Duty and the Beast(23)

Yet something about that rigid column pressing against her belly,  something wild and wanton that was written on the pulsing insistence of  her own body, made her yearn to try.

'Please,' she cried between frantic breaths, not knowing let alone  understanding what she was asking for as he dipped his head to her  breast and suckled her nipple in his hot, hot mouth, sending spears of  sensation shooting down to where her blood pulsed loud and urgent  between her thighs.

'Aisha,' he said, his breathing as wild as hers as he reclaimed her  mouth, her lips already tender from the rub of his whiskered cheeks. She  wondered why she was hesitating and not already in his bed.

It wasn't as if she had a choice. She was already married to this man.  She was expected to bear his children and provide the country with  heirs, and the officials would already be counting the days.

Why should she wait when the night was so perfect and her own need so insistent?

Why wait, when she already hungered to discover more?

His mouth wove magic on her throat, his hands turned her flesh molten  and made her shudder with delight, and through it all she sensed the  greater pleasures that were yet to be discovered, yet to come.

And still a crack opened in the midst of her longing, a flaw in the  building intensity of feeling, a space in which to give rein to her  doubts and fears.

For this was not how she had planned her first time to be.

Even though her breasts were heavy with want, and her body pressed  itself closer to this man of its own wicked accord, this was not how she  had imagined giving away her most private, guarded possession.

She had wanted to give it up with love, not merely in the heated flames of lust.

She had wanted to give it to a man she loved because she wanted to. Because she had made that choice.

And through that widening crack came the mantra, the words she'd  rehearsed and practised and that had seemed so important to cling to.

'I won't sleep with you,' she breathed. Yet she faltered over the words  even as she spoke them out loud, struggling to comprehend what they  meant and why they had suddenly seemed so very necessary to say, why  they now seemed so strangely hollow.

'But that is good news,' he said, his mouth at her throat, his hands  scooping down the curve of her back to press her even closer to him,  'because I don't want you asleep. When I make love to you, I want you  very much awake. I want to see the lights in your eyes spark and shatter  when you come.'

She gasped, her heart thudding like a drum in her chest at the pictures  so vividly thrown up into her mind's eye. And once again she felt  herself drowning under the waves of desire, lust and all things sensual.  Unable to breathe or think or make sense of where she was.

Able only to feel.

And the fear welled up inside that soon she would have no choice; that maybe it was already too late.

'I'm afraid,' she admitted. 'It's too soon.'

'You want me,' he said, his mouth once again on hers, coaxing her into  complicity, convincing her that this was the best way. The only way.  'It's not too soon to know that.'                       
       
           



       

He might be right, but still she wavered, because she had seen her  sister give in to passion and take what she wanted of a man, had seen  her left with his child and nothing else.

She did not want that for herself. She did not want a fleeting affair  that might rapidly turn from lust to resentment or worse. She did not  want a marriage that could turn so quickly empty, and from where she  could not simply walk away.

She wanted the real deal. She didn't know how that was possible now, but  that didn't stop her from wanting it. She had held on to that dream for  too long to give up on it completely.

'It's not that easy,' she whispered against his stubbled jaw. 'I can't just-'

'Of course you can,' he soothed, his hot mouth stealing her words and  making magic to convince her it would be the easiest thing in the world.  'I am a man, you are a woman and we want each other. What else  matters?'

His hand scooped down her back, squeezing her behind, his fingers so  perilously close to her heated core. She knew she must tell him or she  would be on her back before he found out. She did not want him to find  out that way. She could not bear it.

'Then maybe there is one more thing you should know,' she said, looking  uncertainly up at him, feeling herself colour even as she spoke the  words, 'because I have never done this before.'

The side of his mouth turned up, and the eyes that had so recently been  molten with heat turned flat and hard. 'If you're still trying to get  out of this, Princess, you should know I am not as gullible as my  half-brother.'





CHAPTER TEN



HE SAW her flinch and caught the hurt in her eyes before she shoved  herself away from him. He let her go, watched her putting distance  between them as disbelief bloomed and grew large in his gut. A virgin?  There was no way it could be true. 'You can't be serious. You're how  old? And your sister  … '

She spun around. 'Oh, of course! Because I'm twenty-four, and because my  sister has two illegitimate children, then I must have slept with any  number of men and somehow got lucky and escaped the same fate? How many  men did you think, Zoltan? A dozen? One hundred? How many men did you  think had broken down the gates and paved the way for your irresistible  advances?'

'Princess,' he said. 'Aisha, I never thought-'

'Of course you did. You didn't believe me before when I told you why  Mustafa had not touched me. You thought it was some kind of joke. Well,  the joke's well and truly on you. And if I had my way, even though we  are married already, the gods would surely curse you as I now do.' Then  she turned and strode away down the beach.

He watched her go, adding his own curses and feeling the effect of hers  already. What a fool! He'd had her in the palm of his hand, supple and  willing, so close to exploding she was like unstable dynamite. If only  he'd reacted to her confession by telling her he'd be gentle with her,  or that he thought her all the more precious for it-as he would have, if  he'd thought for a moment she was speaking the truth-then she would  have been his.

And that should have been his reaction, given what she had told him  earlier. But back then he'd heard her story and had seen in it only the  chance to laugh at Mustafa's stupidity. Because that was what he'd  wanted to see.

He hadn't considered her in any part of it.

But then, he had never considered her.

He'd only seen what he had to do to satisfy the terms of an arrangement  he'd had no part in making. He'd only wanted to grind his half-brother  down to the nothing that he was in the process.

He was a fool, on so many counts. He'd been the stupid one.

As for Aisha? She was indeed a goddess.

A virgin goddess.

He watched her walk towards the camp as long as he could along the dark  stretch of beach, watched until her flapping abaya was swallowed up by  the night. Only then did he look up at the silvery moon and stars and  feel the weight of his obligations sit heavily on his shoulders, feel  the watchful eyes of the gods looking down on him, no doubt laughing at  this sad and pitiful mortal who threw away destiny when it was handed to  him on a platter.

And what to do? For she must be his wife in all senses of the word in  time for the coronation if he was to become king, and there was one more  night for that to happen.

That should be his most pressing imperative. But right now he wondered,  for right now he was faced with choices he'd never seen coming.

He could have the kingdom and a wife he lusted after but who might hate  him for ever if he took her before she was ready. Or he could have a  wife who wanted him but who might take her own sweet time falling into  his bed, in which case the kingdom might well in the meantime fall into  the hands of a man he hated more than anyone.                       
       
           



       

And, when his duty to his country had been his prime motivating force until now, why was that suddenly such a difficult choice?

He slept badly that night. But how could he not when he'd lain awake not  ten feet away from her all night? He'd heard her toss and turn through  the night, he'd heard her muffled, despairing sighs and pillow punches  when it was clear sleep was evading her too despite the gentling sounds  of the sea on the shore. He'd registered the exact moment her breath had  steadied and calmed and then he'd listened to the sounds of her  sleeping. And all the time he thought about the waste of night hours and  what they could have been doing if only he hadn't been such a damned  fool.

When he rose early, he tried not to dwell too much on how good she  looked asleep with her hair rippling over the pillow, or how easy it  would be to climb into bed with her and finish this thing now. Except  that she would truly hate him then, and somehow he didn't want her to  hate him any more. If she could like him, even just a little, it would  make this whole thing so much easier.