Desert Orchid: The Desert Princes: Book 1 (11 page)

However, he needed her respect, too.

They'd had their first real fight and got through it relatively unscathed. Plus, the fact she was openly teasing him told Khalid she might be learning to like him and he didn’t want to do anything to spoil the precious moment.

And he also understood that she wanted him to talk to her, to open up to her.

"I can't carry a tune in a bucket. Before we met I had no idea what you looked like or how old you were," he admitted now. "After everything I’d heard about you I thought you were a woman with her biological clock ticking. I was praying you didn't have a squint and had all your own teeth."

She threw her head back as her delighted laugh bounced of the high ceiling and echoed around the room.

"Poor Khalid, you had no idea what you were getting yourself into." Then her eyes went serious as they held his. "Why did you agree to do this if your heart is not in it?"

He didn’t attempt not to understand her and spoke from the heart.

"It’s a chance for me to right a wrong."

After staring at him for an endless moment, she nodded, pressed her cheek to his chest and gave him a hard hug that brought a lump to his throat.

He stroked her hair.

Her voice was soft and low as her cheek rested on his chest.

"That’s as good a reason as any," she whispered.

The heady scent of her hair mingled with a hint of jasmine and warm, sexy, woman.

Her soft breasts pressed against him and as her nipples pebbled he prayed for the strength to deny his aching arousal.

He pulled back and took her hands in his.

"Let me walk you to your rooms."

And his heart leaped at the flash of bitter disappointment in her blue eyes.

For a man used to having anything he wanted, when he wanted it, denying himself the instant gratification and release of plunging into her willing body was a salutary lesson in self-restraint.

Later, as he strolled through his rooms and stripped to his skin, Khalid hit the shower and turned it as cold as it could go. And all the while he pumped his aching shaft in his tight fist until he gasped out his release.

But it wasn’t enough.

Charisse was under his skin.

She was in his blood.

And he wondered now how long he’d be able to refuse himself the pleasure of that soft, sexy, body.

The ear-shattering scream of an electric guitar had Charisse jolt upright out of a fabulous dream.

She smacked on her bedside light, peering at her digital clock.

Three thirty in the morning, the man was having a laugh.

Boris and Rufus’s shaggy heads cocked at the shriek of a guitar riff that made her teeth ache as Charisse bounded out of bed.

For two days she’d endured this godforsaken racket. Enough was enough. No way was she going to put up with it in the middle of the damned night.

She hadn’t set eyes on Khalid since the night she’d joined him for dinner with Sarif. An event that had been a salutary lesson in how to hold her nerve. Every time she’d spoken or looked at his brother Khalid had touched her, a stroke of the hand or a press of his thigh against hers.

Even after their first fight, which had been terribly exciting as well as arousing, the look in his eye for her had been one of a starving wolf eyeing a particularly tasty lamb.

So why he’d escorted her back to her rooms and left her after a chaste kiss was something she simply could not understand.

The wedding preparations were in full swing.

Khalid, it appeared, was a man who liked to make things happen.

Fast.

King Abdullah and Queen Janaan were arriving in five days.

Charisse might not have seen Khalid, but she’d certainly heard him.

Apparently, the heavy rock blaring for twelve hours at a time meant he was in the middle of a creative spell. The peace and relative tranquillity of her old life was long gone.

Charisse swung between relief that he’d left her alone and a bitter disappointment.

The memories of his mouth, the taste of it, his searching tongue, and the way his hard body pressed into hers had meant sleepless nights. And sleepless nights made her cranky. Very cranky. She was a woman who needed her rest. And she’d been right in the middle of
the
best dream. A dream where the man, who at the moment was driving her absolutely crazy, had played the starring role in making passionate love to her.

She’s just got to the good bit, too.

And now she was as horny as hell and as mean as a desert scorpion.

Even riding Diablo as hard as she could didn’t lessen the horrible ache deep in her belly. An ache that only got worse with each passing day. Plus, Khalid had issued commands about the running of the palace without consulting her.

Fool.

She knew these people.

They were her family.

Now they were fearful and looking to her for a guidance she couldn’t give them.

And now this!

He used music as his creative muse, did he?

She’d give him a creative muse all right, via a kick up his very tight ass.

Not that she looked at his ass.

Not much, and why was she even thinking of such a thing?

Pulling on a thin robe of white silk over her panties and vest, Charisse tossed back her hair, and marched through her apartments with her boys right on her heels.

She skipped down the stairs, delighted to see that no one was around. She didn’t want an audience for the rocket she was about to deliver.

Standing outside his rooms, Charisse decided there was no point knocking since he wouldn't hear a bomb blast over the din.

With a flourish, she threw open the double doors and stopped dead.

Khalid was naked except for a pair of loose white pants of thin cotton slung low, very low, on his lean hips. Pants that left very little to the imagination. Very little. His black hair appeared to be wet either from the shower or from sweat and was held back from his face by a band of black cloth tied in a knot at the back of his head.

A paint brush was clamped between white teeth.

He stood, legs apart, as he slashed and jabbed at the huge canvas holding the brush like a warrior brandishing a sword. In his left hand he held a paint palette. The strong muscles of his back were clenched tight, as were his legs and buttock muscles.

Her little whimper of sheer feminine appreciation had the dogs gaze up at her.

Boris cocked his shaggy head ears twitching at another guitar riff screaming through the airy room.

And Charisse would bet good money on it that the entire populace for miles around were cursing their new king this night.

Pushing the dogs out of the room, she closed the double doors and crept slowly into Khalid’s line of vision.

His expression was one of solid focus, grey eyes wild with an excitement she’d never seen in another human being.

Khalid El Haribe was having the time of his life.

And he looked so young and happy and, free.

The strong wave of affection for him caught her totally by surprise.

Then he whipped the brush out of his mouth and tipped his head as he dipped it in paint and added a vibrant blue to an intense work of explosions of colour.

When he smiled in triumph Charisse caught her breath.

And realised with dismay that she’d trespassed on an intensely private moment.

His sheer joy brought a sting to her eyes and a burn to her throat.

She shouldn’t be here.

As she turned to leave, Khalid went totally still.

His eyes slid towards her.

He turned his head and saw her.

Blinking like an owl, his eyes focused on her as she stood there hardly daring to breathe.

Then the paint palette, the brushes, hit the floor and he was stalking towards her.

Charisse couldn’t help but take a couple of steps back and hold up her hands in a gesture of peace. But Khalid simply ignored her little yip of protest as he grabbed her.

Lifting her by the waist he spun her around before catching her in his arms and heading for the big bed in the middle of the room.

Torn between sheer terror and a dark desire she couldn’t understand, Charisse didn’t know whether to scream her lungs out or laugh.

And then it was too late to do either because she had cotton sheets at her back and was pinned under his heavy body. Then he'd buried his hands in her hair and was kissing the breath from her lungs.

The music stopped and all she could hear was her own hectic heart and her short panting breaths.

He pulled back and his fingertips stroked her face, her throat, as those amazing eyes held hers.

"Hello, baby. As my old grandma used to say, you’re a sight for sore eyes."

She wriggled under him and then went totally still as the hard proof of his manhood pressed into the soft flesh of her belly.

Khalid’s teeth tugged his bottom lip as his eyes went wide and wicked.

Charisse panted in her throat as her eyes blinked up into his fabulous face.

"It’s three thirty in the morning, Khalid. I was asleep," she whispered in an attempt to explain why she was here.

"Yeah? Were you dreaming of me, baby?"

She’d always been a bad liar.

The heat scorching her cheeks gave her away as Khalid’s delighted laugh made her bottom lip pout like a five year old.

He placed a soft kiss on her nose, her cheek, her chin.

"Was I doing dirty, wicked things to you?" he purred like a big contented cat.

Saliva dried up in her throat as those eyes stared into hers filled to the brim with a dark desire.

Her breasts felt heavy and her nipples beaded.

The long tug deep in her belly told her she was in trouble.

Big trouble.

And Khalid hadn’t missed a single thing she realised as he studied her breasts under her tissue thin gown.

He bent his head and his mouth tasted her through the fabric, sucking the nipple too hard, and Charisse jolted in shock before moaning deep in her throat as her back arched off the bed.

It was the sound of a woman in need.

"Khalid!"

She wanted something more but had no idea what as he pulled long sucks of her silk covered flesh into his mouth.

The weight of him pressed her body deep into the mattress and she loved it.

God, his body was so hard and strong, so different from hers in so many ways.

When his hips rotated and settled in the cradle of her thighs she’d never felt anything so right. Her hands explored the heavy muscles of his back under his smooth skin as he switched his attention to her other breast. Only this time he used his teeth in a gentle bite before licking and sucking the tiny sting.

The liquid arousal between her legs mortified her even as she cried out with a dark need she’d never experienced before.

His head came up and he studied her burning face through narrowed eyes.

"You have one chance to get out of here before I can’t stop. What’s it to be? Stay or go?"

Heart hammering in her throat, Charisse stared into the dark face of a fallen angel and licked her lips.

A move that made him growl deep in throat, and thrust his hips.

She couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t breathe.

His head dipped as his mouth came within a whisper of hers.

"Too late."

Khalid stared into big blue eyes.

He was dimly aware of the sound of the ceiling fans, and that the sing song of the wind in the palace had died down.

Her body was warm and soft under his even as her heart beat a rapid tattoo against his chest.

Her breathing was erratic.

She was either terribly turned on, or terrified.

Or, by the look in her eye, both.

"I can hear your teeth chattering. You need to relax, baby."

He needed to get her naked.

Reaching out he cupped the side of her face and drew her closer and their lips fused.

Even though his body had the patience of a starving lion, he forced himself to take it slow and easy.

But God, her mouth was so soft and warm and wet.

She tasted like a spoonful of the sweetest honey.

And all the while he kissed her, he took his time to strip her of her robe.

Then she lifted her arms as their hungry mouths broke contact for a millisecond as he swept her tissue thin vest over her head.