The Sheikh's Prize(26)

Zahir frowned at the unspoken reminder that his father's determination   to conceal their marriage had left her virtually imprisoned within the   palace walls. 'Your eyes will be fresh then, your observations and   expectations more realistic. We have a lot to learn about what tourists   want. We don't have many marketing people here,' he confided. 'In fact   Maraban would still be floundering and trapped in past mistakes if   thousands of our former citizens hadn't responded to my appeal to come   home after my father's regime fell. Many professionals returned from   abroad to enable us to tackle the challenge of bringing our country into   the twenty-first century.'

'It's wonderful that people chose to come back and help,' Saffy   murmured, loving the gravity of his lean strong face, the warmth and   concern he could not hide when he spoke about the country of his birth.

'But not half as wonderful as having you here with me again,' Zahir   countered, dark golden eyes welded to her as he rose from his chair.   'Will you come to bed with me now, Your Majesty?'

'Call me Queenie-I'm never going to get used to the other. In answer to   your question, I don't know...' Saffy angled her head to one side,   pretending to think it over even though her heart was racing like a   marathon runner's. 'Last night you were a no-show.'

Faint colour darkened his cheekbones. 'On board our flight, I didn't think I'd be welcome.'

'Put it this way-I wouldn't have kicked you out of bed,' Saffy confided, turning pink.

With a flashing smile of satisfaction, Zahir crossed the room and   snatched her bodily up off the carpet into his arms to carry her down   the corridor, a process accompanied by much giggling from Saffy. Halfway   towards their bedroom he started kissing her and an arrow of sweet,   piercing heat slivered between her thighs, smothering her amusement and   awakening her body to desire.

'Being alone with you is all I've thought about all day,' Zahir   admitted, settling her down on the gigantic bed, which she noted was   already clear of cushions and turned down in readiness for their   occupation. Evidently the staff might be well acquainted with the habits   of newly married couples.

As he cast off his robes and she kicked off her shoes Saffy smiled at his honesty. 'One-track mind.'

'Always...with you.' Zahir nuzzled against her slender throat, kissing   and licking a sensitive spot below her ear that made her quiver and   tightened her sensitive nipples. Then he groaned. 'I need a shave-'

Saffy grabbed him before he could spring back off the bed. 'Not right now,' she told him squarely.

Zahir laughed. 'I don't want to scratch you.'

'Face facts. I won't agree to you going anywhere right at this minute,'   Saffy told him, smoothing appreciative palms up over his broad muscular   chest and then down very, very slowly and appreciatively over his   six-pack abs. 'This is my time and I'm holding on tight to you.'

In the moonlight, Zahir's lean features were taut. 'You mean that?'

Saffy's fingers trailed daringly lower and closed around his bold erection.

With a roughened groan of satisfaction, Zahir flung himself back against   the pillows. 'You're absolutely right. Nothing would move me right   now.'

Saffy leant over him, her mane of hair trailing across his abdomen. He   said something in Arabic. She pressed her lips to the tiny brown disc of   a male nipple and moved in a southerly direction, taking her time as   she kissed and stroked her way down his beautiful bronzed body.

'This is our wedding night...' Zahir muttered thickly. 'I should be doing this to you.'

'My turn later...right now, I'm in charge,' Saffy whispered just before   she found him with her mouth and his hands lodged firmly into her hair,   his hips rising to assist her, and an exclamation of intense pleasure   was wrenched from him. Proud of her own boldness, no longer ashamed of   the desire he roused in her, Saffy was thoroughly enjoying herself.

She loved having him in her power, revelled in every response he   couldn't control and experienced a deep sense of achievement when he   could no longer stand her teasing caresses and he dragged her up to him   and flipped her over to ravage her lush lips with an almost savage  kiss.                       
       
           



       

Making love to Zahir turned her on and no sooner had he registered that   fact than he rose over her, all masculine, dominant power and energy,   and thrust his engorged shaft into the silky wet tightness of her inner   channel. She cried out in delight and then he was moving and stretching   her, ramping up her level of excitement to an almost unbearable  degree.  It had never occurred to her that slow and deep could be as  thrilling as  fast and hard, but he wouldn't let her urge him on and  control the  pace.

'No, this we do my way,' Zahir growled, flexing his hips, sending a   shiver of exquisite sensitivity over her entire skin surface, her   nipp**les straining as he shifted position and angle to torture her   more.

He kept her straining on the edge of climax for a long time and the   ripples of growing excitement were engulfing her like a flood when, in   receipt of one final driving thrust, she found a wild, scorching release   that shattered her into shaking, sobbing weightlessness, utterly   drained by the joy of the experience. She lay there for a long time   afterwards, wrapped in his arms, steeped in pure pleasure, marvelling   that they were together again.

'Now perhaps you'll consider telling me what or who transformed you in   the bedroom from the terrified girl I remember into the woman you are   now,' Zahir urged in a roughened undertone that nonetheless shockwaved   through her like a sudden clap of thunder.

In receipt of that request, a little shudder of repulsion travelled   through Saffy's suddenly ferociously tense body. No, she could not do   that; no, she could not risk sharing what had happened to her lest it   destroy the new bonds they had created. She could feel him waiting for   her to speak, literally willing her to speak in that dreadful expectant   silence. As the silence continued and she failed to respond the strong,   protective arms wrapped round her tensed, loosened and then carefully   withdrew and he shifted his lean, powerful body away from hers, forging  a  separation between them that she could feel aching through every  fibre  she possessed.

Zahir wasn't giving her a choice and he wasn't about to conveniently   drop the subject for the sake of peace either, she recognised   wretchedly. He wanted to know; he was determined to know and he had a   will of iron that would chip away at her obstinacy day after day. He   wouldn't let it go and the distance that would create between them would   provide fertile ground in which suspicion might well fester. Would he   then start to doubt that he was truly her baby's father? Would he  wonder  if he had really been her only lover?

Stinging tears stung Saffy's eyes and trickled down her cheeks in the   darkness. He was always so honest; he never seemed afraid of anything,   never seemed to worry about how other people saw him. Why couldn't she   be the same? Why couldn't she just spill it all out and stop worrying   about how it might damage his view of her? But Saffy couldn't find an   answer to the never-tell-anyone barrier that existed inside her mind.   The therapist had had a lot of trouble getting her to talk and finally   she had had hypnotherapy to overcome what she was too afraid and ashamed   to remember, and only then, in possession of full knowledge, had she   found it possible to move forward...





CHAPTER TEN



BREAKFAST FOR SAFFY and Zahir the following morning was an almost silent   affair. Zahir, being Zahir of course, was scrupulously polite and yet   in every glance, every intonation Saffy imagined she heard  condemnation,  suspicion, doubt that she could be trusted as he believed  he should be  able to trust his wife. Nausea stirred in her stomach as  she  contemplated the piece of toast clasped between her fingers and  with a  stifled apology she fled for the nearest bathroom to lose what  little  she had eaten.

Afterwards, weak and with hot, perspiring skin she lay down on the bed,   relishing the restorative coolness of the air conditioning wafting over   her.

Zahir strode through the bedroom door, stunning dark golden eyes intent   on the picture she presented. 'With all the flowers surrounding you  here  you look like the Sleeping Beauty...'

Saffy parted pink lips. 'But this doesn't feel like a fairy tale,' she   whispered apologetically because if there had ever been a romantic male,   it was Zahir. And how on earth could a romantic male ever come to  terms  with something as ugly as her biggest secret?