Читать книгу Royal Weddings - Annie West - Страница 15

CHAPTER SIX

A SMILE CURVED Samira’s mouth at the way Risay’s small hand tucked confidingly into hers as they entered the stables. Shade engulfed them, with the scent of horses, hay and leather.

She paused, letting her eyes adjust, basking in the gentle pleasure of this outing with her new son.

Her son. The word shimmered like a vibration in the warm air, wrapping around her. How long before she grew accustomed to this wonderful new reality?

Her reverie was broken when Risay tugged her hand. Stiff-legged, he marched forward, gabbling in baby language to a man sitting amidst a selection of harnesses.

‘Your Highness.’ He rose and bowed, a bridle hanging from gnarled hands.

‘Please, don’t let me interrupt your work.’

With another bow he sat and picked up his polishing cloth. Light from a window caught the ornate silver decorations on the bridle. ‘The little prince admires the harness,’ he said as Risay strained forward, hand outstretched.

Samira smiled. Anything bright was sure to catch Risay’s eye. ‘We’re looking for the Sheikh. I believe he’s here somewhere.’

‘Just in the training ring.’ The stable hand gestured to the open space on the other side of the building.

The thud of hooves on dirt drew her attention and she turned to look out of the wide doors. Movement caught her eye.

‘I’ll look after the young prince if you wish to talk with His Majesty,’ the stable hand offered. ‘We’re old friends.’

Samira dragged her gaze away from the arena. Risay already half-sat on the man’s lap, obviously at home, plucking at an intricately wrought harness.

‘Thank you.’ She nodded and moved towards the open doors.

In a sunlit arena a man and horse faced each other—the horse skittish, its gait high as it pranced, eyes rolling. Her heart jumped as Tariq, unperturbed, approached it. His lips moved and the horse’s ears flicked.

Samira’s skin drew tight as she caught the delicious, low cadence of Tariq’s voice. That same voice had mesmerised her just yesterday.

Desire is a part of life.

Neither of us is in danger of falling in love.

The voice of temptation.

She’d told herself she was immune to such temptation. Yet her body betrayed her. Even here, now, when Tariq wasn’t aware of her presence.

Fire trawled her veins, stirred the feminine pulse point between her legs, scorched her breasts. She just had to look at Tariq’s powerful frame, hear his rich coffee voice, and she went weak at the knees.

Despair gripped her. Maybe her critics were right. Perhaps she was tainted for ever since she’d once given in to a man’s blandishments. Perhaps desire had become an intrinsic weakness, no matter how hard she battled for a cool head.

Her eyes ate him up. He wore a collarless shirt that stuck to broad, muscled shoulders in the heat and pale trousers tucked into boots. Tall, confident and erect as a soldier, he was magnetic. His total lack of fear as the stallion sidestepped wickedly close made her gasp.

Heart in mouth, Samira moved nearer, watching the horse try to intimidate. A rider herself, she understood the stallion’s magnificence and the danger. One strike of his powerful hoof could seriously wound.

Yet, as she watched, something changed. That sharply nodding head lowered. Wide nostrils flared as it scented the man who stood, murmuring, keeping eye contact with the big beast.

Seconds strung out to minutes and, apart from quick checks to see Risay was happy, Samira’s gaze remained glued on the figure of her husband as he, by some magic, quieted the untamed horse. He didn’t even lift his hand, just communed with it in a way she didn’t understand.

Finally the horse stepped forward, its gait almost delicate, and blew gustily on his face.

A chuckle sounded in the still air, causing a ripple of sensation deep in Samira’s belly. She pressed her hand to the spot, trying to prevent that warm, melting sensation from spreading.

Tariq lifted his hand and the stallion snuffled it. When Tariq turned and moved away, to Samira’s amazement, the horse followed like a pet. It nudged his shoulder blade and he laughed, the sound carefree rather than triumphant.

Samira couldn’t drag her eyes away. Something inside squeezed tight and hard at the power and pleasure radiating from him. It made her want to reach out and—

‘Samira.’ He’d seen her. Sensation jolted her as their eyes met.

In swift strides Tariq crossed the arena to stand before her, only a fence separating them.

Despite the breathless clutch of attraction, Samira found herself smiling. ‘You have a shadow.’

He turned his head just as the stallion lipped at his shoulder. Tariq murmured something she couldn’t hear to the big animal, then, swift as quicksilver, he was through the fence to stand before her, his eyes keen beneath lazy lids.

Samira breathed him in hungrily, clean sweat and warm spice. Moisture sheened his forehead and the burnished skin of his collarbone. Her eyelids flickered as the pulse between her legs quickened.

‘How did you do that?’ she asked, needing words to fill the expectant silence.

‘Do what?’ His eyes were on her mouth and her nipples pebbled in anticipation. She shuffled back a step.

‘That.’ She nodded to the stallion. ‘The way you break in a horse.’

‘Ah.’ He drew the sound out as he followed her a pace. Heat beaded Samira’s brow. He was too close. ‘That’s the secret.’ He bent his head and his words feathered warm breath across her face. ‘I don’t break them. I gentle them.’

His eyes caressed her and she felt it like the graze of hard fingers along her throat and over her cheek.

She blinked. ‘Gentle?’ Was he some sort of horse whisperer?

‘It’s a matter of trust,’ he murmured in that low voice with just a hint of gravel. It trawled through her insides, furrowing pleasure in its wake. ‘Once they know I’m not going to hurt them, they learn to trust.’

The liquid heat in his eyes told her he was talking about more than horses.

She stiffened. ‘You won’t hurt them while they abide by your rules, you mean. You want to be master.’ Just as he wanted to be hers. Disillusionment was still fresh in her memory. Of how he’d duped her into believing he was safe.

No man had ever looked less safe.

Or more appealing. That was the problem. Her heart hammered her ribcage as if yearning for her submission.

‘You think it’s about power?’ Slowly he shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. ‘You had the wrong teacher, Samira.’ Heat scorched her skin at his words. They both knew he was referring to her ex-lover. ‘It’s all about partnership, mutual understanding and enjoyment.’

‘Enjoyment?’ Instead of disbelief, the single word sounded...needy. She swallowed hard, unable to break away from the enchantment Tariq wove around her with his rich voice and those slumberous eyes that yet danced with anticipation.

‘Of course.’ He smiled and something hitched in her chest. ‘If we don’t both enjoy the partnership it won’t work.’

Tariq’s words hung in the air like a promise. Partnership, enjoyment...was that what he offered where she saw only capitulation and danger?

Samira looked over his shoulder to the dark, glistening eye of the big stallion. Far from being cowed, mischief glinted there. And delight.

Or perhaps her imagination ran away with her. She shook her head, stepping back abruptly to break the spell Tariq wove around her.

Long fingers closed around her hand. His grip was firm but not unbreakable, yet she found herself stilling.

‘We’re not enemies, Samira.’ His tone coaxed. ‘We want the same thing.’

She swallowed the words all but bursting on her tongue. Emotionally charged accusations that stemmed from fear, not of Tariq as much as of herself, of this weakness she couldn’t eradicate but dared not give in to again.

‘Risay is here,’ she said stiffly. ‘Unlike his brother, he refused to settle for a nap without seeing you.’

Tariq’s hand loosened around hers as she pulled away, yet even with four whole paces between them the imprint of heat still shackled her.

Then he moved past her in long, easy strides. He hunkered down to Risay’s level and weathered his son’s enthusiastic embrace with a smile that confirmed what she already knew: that his boys were the light of his life.

He didn’t look back over his shoulder at her. His whole attention was focused on his son.

To her dismay, Samira felt excluded. She wanted some of what he gave Risay: his attention, his loyalty. She wanted to bask in his smiles, share his laughter.

And more...so much more.

* * *

Laughter rang out, the sound curling around Samira’s heart, making her smile. Adil shrieked with joy as his father threw him up and deftly caught him in strong arms. Water droplets caught the dying light as Tariq shook his head. Samira made herself look away. She’d spent too long furtively ogling his powerful body.

This time at the oasis had been far more confronting than the night of their wedding, when Tariq had come to her bedroom and insisted she kiss him. A week had passed and with each day the tension in her had twisted harder.

Her husband stood thigh-deep in the shallows, his swim shorts clinging to powerfully hewn thighs. The sight of him sent Samira’s blood pressure hurtling into the danger zone.

She’d never been one to gawk at men. But she’d never spent time with a man like Tariq.

Her one and only lover had been handsome and oh-so-charming, wiry rather than muscular. He’d looked better modelling chic designer clothes than out of them. And she’d discovered that his charm was more often for the camera than for her. Yet here was Tariq, even more appealing in the role of doting father and considerate husband than he was in public.

His eye caught hers and a pulse of awareness passed between them, making her heart beat like a drum. One glance and instantly she reacted. It had been like that since the wedding, even though Tariq hadn’t pressed her for more.

Each day, each hour, she waited for him to try persuading her into intimacy, only to be disappointed when he treated her with careful courtesy! After their conversation in the stables she’d expected him to make a move on her, confident of success. Yet he’d let her be. Only the warmth in his gaze and the way his hand lingered when they touched proved it hadn’t all been a dream. She hadn’t imagined his proposition.

Samira tore her gaze away, kneeling and opening her arms to Risay as he splashed through the shallows towards her.

The sight of the brilliant smile on his dear baby face tugged at her heart strings. He and his brother had welcomed her into their world with an uncomplicated enthusiasm that reinforced all her fond hopes.

Silently she vowed she’d repay their generosity with all the love and support they deserved.

Her arms closed around Risay and she snuggled him close. He was wet and cuddly and chuckled as inevitably he reached for her hair.

Samira let him play with the knot at the back of her head. Tiny fingers snagged and pulled. She sighed, acknowledging it was easier to do it herself. With a few swift movements she released her hair. It tumbled down and Risay clapped his hands, sitting with a splash in the shallow water, threading his fingers through her long tresses.

‘What is it with you boys and my hair?’

‘It’s the novelty.’ Tariq’s voice seemed ridiculously deep after his son’s high squeal of pleasure. And it held a husky note that brushed along her nerves like rich velvet. ‘They’ve never seen anything like it.’

Samira looked up to meet his eyes. There it was again, that flash of brilliance that made her catch her breath. She was grateful her hair was loose. It hid the way her nipples swelled against her swimsuit, as if reaching out for his touch. The idea sent discomfort squirming through her.

Yet it was true. Every instinct she possessed urged her to forget her qualms and take what Tariq offered. This honeymoon with him and the twins at the ‘small’ summer palace on the edge of the desert and the mountains had worn down her doubts and her resistance.

They’d spent almost every waking hour together since he’d set aside royal responsibilities for a week and declared this family time.

It had become appallingly difficult, trying to remember exactly why intimacy with Tariq was such a bad idea when he was with her all the time.

‘Sofia, their nanny, has short hair. So do the other staff.’

As he spoke his gaze followed the fall of Samira’s hair. That took his stare down to her waist, then lower to the high-cut edge of her swimsuit and her bare thighs. Immediately fire zinged along her veins, concentrating at the sensitive spot between her legs. She shifted her weight and watched a tiny smile tug at his mouth. As if he knew exactly how she responded.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seemed to know more about her desires than she did herself.

‘Maybe I should get it cut.’ Carefully she extricated Risay’s fingers from her hair and distracted him with a brightly coloured bucket. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for ages.’

‘No!’

Her head swung up at his sharp tone. Tariq was frowning down at her, his game with Adil stopped. What was his problem?

‘People cut their hair all the time, Tariq.’ It was past time she updated her image. Jackson had suggested it more than once when they’d been together and Samira had worried that her reluctance proclaimed her old-fashioned or just plain cowardly. She’d had long hair all her life. But was that any reason to keep it?

‘Please don’t.’

Samira opened her mouth to say something offhand, until she read what was in Tariq’s eyes and her mouth snapped shut. Heat seared her from top to toe and in every crevice and pulse point in between.

It struck her that this was the first time Tariq had asked her for anything.

She was so distracted she barely noticed Sofia bustling along to gather up the boys and take them back inside for dinner. Slowly Samira stood, stretching her toes to counteract the pins and needles in her feet from kneeling so long. Finding any excuse to look away from Tariq.

But he was still there, still watching, when she straightened. Surely he stood closer?

Her breath stalled. It wasn’t just the magnificence of him. Or the fire in his eyes. This was Tariq, the man she’d known and trusted all her life. The man who’d made her dream of a family come true. The man who looked at her and made her feel utterly unlike the sensible, careful woman she’d striven to become.

‘Promise me you won’t cut it.’ Before Samira could work out if that was a request or a command, Tariq reached for her.

He threaded his fingers in her hair, combing slowly from her ear, down past her jaw and throat, hovering for long moments near her breast, then down to where her stomach muscles automatically tensed as he ran out of hair. His hand came to a stop barely grazing the red Lycra at her hip bone.

The hiss of Samira’s indrawn breath was loud in the silence. Her muscles clenched hard in response to his feather-light touch. She ordered herself to step back but her legs weren’t listening.

‘I like it the way it is.’ He lifted a fistful of hair and held it to his face, burying his mouth in the dark locks, closing his eyes as he inhaled, his mighty chest rising as if sucking in her essence.

It was the most erotic thing she’d ever experienced. Every erogenous zone in her body slammed into awareness. Samira’s mouth dried and her breasts tingled anew. Her knees wobbled alarmingly and she shot out a hand, grabbing his elbow. He felt hot and hard and flagrantly male.

Slowly he lifted his eyes and lightning jolted through her as their gazes met and held.

Could he feel how she shook? Did he hear the rasp of her uneven breathing?

She swallowed hard, telling herself she still had time to retreat. Nothing had happened.

Yet she knew that for a lie. This was... She shook her head. She had no words to describe this.

* * *

Tariq stood stock-still. Samira in a red one-piece swimsuit, her sable silk hair rippling in waves to her waist, equalled his most fervid imaginings. The perfume of her skin was in his nose and mouth, like the sweetest of all treats. His lips brushed the impossible softness of her hair and he wasn’t sure he could let go.

Yet he’d promised not to rush her. He’d given his word.

This week of holding back from her had almost killed him. His breath sawed in his throat as he struggled to breathe.

He wanted so badly to reach for her. Holding back gouged a chasm through his midriff. But, despite the longing in her eyes, he saw the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip and the tight defensiveness of her shoulders.

Tariq looked into her beautiful face and suppressed a shudder of desire. His need for her was a ravening hunger that obliterated any satisfaction that she was obviously weakening. He’d assured himself it would be easy to enjoy the physical benefits marriage brought. Yet he felt himself hover on the edge of control.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. So all-consuming.

Guilt was a sudden sharp, twist of pain driving up from his gut to his heaving chest. How could he feel this rush of powerful desire when not much over a year ago his wife—

He slammed the door on that thought, but not before shame scored him.

Jasmin had asked him to do what was best for the boys, to find a woman who’d care for them as her own. Yet he’d been in no rush to fulfil his promise, appalled at the thought of marrying again. Nothing, he’d thought, would induce him to take another wife, to step into the quicksand that was emotion.

Now, holding Samira’s soft hair in his hand, feeling her touch on his arm, he wondered what the hell he’d done. How was he supposed to control this?

What he felt was too big, too deep, too raw and unfamiliar. He resented it, despised the weakness it revealed in him. His whole upbringing had been designed to eradicate weakness. His guardian’s regimen of hard work, discipline and self-denial had honed Tariq into a man with the strength and single-mindedness to rule a nation, to lead in war if necessary, not to wallow in feelings or succumb to neediness.

Yet his fingers were stiffly reluctant as he released Samira and stepped back. Warm water eddied around his calves. He wished it was deep and icy so he could douse the heat in his blood and his phenomenal erection.

Abruptly he turned, wading out until the water reached his hips and then striking out for the other side of the oasis pool.