The Sheikh's Stolen Bride(3)
Ash dipped his head forward to hide the smile that was spreading over his face. “It’s a traditional requirement.”
“Some traditions need to shift with the times,” she pointed out angrily.
“Is that your way of saying you’ve taken men to your bed before?”
“Taken men to my bed?” She expelled a sigh to cover a shiver. The truth of her situation was a secret she kept out of habit. “That’s not what I was saying at all,” she contradicted carefully. “I’m saying that the traditional expectation that royal brides be ‘untouched’ is ludicrous if the same isn’t expected of the groom.”
“Ah,” he said with a mock-serious nod. “But royal grooms spend years honing their skills so that they can please their brides in the bedroom.” It had been intended as a joke, but the image of pleasing Charlotte filled Ashad’s mind and he sobered immediately. How he’d like to do that – to move inside of her, watching her beautiful face scrunch as pleasure after pleasure waved across her body. He wanted to give her a tsunami of euphoria, to make her scream his name across the ocean so that it could be heard in the old city of Kalastan. He wanted to mark her as his.
Never in his life had he felt such a primal need to possess a woman. Never before had he met a woman he was less able to seduce.
“So he’s allowed to sow his royal oats, so to speak, while I’m expected to get about in some kind of virtual chastity belt?”
Hell. Ashad was finding the conversation less and less bearable. A chastity belt? He thought of the jewelled version he’d seen at a Victoria’s Secret show a few years ago – more jewellery than belt, it had strapped around the model’s waist, joining in a diamond clip at the front.
He was sliding onto very dangerous ground.
“Perhaps we should come back to this matter another time,” he said with a tight smile.
“It’s not going to be any more palatable to me then. This is the twenty first century. I’m not some fifteen-year-old handmaiden being traded to a foreign ruler. This isn’t some Bedouin arrangement that our forefathers would have approved of. I’m not going to be that kind of wife.”
“And what kind of wife will you be?” He asked, barely drawing breath.
She furrowed her brow but spoke as though the words had been rolling through her mind, desperately seeking release. They practically tumbled off her tongue. “I want to be a role model. Not just to girls and women but to men, as well. I want my husband to treat me with respect. To value my opinion. I want to work, too.”
“Doing what?”
“I know I can’t have a ‘normal’ job but my mother has always been involved in charities. I currently serve on the fundraising committees of several hospitals and consult with our school board. I intend to continue doing so.”
His gut rolled. “I see.”
“And you don’t like it?”
He laughed, a gravelly sound. “Are you a mind-reader now?”
“You’re not great at hiding what you’re thinking,” she said with an arched brow.
He hoped that wasn’t the case because if she could read the distinctly adults-only direction of his thoughts, they’d both be in hot water. “I think you are reading me wrong,” he said. “I admire the type of wife you aspire to be.”
“Oh, yes?” She reached for a cherry and twirled it by the stem. “So much so that you’d marry a woman like me?”
His breath caught in his throat. Perhaps she was a mind-reader after all. “Are we talking about my marriage now?” His question was banal, calm, as though he were unaffected by her completely.
“Why not?” She asked with an attempt at insolence that he somehow just knew didn’t come naturally to her. “You see fit to sit opposite me and discuss my marriage.”
“Hang on a second,” he said with a husky laugh. “You chose to come and see me. You could have stayed out of this.”
Her eyes flared and so too did her temper. “Out of my marriage negotiations? No, thank you.”
Understanding crystallised. “You don’t like this. You don’t want to do it.”
“I didn’t say that,” she muttered. “But I have no intention of letting a room of men decide my future.” She stood now and she was magnificent, her slim frame moving like a kernel of flame as she paced the empty floor behind her seat. “I understand the reasons for marrying Syed. I agree that it makes sense.” She stopped pacing and arrested him with a sudden stare. “You are avoiding my question.”
“Am I?” He leaned back in his chair, and admitted to himself for the first time that he was in serious trouble. For Ashad Al’Eba was a man who got what he wanted. Every time, without fail. It was a personality trait inherent to the core of his being.
And he wanted Charlotte.
CHAPTER TWO
Charlotte nodded but her brain was sluggish.
Was he what? Oh! Avoiding the question. Absolutely he was. He was a skilled conversationalist and she could see why he’d earned the nickname Adin’s Lion. This man would make mincemeat of anyone – not just because he was six and a half feet of muscle and sinew, but because he was smart. His conversation was nimble, shifting effortlessly from one statement to the next, seeing what she’d meant even when she’d been careful to say the exact opposite.
Suddenly her spur-of-the-moment, motivated-by-pride decision to come down and meet Ashad Al’Eba face to face seemed unbelievably foolish. Perhaps the stupidest thing Charlotte had ever done, which was saying something.
“Yes. You’re not willing to discuss your marriage and yet I know you must have one lined up. Isn’t that the way things are done in your family?”
Ash smiled. It was a beautiful smile. His face was all harsh lines and angles, from the cheekbones that looked like they’d been carved by a renaissance master to the cleft in his square chin, the jaw the was covered in stubble and the eyes that shone with the light of all the stars in the universe. And when he smiled, it was as though he was touching her. A shiver danced down her spine.
“And in yours,” he pointed out with infuriating logic.
She nodded. “So? Who is she?”
Ash leaned forward, his eyes scanning her face. “Why are you so interested?”
She turned away from him, studying the view beyond the window. “I don’t know,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “I suppose I’m just making conversation.”
Ash was quiet. “Does it bother you that Syed has had many partners before you?”
She shook her head and then turned around to face him. She regretted it almost instantly. The powerful desire that was fanning through her made logical thought impossible. This man was her husband-to-be’s cousin! And he was acting in a professional capacity. She had no reason to think the same inconvenient thud of awareness was paralysing him.
“Would it bother him if I had?”
Ashad’s eyes seemed to be boring into her soul. She wanted to look away from him but knew it would give away how easily he could disturb her.
“I can’t say,” he said finally. He leaned back in the chair and the room was quiet, save for the pounding of Charlotte’s heart.
“Would it bother you?” It was a dangerous question. She reprimanded herself mentally, yet she was incapable of stepping away from the ledge. Who was this man? She had expected him to be strong and fearsome, but not sexy as hell. She hadn’t expected a single look to set her pulse pounding, to make her core clench with needs she hadn’t known she possessed. Would she feel the same for Syed; her intended groom?
“No,” he said, his eyes clashing with hers. “And yes.”
“Which is it?” She asked, when her mind was screaming at her to change the subject.
“Like you, I realise that we are in the twenty first century. I don’t think a woman’s virginity is a prize she should feel it necessary to save for her wedding night.”
This was a very dangerous subject. Charlotte’s temperature was spiking. They were discussing sex and innocence as though it were no less incendiary or personal than the weather.
“But you?” He didn’t move. She almost leaned forward, so eager was she to hear the rest of his statement. “You I do not like to think of being cavalier with your body.”
She drew in a gasp. If only he knew how offensive and wrong that observation was. She was careful not to show her grief and sensitivity. “Why not?”
His smile was mysterious. “You are beautiful. No, beyond that, you are a person of the rarest kind of beauty. Only great love should have tempted you to give up your innocence.”
Warning lights were flashing in her mind. She dug her fingers into her hips in an effort to distract from the pain of her heart. She covered the hurt with a sassy retort. “So only ugly women are allowed to be promiscuous?”
He burst out laughing. The sound was melted butter on her flesh. She could have groaned. “Are you always so quick to see the worst in people?”
“Only those that arrive to negotiate the terms of my marriage and ask about my virginity as though they have every damned right.”
Heat stole into her cheeks. She felt the blush spread across her face at the outburst she hadn’t been prepared for.