The Desert Lord's Bride / Wed by Deception

His command/plea shattered the spell that had been keeping her eyes captive to his, and she obeyed, letting her gaze stumble all over him, absorbing everything about him with the same greed her gown had soaked up the champagne.

And he was magnificent.

But…no. He was more than that.

Long ago, when she’d believed she’d one day find love and passion with one person who’d been made for her and she for him, she’d had a vague, impossible vision of that person. This man surpassed even that spawn of an outlandish teenage imagination.

Tall, dark and handsome were givens. The devil was definitely in the details here. How tall, for instance—ten or more inches taller than her. And though his getup only hinted at his body’s power, she’d bet he’d fill out a superhero’s suit to perfection. Then came the part of just how handsome he was.

She’d never had a knack for poetry or art. She was all about numbers and spreadsheets and harsh financial facts. But she could see how a face like that deserved sonnets. And a wingful of portraits in a museum. His perfect face proved that asymmetrical, weathered faces didn’t have a monopoly on character.

But what was really unfair was that his attraction went far beyond the physical. The way his gorgeous eyes spoke, communicated, the command he had over his every move and intonation, the influence he’d displayed on others, herself foremost among them. This was a man who had mental faculties as razor-sharp as his cheekbones.

OK. Something was officially wrong with her.

Was it possible she’d absorbed the dozen glasses of champagne subdermally? She’d gotten drunk once. She’d had an unstoppable urge to blurt out the truth unprovoked then, too.

She succumbed to the urge now. “God, you’re beautiful!”

She winced, bit her lip. But it was out. All she could do now was wait for him to shake his head and turn away, to burst into belated laughter or to finally pick up the invitation he must by now believe she was blatantly issuing.

When none of her predictions came true as his scrutiny stretched, she finally snapped, “Take your cue from me, will you? Just spit out whatever you’re thinking, then be on your way.”

Shehab stared at her. This was completely unexpected.

She was…an absolute surprise. A shock.

The woman the reports and pictures had painted in such clear and cruel detail was nowhere to be found. This woman decimated their assertions and his preconceptions with every move she made, every word she uttered. Her very vibe transmitted a totally alien entity to the one he’d thought he’d have to contend with.

Or she could be the world’s best actress.

Not that it mattered what she was.

Whether she was demon or angel or anything in between, his mission remained unchanged.

But something else had changed.

Until he’d laid eyes on her, he’d been sick with projecting the various forms of revulsion he’d have to endure on this quest. He’d consoled himself that the throne of Judar was worth his very life and more, not only his freedom.

But now what he’d thought would be an abhorrent duty was looking more and more as though it was going to be a decadent indulgence. Now he couldn’t wait to give his all to her seduction.

And entrapment.

Two

She was getting away.

He’d gaped at her too long and she’d gotten fed up. Or angry. With what sounded like a curse, she reached for her shoes, gathered up her skirt and hopped on one foot to put one shoe on. The moment she had the other on, he knew she’d run away.

He moved into her path, his hands taking hers at the wrists in a clasp that was more pantomime than actual grasp.

He extracted the shoe from her unresisting fingers and her supple arm fell to her side. Then, holding her gaze, he went down in front of her, slow, measured, his hand guiding the hand bunching her skirt in the opposite direction to his descent, in a movement just as leisurely, scraping her leg with the rich layers of tulle and chiffon up to her mid-thigh.

Her knees gave a momentary buckle. With another almost-touch, he eased her back against the balustrade. Only then did he break their eye-lock, let his gaze drift down. His fingers followed, hovering an agonizingly unhurried path over the firm cream of her thigh and leg. Once he reached her bare foot, his fingers paused for a long moment. Then they closed on it.

She gasped a hot, sharp sound, jerked, her toes curling.

Someone in the background gave a lewd hoot. He barely registered it. All he could focus on was her labored breathing, his, drowning out the din drifting from the ballroom. He bit his lip to stem the rising stimulation, savoring the first real touch, marveling at the delicacy in her foot’s every line, the strength in every bone. She really was exquisite down to her toes.

He traced each one down to her neat, unpainted toenails, then gave her leg a coaxing push, bent her knee, brought her foot up until its arch rested on his shoulder. She was shaking now, each tremor flowing to his frame through the contact.

From this position, kneeling in front of her, feeling her flailing in his power, he decided it was time to answer her.

“You want to know what I was thinking?” He marveled at the ragged edge lacing his words. A convincing simulation of stirred sincerity. He wasn’t sure what it was. Excitement? Exhilaration? Arousal? Probably all three. “I was thinking it was you who the word beautiful has been coined for. I was thinking that you must be a different species, that you put me to shame.”

“I do?” she croaked. Then she jerked. “Listen, I—I said some embarrassing stuff…more so than the gems that usually dribble from my big mouth. So…sorry, OK? Just forget them and…” The rest was muffled as she tried to extract her foot from his grip.

He only slid her foot down to his heart level, pressed it there, so lightly he let her know she could escape if she wanted, let her know she couldn’t. “Don’t apologize. Never apologize. You misunderstand me. You put me to shame with your candor. And then, how could I forget what you said? When I never want to? I never met a woman, or anyone for that matter, who was anywhere near this delightfully plainspoken.”

“Delightfully? Don’t you mean painfully? At least, it’s painful for me…or more so for me, this time…”

He’d never seen emotions so visibly invading a skin so perfect before. His gaze clung to the progression of her blush, watched the stain of stimulation spreading, taking on a mystical tint in the moonlight. His own blood rushed to his head, to his loins. He raised her clammy foot, dueled with the urge to kiss it, to suckle her toes. An urge he’d never imagined before. He clamped down on it, settled for fitting her shoe back on, a tremor invading his fingers as he slipped her supple foot into the emerald satin-covered creation. It had to be the control he was exerting, so he wouldn’t obey his instincts’ insistence that he heave up and crush this exquisite female in his arms.

He settled for a whispered lip brush on the inside of her calf, then, with a pang of regret, he let her skirt fall over her creamy flesh, and placed her foot down on the ground. “Why should it pain you, my Cinderella? Doing me such a favor?”

She teetered, grasped her support harder. “Favor?”

He rose slowly, drawing out the moment, the movement, both more potent for his letting her sense his leashed desire without touching her. “A huge one. The moment I laid eyes on you, I wondered how I’d approach you without seeming predatory. Afterward, I wondered if it was wise to tell you how I welcomed the dousing and the chance it gave me to be with you. I went through a list of roundabout ways to tell you what you make me feel without offending you or scaring you off. And here you are, showing me that no maneuvers are needed. Not when what we feel is mutual.”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “It is? But—but I don’t even know how I feel.”

He touched a heavy lock of wet bronze silk, oh so close to her breast. “Why don’t you describe it to me?”

She pressed against the balustrade, to escape his influence, her desire to press into him instead. He knew it. “I—I already told you…you make me feel confused and clumsy…”

“And hot,” he finished, elation rising higher.

“Yeah, that, too…” She stopped, groaned. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this…apart from the fact that I have this mind-to-mouth incontinence disease…when it’s not business stuff…” She paused, seemed to struggle for breath, then burst out again. “This is ridiculous. This has to be the full moon…or the champagne. I’m not this socially handicapped.”

He leaned closer, pressing his advantage. “This is not social. This is you and me. The moon has nothing to do with the magic brewing between us. It’s only shedding a stronger light on it. The champagne, we only bathed in.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s champagne-fumes intoxication?”

He had to chuckle. He wanted to remain intense and focused, but everything she said stimulated his humor as much as his libido. “Intoxication is right. You’re just looking for a far-fetched reason when you’re right here, a vision from a fairy tale who keeps blurting out the most amazing things.”

“A vision? Sure. The word you’re looking for is a sight.”

And the amazing thing was, he felt she wasn’t fishing, that her comment carried conviction. And consternation.

He insisted, his voice lowering, roughening, praise coming easy, flowing true. “A vision. So much more potent for being real. And you think the same about me.”

She nodded, without hesitation. Then her eyes squeezed and she groaned again. Was it possible this persona, the one who seemed devoid of even an ounce of feminine wiles, was real?

She echoed his skepticism. “But how can any of this be real? What is this, anyway?”

“You know what this is. Something you thought you’d never experience. Something I certainly didn’t believe even existed. Instant attraction. Total and brutal.”

Her eyes filled with concession, with bewilderment, as the music built to climactic heights, as if underscoring his assertion, a manifestation of the charge building between them.

Suddenly her wavering gaze wrenched from his.

He dragged it back with a touch brooking no resistance. She wasn’t dismissing him like she had the fates of two kingdoms.

He closed the remaining inches between them until he was a breath away from imprinting himself all over her. The music rose to a crescendo, then held its breath. He pressed his point home. “Don’t try to escape the truth. Acknowledge it.”

“How can I? W-we don’t even know each other’s names.”

The music came to a dramatic end, as if punctuating her gasped protest. So…she’d introduced the subject of exchanging personal details. Good. It was time he introduced her to the alter ego he’d created in the past month for this purpose.

“That’s easily fixed.” He reached for her right hand, so soft and pliant and sweaty, took it to his lips. “My name is Shehab Aal Ajman.” He pressed a hot kiss in the middle of her palm. “Now all you have to do to meet your condition for sanctioning our attraction is to tell me yours, ya jameelati.”

Her eyes widened as she snatched her hand away, fisted it as if it itched, burned. “Is that Arabic?”

“It is…my beauty.”

“Oh—oh…oh.” Her faltering eyes widened. “You’re him? Sheikh Shehab Aal Ajman? But you can’t be!”

“I assure you, I can.” His lips spread in satisfaction. “So you know of me. How’s that for proof that this is fate at work?”

* * *

Realizations piled up in Farah’s mind. But stunned or not, his last statement incited her enough to contradict it.

“Oh, no. Fate’s got nothing to do with it. How could I not know of the venture capitalist who’s been rocking the financial world? In my line of work I know of anyone who’s making or has the potential of making waves. And you’ve been making tsunamis.” She exhaled her still-climbing incredulity. “Excuse me as I struggle with my misconceptions. I had this image in my head, and it seems hilarious now side-by-side with the truth…your truth.”

“And what was that image that my name and reputation summoned to your imagination?”

“A repulsive blob in traditional Bedouin garb, with a high nasal voice and a painful accent, reeking of musk and…”

Somebody gag and sedate her already.

God. What she’d give to rewind and replay their whole meeting. Not that it would turn out any better. Not without her borrowing someone else’s personality along with the gown.

But wonder of wonders, instead of looking affronted, Shehab—whose name now summoned only heated visions of virility and sweeping strength—seemed even more amused. “You mentioned a line of work. You actually work?”

She raised one eyebrow, hackles priming to rise. “Yeah, I work. In fact, I don’t do much besides work. And the reason behind the condescending disbelief would be?”

“Looking at you in this gown fit for the head concubine in a sultan’s harem, my Scheherazade, it’s hard to believe you’re anything but some blessed man’s pampered possession.”

Chagrin shot up inside her. Just as she was about to spit out an obliterating comeback, she realized what he was doing.

“Oh…you’re…Oh! OK…touché,” she mumbled. “I deserved that.”

His smile became all indulgence. “Yes, you did.” He wound a lock of her hair around his forefinger. “So what is this work that’s taken over such a vibrant siren’s life?”

She pretended to look around, her heart skipping. “Siren? Where? Me? Man, this gown is really projecting a false image.” She huffed in irony. “Far from being a siren as the costume suggests—and it was imposed on me, by the way—I have what has to be the world’s most un-sirenlike job. I’m head financial advisor for Bill Hanson of Global View Finance.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. Was he impressed? Not? What?

His comment didn’t even hint at his opinion. “Sounds as if you find the position…lacking. Why do it then?”

She shrugged. “I know nothing else. My father—uh, adoptive father, as I lately discovered—inhabited the world of high finance, and he raised and bred me to live there. After he died, it was even more imperative that I walk in his footsteps. But by the time I was old enough to take over his business, there was nothing left. So I’m lucky to have landed such a position. I never thought about whether it appeals to me or not. I just do the best job I possibly can.”

Something fired in his eyes. It was gone in seconds, but it made her rush to add, “Listen…about those things I said a minute ago. That was one piece of prejudiced garbage. So, I’m sorry, not only for harboring it, but for actually voicing it—”

His hand rose in a silencing gesture, before he turned it, swept the back of his fingers sensuously across her lips. “What have I told you about apologizing? Never ever, ya helweti.”

She squinted down at the hand feathering her flesh, the perfection of long, strong fingers encased in taut bronze, adorned with just the right amount and pattern of silky black hair. Her mind crowded with images of nuzzling those fingers, suckling them. And as if his touch wasn’t enough, there were the foreign words he kept scalding her with, the way the mobile sculpture of his lips embraced them, the way his awesome voice caressed them…

Her blood tumbled in a spin cycle. “Another endearment?”

Great. She sounded like a fish thrashing out of its bowl. Probably looked it, too.

He gave a nod, deceptively lazy, laden with so much heat and temptation. “My sweet. And you are, so unbelievably sweet, every word you say, everything you do. I can’t wait to find out if your sweetness runs through and through.” He suddenly stood straighter, obliterated the breath between them, let her feel him, if only in whisper touches along all of her. It felt as if his magnetic field was all that kept her upright. “But you haven’t told me your name yet. I need to know it. I need to murmur it against your lips, against every inch of you, taste it with your nectar, get high on it as I do on you. Tell me.”

She tried to find her voice, her name, but couldn’t. She was being swept away, the shores of reason receding. She saw nothing but his eyes, his lips, wanted nothing but for them to fulfill his promise, taste her, possess her, devour her.

But he was waiting, insisting on finding out her name, as per her idiotic objection, before he acted on his promises.

Just tell him. She did, gasped it, “Farah…”

His sharp intake of breath felt as if it tore into her own lungs, flooding her with his scent. “Farah. An Arabic name. This is fate. And your parents knew just what you’d be. Joy.”

She’d always smirked at the meaning of her name. Apart from the sporadic times of contentment in the company of her ultra-busy father, she’d never experienced anything approaching joy.

She gave a laugh, shaky, self-deprecating. “Not according to my mother. I certainly haven’t been her joy.”

“Of course you were. How could you not be?”

“And to answer that, I’ll have to refer you to her.”

His frown was spectacular. “She actually told you that you are not the joy of her life? What mother says that to her child?”

“A mother who turned out to have lived a much more complicated life than I dreamed possible. I guess I was the reminder of my real father. Not a source of happy thoughts.”

He cupped her cheek. Was his hand on fire? She pressed into his palm, wanting to burn. His hand pressed back before going to her nape, tilting up her head. “She had no right to taint your life, to let her emotions for you be polluted by her bitterness against your biological father.”

She pressed her head harder into his assuagement. “Oh, she never said anything like that. It’s my own conclusion. You see, she’s always been morose, withdrawn. She does everything right, but it’s all…held back, as if she’s going through a chore, finding no…joy—there’s that word again—in it. When I learned about my real father, it made sense. She loved him beyond reason it seems, and was never the same after losing him.”

A long moment passed as he stared at her, his face a blank mask. At last he exhaled. “So you don’t feel bitter toward her? Or toward your real father for scarring her, making her less than the perfectly loving mother that you deserved?”

“I don’t do bitterness. What does it serve?”

“Indeed. So, not only a siren, but a deeply sane one, too.”

She coughed a laugh. Sane? Not that she’d noticed since she’d laid eyes on him.

“Is your real father alive? Do you now know who he is?”

“Yeah, to both questions. I found out over a month ago. And let me tell you, it’s been one hell of a roller-coaster ride.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Uh…I’d appreciate it if we change the subject. It ranks right up there with tearing my skin on barbed wire.” And she wasn’t exaggerating. If anything, she was understating how discovering her real parentage had left her feeling. Her world had blown apart when her mother had dropped the bomb that Francois Beaumont wasn’t her father—that some Middle Eastern monarch was. Then her newfound father, King Atef of Zohayd, had overwhelmed her with his happiness at finding her, his eagerness to know her— his long-lost daughter. And she’d found herself responding, liking him, waiting with baited breath for his next call or message. She’d worried about her eager reaction, wondering if she was desperate for a new father figure to fill the gaping void her adoptive father’s death had left inside her. But King Atef had swept her up in his excitement, soothing her worry that she was betraying her dad’s memory by being so happy to find another father. Then he’d come to meet her and had dropped another bomb. He needed her to marry some prince from a neighboring kingdom as part of a political pact.

And she’d realized that it had been another setup. Another lie. He was just another man pretending emotions he didn’t feel, saying whatever it took to get her to go along with his self-serving plans. She’d shut him and his protestations of sincerity out, kept hoping he’d find another easy way to put his pact through so he’d stop badgering her, so he’d forget she existed….

Shehab trailed a forefinger along her forearm, jogging her out of her oppressive musings before tears of letdown and heartache and guilt spilled from her eyes again.

“It hurt that much?”

“Actually, tearing my skin didn’t hurt that much.”

His eyes flared. “How? When?”

Her bones rattled with the blast of response to his intensity. “You mean the wound? Uh, I was trying to sneak under a fence on one of my father’s ranches and got caught on the barbed wire. I was eleven.”

“Where?”

“O-on my back…” She barely held back the rest, the other wound she’d sustained on her left buttock when she’d panicked and struggled to free herself.

“Show me.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. A demand she didn’t even think of denying. She could only close her eyes, turn.

And his hands were on her. Spanning her waist, removing the cascade of her hair, exposing the dipping back of her dress.

His hands skimmed her skin as he searched for the healed evidence of her injury. She stood mute, unable to tell him he wouldn’t find it there. He didn’t need to be told. He eased her zipper down, the sound, the idea of what he was doing, what she was letting happen, almost making her keel over.

He traced warm, knowing fingers down her spine until they met the slightly raised scar above her tailbone. She keeled over then, over the balustrade, swamped in sensation. He traced its outline, and the tissue that alternated between numbness and aching fired with stimulation. Each caress sent lightning forking throughout her body, lodging in her nipples and core.

“Does it still hurt?” His fingers traveled up and down to the rhythm of his words, yanking the direction of the electric current lancing through her back and forth until she almost collapsed. She could only shake her head. Shake, period.

“Tell me you never hurt yourself again.” His palm splayed over her scar in a gesture rich with something far more disturbing than lust. Concern, protection. What she’d never felt from anyone but her father and Bill. And to feel it from him…

She shook her head again, heard a satisfied rumble deep in his chest before he ended his torture, pulled the zipper up. Then he clamped her waist again, turned her to him, bore down on her with his aura and hunger.

And she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Had to be totally still, to watch him do it, take the first taste of her.

But he didn’t do it. His lips descended only to whisper against her burning cheek, “Ya ajmal makhloogah ra’ayta’ha, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, dance with me.”

Dance? Dance? That was all he wanted?

But she wanted more. He’d been right. She’d never imagined she could feel anything like this. Hunger that rocked her, frightened her, made her crave things from him she’d never wanted from another man. Things she’d hated from other men.

But he was only drawing her into a loose embrace, leading her into the first languid steps of a waltz. Maddening her with enough contact to inflame her more, but not enough to blunt the talons of need that sank deeper into her flesh with every move.

To her surprise, she felt her feet flowing into steps learned during her days as her father’s favorite dance partner. Then the rest of her body followed, as one with the rhythm, with his every move, with him. She felt grace and power pulsing in her arms as she wound them around his steel bulk, securing him to her. She had a feeling it would all end when the dance was over. She was taking all she could…now.

At one point, Shehab groaned against her temple, “You are the meaning of your name. This would be how a hooreyah, one of the inhabitants of heaven who brings total joy, would feel in my arms…” He pressed her harder to his length. “But, no. If those creatures do exist, they’d be nothing to you. With you, it’s like dancing with bliss, with passion made human.”

Laughter flowed from her, unfettered, delirious. She didn’t believe any of those things applied to her, but it seemed he believed they did. Why not, when she believed the same about him? This had to be what he’d said it was. Magic. And she wouldn’t think how or why. She’d just wallow in it.

Somewhere in her hazy mind she realized the music had ended, another piece had started and they were no longer dancing. He was leading her down the wide marble steps to the gardens. And she was following him, still laughing, ready for anything. She felt like someone coming out of stasis and now rushing toward the first moments of life.

He took her behind obscuring trees, pressed her against a smooth trunk, then took her face in both hands. In a rogue moonbeam slashing among the foliage, his face and obsidian gaze were supernatural in beauty, in impact. She felt penetrated, the notion of spontaneous combustion no longer such an impossibility anymore.

Just as she thought she’d crumble to his feet in ashes she cried out, “Shehab…”

He swallowed his name, growled hers inside her. “Farah…”

And it was like opening a floodgate. She’d thought nothing could be better than his feel and scent. His taste was. She wanted to drown in it. She was drowning. In kisses that gave her glimpses of the ferocity she needed from him. His hands joined in her torment, gliding all over her, never pausing long enough to appease, until she writhed against him, whimpering, begging, not really knowing what she was begging for, “Shehab…please…”

His lips clamped down on hers then, moist, branding, his tongue thrusting deep, singeing her with pleasure, breaching her with need, draining her of moans and reason.

She took it all, not knowing what to do to pleasure him in turn. It was just so…so…everything. Pressure built, in her eyes, chest, loins. Her hands convulsed on his arms until he relented, lowered her zipper, pushed her gown and purse strap from her shoulders, setting her swollen breasts free.

She keened. With relief, with the spike in arousal. He had her exposed, vulnerable. Maddened. “Please…”

Her hands pressed her breasts together to mitigate their aching as everything inside her surged, gushed, needing anything…anything he would do to her. His fingers and tongue and teeth exploiting her every secret, his body all over hers, his manhood filling the void between her thighs, thrusting her to oblivion…

Oh, God. What was she thinking?

She wanted him to do all that to her? There? Then?

What was wrong with her?

Then revelation came. Nothing was wrong with her.

Something…everything…was finally right.

This was all wrong.

He was supposed to be the one performing the seduction.

He was always the one in control, easily taking what was on offer or leaving it, his libido never in the driver’s seat.

No woman had ever had him a breath away from insanity.

But as his eyes glazed over kiss-swollen lips and glistening eyes, over the perfection of full breasts pressed together in a mind-blowing offering, he couldn’t remember how this had started, or why he shouldn’t take what his body was bellowing for, come what may.

He’d been wrong about her. This unpredictable enchantress was nothing like the hardened vixen he’d expected.

And she was infinitely more dangerous for it.

And it didn’t matter to him. Nothing did. Not her crimes or that she was another man’s mistress, who, an hour after meeting him, was begging him to do anything and everything to her. It only inflamed him more, the force of her equal hunger…

No. No. He couldn’t give her what she wanted that easily.

If he did, he’d be a one-night stand to her. A steady supply of those had to be how she filled her insatiable sexual needs. Although she’d been discreet, no doubt fearing her lover’s wrath. His reports on her hadn’t included any known liaisons.

But she was pressing into him, all that glorious passion and flesh. He could smell her arousal, feel it vibrating in his loins, hear it thundering in his cells. Surely this much hunger wouldn’t be satisfied with one frenzied mating. He could take her now and it would only start her addiction, as he’d planned…

No. He couldn’t risk it. He had to stop. Even if he wasn’t sure his potency would survive the blow.

“Farah, wait.” She didn’t heed him, her lips at his pulse wringing coherence from his body. He tried again, his voice a gruff groan he didn’t recognize. “We have to stop…”

And again her reaction was nothing he could have predicted. It was as if he’d shot her. She jackknifed away, stumbling as she fumbled to pull up her gown and purse, emotions slashing across her face. Shock, frustration, embarrassment. It was the distress that disturbed him. A distress she must surely be feigning.

Before he could say anything she rasped, “You have someone in there…or somewhere, don’t you? I should have asked…” She stopped, her mortified gaze hardening into a glare. “Wait a minute. I’m less to blame here than you.” She struck his hands off. “What kind of a bastard remembers his commitment to another woman just before…What kind of promiscuous jerk starts a—a situation like this when-when…”

Kettle calling the pot black, anyone? But then, now wasn’t the time to let her know that he knew she was a two-timer herself.

He clamped her shoulders, wouldn’t let her shake him off. “You wait a minute. I have no one waiting for me in there, or anywhere.”

Her lower lip trembled. “Really?”

He barely stopped himself from catching that lip, making a feast of it. “Farah, I’m saying this once. I don’t have, and have never had, any kind of commitment to any woman.”