Desert Fantasies: Duty and the Beast / Cinderella and the Sheikh / Marrying the Scarred Sheikh. Barbara McMahon

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СКАЧАТЬ to look at him a moment longer, unable to banish the unwelcome pictures in her mind’s eye—and the unwelcome rush of heat that had accompanied them—needing air and space and everything she knew she would never find in this marriage where she was stuck with him for ever.

      A hand clamped down on her shoulder and wrenched her around. ‘What did you call me?’

      She looked purposefully down at his hand on her arm, and then up to him. ‘Only what you are. A barbarian.’

      He smiled then, if you could call it that, baring his teeth like a wild animal before it lunges for the kill, his eyes alert and anticipating her every move. Her simmering blood spun faster and more frantic in her veins.

      ‘I seem to recall you calling me a barbarian once before, Princess,’ he said, tugging her closer, sliding his free hand down her arm, and then so slowly up again. ‘Maybe you are right. Maybe I am only a barbarian—the princess’s personal barbarian. Do you like the sound of that? Would that excite you? Does it heat your blood like it did yesterday in the library?’ He looked past her shoulder to the massive, wide bed that lay so broad and inviting across the room, and when he looked back at her his eyes gleamed with purpose. ‘Is that why you stayed here in your room?’ He looked down at the simple robe she was wearing, flicking the collar under his thumb, and she could tell he was working out how easy it would be to discard. ‘Is that why you changed out of your wedding gown, so that when I came and got angry, as you knew I must, it would be no challenge to tear off your robe and gown and bare you to my gaze?’

      ‘You kid yourself,’ she whispered, her breath coming rapid and shallow. She hated what he was doing to her body, hated herself for imagining the scene he portrayed and for wondering what it would be like to be taken by one so powerful. And she felt confused and conflicted—she hated him, and he was being a monster, yet still heat mounted inside her, still the excitement of his touch and his words tugged and awoke some deeply buried carnal self.

      ‘Do I?’ He touched the pad of his thumb to her parted lips, and she trembled and saw his answering smile when she did. ‘For, given that I am a barbarian, I could take you now and save myself the trouble of carrying you all the way to my suite.’

      His predatory smile widened. He stepped in closer, let go his grip on her arm and used both his hands to scoop behind her neck and into her scalp, under the weight of her thick black hair. ‘Would you like that, Princess?’

      She swallowed, having to put up her hands against his hard chest to stop herself from falling into him. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ But she wouldn’t bet on it.

      ‘And maybe it would be better this way,’ he countered, lifting her chin, angling his head. ‘For some say familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe we should consummate this marriage now, right now, lest in time you decide you hate me.’

      His face drew closer and she remembered all the reasons why it shouldn’t, remembered how she felt, remembered the promise that she’d made to herself. ‘I already hate you.’

      His nostrils flared, his eyes flared, then immediately descended into utter blackness. She knew she was playing with fire. ‘In which case, sweet princess, what is the point of waiting? Let’s finish this now.’

      ‘No!’ She pushed against his chest with every bit of strength she could muster, twisting away from him, almost stumbling in her hurry to get away. ‘Get out! I do not want this! I do not want you!’

      ‘You are fooling yourself, Princess,’ he said, his chest heaving as his eyes burned like coals. ‘Once again your body betrays you. Why shouldn’t we finish what we started?’

      ‘I’ll tell you why,’ she said. ‘Because if you do not leave now, if you do not go, then it will be on your own head. And you need never seek my respect or love or even the tiniest shred of civility, because I will hate you as much as it is physically possible to hate anyone if you take what is not freely given!’

      There were sparks spitting fire in her eyes, there was a bright slash of colour across her cheeks, and right now he burned for her—burned for this woman who was now his wife and yet not completely. He burned bright and hot, his blood heated and heavy in his groin, and it took every bit of the restraint civilisation had wrought over the aeons upon the male mind that he did not throw her bodily to the floor and take her now.

      ‘Then I warn you, Princess. Do not take too long to decide to give what you must, because when it all comes down to it, for the sake of Al-Jirad, I will gladly risk your hatred!’

      He left her then and his blood turned to steam, his fury a living thing, tangling in his gut, fuelling his feet into long, purposeful strides. He should never have given her time to prepare. He should have accompanied her to his suite, got their necessary coupling over and done with before returning to his studies. Instead he had got lost in the endless pages and had given her too much time, it seemed. Time to think and plan and plot how she could evade her duty.

      But it would not last.

      In three days he would be crowned King of Al-Jirad, and like it or not, the princess must by then be his wife in all senses of the word. He had studied the pact in detail long enough to know that, searching for any way out, for any concessions.

      He headed back to the library, back to his endless books and study. There was no point wasting time thinking about a spoilt princess and her pathetic, ‘I will not sleep with anyone I do not know’ now.

      She would know him soon enough.

      Her resistance would not last.

      He could not afford to let it.

      He’d already churned his way through twenty laps when he noticed Bahir at the end of the pool, and he cursed his decision not to return to his studies.

      ‘You’re up early,’ his friend said, sitting himself down on the edge of the pool as Zoltan finished the lap and checked his watch. ‘Barely six a.m. Honeymoon already over?’

      Zoltan glared at him as he made a rapid change of plans. The ten extra laps could wait. He put his hands on the side of the pool and powered himself out, intending to grab his towel and just keep right on walking. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone this morning, let alone one of these clowns. They knew far too much about him as it was.

      ‘Uh oh,’ Bahir said behind him. ‘Maybe the honeymoon hasn’t even begun.’

      ‘I didn’t say anything,’ Zoltan protested as he bent down to scoop up his towel.

      ‘Brother, you didn’t need to. It’s written all over your body language. What happened? How could the princess manage to turn down the legendary Zoltan charm? Although admittedly all that brooding intensity must be tiresome to endure.’

      He glared at his so-called friend. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

      Bahir grinned. ‘So long as it’s not because she plays for the other team.’ He whistled. ‘That would be one cruel waste.’

      The urge to laugh battled with the urge to growl. He didn’t want anyone speculating about his wife’s sexuality. Besides, if Bahir only knew which team she’d openly speculated they all played for he wouldn’t think it nearly as funny himself. He sighed. Clearly Bahir would not stop until he knew. ‘She says it’s because she doesn’t know me.’

      ‘What?’

      He СКАЧАТЬ