The sheikh's chosen wife (6 page)

'I'll get by,' she said,
trying to walk on legs that were shaking so badly she wasn't sure if she was
going to fall down.

'You'll marry again?'

She shuddered and didn't
reply.

'Take lovers in an
attempt to supplant me?'

Harsh and cruel though he
sounded, she could hear his anguish, ‘I need no one,' she whispered.

'Then you mean to spend
the rest of your life watching me produce progeny with this second wife I am to
take?'

'Oh, dear heaven.' She
swung around. 'What are you trying to do to me?' she choked out tormentedly.

'Make you see,' he
gritted. 'Make you open your eyes and see what it is you are condemning us both
to.'

'But I'm not condemning
you to anything! I am giving you my blessing to do what you want with your
life!'

If she'd offered to give
him a whole harem he could not have been more infuriated. His face became a map
of hard angles. 'Then I will take what I want!' It was a declaration of intent
that propelled him across the space between them. Before Leona knew what was
coming she was locked in his arms and being lifted until their eyes were level.
Startled green irises locked with burning black passion. He gave her one small
second to read their message before he was kissing her furiously. Shocked out
of one kind of torment, she found herself flung into the middle of
another—because once again she had no will to fight. She even released a
protesting groan when her feet found solid ground again and he broke the urgent
kiss.

Her lips felt hot, and
pulsed with such a telling fullness that she had to lick them to try and cool
them down. His breath left his body on a hiss that brought her eyes flickering
dazedly up to his. Thick dark lashes rested over ebony eyes that were fixed on
the moist pink tip of her tongue. A slither of excitement skittered right down
the front of her. Her breasts grew tight, her abdomen warming at the prospect of
what all of this meant.

Making love. Feeling him
deep inside her. No excuses, no drawing back this time. She only had to took at
Hassan to know this was it. He was about to stake his claim on what belonged to
him.

'You will regret this
later,' she warned unsteadily, because she knew how his passions and his
conscience did not always walk in tandem—especially not where she was
concerned.

'Are you denying me?' he
threw back in a voice that said he was interested in the answer, but only out
of curiosity.

Well, Leona asked
herself, are you?

The answer was no, she
was not denying him anything he wanted to take from her tonight. Tomorrow was
another day, another war, another set of agonising conflicts. Reaching up, she
touched a gentle finger to his mouth, drew its shape, softened the tension out
of it, then sighed, went up on tiptoe and gently joined their mouths.

His hands found the
slender frame of her hips and drew her against him; her hands lifted higher to
link around his neck so her fingers could slide sensually into his silk dark
hair. It was an embrace that sank them into a long deep loving. Her dress fell
away, slithering down her body on a pleasurable whisper of silk against flesh.
Beneath she wore a dark gold lace bra, matching high-leg briefs and lace-topped
stockings. Hassan discovered all of this with the sensual stroke of long
fingers. He knew each pleasure point, the quality of each little gasp she
breathed into his mouth. When her bra fell away, she sighed and pressed herself
against him; when his fingers slid beneath the briefs to cup her bottom she
allowed him to ease her into closer contact. They knew each other, loved each
other—cared so very deeply about each other. Fight they might do—often. They
might have insurmountable problems. But nothing took away the love and caring.
It was there, as much part of them as the life-giving oxygen they took into
their lungs

'You want me,' he
declared.

'I've always wanted you,'
she sadly replied.

‘I am your other
half."

And I am your broken one,
Leona thought, releasing an achingly melancholy sigh.

Maybe he knew what she
was thinking, because his mouth took burning possession that gave no more room
to think at all. It came as an unwelcome break when he lowered her down onto
the bed then straightened, taking her briefs with him. Her love-flooded eyes
watched his eyes roam over her. He was no longer being driven by his inner
devils, she realised as she watched him removing his own clothing. Her
compliance had neutralised the compelling need to stake his claim.

So she watched him follow
her every movement as she made a sensual love-play out of removing her
stockings from her long slender legs. His dark robe landed on the floor on top
of her clothing; the tunic eventually went the same way. Beneath waited a desert-bronzed
silk-smooth torso, with a muscled structure that set her green eyes glowing
with pleasure and made her fingers itch to touch. Those muscles rippled and
flexed as he reached down to grasp the only piece of clothing he had left to
remove. The black shorts trailed away from a sexual force that set her feminine
counterpart pulsing with anticipation.

He knew what was
happening, smiled a half-smile, then came to lean over her, lowering his raven
head to place a kiss there that was really a claim of ownership. She breathed
out a shivering breath of pleasure and he was there to claim that also. Then
she had all of him covering her. It was the sweetest feeling she had ever
experienced. He was her Arabian lover. The man she had seen across a crowded
room long years ago. And she had never seen another man clearly since.

He seduced her mouth, he
seduced her body, he seduced her into seducing him. When it all became too much
without deeper contact, he eased himself between her thighs and slowly joined
them.

Her responsive groan made
him pause. 'What?' he questioned anxiously.

'I've missed you so
much.' She sighed the words out helplessly.

It was a catalyst that
sent him toppling. He staked his claim on those few emotive words with every
driving thrust. She died a little. It was strange how she did that, she found
herself thinking as the pleasure began to run like liquid fire. They came as
one, within the grip of hard, gasping shudders and afterwards lay still, locked
together, as their bodies went through the pleasurable throes of settling back
down again.

Then nothing moved, not
their bodies nor even their quiet breathing. The silence came—pure, numbing,
unbreakable silence.

Why?

Because it had all been
so beautiful but also so very empty. And nothing was ever going to change that.

Hassan moved first,
levering himself away to land on his feet by the bed. He didn't even spare her
a glance as he walked away. Sensational naked, smooth and sleek, he touched a
finger to the wall and a cleverly concealed door sprung open. As he stepped
through it Leona caught a glimpse of white tiling and realised it was a
bathroom. Then the door closed, shutting him in and her completely out.

Closing her eyes, she
lifted an arm up to cover them, and pressed her lips together to stop them from
trembling on the tears she was having to fight. For this was not a new
situation she was dealing with here. It had happened before—often— and was just
one of the many reasons why she had left him in the end. The pain had been too
great to go on taking it time after time. His pain, her pain—she had never been
able to distinguish where one ended and the other began. The only difference
here tonight was that she'd somehow managed to let herself forget that, until
this cold, solitary moment.

Hassan stood beneath the
pulsing jet of the power shower and wanted to hit something so badly that he
had to brace his hands against the tiles and lock every muscle to keep the
murderous feeling in. His body was replete but his heart was grinding against
his ribcage with a frustration that nothing could cure.

Silence. He hated that
silence. He hated knowing he had nothing worth saying with which to fill it in.
And he still had to go back in there and face it. Face the dragging sense of
his own helplessness and—worse—he had to face hers.

His wife. His woman. The
other half of him. Head lowered so the water sluiced onto his shoulders and
down his back, he tried to predict what her next move was going to be, and came
up with only one grim answer. She was not going to stay. He could bully her as
much as he liked, but in the end she was still going to walk away from him
unless he could come up with something important enough to make her stay.

Maybe he should have used
more of his father's illness, he told himself. A man she loved, a man she'd
used to spend hours of every day with, talking, playing board games or just
quietly reading to him when he was too weak to enjoy anything else.

But his father had not
been enough to make her want to stay the last time. The old fool had given her
his blessing, had missed her terribly, yet even on the day he'd gone to see him
before he left the palace he had still maintained that Leona had had to do what
she'd believed was right.

So who was in the wrong
here? Him for wanting to spend his life with one particular woman, or Leona for
wanting to do what was right?

He hated that phrase, doing
what was right. It reeked of duty at the expense of everything: duty to his
family, duty to his country, duty to produce the next Al-Qadim son and heir.

Well, I don't need a son.
I don't need a second wife to produce one for me like some specially selected
brood mare! I need a beautiful red-haired creature who makes my heart ache each
time I look at her. I don't need to see that glazed look of emptiness she wears
after we make love!

On a sigh he turned
round, swapped braced hands for braced shoulders against the shower wall. The
water hit his face and stopped him breathing. He didn't care if he never
breathed again—until instinct took over from grim stubbornness and forced him
to move again.

Coming out of the
bathroom a few minutes later, he had to scan the room before he spotted her
sitting curled up in one of the chairs. She had opened the curtains and was
just sitting there staring out, with her wonderful hair gleaming hot against
the pale damask upholstery. She had wrapped herself in a swathe of white and a
glance at the tumbled bed told him she had dragged free the sheet of Egyptian
cotton to wear.

His gaze dropped to the
floor by the bed, where their clothes still lay in an intimate huddle that was
a lot more honest than the two of them were with each other.

'Find out how Ethan is.'

The sound of her voice
brought his attention back to her. She hadn't moved, had not turned to look at
him. and the demand spoke volumes as to what was really being said. Barter and
exchange. She had given him more of herself than she had intended to do: now
she wanted something back by return.

Without a word he crossed
to the internal telephone and found out what she wanted to know, ordered some
food to be sent in to them, then strode across the room to sit down in the
chair next to hers. 'He caught an accidental blow to the jaw which knocked him
out for a minute or two, but he is fine now,' he assured her. 'And is dining with
Ranq as we speak.'

'So he wasn't part of
this great plan of abduction you plotted with my father.' It wasn't a question,
it was a sign of relief.

'I am devious and
underhand on occasion but not quite that devious and underhand,' he countered
dryly.

Her chin was resting on
her bent knees, but she turned her head to look at him through dark, dark eyes.
Her hair flowed across her white-swathed shoulders, and her soft mouth looked
vulnerable enough to conquer in one smooth swoop. His body quickened, temptation
clawing across flesh hidden beneath his short robe of sand-coloured silk.

'Convincing my own father
to plot against me wasn't devious or underhand?' she questioned.

'He was relieved I was
ready to break the deadlock,' he informed her. 'He wished me well, then offered
me all the help he could give.'

Her lack of comment was
one in itself. Her following sigh punctuated it. She was seeing betrayal from
her own father, but it just was not true. 'You knew he worried about you,' he
inserted huskily. 'Yet you didn't tell him why you left me, did you?'

The remark lost him
contact with her eyes as she turned them frontward again, and the way she
stared out into the inky blackness beyond the window closed up his throat, because
he knew what she was really seeing as she looked out.

'Coming to terms with
being a failure is not something I wanted to share with anyone,' she murmured
dully.

'You are not a failure,'
he denied.

'I am infertile!' She
flashed out the one word neither of them wanted to hear.

It launched Hassan to his
feet on a surge of anger. 'You are not infertile!' he ground out harshly. 'That
is not what the doctors said, and you know it is not!"

'Will you stop hiding
from it?' she cried, scrambling to her feet to stand facing him, with her face
as white as the sheet she clutched around her and her eyes as black as the
darkness outside. 'I have one defunct ovary and the other one ovulates only
when it feels like it!' She spelt it out for him.