The Desert King's Captive Bride. Annie West

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      He’d considered her a tool to be exploited and a necessary encumbrance. He hadn’t expected to desire her.

      That was one thing in her favour. She was a woman of passion, despite how she strove to hide it. And a woman of experience, that went without saying. At twenty-six, and after living abroad in the US and Sweden, she was no shrinking maiden. His belly tightened in anticipation. He didn’t particularly want to marry but since it was necessary, he’d prefer a wife who could satisfy his physical needs.

      ‘My lady is the correct form of address.’

      Huseyn stared at her chiselled features, her head held high as if wearing a crown. As if looking down on a man who’d toiled all his life in service to his Sheikh and his people. This from a woman who’d never done a day’s work in her life. Who’d never held down a job or done anything but live off the nation’s largesse.

      Deliberately Huseyn let his gaze slide down her hourglass figure, lingering on the swell of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, then the lush curve of hips and thighs. When his gaze rose her face was pink but her expression gave nothing away, except for her flattened lips.

      She didn’t like him looking at her.

      She should be grateful he only looked. The way she’d met him challenge for challenge, refusing to be bested, was an enticing invitation. So was the heavy throb of awareness clogging the air. They might be enemies but he sensed there were things they would both enjoy together.

      ‘Does the title make you feel superior to a mere soldier? Even though it was awarded because of an accident of birth?’

      Huseyn had met many who’d fancied themselves better than him. He was illegitimate and his mother had been poor and uneducated, despite the looks that had captured his father’s eye. But it had been a long time since anyone had dared look down on him. Not since he’d grown old enough to fight and prove himself as a warrior of strength and honour.

      ‘I believe in common courtesy.’ Her gaze met his unflinchingly and, to his astonishment, Huseyn felt a niggle of...could it be shame?

      ‘As you point out, my title is honorary.’ She stood straighter, lifting her fists from the table and looking down her regal nose at him in a way that, perversely, made him want to applaud. How many women in her position would stand resolute? ‘Some would say I’ve spent a lifetime living up to the title but I’m sure you—’ she sent him a smile as cool as cut glass ‘—aren’t interested in that.’ She paused for just a beat. ‘What should I call you?’

      ‘Huseyn will do.’ He was Sheikh of his province but soon he would rule the nation and Ghizlan would be his wife. Even if the marriage was for political reasons, he discovered he wanted to hear his name on her lips.

      His brain stalled on an unexpected vision of her naked beneath him, her soft body welcoming, her breathing ragged as she clutched him, crying out his name in ecstasy.

      He couldn’t remember such instantaneous, all-consuming lust. It must be the result of months too busy even to take a night off to be with a woman.

      ‘Well, Huseyn.’ Her voice crackled with ice but strangely he enjoyed even that. ‘Whatever your plans, marrying me isn’t possible.’

      ‘Why?’ He folded his arms and watched her gaze sharpen. In any other woman he’d have put that fleeting expression down to feminine interest. Yet Ghizlan could be masking fear. He needed to remember that. ‘You’re available since the Sheikh of Zahrat jilted you.’

      It had been the scandal of the decade and the sort of snub to Jeirut that Huseyn would not allow once he ruled. It was time the neighbouring nations paid Jeirut respect.

      Ghizlan mirrored him, crossing her arms, and for a second he was distracted by the rising swell of her breasts and the shadow of her cleavage.

      This woman fought with weapons more dangerous than guns or knives.

      ‘I was not jilted,’ she said coolly. ‘I met Sheikh Idris as part of my father’s push for a trade and peace deal with Zahrat. As for us marrying...’ She shook her head. ‘I was happy to attend his betrothal ceremony in London.’

      ‘But not his recent wedding.’ Huseyn surveyed her keenly, interested, despite himself, in her feelings for the man who’d dumped her when he’d discovered he had a son by an Englishwoman he hadn’t seen in years. A woman he’d since married.

      ‘It wasn’t possible. I had business commitments elsewhere.’

      It wasn’t a convincing lie but he gave her marks for trying. What had she felt for Idris? The idea of her nursing a broken heart was vaguely...unsettling.

      ‘Business?’

      ‘Strange as it may seem to you—’ her eyes flicked from him dismissively ‘—I do have some business interests.’

      That was news but Huseyn didn’t show it.

      ‘And you’re free to marry.’

      Fine eyebrows arched in a haughty show of surprise that made him long to wrap his hand around that slender neck and draw her close enough to kiss. Her touch-me-not air was a surprising turnon. He couldn’t understand it. His taste had never run to spoiled rich girls.

      ‘I have no plans to.’

      ‘No need. I’ve made the plans already.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Or did I get it wrong? Aren’t you up for sale? Willing to go to the highest bidder? Weren’t you part of the price your father planned to pay for a treaty with Zahrat?’

      Her face remained as unruffled as ever but something flashed across her eyes that made him think he’d hurt her. Yet how could that be? She’d been bred to be a dynastic bargaining chip.

      ‘Contrary to the old-fashioned customs in your province, Huseyn—’ his name on her lips was a silky taunt ‘—I’m not a chattel. Thanks to my father, women have a say in their lives here now. I have a will of my own.’

      He saw that, and despite the minor inconvenience of dealing with it, Huseyn was glad. He admired spirit. If he was to be shackled to her, at least it would be interesting, once she stopped defying him and accepted the inevitable.

      ‘You’re afraid I can’t meet your bride price?’

      ‘I’m not interested in how many camels you offer for my hand.’ As if he were a poor herder from a backward province. ‘And I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of any man.’ She drew herself even taller, betraying the anxiety she tried to conceal. Reading opponents’ body language could save your life in combat. Huseyn had learned that early.

      ‘I won’t hurt you, Ghizlan.’ He should have said it sooner, but he’d been too caught up sparring with her, enjoying the cut and thrust of parrying her objections.

      Reassuring women didn’t come naturally. He led warriors and protected his people. He knew a lot about women, in bed at least, but he wasn’t used to negotiating with them. His was a man’s world.

      She blinked and for a second he thought he glimpsed a vulnerable woman behind the calm façade. Then she was gone, replaced by an arrogant СКАЧАТЬ