For Duty's Sake (11 page)

One day this man would be King of all Zohra, but from the day she had agreed to marry him, he had been
her man
. And always would be. All man, all hers. Even if his birthright made him larger than life in every other way.

“Angele?” he asked in a strangled voice.

He wanted her. And it wasn't just his voice that gave him away. All sorts of little indicators showed she affected him powerfully, if she was looking for them. And she was looking. His nostrils flared, his pupils were dilated and the muscles beneath her fingers were rigid with tension.

The passion was not gone, merely banked. Relief strengthened her resolve. “You want me.”

“Yes.”

“Make love to me.”

“I cannot.”

She let her gaze drift down the front of him. His tailored suit trousers did nothing to hide the rigid length behind his placket.

She smiled, her nerves settling just a bit. “I think, in fact, that you can.”

He laughed, the sound warm and filled with real humor. “Physically I am more than able. I am aching,
Aziz
.”

Her breath caught. Did he realize he'd called her beloved? But then, men in this part of the world often called their wives such. It did not mean that he loved her.

Still, it did mean he saw her as his to treasure.

“Then, let me assuage that ache.”

“I would like nothing more.”

“What is stopping you?”

“I gave my word to your father that I would not take advantage of you prior to our official wedding.”

She latched onto the word
official.
She'd suspected something since that night, now she would confirm it. “You already consider me your wife.”

He said nothing.

She challenged him with her gaze. “Tell the truth.”

“I do,” he gritted out. “You are my wife.”

It was romantic really, though she wasn't about to admit it. “Possessive.”

“Yes.”

“I came to you in a wedding gown and you made me promises you never spoke out loud,” she guessed.
“It was the only way you would accept the gift of my virginity.”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

He growled. “I am an old-fashioned man, but I am not naff.”

Angele suppressed the desire to giggle. He sounded so put-upon. “No, I'd never accuse you of being sappy.” But she couldn't deny the old-fashioned label.

Even Elsa had been an example of that. Zahir had been a man in his sexual prime when he signed the agreement for their eventual marriage. He needed a sexual outlet and he'd looked for one.

Angele had no doubt he hadn't expected to feel anything real for Elsa, or for the affair to last as long as it did. Knowing he had cared so much, that Elsa had been able to hurt him, hurt Angele. However, it was over and he was truly hers now, in every way.

“Does the future king of Zahir allow another man to determine the parameters of his life?” she challenged.

“I made a promise.”

“Not to take advantage, but how is it taking advantage when in your heart, I'm already your wife?”

“And in your heart?” it was his turn to challenge.

She could give him nothing less than the truth. “I'm yours, Zahir. I always have been.”

“That's not what you said in your letter, or that press release.”

“I wanted to give you your freedom.”

“So I could find
true love
.”

She was sure he meant to say the words true love with
more sarcasm, but his tone carried more confusion than cynicism.

And suddenly, she realized something very important. Just because he was not in love with her did not mean Zahir did not need her love. In fact, she was no longer fully convinced he did not love her, either. After some fashion anyway. There was something there, something she did not yet understand, but she was determined to.

“You hold yourself back from me,” she said, not as an accusation but as bait.

She needed to understand this complicated man. Angele would be the first to admit, she'd been so blinded by her own emotions, she had all but ignored his.

One thing had remained true for ten years, though. This man had always intended to marry her and by his own admission, he had intended to bring his formidable honor to bear in remaining faithful to her.

“I would say you are the one that has put up walls between us.” He frowned, though he did not move away from her.

If she didn't know better, she would think he was no more capable of doing so than she was.

“You think?” she asked, wanting…maybe even needing to hear this from his mouth.

“You used to love me.”

“I still do.” And denying it to both of them was doing nothing but hurting the man she had no desire to hurt and herself.

She hadn't shocked him with her request they make love, but her words of love made him jerk back as if struck. “No, you do not.”

She moved closer again, so their bodies were less than a breath apart. “I do.”

“You do not smile at me as you used to.”

“The last few weeks have been stressful.” And she'd thought they would be better off if she buried her deeper emotions, so they came to each other on a level playing field. But hiding her feelings was not natural to her, not like it was for him.

In order to do so, she'd had to cut off her emotions completely, hiding behind what she called her political female figure facade. She'd had plenty of examples growing up, but it was only tonight she'd realized how much the constant facade had been smothering her.

She needed to be herself sometimes, but most particularly with him.

“Love is not required in a marriage such as ours is to be, but both parties should like each other, I think.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

Instead of allowing herself to get upset at this further evidence he didn't love her, she listened to what he
wasn't
saying. She heard his need, a need she doubted he allowed anyone else to glimpse.

“I do like you, Zahir, and I love you.” It was easier to admit now that she'd already said it. “I never stopped.”

He reversed their hold so that it was his hands holding her close, with no hope of moving away. “You are mine. I will never let you leave me again.”

“I'm not going anywhere.” She needed him and was coming to accept that on some very important level he needed her, too. “I want you to make love to me.”

“And my promise to your father?”

“Is nullified if making love is an act of caring rather than slaking mere physical desire.”

“Of course I care for you. You have always been as important to me as any of my family. That has not changed.”

It wasn't the romantic declaration of the century, but for Zahir those words were a promise of commitment deeper than most men were even capable of making.

“I believe you.”

Then, it was if something inside him broke. Maybe it was his self-control, because he took her mouth like an invading army intent on total conquest.

S
ENSING
he needed this as much as she did, she allowed her body to melt into him in a surrender powered by her own desire. And was that really surrender at all, or a victory?

She certainly felt like she was winning as his lips drew forth passion that even surpassed the single night they had shared together.

He swung her up in his arms and headed toward the bedroom, though his mouth never left hers. Part of her marveled that they didn't bump into walls or door-jambs, but then this was Zahir. The man could navigate the minefield of world politics, his own rooms were no challenge.

They came down onto the bed together, his heavy body covering hers, proof of his desire pressed into her stomach. Taking the kiss to the next level, he thrust against her, his essence surrounding and grounding her, blocking out everything else.

Heated moisture soaked the scrap of fabric between her legs and she spread them, seeking more stimulation. But there were too many layers in the way, her own outfit preventing her from getting as close to him as she
wanted to. She whimpered, wanting it and every other bit of clothing off her.

He made a sound of satisfaction as he continued to kiss her with a masterful passion that was far beyond what he had shown her before. It was as if that night he'd been treating her like she'd been made of spun-glass. And perhaps since it had been her first time, he'd been right to do so.

But now, there was an elemental, almost primal power radiating through every kiss, every caress.

And his hands were everywhere, clever fingers that knew how to draw forth urges and sensations she hadn't even known she was capable of. Her clothes came off and so did his, though she couldn't remember the sequence or even who took off what.

But the moment when he pressed her hands upward and curled her fingers around the wrought-iron spindles on the big bed's headboard and told her not to let go was seared into her mind like his passion seared her heart.

She stared at him. “Why?”

“I want to pleasure you.”

“And I need to keep my hands here for you to do that?”

“It will please me.”

She didn't understand. She wanted to touch him, but she wanted to do what he asked, too. The idea of giving total control over to him both alarming and very, very alluring.

“You're kinky!” she accused with equal parts shock and desire.

“I am a man who knows what he desires.” That was so not a denial.

“You like being in control.”

“This surprises you?”

“No.” Though maybe it should. Wouldn't a man who had to control so much, want to give a little up?

His fierce, primal expression said,
not this one
.

Not her sheikh.

He arranged her legs so that they were bent at the knee and spread apart in a wanton display that would have embarrassed her if she wasn't so excited.

“Will it always be like this?” she asked breathlessly. Would he always want this extra bit of control?

He looked up from his heated perusal of her most intimate flesh. “I do not know. I have never done this before, but it is something I have long wanted.”

She moaned, the words more effective than any touch. “I'm glad this is special between us.”

“Everything we share in our marriage bed is special. No woman has ever belonged to me as you do and I have never belonged to another woman as I do to you.”

“What do you mean?” He was far from a virgin.

“You own my future.” With that he touched her sweet spot, his fingers going on to thoroughly explore every bit of intimate flesh exposed so fully to his gaze. “You are so beautiful.”

“I don't think women are beautiful there.”

“You know this because you have looked?” he asked teasingly.

Even knowing he was teasing, she still jerked in shock. “Zahir! Of course not!” She'd never seen female
parts
outside of a sex education book and those were clinical diagrams.

“Then you cannot know, so I will forgive your doubt.”

She turned her face away, embarrassed and pleased and even more embarrassed because she was pleased.

“Every inch of you is beautiful, including this flesh only I and your doctor will ever see.”

That had her looking at him again. “You didn't used to think I was beautiful.”

“You were thirteen when our contract was signed. To have looked upon you in that light would have been wrong.”

“I didn't stay thirteen.”

“In my mind, you did.”

She almost laughed, but the seriousness in his expression could not be denied. A jolt of unexpected understanding went through her. Perhaps this, more than anything else, explained the passage of ten years since that darned contract had been signed.

She stopped wondering seconds later when his touch robbed every logical, and illogical for that matter, thought from her brain. He knew exactly how to touch her, playing with her breasts and teasing her nipples into turgid aching nubs.

But he didn't stop there; no, he seemed to know secrets about her body that had escaped her notice. Caressing her inner thigh, that spot in the center of her back, her nape, he stimulated numerous little bundles of nerve endings she'd had no idea existed on her body. Even after that first night together.

She writhed, begging him to come inside her and finish this spiral of pleasure, but she did not let go of the headboard.

He rewarded her with his mouth. First on her breasts, then the other hot spots he'd exposed on her body and then finally on that place he said was beautiful to him.

She was still screaming out her first orgasm when he surged inside, filling her beyond comprehension.

Just as the first time, it wasn't merely her body he filled, but her heart and her mind until she could not breathe without breathing him in, could not think without thinking of him, could not feel without feeling him.

Her second orgasm came over in a wave of such intense pleasure, it bordered on pain.

He wasn't done yet, though. He held himself rigid through her body's convulsions and only started moving again when her breathing had slowed down to hiccupping pants.

He brushed at the tears she hadn't even realized she'd been crying.
“Aziz.”

“I love you, Zahir.”

Something moved in his gaze and then he started to move again, this time building to a rhythm that left her gasping with no sound for her scream when she reached the pinnacle of pleasure again…with him.

He insisted she sleep in his bed that night after they bathed together; she rested better than she had since returning from the States, her body, mind and heart as at peace as they could be.

She woke the next morning to gentle hands moving over her body. She went to reach for him, but her hands were stuck and it was then she realized they were
bound to the headboard with something made of the softest silk.

“Zahir?” she asked as her eyes opened to the shadows of early dawn.

His look was as intent as she'd ever seen it. “Is it all right?”

Perhaps another woman would say no. Perhaps with another man, she should. But Angele knew what Zahir was asking her and it wasn't just whether or not she was willing to let him make love to her with her hands bound.

He was asking if she trusted him enough to allow it.

The only things she knew about kink were the jokes passed around the water cooler at her former job, but this was instinctive. She didn't need to know about anyone else's intimacy to know this was right between her and Zahir.

He needed to know she trusted him completely and if she was honest with herself, and she always tried to be, she needed to know the same thing. This binding was for both their sakes, a chance to undo the damage too many years between the signing of the contract and their actual wedding had wrought.

It wasn't a declaration of love, but it was one of intent.

She could accept it. “Yes. It's all right.”

The tension in the lines around his eyes dissipated and he smiled, happiness glowing forth in a way she'd never seen from him. “You are so alluring this way.”

And he was unbearably sexy with that look of joy in his eyes. He might not love her, but then again he
might. No matter what had been said on the subject to this point. One thing was certain, though: she was able to give him something no one else could. He'd told her he'd never tried this type of thing with another woman and she believed him.

He would not trust a casual lover not to go to the tabloids with the sexual peccadilloes of the Crown Sheikh of Zohra.

He was a man who must maintain personal control at all times and had far too much responsibility on his plate for any normal man. But he was not an average guy, not even close.

He was something more and so was this. Something special and incredible.

“Will you ever let me turn the tables?” she asked, not sure she wanted to, but curious.

“If you'd like.” And she knew he meant it. He was willing to trust her in ways he would
never
have trusted another.

“Maybe someday…” she said, the last word trailing off into a moan as his heated mouth made love to her body.

Rich male humor sounded even as he upped the stakes and drove her toward pleasure only he had ever been able to give her.

 

Zahir accompanied Angele on the walk back to her room, shrugging when she commented that if they were caught together in the secret passageway there could be no doubt what they had been up to. “You are mine.”

“You're a possessive man.”

“And are you any less possessive?”

She didn't even have to think about it. “No.”

“Good.”

“I thought men didn't like clingy women?”

He stopped them in the passageway outside her room and gave her a serious look that melted her right to her toes. “Cling,
Princess
.”

She choked out a disbelieving laugh as his mouth covered hers in a kiss of unmistakable claiming.

When their mouths separated, he sighed. “I have business of State in Europe. My flight leaves later this morning and I will be in meetings until then.”

“Where in Europe?”

“Germany.”

Her breath caught, but she wasn't giving in to jealousy. He'd told her to cling. Had he meant it? “Berlin's Fashion Week is happening right now. I could come with you and write a freelance article. I'm sure I could get into some of the runway shows.”

“If you are sure you can get away from the wedding preparations.” His smile was brilliant.

His reaction left no doubt he wanted Angele to come. This was no grudging acceptance. She'd never be a whiny-clingy type, but she knew that wasn't what he meant. Zahir wanted to know that no matter how independent she was by nature, that she needed him and would make time to be with him.

“Lou-Belia and your mother have it under control.”

“You have given them full control of the festivities.”

She wasn't sure if that was an observation or a criticism, but she chose to take it as the former. “You may as well realize that planning social events is not my thing. I've got a great attention to detail and can coordinate
my life to the Nth degree, but I don't enjoy poring over guest lists and seating charts.”

He nodded, as if confirming his own thoughts. “It is not a requirement of your position. We have a more than competent event coordination team.”

“I know. The palace event coordinator is pulling his hair out at both our mothers' overt interference in every detail of the wedding.”

“My mother said you will not allow any one to see the dress you have planned to wear for the formal ceremony?”

“That's one thing I refuse to compromise on.”

“Mother said you won't tell them anymore than that it is white.”

Was he fishing? And was it for his sake, or his mother's? Angele knew both Lou-Belia and Queen Adara were frustrated by Angele's secrecy on the matter.

She wasn't giving in, though. “That's all they need to know.”

“She said you told her that it would not clash with the traditional couture chosen for the rest of the family and wedding party.”

Angele merely shrugged. If he thought she was giving him any more details than she'd given his mother, he was wrong. No matter how sexy she found him and his interest in their wedding.

Though if he knew her as well as she had come to realize he probably did, he would realize exactly what she planned to wear to speak her vows.

 

Angele napped on the flight to Germany. The night before hadn't seen either of them sleeping much, though
Zahir didn't seem affected in the least as he worked in his seat beside her on the private royal jet.

Her morning hadn't been exactly relaxing, either. Lou-Belia had come close to meltdown when Angele told her she was flying to Germany with Zahir. Angele had spent the remaining hours on wedding preparations, despite the fact someone else could easily have made the calls and decisions she ostensibly made. Ostensibly because all she did was rubber stamp approval plans already put in place by her mother or Queen Adara.

Angele had exactly twenty minutes to pack for the trip. It was a good thing she was used to travel.

They were in the limousine, driving away from the airport, before she realized there was a real possibility Zahir would take her to the chalet in the photos that had prompted her to try to break their contract. She didn't like that possibility. Not one little bit.

“Where are we staying?”

He named a posh hotel in downtown Berlin.

Stifling any sign of the abject relief she felt, she couldn't help probing. “I thought you owned a chalet you used when doing business here.”

“It's been sold as have most of our business interests here in Germany.” He looked at her as if challenging her to ask further.

She wasn't sure she wanted to. “Oh.”