Sheikh's Princess of Convenience(28)

“Come,” Karim said, shaking out her robe. “I want to talk.”

She hesitated, then kicked herself into a glide toward the steps, self-conscious as she climbed them. Her body hadn’t changed. She was barely pregnant, but she didn’t know which would be worse—his avid gaze or a disinterested one.

He gave her a rapacious one. His features hardened as his attention followed the flow of water off her shoulders, between her breasts and across her quivering belly, over the triangle of green-blue bikini bottoms and down her thighs and calves.

Shaken, she couldn’t find a voice to ask what he was doing there. She turned to thread her arms into the sleeves of the robe, then caught the edges and folded them across her front. The silk clung to her wet skin, warm despite being in the shade.

He didn’t let her step away. His arms closed around her and held her before him, damp hair under his chin. He trapped her arms in a crisscross before she could get the belt tied.

“Karim—”

“Shh,” he commanded softly. “Let me feel you. I need to know that you are here.”

“You knew exactly where I was.” She didn’t know why, but her heart began to pepper even harder in her chest. Her body twitched with uncertainty. Relax? Remain on guard? “Why are you here, Karim?”

“To tell you that we don’t have to repeat history. We shouldn’t.”

“In what way? Because you’ve already made it clear you won’t allow yourself to feel anything toward me,” she said with a jagged edge on her voice. Most especially not the depth of love his father had felt for her mother.

His arms tightened and his beard brushed her wet cheek as he spoke against her skin. “I don’t know that I had a choice in how I feel about you. From the moment I saw you, I was transfixed.”

Her insides juddered in reaction while she recalled that luminescent moment of turning to see him watching her.

“So was I,” she whispered in stark honesty.

“The difference is, you were willing to accept how I made you feel. I was never going to allow myself to be this vulnerable, Galila. I knew I couldn’t afford it. I had to fight it.”

“Because you don’t trust me.” She pushed out of his arms and turned to confront him.

“Be careful,” he said through gritted teeth, glancing toward an upper balcony to indicate they could be overheard by his mother at any moment.

“I know,” she hissed. “But that secret is the reason you married me, yet you withheld it from me. Even when things changed. At least, I thought things were changing.” She touched where her heart was a cracked and brittle thing in her chest. “You made me think we were growing close, that we could trust one another, but no. You were keeping secrets, refusing to care...” Her voice trailed into a whisper. The despair that had been stalking her crept close enough to swallow her whole.

“Galila.” He tried to reach for her.

She held him off with an upraised hand, too raw to accept his touch without crying under the agony of a caress that wasn’t genuine tenderness or affection.

He flinched at her rejection.

“I trust you,” he said gravely. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have let you stay here like this. I know you’ll guard what you know as carefully as I do. I wouldn’t be having a child with you if I didn’t trust you.”

“But you don’t trust me with your heart! What do you think I’m going to do with it? Treat it as badly as you treat mine?”

He snapped his head back, breath hissing in with shock, as though she had struck far deeper than he had imagined anyone could.

There was no satisfaction in it. It made her feel small. She looked to the arid sands of the desert, a perfect reflection of their future.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she murmured. “I’m just not ready to be with you and act like I’m happy when I’m not.”

“You won’t be until you come back to me, Galila. We have to be together.”

She started to shake her head, but he spoke with more insistence.

“The denial is what does the damage. Pushing you away is killing me.” His tone was an odd mix of vehemence and tenderness.

She glanced at him, not wanting the unfurling of hope again, only to open herself for a stomping.

“You were right,” he continued. “I won’t kill myself over your absence.”

And there it was. Her heart went into free fall toward a shattering impact.

“I will come after you and fight to keep you. I am fighting for you.” His possessive words, the light of anguished need in his expression, was a hand that thrust out and caught her heart before it hit the ground, dragging it into his possession so it would be his forever. “Come home.”

Her mouth trembled. “I want to, but—”

“I love you, Galila.”

Her knees weakened.

He caught her with real hands this time, grasping her upper arms and holding her in front of him so all she saw was him. His features were hard, but cast in angles of concern and repentance. His eyes gleamed dark and solemn, but they were open windows to his soul, holding back none of the brilliant light within him. A light that shone with ardent, aching love as he scanned her features.

It was such a startling, intimate look into his own heart, hot tears of emotion brimmed in her eyes and a lump formed in her throat.

The rest of her crumbled. Not in a bad way. In the best possible way, even though she was quite sure it was her least elegant look ever. Her chin crinkled and she had to bite her lips while tears of joy and love overflowed her eyes. Her face was clean of makeup, her hair skimmed flat, her robe damp and ruffled as she hugged herself into him. Hard.

“I love you, too,” she choked. “So much.”

She lifted her mouth and he brought his head down. Their lips met in a kiss that made her cry out at the power of it. The sweet perfection. He kissed her the way he had that first night in the garden outside the palace of Khalia. Like he was released from years of restraint.

She returned his passion with her own overwhelming need for him, ignoring the aching tenderness in her breasts in favor of pressing closer and closer—

“Karim!” his mother called sharply from an upper terrace. “The servants. Take that to your room.”

He pulled away from their kiss as they both broke into laughter.





CHAPTER TEN

KARIM WOKE DISORIENTED in the darkness of a tent. He was quickly distracted by his wife’s exploring touch over his body. She was staking a claim here in the dark, taking her time, teasing him with the swish of her hair across his skin, kissing and arousing him.

His hands sought her breasts and he remembered at the last moment to be extra gentle, letting her press into his touch as much as she could bear.

“I thought you were too tired for this,” he whispered in the dark, longing to suck on her nipples, but he could only tongue them or she cried, they were so sensitive.

“I was.” She sighed. “Then I woke up and I didn’t want to sleep. I want you.”

She straddled him so he felt her nest against his shaft. It had been a long day of travel finding this particular tribe. They’d been welcomed warmly and given the royal treatment, but Galila was in a delicate condition and had turned in early.

She was proving very resilient now, though. He held himself in position as he felt her seeking to take him inside her heat.

They both sighed as she seated herself on him, her heat snug around his pulsing shaft. She began an undulation that made him bite back a groan of supreme pleasure. They didn’t have wind and the pepper of whipped sand to disguise their carnal noises this time.

Catching back her own moans of pleasure, she gave herself to him without reserve. He did the same, lifting his hips to meet the return of hers. Her fingernails dug into his chest where she braced herself and hit her peak quickly, the power of it so acute, she pulled him over with her.

He was sorry for it to be over so quickly, but they were practically in public. It was close to dawn and the arrival of other royal guests could happen any time. Today, tomorrow. It might be in a few days, they had been told, but eventually Adir would show up with his wife.

As their personal storm receded, Galila lay sleepily upon him, still joined with him. Her lips grazed his damp skin as she spoke.

“What do you think he will say?”

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. That was what he was here to find out.

* * *

Galila was watching a new mother demonstrate the proper way to swaddle an infant when excited voices drew her attention to the arriving party.

“Amira!” She leaped to her feet with excitement. Her friend was considerably further along than she was, showing well into her second trimester.

Amira hugged her warmly, but it was the beaming smile on her face that put Galila most at ease. She hadn’t seen Adir since the shocking morning of Zufar’s wedding. He still had the dangerous air about him and watched her closely as she reunited with Amira, but when he gazed on his wife, he revealed a glimpse of tenderness that warmed Galila’s heart.

That softness disappeared between one blink and the next as he flicked his gaze from her to Karim. His stance shifted imperceptibly, almost as if he felt Karim was an enemy he had to watch for sudden moves.

Karim wore the same air of armed caution, unabashed in the way he took Adir’s measure.