Scandal: His Majesty's Love-Child (14 page)

Did he mean…?

She looked down to where their bodies touched. A frisson of erotic awareness raced through her. She sank against him a fraction and his mouth tightened in a grimace that she understood too well. The pulse throbbing between her legs was a driving force, urging her to take as well as give.

Carefully Annalisa pushed herself onto her knees so she could straddle his supine form. His heavy weight between her legs, pushing against her thigh, sent a shudder of anticipation through her. As did the gleam in Tahir’s eyes.

When his hands closed around her waist, adjusting her position above him, she let him, eager to ease the burgeoning ache inside.

A second later she felt pressure where she most needed it as Tahir rose beneath her. He drew her inexorably down, meanwhile pushing higher and higher, till surely any more was impossible.

One final sharp thrust of his hips and he lodged deep within her, part of her. The magic of it stunned her. She felt full, but
not just physically. Her heart welled with the intensity of her emotions. With love for Tahir.

‘All right?’

She nodded, bereft of speech as he massaged her breasts and sent delight coiling. He shifted beneath her, slowly at first, then to an increasing tempo that made the most of the friction between their shifting, sliding bodies.

Annalisa leaned forward, her hands on his shoulders, falling into the depths of his welcoming eyes. Long fingers clamped her hips, holding her firm against him as he thrust higher, harder.

Then with a hoarse cry she was flying, soaring above the world in exquisite delight as fire shimmered in her veins and pleasure exploded. An instant later Tahir shuddered beneath her, within her, as he gasped her name.

Greedily he hauled her close and they rode the last rocketing paroxysms together, his musky, hot skin fragrant against her, his heart pounding in tempo with hers, his body enfolding her.

Annalisa breathed deep of pleasure and peace and knew this was where she belonged. With Tahir. Always.

The white heat of cataclysmic orgasm burned Tahir’s retinas. Scorched his flesh. Seared his soul.

He wrapped Annalisa closer, tangling his hand in her long hair, catching her slim leg with his knee, locking them together as if to prevent her moving.

He couldn’t let her go.

He’d been right last night.
He needed Annalisa.

Sex had never been so good. But he knew now this was more than physical satisfaction.

Tahir couldn’t put a name to it. Couldn’t get his mind to grapple with definitions and meanings.

But she was his.
By right of conquest. By her own choice. By dint of the simple fact he’d never release her.

He’d never needed a woman as he needed Annalisa.

He’d never
needed
any woman.

He nuzzled her neck, breathing deep of her sweetness. Instantly tendrils of desire coiled within him, tightening sinews and hardening flesh.

Blood roared in his ears and rushed south. He stroked her collarbone, let his fingers trail to her breast and felt her shiver.

It was too soon. It shouldn’t even be possible, not yet. But there was no mistaking the stirring in his loins.

Tentatively he moved, still lodged inside her.

He felt her grip on his shoulders tighten, reminding him how she’d scored his flesh in the throes of ecstasy. The idea of her marking him was strangely pleasing.

‘Tahir?’

He shifted so he could see her, read the surprise and confusion in her flushed face. He stroked a strand of hair from her face. ‘Too soon?’

Wide eyes held his for a moment, then a tiny dimple appeared in her cheek as she smiled and shook her head.

That was all the encouragement he needed. Moments later she was on her back, her hair a glossy fan beneath her as he took her slowly, tenderly and thoroughly.

This time he kissed her all the while, swallowed her small mews of pleasure and surprise, cupped her face in his hands as she gasped her completion. Mere seconds later the fire rose in him, spreading from his groin to his belly, sending incendiary flares through his whole body and setting a blaze in his lungs that made him gasp for breath.

He burned for her till the explosion blew him apart.

Yet even then the fire kept burning inside, a permanent unquenchable glow.

Tahir slid into oblivion, basking in its warmth, his arms locked about her.

‘W
HAT
are these scars?’ A gentle finger traced across the small of his back. ‘Was it an accident?’

Tahir stilled in mid-stretch, tensing instinctively. In the past when women had asked that he’d brushed off the query, pretending the marks didn’t matter. Yet each time the truth had burned his soul like red-hot coals.

The reminder of his father’s ‘loving’ touch. Though Tahir couldn’t see the scar tissue, it was a permanent brand of who he was and what his past had been.

It would be easy to demur now, to hide the shame of his past. But he didn’t want to lie to Annalisa. For the first time he wanted to unburden himself. To share just a little. The realisation made his stomach clench in fear.

His reprobate reputation hadn’t scared Annalisa. Nor had his position. She’d stood up to him time and again. She didn’t act like any other woman he knew.

She acted as if she cared.

His mind shied from the notion even as its allure drew him. After a lifetime of believing himself unlovable, the idea of someone caring about him was too foreign.

Yet she’d been right about his mother.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘No.’ He cut off her hurried apologies. ‘It’s all right.’ He turned, and her gentle smile filled him with such pleasure it gave him the impetus to continue.

‘It’s a mark from a lash.’

‘A lash?’ Her brow furrowed in confusion, her eyes clouding, and Tahir was assailed by doubt.

He couldn’t taint her with knowledge of his sordid past. The desire to talk about it was mere selfish weakness.

He rose quickly from the bed, only to feel her hand on his arm, stopping him.

Looking down, he met her questioning gaze head-on. Her expression was clear, open.

It reminded him of her extraordinary inner strength. The strength she’d needed to nurse him with no assistance in the desert. The strength to stand up to the man who was her sovereign and refuse to comply with his wishes.

For all her innocence, Annalisa was a strong woman.

‘Tell me. Please?’

Finally he sank back onto the rumpled sheets and let her slip her arms about him. She leaned her head on his shoulder and her long hair blanketed him. He loved the feel of her near. It filled him with emotions he’d never felt and gave him strength to admit what he’d never told a soul.

‘It’s from my father’s whip. He used to beat me regularly.’

So it hadn’t been just Tahir’s delirium. The beatings had been real. She’d wondered, but hadn’t wanted to believe.

Her pulse pounded sickeningly. Not one beating but regularly. Not just with fists, but a whip. What sort of sadist behaved so?

Annalisa choked on rising bile.

Suddenly Rihana’s comment about Tahir contributing to charities for abused children made perfect, horrible sense. Had he tried to save others from what he’d suffered?

Annalisa clasped him tight. She wished she’d been able to protect the boy who’d grown into this reserved man. Was it any wonder he hid his inner self? Or that he was difficult to know?

Fiercely she hugged him, sensing his unwillingness to talk.

‘Don’t cry,
habibti.
’ He brushed her wet cheek where it pressed into his shoulder. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘But you still remember it, all these years later. You still bear the scars.’ They both knew she wasn’t talking about the marks on his back. ‘In the desert you dreamed about it every night.’

He wrapped an arm around her and she snuggled in, grateful for his acceptance. Tahir was unused to sharing anything more than his body. He was the sort of man to keep confidences to himself.

Had he ever talked of this before?

‘I survived.’ His tone was flat and uncompromising.

‘You did more than survive,’ she whispered urgently. ‘You put it behind you. Look at you now.’

‘Don’t glamorise me, Annalisa.’ His tone was sharp. ‘Just because I’m Sheikh of my people it doesn’t make me a good man.’

‘No. But you
are
a good man.’ She thought of his care for her at the oasis when grief had engulfed her. His anonymous efforts to improve the lives of children. The sensible, caring way he’d taken up the reins as ruler of a kingdom, though he didn’t want the crown. The efficient way he’d mobilised every resource into a rescue effort after the quake, maintaining calm with his presence. The fact that he would marry her to make things right for their child.

‘Hardly that.’ His laugh was short and harsh. ‘I’m too like my father. I’ve spent years wallowing in pleasure, seeking instant gratification, building a reputation for self-indulgence.’

‘You’re not like him.’ She bridled at the notion. ‘You’re not manipulative or cruel.’

‘Maybe only marriage and fatherhood will bring out my true depths.’

Annalisa reared back, staring aghast into his grim face, hearing his hollow tone. Was he serious? He surely couldn’t fear that?

She’d seen him at his lowest ebb, on the edge of death, stripped of every pretence. The man she’d known then, the man she knew now, was nothing like the monster he tried to paint himself. The arrogant cynic wasn’t the true Tahir.

She levered herself onto her knees and rose till their faces were level. She cupped his face in her palms and met his searing gaze.

‘You’re nothing like that—do you hear me?’ Her voice rose with a potent fury she barely understood. ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish in my life. Don’t you
ever
speak like that again, or I’ll know you’re just after sympathy.’

His eyes widened in astonishment, as if the kitten he’d petted had turned into a tigress and drawn blood.

‘You can’t use that excuse to hide from life.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Before her eyes his expression chilled, became all arrogant hauteur.

‘And you’re too old not to face the truth.’

Her heart slammed against her ribs, fear rising that she’d pushed him too far. But the thought of him imagining himself like his brutal father was unbearable.

‘Why did he beat you?’ she asked before he could respond. ‘Did he beat your brothers too?’

For a long time she thought Tahir wouldn’t answer. His mouth thinned to a grim line and his eyes flashed with a mix of emotions. Her hands tightened on his jaw and, seeing his turmoil and pain, she couldn’t stop herself leaning forward and pressing a tender kiss on his lips.

Would it be the last time he let her kiss him?

Fear catapulted through her as she realised she wanted more than anything to spend her life with Tahir. But perhaps she’d pushed him so far he’d turn his back on her.

Warm hands framed her face. Gentle thumbs scraped fresh tears from her cheeks as he drew back a fraction.

‘I told you,’ he murmured gruffly, ‘not to cry. That’s a royal command.’ His mouth tilted in the lopsided smile that flipped her heart in her chest. ‘I don’t like it.’

Shakily Annalisa nodded, swallowing a knot of emotion.

He hadn’t pushed her away. Instead his hands were gentle as they shaped her face.

‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’

She shook her head, her long hair swirling around her bare shoulders in a reminder that she was naked. They were both naked. But it didn’t matter. Not when she saw pain shadowing Tahir’s eyes.

With a sigh he lifted her up, right off her knees, and sat her on his lap, warm flesh against warm flesh. He reached for a coverlet and dragged it over her, cocooning them together under its satin comfort, hugging her close. His chin rested on her head and his heart thudded strong and familiar beneath her ear.

‘No, he didn’t beat Kareef and Rafiq,’ he murmured at last. ‘Just me.’

‘But why?’ Surely abusers weren’t so discriminating?

Silence for another thirty seconds. ‘I spent a lifetime wondering that, thinking it was a fault in me that provoked his hatred. My earliest memories are of his rage, his disapproval.’ He paused. When he continued his voice was flat. ‘It was because he thought I wasn’t his son.’

Annalisa jerked in his hold, stunned. ‘Seriously?’

He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. After all these years my mother has finally explained what she didn’t dare before.’

His chest expanded in a deep breath.

‘My parents had an arranged marriage. My father amused himself with mistresses but he was incredibly jealous of his wife. She had a difficult birth with Rafiq, and on her doctor’s recommendation she spent several months in France, recuperating. When someone made a sly remark about how she’d enjoyed herself with friends my father decided she’d taken lovers. It wasn’t true, but that made no difference.’

Tahir tugged Annalisa close and she shut her eyes, grateful for his warmth as she imagined Rihana’s life with a cruel brute who didn’t love her.

‘Then when I was born I was different. I didn’t have the pale ice-blue eyes of his family. I stood out from him and my brothers.’

She stiffened, staring at his wide shoulder before her. ‘Your father didn’t think you were his son because your eyes were a darker blue?’

Tahir shrugged and she felt his muscles ripple. ‘He wasn’t a reasonable man. He was unhinged on the subject. My mother even suggested a DNA test, but he was paranoid news of it would leak. His pride wouldn’t countenance anyone knowing he might have been cuckolded.’

He paused, breathing deep. ‘It was no wonder I couldn’t please him no matter how I tried. He didn’t publicly accuse me of being a bastard. That would have reflected on his ability to keep his wife under control. Instead he made my life hell.’

‘He made you his whipping boy.’

‘Literally.’ There was no humour in his laugh.

‘And your mother?’

‘No, he didn’t beat her.’ Tahir must have read her mind. ‘He realised he could exact a more exquisite revenge by maltreating me and letting her know she was helpless to stop it.’ His hand tightened on her shoulder. ‘He’d shown his displeasure from the first, and she soon learnt that if she showed affection to me I’d pay for it.’

‘How she must have suffered.’ Annalisa shuddered at the idea of being unable to protect her own child. Short of running away and leaving her elder sons to the mercy of a vicious father, under traditional Qusani laws Rihana had had little power to stop it.

‘I never realised how much,’ Tahir murmured, ‘till you forced me to talk to her.’

‘Forced you? I—’

‘I’m grateful, Annalisa, believe me.’ His hand slipped down her arm in a slow caress that made her melt against him. ‘If you hadn’t brought up the subject I’d never have confronted my mother and known the truth.’

Annalisa luxuriated in his approving tone as much as in the sensation of chest hair and solid muscle beneath her cheek.

Grateful…
It wasn’t love, but surely it was a start.

‘For years I thought she didn’t care.’ His voice was husky. ‘Now I know she distanced herself from me because any sign of love on her part provoked more furious retribution for me. She tried to protect me the only way she could.’

His hold on her tightened.

‘I was petrified he’d begin physically abusing her after I was exiled, but even then she wouldn’t break her silence.’ He paused, his breath fast and loud. ‘She feared he’d kill me if she
returned my calls. He knew I’d tried to contact her again and threatened violent retribution if she spoke to me.’

‘Tahir!’ Annalisa clung close, her arms tight around his torso. ‘That’s monstrous!’

She felt him shake his head above her. ‘He
was
a monster. The damage he did.’ Tahir stroked the hair back from her brow. ‘Even when he died my mother didn’t call me. She thought she’d killed my feelings by seeming to turn her back on me. She was afraid
I
didn’t care for
her
.’

When all the time it had been the other way around. Tahir had believed his mother hadn’t loved him.

What would that do to a child?

Annalisa’s heart cracked even as fierce maternal protectiveness surged at the notion of anyone abusing
her
child like that.

Now she understood Rihana’s words. Tahir had had everything he wanted: success, wealth, women. But not the one thing he’d really craved.

Love.

Tahir had been without love, or believed himself without it, most of his life.

Jagged fear shot through her. He’d found pleasure and comfort in her body. Yet he’d committed himself only to a marriage of convenience. Would Tahir accept the one thing she wanted most of all to give him?

Would he accept her love?

He’d spent so long cultivating his independence and his self-belief as a man unworthy of deep regard, maybe he was no longer able to accept love or even believe in it.

Was he capable of reciprocating? Of loving her?

Annalisa found her answer the next day.

After a night of passion beyond anything she’d believed possible, after tenderness that brought tears to her eyes more than once, Tahir left.

Words of love trembled on her tongue, her heart so full she had to share her feelings.

Yet he looked so weary after another night without sleep.
His expression settled into grim lines as he spoke of the need to oversee the rescue efforts and she didn’t have the heart to burden him with more.

Others needed him more urgently. Her news, her needs, could wait a little longer.

Besides, she shied from the possibility he’d freeze when he heard her admission.

Perhaps he’d reject her. She wasn’t ready for that.

Her love for him had grown so much, obliterating her doubts once she saw beneath the mask he presented the world. She wanted to stay and make him happy. Prove to him love was possible and that they could have far more than a marriage of convenience. That they could make a family together.

She was so preoccupied it took her a while to realise the stir she caused as she moved through the palace much later in the day. Everyone looked at her differently, from servants to officials and visitors waiting for appointments.

Overnight the news of where Tahir had spent the night must have spread. Or perhaps it was the way he’d blurted out news of her pregnancy in public.

People refused to meet her gaze, bowing lower than ever as she passed, yet she felt their eyes on her back. Heat crawled up her throat and into her cheeks as she entered an audience chamber to be greeted by a cessation of all conversation. No doubt they’d been gossiping about the latest royal scandal, confirmed by the Sheikh himself.