The Sheikh's Stolen Bride(15)

Her eyes flew to his, the understanding hammered between them.

“I’m marrying your cousin,” she said, but it was a plea.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. “I don’t want you to.”

The sob surprised them both. Ashad, because he hadn’t expected Charlotte to cry – ever – and Charlotte because she wasn’t sad. She was confused. Lost. Literally adrift at sea.

“I have to.” She blinked, and curled her hands around his neck. “I have to.”

“And yet,” he murmured, reaching his hands lower, grabbing her legs and pulling them around his waist, so that she was clamped to his body and could feel for herself the strength of his need for her. Recognition flared dangerously in her eyes; an answering desire was coating her insides. “There is this.”

She sobbed again. “Are you just trying to distract me from the fact that I’m in the ocean?” She said, in an attempt to defuse the tension.

He didn’t want the topic to shift; nor did he want to frighten her. “Why do you have to?” He asked softly, kicking them through the water with an easy, powerful stride.

She swallowed, her fingers gripping him tightly. But she didn’t ask to go back to the boat.

She was brave.

Fearless? No. She had fears, but she faced them with resolution and determination.

“You know why,” her smile was weak.

“Tell me,” he insisted, his eyes burning into hers.

She bit down on her lip. “The marriage to Syed is important to my people. The financial arrangement is one that will enable my parents to improve our infrastructure in vital ways.”

Ashad knew as much. The amount negotiated by Charlotte’s father was specific, and in addition to the financial settlement there were many agreements that would secure increased prosperity for the country of Falina.

“We have had a long period of civil war,” she said softly. “And war with Kalastan. Wars are expensive. Our people have suffered.” She shook her head slowly. “And our marriage – my marriage to Syed – will encourage a lasting sense of peace. Once we have children, they will become the first Falinese-Kalistani royalty. That matters.”

Jealousy fired inside him. “But to marry him for these reasons?”

“What do you want me to say?” She asked quietly. “What is the alternative?”

He ran his hand up and down her back, his eyes locked to hers. He wanted to ask her to marry him! The words thundered through his mind, begging to be released. But he couldn’t simply ask her! Not after Adin had been so insistent that the wedding go ahead.

The only way to free Charlotte, to free Syed, and to make it possible for her to accept his proposal, was to make it impossible for Syed and Charlotte to wed.

He stared down at her, his eyes seeing her soul and pain, her hopes and needs.

“What do you feel in here?” He brought his hand around to her chest and tapped lightly at her heart.

“Nothing.” She bit down on her lip and now there was a new air of determination on her face. “I feel nothing.” Her path was before her. She had known it for a long time. “I’d like to go back to the boat now, please.”

He shook his head. “You have choices here.”

“No, I don’t,” she whispered. “I have one choice.” She looked over her shoulder. The yacht was blocking out the sunshine and she shivered.

Ashad felt it ripple her flesh and it sent answering coldness through him.

“The thing is,” she spoke so softly he almost didn’t catch the words over the lapping of the waves. “I have disappointed my parents before. Enough times to know I don’t want to do that again.” She forced her eyes to meet his. “I am their only child. And I want them to be proud of me.”

“How can they not be?” He asked. “You are a wonderful person.”

She laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Please don’t do this. I know what’s expected of me, and yet, when I look at you…”

“Yes?” He kicked through the water, and turned around, spinning her, allowing her to feel the current and coolness.

“It’s ridiculous.” She compressed her lips. “Let’s go back.”

He nodded. “We will. But Charlotte?”

She bit down on her lip and he stared at the gesture, the soft flesh dragged between her white teeth.

“There is no escaping this. Whether you marry him or not, you will become my mistress.”





CHAPTER SEVEN





She froze, a hand midway through reaching for the rope ladder.

“You are mistaken.”

“Am I?” His handsome face darkened. She saw the intent in his eyes and lifted a hand, pushing it against his chest. But she could see that he was the Lion she’d heard of – the man who summed up his opponent’s weaknesses easily and exploited them to achieve his needs.

“I’m not going to sleep with you. I intend to marry your cousin. And I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I had done that.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to live with the wondering. The wanting. Marrying Syed will not make this go away.”

“Oh, and sleeping with you will?”

His eyes flared and he kicked them away from the boat, away from safety. Charlotte’s eyes flared and a long-ago dealt with fear swirled in her gut.

“No.” His eyes bore into hers, faintly mocking. “I think sleeping together will make us crave more and more and more.”

Charlotte clung to him as he took them into the deep waters to the side of the boat. What choice did she have? Fear of the water was stronger than a fear of what could happen if she let down her guard.

“All the more reason to avoid it. This is just curiosity now. Nothing more. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m … attracted to you. And if it weren’t for Syed, and the marriage that my parents and Kingdom is counting on, then yes, I would want to … get to know you better.”

“Get to know me better?” Such a lukewarm description for what he wanted.

He leaned closer, dropping his words close to her ear so that his breath would combine with truth and spear through her. “I am going to get to know you completely. Inside and out. And inside again.” He flicked her earlobe with his tongue and she bucked hard against him, shock at the intimate touch fanning desire.

“This is just … this is silly…”

He laughed, but it was a sound of disbelief rather than amusement. “Is it?”

“Yes. It’s just … something that will pass. I’m sure of it.”

“Charlotte?”

She blinked at him and felt like she was staring at the sun. She looked away again. He pressed his thumb beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes and she shuddered at the intensity she saw there. “I have had many lovers; beautiful women I have wanted and had.”

Charlotte opened her mouth to say something but he continued before she could formulate words.

“None has tormented me in the way you do. My dreams have become nightmares of need. My body pulses when you are nearby. I have been hard for a week.” He brought her legs around his waist so that she could feel for herself the strength of his arousal.

A noise, low in her throat, was her only response.

His fingers lifted to her lips and he traced the outline and then explored lower, teasing her shoulder before following the line of the bathers, dancing softly against the flesh of her décolletage. He lifted them higher, back to the strap of the swimming costume, and glided them beneath the flimsy, wet fabric.

“It is time to stop pretending.”

“Ashad,” she whispered urgently, but she was incapable of saying more or pushing him away.

“Come to the boat. Let me see you; touch you.”

Words died in her throat. She stared at him in anguish. Everything was wrong. She knew what was expected of her! What she had to do! She had to push him away and refuse to see him again. To ask her father’s council to finalise her betrothal arrangements and go away somewhere. Perhaps to Paris to shop for her trousseau.

But it was futile. No matter how far she went, and how long she was away, he would be with her. Inside of her head, her heart, her mind, her body. He controlled her wishes and desires.

Was it lust, a temporary insanity that she could starve of life and eventually forget? Or was it lust that needed feeding in order to burn itself out?

What if it was worse than that? What if it was something more? Something scarier?

What if the fabled love at first sight was actually true. What if it had happened to them?

“I want to see you here.” He dragged his finger lower, tracing the outline of her breast, swirling his touch over her sensitive nipple, making her gasp. “And here.” He moved to the other breast and his attention was equally arousing. She arched her back, her head falling back into the water.

She was his.

She couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t rationalise it and certainly there was no justification, but she wanted to be his in a way that would no longer be denied.

“Take me to the boat,” she murmured, but now, it wasn’t because she wanted to ignore what was happening between them. It was because she urgently, desperately, achingly wanted to acknowledge it.

There was no need for words. Ashad cut through the water, holding her close to his chest. He swam them to the ladder and as Charlotte climbed it, he was right behind her, his hands only inches from her legs, his mind blanking out the complications that would arise next.