit  that you want me as much as I want you-that way we'll  have a  lot more  fun as we learn to pleasure each other.'

‘Don't say things like  that.' Erin felt the blood rush to her face as   heat suffused her whole  body. She was sure he was deliberately trying   to shock her, but she  could not quell the quiver of anticipation that   his words evoked. ‘Are  you saying that if I did agree to become your   wife you would expect us  to have a proper marriage?' she queried   shakily.

‘Do you honestly  believe we could last five minutes alone with each   other without doing  this?' he countered, lowering his head before she   had time to react, and  claiming her mouth in a hot, hungry kiss that   demolished any thoughts  she might have had of resisting him.

His lips parted hers with  bold assurance, and his tongue slid firmly   between them to explore her  with an eroticism that left her trembling.   From the moment he touched  her Erin was lost to his skilled mastery.  He  believed she was  experienced, and her eager response to him must   reinforce that belief.  He did not know that for Erin every thrust of   his tongue inside her  mouth, the sharp nip of his teeth on her earlobe   and the sensuous glide  of his lips against her throat, were new and   wondrous and utterly  irresistible. She could not fight the feelings he   aroused in her that  made her breasts ache for his touch and caused   molten heat to pool  between her thighs. From the moment she'd first   seen him at Ingledean  she had fallen under his spell, and every time he   kissed her he enslaved  her more.                       
       
           



       

She could feel the hard ridge of his manhood pushing  insistently   against her pelvis, and when he slid his hand down from her  breast to   her hip and then suddenly swung her into his arms, she thought  for one   frantic moment that he intended to lay her down on the sand and  make   love to her properly. Her stomach muscles clenched with a fevered    longing she could no longer deny, but then dipped in disappointment when    he carried her over to the four-by-four and dumped her on the front    seat.

He rounded the car and jumped in beside her, then paused  with his hand   on the ignition key and stared at her, his expression  shuttered. ‘It's   your choice, Erin,' he said harshly. ‘Ahead lies Al  Razir, and from   there Ingledean, or you can agree to marry me and I'll  take you back to   the palace and Kazim.'

He sounded as if he  couldn't care less which option she chose, and his   uninterest stung  Erin's already raw emotions. ‘That isn't a choice,   it's blackmail,' she  said bitterly. She swallowed, and then said   tightly, ‘All right, I'll  marry you. But I want you to understand that   my decision is purely for  Kazim's sake.'