Читать книгу One Night Of Consequences Collection - Ким Лоренс, Annie West - Страница 53
ОглавлениеNADIR WAITED FOR Imogen to return from the restaurant bathroom and thought that if one more person stopped at their table to suck up to him he’d have them locked up for making a nuisance of themselves.
Of course it wasn’t just him they were interested in. With her blonde hair and natural grace, Imogen would no doubt become the Jackie Kennedy of Bakaan if he were to become King. Something everyone assumed was already the case.
He sighed and was thankfully distracted from heading down that line of thought as Imogen wove her way through the crowd, Bjorn keeping a discreet but alert distance. She’d chosen to wear a traditional abaya for their night out and the thoughtfulness of the gesture wasn’t lost on him. She could just as easily have worn something shockingly skimpy to embarrass him but it wasn’t in her nature. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen from the start that she wasn’t manipulative or two-faced, as many of the other women he had dated in the past had turned out to be. Women who would simper and preen and bend any which way he asked them to. He smiled as his memories of the other night came back on a rush. He was already looking forward to the end of this evening and bending Imogen to his will again.
‘Wow—this looks delicious.’
Nadir followed her gaze to the table. He’d forgotten all about the food.
‘I hope you didn’t wait for me to start.’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ She leant forward and sniffed appreciatively. Her eyes closed and a look of total bliss swept across her face and he very nearly called for his car.
‘Is that cardamom and cinnamon I can smell?’
‘And vanilla and honey,’ he said roughly. Like her skin.
‘What’s this dish?’
Shelving his sexual appetites for now, Nadir turned his attention to the food. For the next hour they ate and talked and when it was time for the music to start the tables were cleared to make room for the dancers to take the floor. Of course he and Imogen were given a central position and moments later a lute started playing. Then a flute joined in along with a riqq. Imogen started swaying in time with the music.
She leant closer to him so that she could be heard above the music and revelry of the excited audience, her lips so close to his ear he could feel her warm breath. ‘What’s that instrument?’
Nadir turned his head, his gaze snagging with hers, their mouths inches apart. He thought about kissing her but knew he couldn’t. Public displays of affection were currently considered a crime in Bakaan. Instead he inhaled her fragrance and reminded himself that he was a man reputed to have wonderful self-control. ‘Which one?’
She swivelled her head and pointed towards a group of musicians and he breathed in her tantalising scent.
‘The one across that man’s lap that looks like a harp.’
‘A qanun.’
She smiled up at him. ‘It’s beautiful.’
No, she was beautiful and he wondered how it was possible for his heart to feel so light when Zach’s continued lack of contact was starting to worry him and insurgents were right now threatening to disrupt industry in the north.
She tapped her feet in time with the music and the lead dancer noticed. With a smile on her face she headed their way and Nadir knew what was coming.
‘Would the new Sheikha like to join in the line-up?’
Imogen’s face lit up and she said, ‘Shukran,’ which impressed everyone within earshot, and joined them.
The audience cheered when they realised what was going on and the female dancers surrounded Imogen, much to Bjorn’s consternation, and wound shimmering skeins of fabric around her to match their own costumes.
She stood with her feet together, toes turned out and he grinned as he remembered the time he had teased her about looking like a duck. She’d quacked and told him that after years of dancing she couldn’t help it. He’d kissed her and told her he loved it. He still did.
Missing a step, she laughed and delighted the other dancers with her unaffected nature and he tensed as he wondered how any man looking at her could fail to want her as much as he did. Immediately following that thought was the one that said he should bundle her up right now and take her back to the palace. Back to his bed.
Only the dance had started and he couldn’t turn away from her as she mastered the routine. His gut tightened and then the dance changed and the men joined in.
They looked at him with an air of hope rather than expectancy because, of course, his father had never mixed with his people like this, preferring to rule from the lofty heights of the palace walls. If he were to take the job he wouldn’t rule that way and neither would Zach.
And then he realised what dance they were about to perform. It was the dance a man did when he was courting a woman and his instinct was to beg off but then he caught Imogen’s eyes, her swaying figure. To hell with it. He moved to stand opposite her. He had never performed it before but he had seen it done many times as a boy. She looked up at him with a shy expression. Did she know what this performance represented? That it signified undying love?
His steps faltered as he circled her. Was that what he was feeling? Love? He immediately discarded the idea. He’d never wanted to find love in his life because—as he’d learned from first-hand experience—deep emotion brought even deeper mistakes and he liked his mind clear and sharp. Not that it was exactly clear or sharp right now but that was just lust and lust could be sated.
Imogen’s words about how she only wanted to marry for love came back to him. What would it be like to have hers? Something tightened in his chest. He didn’t want that from her. It was enough that they were compatible in bed. That they enjoyed each other’s company. He stepped closer to her than he should have. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he growled in her ear.
She looked up at him with big eyes and he thought to hell with it and kissed her before dragging her off the dance floor amidst the shocked gasps of his countrymen. Things would be changing soon enough in Bakaan. He’d just add PDAs to that long list of improvements.
* * *
Imogen could feel the tension radiating from Nadir’s big body in the car and desire made her blood grow sluggish in her veins. That dance they had performed back at the restaurant had been highly erotic even though they’d never actually touched. And Nadir had performed it like a professional. She’d guessed that it was some sort of mating ritual and she wondered if Nadir had ever danced it with another woman before. She wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t.
Instead she thought about how much his people had loved it when he’d joined in and she wondered yet again why he didn’t want to be King. He would be exceptional in the role. Was it because of his father? His sister who she didn’t feel comfortable enough asking him about? And when would she start to feel comfortable enough with him to be able to freely discuss what was on her mind?
‘Did you have a good time?’
‘Yes.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re biting your bottom lip. What’s wrong?’
Imogen glanced at the driver of the car. ‘Nothing.’
‘By now I understand that nothing inevitably meant something.’
‘You’re not that clever,’ she said, smiling in spite of her misgivings. But he was and it was a bit disconcerting to think that he knew her so well already.
Fortunately he let it drop as the car swung through the palace gates and stopped at the front steps. They both got out and Nadir didn’t try to talk to her until he’d closed the door to his suite.
After finding out Nadeena was okay, Imogen once again found herself standing awkwardly before Nadir when what she’d love to do was go up to him and wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him.
With masculine grace he moved to lounge on the sectional sofa. ‘You want to talk about nothing yet?’
Imogen sighed. ‘Okay, fine. I was wondering why it is you don’t want to be the next leader of Bakaan.’
She saw the minute the shutters came down over his eyes and shook her head. ‘And why it is that as soon as I ask you something personal you refuse to talk.’
‘I run a large organisation that is already showing the strains of my absence. I don’t have time to run Bakaan as well.’
‘You told me once that you love to take companies that are on the verge of collapse and turn them into something wonderful and, from what I can tell, Bakaan is in an identical situation.’ She studied the way he rigidly held himself. ‘If it helps, you are clearly a natural born leader, Nadir, and the people love you. You could do this job with your eyes closed.’
‘It’s not a question of capability. It’s...’ He sprang from the sofa as if he had too much energy coursing through his system. ‘I never expected to do it. And what about you? That would make you my queen. Given that you’re struggling with the whole concept of wife I can’t imagine you’d be thrilled with the role.’
Surprised that he was even asking for her opinion, Imogen thought carefully before answering. ‘I honestly don’t know. I always thought I would one day open a dance studio and teach dance and...women seem to be very much held back here.’
‘In some ways, yes, but equal opportunity for women is one of the key reforms Zach and I have discussed, along with better social infrastructure that would turn Bakaan into a competitive and vibrant place people would want to visit and invest in.’ He stopped as if he realised how impassioned he sounded. ‘Zach will make a great leader. And you should definitely open a studio. You’re a beautiful dancer.’
Was he serious?
‘You’d accept having a wife who danced for a living?’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know...’ Imogen felt at a loss. ‘Maybe because you’re a prince who has a Harvard education and speaks nine languages.’
The way he studied her unnerved her. ‘Why should that matter?’
‘I don’t know but it does.’
‘Not to me.’ He frowned. ‘Who made you feel bad about your profession? About yourself? Was it your father?’
His shrewd comment startled her. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘My head of security spoke with him when I was trying to find you and, as far as I’m concerned, a man who doesn’t know the whereabouts of his daughter can’t be much of a father.’
‘He wasn’t. And no, he never approved of my occupation. He was quite tyrannical at times and really remote at others. It was very confusing when I was little.’
‘Ah, don’t tell me—his affection was conditional on how well you toed the line.’
‘Your father too?’
Nadir raised an eyebrow. ‘My father’s idea of giving someone a choice was to tell them how he wanted it.’ A shadow came across his face as clear as a puff of smoke being brought in on the breeze. ‘I left home at fifteen and headed to the Caribbean, where I took up bartending at a strip club.’
Her eyes widened with shock. ‘You did not!’
He laughed. ‘I can mix a Slow, Comfortable Screw with the best of them, I promise.’
‘Nadir!’ Imogen covered her mouth to stop a giggle from breaking out. ‘Seriously?’
‘It wasn’t the most salubrious establishment on the street. After that I joined a building crew in the States and made money playing online poker.’
‘I...I’m shocked.’ And he made her Moulin Rouge career look like Disney. ‘I take it you and your father weren’t close,’ she said ruefully.
‘Actually, we were in the beginning. I was the heir. The golden child. As far as my father was concerned I could do no wrong.’ He paused and stared into the middle distance for so long she started to think he’d finished but he hadn’t. ‘And then I did.’
His blue-grey gaze fixed on hers as if challenging her to ask him what he’d done that was so bad he’d lost the position as the favourite son, his face a mask of dark shadows.
The moment seemed distinctly brittle compared to their earlier camaraderie and she didn’t know what to say. Ever since he’d come back into her life she’d wanted him to open up to her like this and share more of himself but now she felt that it would be invasive to ask him to continue because it was obvious these memories were incredibly painful.
He regarded her from beneath his long lashes, a look of self-disgust etched across his face. ‘You don’t want to know what I did?’
The quietly spoken question was savage and underscored by deep pain. Imogen swallowed heavily. She wanted to go to him and offer comfort but she had no idea how he’d respond to that kind of overture other than to disconnect from her again and it pained her to feel so awkward at a time when she felt he needed her the most. ‘Only if you want to tell me,’ she said, deciding that the decision had to be his alone without any real prompting from her.
He scrubbed a hand across his face in a gesture she knew meant that he was stressed and her heart went out to him.
‘If we stay here for any length of time you’ll find out anyway.’ The words were toneless, as if he’d locked all emotion about what he was about to reveal in a place he could no longer access. ‘When I was fifteen my mother and twin sister were killed in a car accident because my father’s soldiers were chasing after them.’
His twin sister?
‘Oh, Nadir, that’s horrible.’ She knew words were inadequate in the face of losing someone special because she still remembered how it had felt to lose her mother but she said it anyway because she wanted him to know that she was there for him. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘My sister suffered from Tourette’s syndrome and my father never accepted her condition.’ His tone was layered with resentment and contempt. ‘As she got older my mother saw how detrimental life was for her in Bakaan and she wanted to move to somewhere in Europe.’ His expression hardened. ‘My father refused her request even though they were divorced and so she decided to do it in secret. I was supposed to go with them but I knew my father would be angry and I didn’t trust what he would do once he found out.’
Almost afraid to ask the obvious question, she did anyway. ‘And did you? Go with them?’
He walked away from her towards the windows and leant his arms against the frame as he gazed out at the darkness. ‘No.’
If Imogen had ever heard a more bleak word she couldn’t remember it and she waited for him to continue, suspecting that whatever he revealed next cut right to the core of who he was as a man. ‘Selfishly, I didn’t want them to leave either and so I told my father the plan.’ He gave a brittle laugh. ‘He set his men onto them; my mother panicked during the chase and rolled the car down a steep incline. They died instantly, so I was told. A small comfort, wouldn’t you say?’
Imogen sat so perfectly still she wasn’t even breathing—she didn’t know what to say. It was clear that he blamed himself for their accident and she wasn’t sure words alone would be sufficient to ever relieve his guilt. And in a way she understood how he felt because she was sure if their situations were reversed she’d feel just as awful as he did about it. But she also knew that he had to deal with his guilt and let it go because it really hadn’t been his fault.
She remembered what he’d said to her on her first night at the palace about how his parents had dragged him and his sister through their marital problems and suddenly she saw him as the eldest child who had been torn between his love and loyalty to both parents and who was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. At least in her own situation she’d had her mother’s unconditional love. Nadir had only had his brother...and his sister, who he no doubt felt he had to protect and whose life he felt he had cut short, and she could only imagine how horrible he must feel.
Wanting to at least close the physical distance between them, she went to stand beside him. She stared at his austere profile and she knew she had tears in her eyes because she just felt for him so much and wanted to rip the pain from his body with her bare hands.
‘Afterwards my father refused to give either one of them an honourable funeral.’
Imogen’s brow scrunched as she absorbed that piece of information. She shook her head. ‘Why not?’
Nadir sucked in a deep breath and she knew he was containing his emotions and locking them down tight. ‘He said that they had dishonoured and disrespected him and so to this day they don’t have headstones on their graves.’
Without thinking, she reached out and covered the hand he rested on the windowsill with her own. His was much larger than hers and sprinkled with dark hair that stroked across her senses. It also felt cold. ‘Was that why you left Bakaan when you were fifteen?’
‘Yes.’ He watched her fingers lightly stroke over the back of his knuckles. ‘We argued about it and because I had challenged him once too often he disowned me so I left.’
And closed himself off from everyone ever since. ‘Nadir, you know you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You were only a child.’
He carefully shifted his hand out from underneath hers. ‘I was fifteen. Old enough to know better,’ he said bitterly.
‘No, not old enough to know better,’ she denied hotly and she knew that first-hand because at fifteen she had witnessed her father’s affair with another woman and she’d had no idea what to do about it. In the end she hadn’t told her mother because she’d known it would break her heart but her father assumed that she had and it had led to him leaving anyway.
He moved away from her and she heard the give of the cushions as he dropped back onto the sofa.
‘I don’t even know why I told you any of that so please if you’re going to patronise me by trying to make me feel better then don’t. Nothing will ever do that.’
Imogen crossed to stand behind the opposite sofa and gripped the backrest. ‘I’m not being patronising, Nadir, but it’s not rational to think that you caused their deaths.’
‘I was a selfish idiot.’
‘You were a normal teenager who was trying to keep his world intact.’
‘Imogen—’
‘No, I’m serious. I know you’re hurting over this but how long are you going to punish yourself for the actions of a man who was an adult and should have behaved better?’
‘You don’t understand—I knew he would go after them.’ His voice sounded as if it was wrenched from a place that was deep and dark.
Rounding the sofa, Imogen stopped directly in front of him. ‘Nadir, you loved them and it sounds like your loyalty was completely divided. That’s not a nice thing for parents to do to kids of any age.’
‘There’s no excuse for selfishness.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t you who was the selfish one. Maybe it was your parents.’
He looked at her as if he’d never contemplated that before and she knew that was probably because instead of processing what had happened he’d just tried to completely forget about it. ‘Did you happen to get counselling at all?’
Her question brought a surprised bark of laughter. ‘Sure I did. The place was called The Painted Pony.’
Imogen put her hands on her hips and felt the air between them become charged as his gaze drifted over her. ‘I’m not talking about the strip place you worked at, although I’m sure there were many ladies ready to offer you a shoulder to cry on.’
‘Unfortunately, I don’t cry.’
‘What a surprise. But, seriously, Nadir. I hate to think that you still blame yourself for something that really wasn’t your fault.’
‘And I hate to think that we’re going to waste a whole evening while Nadeena is asleep rehashing an event that is best forgotten.’
Deciding to ignore that, she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Tell me this,’ she began quietly. ‘If this was Nadeena and she had made a mistake like the one you feel you made would you want her to punish herself for it for ever?’
He pushed himself up from the sofa and paced away from her, holding himself rigid. ‘That’s unfair.’
The fact that he’d even shared this side of himself with her made Imogen glow. It meant that he trusted her. And maybe it was time for her to start trusting him a little as well. ‘Maybe you’re the one who is being unfair. To yourself.’
Without thinking too much about it, she went to him and wrapped her arms around his broad back.
He stiffened but didn’t move away from her and she could feel the heat of his body through the thin cotton of his dish-dasha. ‘I think your mother and sister want you to be happy, don’t you?’
He made a low sound in his throat that sounded like it came from a wounded animal and her heart felt as if it had been squeezed by a giant fist.
Acting purely on instinct, she ran her hands across his broad shoulders and pressed herself closer. He didn’t move a muscle but she knew she’d got to him because his breathing quickened just a little. Circling around, she stopped directly in front of him and smoothed her hands over his chest.
Emboldened by the fierce glitter in his eyes, she reached up and pulled his head down to hers. He yielded but she knew his mind was still in another place. A bad place.
About to pull back and give him time, she groaned with pleasure as he plunged his hands into her hair and took her mouth in a hungry kiss that completely immobilised her. Dazed at the swift rise of arousal, she pulled at his robe and moaned in frustration when she could find no way into it. ‘These things are not fashioned for easy access, are they?’ she complained.
Nadir growled and reefed the garment over his head and she heard one of the seams give in his haste to get it off.
Trembling with excitement, Imogen dug her fingers into the waistband of the cotton pants he habitually wore beneath the dish-dasha but his hands shoved hers out of the way so he could pull at her own clothing.
Hampered by the delicate khaleeji abaya she had chosen, he cursed in Arabic and she gasped when he grabbed hold of the neckline and ripped it clean down the middle. With her breasts bared to his gaze and his hands, Imogen felt her nipples peak as he bent his head to take one into his mouth. She threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him tight and felt his own skim down over her quivering belly, sucking in a deep breath as he ran the tips of his fingers around the lace between her legs.
‘So wet,’ he murmured. Imogen moved against him but his hands drifted to her thighs, gripping her hips as he dropped to his knees and kissed a line down her belly.
‘Nadir, I—’
She didn’t finish her sentence because he hooked his fingers inside her panties to remove them and widened her stance with one hand while he delved between her legs with the other. Almost sobbing with need, Imogen placed her hands on his shoulders and watched as he pressed his face between her legs and stroked her with his tongue. She cried out as he pleasured her, her long hair swinging around them like a curtain as she almost bent double when her orgasm hit.
‘Imogen.’ Nadir lifted his head and scattered kisses across her pelvis. ‘Your taste drives me wild.’
Gazing down at him with his knees spread wide on the carpet and his chest bare, Imogen swooned. ‘I want to taste you too.’
She dropped to her knees as he rose before her and shoved the soft cotton pants down his legs. As always the sight of him aroused and erect gave her pause because he was just so big and imposing, so lethally male.
‘Touch me, habibi,’ he urged in a raw voice husky with need, his hands tangled in her hair, his warm strong fingers massaging her scalp. So she did. Flicking her tongue out to wrap around the head of his shaft as her hands slid rhythmically up and down. He let her have her way with him for what seemed like only seconds before he took over, groaning about self-control and need as he pushed her to the floor. Then he was above her and the only sounds that broke the silence were the mingling of their own harsh breaths.
‘Look at me, habibi,’ he commanded. ‘I love to watch your eyes as I come inside you.’
‘Nadir, please—’ Imogen threw back her head as he shifted his weight and then drove deeply into her slick heat. She couldn’t have said if her eyes were open or closed because she was in another world and when he brought his mouth down on hers in a demanding kiss she could hold nothing back as her world coalesced into this moment and then splintered into a trillion tiny pieces. He swore and Imogen held his head in her hands and wound her tongue around his as her orgasm continued to roll through her.
Unable to contain his own climax, Nadir threw back his head and roared his own relief and Imogen knew she would do anything for this man. That she would follow him anywhere. That she loved him completely and utterly.
God, did she? Had she really fallen for him all over again? No, she hadn’t fallen all over again because she’d never stopped loving him. She groaned and didn’t realise she’d made the sound out loud until Nadir swiftly rolled to the side so he was no longer covering her. ‘Are you okay?’
Cold replaced his slick warm skin and she shivered. Was she okay? Would she ever be again?
‘Imogen, did I hurt you?’
No, not yet. ‘No.’ She cleared her throat and shifted on the silk Persian carpet beneath her. ‘I’m fine.’ At least she hoped she was.
He leaned over and cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand. ‘You’re sure? I wasn’t too rough?’
God, he was divine. Beautifully rugged and so elementally male. Would he hurt her? Or did knowing that he would never love her mean that he didn’t have that power any more? Because it was the hope before that had made the crash-landing so disastrous, wasn’t it?
‘Imogen, you’re scaring me.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m fine. I was just thinking...I was thinking that this thing...’
She fluttered her hands between them and he smiled. ‘It only gets better. Stronger.’
Was he feeling it too? Was it possible he had fallen for her as well? ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her heart lodged somewhere near her throat and constricted her breathing. ‘I...’
‘Yes,’ he agreed and pushed her hair back from her face. ‘Every time we make love I want you more. I wouldn’t have said that was possible. It’s certainly never happened to me before.’
‘Possible...’ And then his meaning became clear and she felt quite ill. ‘Sex?’ He was talking about sex...
‘Not just sex.’ His eyebrow rose in a sexy slant. ‘Hot sex.’ He kissed her. ‘Great sex.’ Another kiss. ‘Phenomenal sex.’ His smile was sinful and Imogen buried her face against his neck.
God, she had nearly made an utter fool of herself by blurting out what was in her heart and he was talking about sex!
‘I’ve made you blush.’
She forced herself to laugh softly because what else could she do?
‘You feel the same.’ There was a deep satisfaction in his voice and Imogen pushed her feelings aside. She raised a small smile because she knew this wasn’t a love match and to his credit he had never pretended it was. And what would telling him how she felt achieve anyway? It would only make her feel awkward around him and probably him around her as well.
No, it was better if this was her secret to deal with alone.
