Society Weddings (5 page)

And when she let out a stifled cry he thought at first it was because he was so big inside her. By the desert flower, he had never
felt
so big! But something warned him that this was not all as it seemed. The little tremor as her nails bit into his shoulders—as if what was happening was new to her.

He stared down at her in disbelief, watching the tears begin to slide from beneath the corners of her tightly closed eyes, and it hit him like a body-blow just what was happening.

He tried to stop himself, but it was too late for that—far too late. He felt the slow shuddering of an orgasm so deep and intense and earth-shattering that he thought he might die at that very moment, and be happy to die that way.

For a moment the world lost meaning as it shifted out of focus, and then reality began to creep back, like the first faint sun after the winter freeze.

He stifled a groan, and when he had stilled he withdrew from her as gently as he could. But he did not need to see the scarlet flowering which had spread over the clothes and divan like new blossom. He had guessed for himself.

He caught her against his bare chest. But she was stiff and unmoving in his arms as the words caught in his throat like dust and his heart pounded with something very close to pain.

‘You were a virgin,’ he said flatly.

J
ENNA
didn’t answer for a moment, but when she opened her eyes it was to surprise an expression of something approaching sorrow in his own. Moving out of his embrace, she reached for the huge towel which lay beside the bed and cuddled it over her protectively, though its warmth did little to take the edge off her feeling of naked exposure and her teeth began to chatter violently.

‘
Weren’t
you, Jenna?’ he demanded again, but this time his voice was gentler. ‘A virgin?’

‘Y-yes,’ she stumbled.

‘You lied to me,’ he said, but it was less an accusation and more as though he was trying to work out some kind of insoluble calculation.

She bit down on her lip. ‘Yes, again.’

There was a heartbeat of a pause. ‘But I don’t understand.’ His voice sounded dazed. ‘I don’t understand why.’

It was the closest she had ever heard to Rashid admitting confusion. She opened her eyes and wished that she hadn’t, for he was lying on his side, leaning on his elbow with his chin resting on his hand. And, although his eyes burned into her with their jet-dark question, he seemed thoroughly unself-conscious in his nakedness.

His body was burnished gold by the sunlight which filtered in through the shutters, as if he had been moulded from some precious metal. It was a very, very beautiful body, thought Jenna.

But it had not brought her pleasure, she reminded herself achingly—and now it never would.

‘Why, Jenna?’ he persisted, and his eyes narrowed as he saw the sudden tremble of her lips. He who had never failed a woman had failed this one!

She shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not having this conversation now. Not here. Like this.’ Beneath the towel she felt more vulnerable still, worried that he might touch her again—and even more stupidly worried that he would not. How had this unthinkable situation come about? ‘I’d l-like to get dressed, please.’

He narrowed his eyes, and then nodded. ‘Go and get dressed, then,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’m not going anywhere.’

She edged him a pleading look as she moved off the bed with as much dignity as she could muster.

But he ignored her silent request. He obviously had no intention of moving. True to his word, he continued to lie there, as lazily indolent as a cat who had just sampled a particularly large saucer of cream. Couldn’t he just do the decent thing, and go—and leave her with this terrible sense of regret?

She grabbed her underwear and her silky Quador clothes and, feeling his dark eyes still on her body, moved towards the bathroom, where she defiantly turned the key in the door very loudly.

She showered for a long time, washing every last musky trace of his masculine scent from her body, and then she slipped on the robes, which were coloured palest blue, and went back into the room, expecting—no, hoping—that he would be gone.

But he had not gone. Of course he hadn’t.

Some time during her shower he had put his own robes back on, and now he was sprawled, silent and watchful, on one of the long, low couches which lay beneath the window.

His lashes concealed the expression in his shuttered eyes, and his face had never looked more impossibly remote as he followed her movements.

Rashid watched her. Her body was completely and decently covered now, but she still exuded an irresistible sensuality. A sensuality which had made him weak as he had never been weak before!

His mouth tightened. ‘I think you owe me some kind of explanation, Jenna.’

‘I owe you nothing!’ she retorted hotly. Not now. She had paid her dues in full.

A glimmer of humour—the very first she had seen since she had walked into his palace that day—briefly softened the hard, dark eyes. ‘You like to fight with me, don’t you?’ he observed softly.

She shook her head. ‘No one ever fights with you.’

‘You do,’ he contradicted. ‘Jenna.’ His deep voice lingered on the syllables and made it sound like an erotic entreaty. ‘Why did you tell me that you had had a lover when it is now self-evident that there has been no one?’

Except for you, she thought, with sad bitterness. And in the end she had blown it, so caught up with nerves as he had entered her that she had known no pleasure at all.

‘Do you really need to know?’ she asked wearily.

‘Yes.’

She guessed that there was no point in evading this particular issue. What Rashid wanted, Rashid generally got—and why shouldn’t he know the truth?

‘It was a last desperate attempt to get out of marrying you,’ she said.

He frowned as if had misheard her.
‘Desperate?’
he echoed incredulously. ‘You would go to such lengths not to marry me?’

‘That’s right.’ She nodded her head, spurred on by a determination that he should know the strength of her resolve. ‘I don’t want to marry you, be your wife. I told you that repeatedly, Rashid but, as usual, you wouldn’t listen! You ordered me over here in spite of my objections. You want your own sweet way and you’re determined to get it—just like you always do!’

‘You flatter me, Jenna,’ he said sarcastically.

‘No, I don’t—and what is more I never will! Everyone else around here does, and that’s half your trouble!’

‘Half my trouble?’ he repeated dangerously. ‘And just what is
that
supposed to mean?’

‘That you’re arrogant!’ she offered.

Black brows were raised in imperious question, as if she had just rather stupidly stated the obvious. ‘And?’

His lazy acknowledgement filled her with the courage to tell him what was really going on in her mind. ‘And I don’t want to marry an arrogant man! I don’t want the kind of marriage you are offering me!’ she declared. She saw him open his mouth to object, but she shook her head and carried on, not caring that no one
ever
interrupted Rashid! ‘When I get married, I want it to be as an equal!’

‘An equal?’ he repeated faintly.

‘Yes! It’s an interesting word, isn’t it, Rashid? One which I learnt in America! Go and look it up in the dictionary if you really don’t understand it!’

‘I think you forget yourself!’ he said tightly.

‘I think not!’ she contradicted, and for a moment her vulnerability and sense of regret were washed away by an overwhelming wave of
power
! She was no longer bound by an ancient promise to him! She was free to say exactly as she pleased—and maybe some long-overdue home truths wouldn’t go amiss.

‘I don’t want the kind of marriage your parents had. All Quador men consider it to be their unquestionable right to…’ She clamped her lips together firmly.

‘To what, Jenna?’ he questioned silkily.

As if he needed telling! She shivered with distaste. ‘To have mistresses!’

‘Mistresses?’

Her pent-up anger and frustration exploded in a fit of temper she hadn’t seen in herself for a long, long time. ‘Oh, please don’t insult my intelligence by playing dumb with me, Rashid!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not stupid, and neither is everyone else! I read the newspapers, you know!’

He noticed the ragged breathing which was making her delightful breasts rise up and down quite enticingly, and thought fleetingly that if it had been any other woman he might have taken her straight back to bed there and then.

But then if it had been any other woman he doubted he would have lost all control and left her unsatisfied. A fact
which was surely contributing to her magnificent temper—a temper which was making her look fiery and beautiful and almost
formidable
.

Neither men nor women lost their temper in front of him, and in this woman the novelty value was proving highly erotic. But enough was enough; she needed to know who was the master.

‘Explain yourself!’ he commanded.

Jenna pursed her lips together. ‘The whole world knows that you have many women,’ she began, and when she saw the slight shrugging of his shoulders her blood pressure threatened to shoot through the ceiling. ‘You see! There you go again! Looking as though it’s something to be
proud
of!’

‘Many men do it,’ he commented quietly. ‘But mostly they don’t have the paparazzi waiting around to capture the moment on film!’

She sucked in a breath of outrage that was directed as much against her
own
behaviour as his. How could she have just let him have sex with her like that? How
could
she?

‘Even in yesterday’s newspaper in New York I saw that you had been pictured leaving your
friend’s
apartment in Paris only the day before!’ she raged. ‘Cutting it a little fine, weren’t you, Rashid? You must have some stamina—to have made love to her and then to come back to repeat the experience with me!’

He was contemplating giving her an insight into the
real
extent of his stamina, when he saw the faint glimmer of tears which had turned her eyes into liquid gold and he cursed aloud. What right had he to make any kind of boast in view of what had just happened?

His voice was as soft as she had ever heard it, and it soothed her as if it were a lullaby. ‘I had not intended to make love to you today!’ he murmured. ‘As my bride, you would have come to me a virgin—and I would have been so much slower with you. So much more gentle! And now I have ruined your first experience of making love.’

‘Maybe we both ruined it,’ she argued quietly, and then
turned her eyes up to his. ‘Oh, why did you have to follow me here, Rashid? Why didn’t you just leave me alone?’

Not follow her? Rashid shook his head. His anger and his desire for her had reached a point of total combustion that could not have been denied. He hadn’t asked himself what had guided him so inexorably towards her room because he had been eaten up with a gnawing kind of jealousy which had blinded him to all thought and reason.

Until he had walked into this bedchamber and seen her wrapped into nothing but a towel. And then a primitive hunger had taken over completely.

‘But I could not let you go just like that,’ he declared heatedly.

‘Why not?’

‘And let you take your leave of me with those your final words?’ His question was incredulous. ‘That you, as my betrothed, had taken another lover?’

She bit back the obvious remark that he had not
acted
like her betrothed for the past few years—that might smack of desperation of a different kind. And, whatever else happened today, Rashid would remember her as having some kind of innate pride.

‘But there remains a question, Jenna,’ he continued quietly. His deep voice sounded reflective, though the hooded black eyes told her precisely nothing of his true feelings. ‘Just what do we do next?’

She stared at him, then shrugged. ‘As planned,’ she said steadily, ‘I would like a car to take me to my father’s house, please.’

His lips compressed together and he threw her a look of impatience. ‘As if this had never happened?’

‘I think that is probably best, under the circumstances.’

‘Best?’ He gave a short, hollow laugh, and then spoke in a low, urgent tone. ‘I think that you must be talking out of the back of your head—as you say in America—if you think that this matter can now be forgotten.’

There was a steely determination underpinning his voice
which made her regard him with wary eyes. ‘Just what do you mean by that, Rashid?’ she whispered.

‘I have taken your honour,’ he said simply. ‘Taken it in a way which grieves me bitterly to think of, and there is a price to be paid for that action.’

A price to be paid.
He made it sound as if she were a diamond on sale and up for the highest bidder! ‘Don’t be ridiculous—’

‘I am
never
ridiculous!’ he lashed back, and then drew a deep, laboured breath. ‘Jenna, you were always intended to be my bride, and that situation will still stand. For how can I send you home to your father, knowing what has happened between us?’

‘But he need never know!’ she protested, desperate now.

There was an infinitesimal pause. ‘Not even if there is a baby on the way?’

Her heart missed a beat. ‘A baby?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘A
baby
?’

‘Well, of
course
there could be a baby!’ he exploded impatiently. ‘Did you not learn biology at school? I used no form of contraception—and I assume that, as a virgin, you were not protected either!’

The repercussions of what they had just done began to seep into her consciousness, like blood falling onto a stone. And it hurt. ‘Do you normally go around taking the risk of impregnating a woman?’ she questioned huskily, but her hands were shaking as she imagined him with other women. ‘Don’t you ever take any responsibility for your lovemaking? Just exactly how many children have you sired—?’

‘Jenna!’
he thundered. ‘I have never, ever spilled my seed into a woman before today! The royal blood of Quador cannot be squandered in such a way!’

‘Then what was so different about this time?’

A pulse beat relentlessly at his temple. This he could not answer—except to tell himself that he had been out of control in a way which was completely alien to him and had shown him a side of his nature he had not known existed.

‘I have no need to explain my actions to you, Jenna,’ he
said softly, his eyes as hard and as bright as diamonds. ‘But I see no need why the marriage should not now go ahead, as planned.’

‘Couldn’t we just wait to see if there’s a baby on the way?’ she beseeched him, knowing in her heart that it was useless, for she recognised that steely determination of old. ‘And if there isn’t—then couldn’t we forget the whole thing?’

He knitted his dark brows together in recognition of her sustained reluctance to be his bride. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We cannot.’

‘And if I refuse?’

No one refused him anything. Ever. And whether he got what he wanted by negotiation or coercion—he always won in the end. ‘Perhaps you wish that I should inform your father of what has just occurred?’

Warning bells threatened to deafen her, and all she could see was the cold ebony light gleaming from his eyes. ‘Rashid! You w-wouldn’t d-do that!’ she breathed.

‘Wouldn’t I?’ He smiled, but the smile sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Oh, I would, Jenna—believe me, I would.’ The eyes glittered again. ‘And what do you suspect your father would say if I told him?’