The Sheikh's Bought Wife

And no, he hadn’t kissed her, even though the expression in his black eyes had suggested he might. Why would he kiss her, when no sex was what explicitly defined their marriage? She should just be glad he’d trusted her enough to tell her what had really happened to his mother and father. Her heart should be full of empathy for his terrible experience.

And it was. It was brimming over with sorrow for what he’d suffered. She wanted to put her arms around him and hug him tightly as she’d done on their wedding night, but she didn’t dare. Because she was aware that sexual desire was growing with each second she spent in his company.

She could feel it in the heaviness of her breasts as she soaped them in the shower while getting ready for the official reception and in the restless ache between her thighs. At one point, impulse made her run her middle finger experimentally between her legs and she shivered before snatching it away again—scared of the intense physical sensations it provoked. Why now? she wondered desperately. Why should her body have tantalisingly come to life when she was trapped with a man who couldn’t touch her?

Wrapping herself in a snowy bathrobe, she padded into the dressing room to study the selection of clothes which had been flown out from Kafalah. Row upon row of them were lined up—exquisitely embroidered silk tunics, all with matching trousers. There were western clothes, too. Couture dresses designed to fit like a glove. Slim skirts and gossamer-fine blouses. Shoes with spiky heels and silk stockings to wear with them, although so far she hadn’t tried either. Since they’d married she’d dressed as a Kafalahian woman but tonight she didn’t feel like one. She felt like an outsider. A cuckoo in the nest. A woman with no real place in this strange new royal world she found herself in.

Was it that which made her ignore the Kafalahian tunics and pull on a shimmering floor-length dress in black, which was the ultimate in glamour and sophistication? She stepped back from the mirror, slightly alarmed to see that the designer gown was doing things to her body she hadn’t thought possible. The fabric clung to every pore, lifting and separating her breasts yet at the same time magically making her look as if she’d lost ten pounds. Her hair she left loose, clipping back the front strands with two of the glittering diamond clips she assumed Zayed would like to see her wearing.

She didn’t hear him enter the dressing room and for once she barely registered the towel covering his groin and buttocks, because she’d become used to that, too. Didn’t matter how big the towel was, it never seemed big enough for Zayed.

Tonight it was the look in his eyes which commanded her attention as it travelled in disbelief down her body before drawing her gaze to his, like a black flame sucking her in, the ebony fire flickering over her and growing in intensity. She waited for him to say something but he didn’t and as the silence grew insecurity plagued her—just as it had plagued her all her life. ‘You don’t like it?’ she said.

‘Don’t like it?’ He gave an odd kind of laugh. ‘What on earth gives you that idea?’

She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly. ‘Because you didn’t say anything—and I can’t quite work out the expression on your face.’

‘That’s good. I don’t particularly want you to work out the expression on my face,’ he said obscurely. ‘But if you really want to know what I’m thinking, it’s that you’re going to make every man in the room tonight want to possess you.’

Her hand flew to cover the shadowed line of her cleavage. ‘That wasn’t what I intended,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘You think it’s too much?’

‘Not at all. The dress is perfectly decent, just that on you it looks...’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because it’s a very sexy dress and you’re a total stranger to sex, and I’m the only one who knows that. Perhaps it’s the contrast of the pure and the provocative which makes it so captivating.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And since I’m about to get dressed myself, maybe you’d like to turn away—just like you always do—that is, unless you want to catch a glimpse of my naked body which is currently in a very uncomfortable state of arousal.’

And wasn’t it crazy that for once she was tempted to call his bluff. To stand there and say insouciantly, okay, go ahead while she dared to look at all that honed and tawny skin. Because wasn’t her natural curiosity growing in tandem with her increasing frustration? Hadn’t she started wondering what it would be like to have an orgasm—her face perhaps wearing that dreamy look of bliss afterwards which she’d seen on the faces of the women in those erotic Kafalahian drawings?

A lump rose in her throat. It was as if marriage to Zayed had made her look at her life and see all the things which were missing. She’d started to realise that if she wasn’t careful she could lock herself away until it was too late to enjoy some of the many pleasures available to her. All her youth and zest for living could just drain away, like the sand slowly trickling through an egg-timer. She could bury her head in her textbooks to her heart’s content but one day she might look up to discover wrinkles on her face and a wizened body no man would ever want.

With a sigh, she went over to the window and watched a gardener raking up a few fallen leaves to add to a growing pile and when she turned round again, Zayed was dressed.

‘You’re wearing a suit,’ she said, surprised.

‘Given your own choice of wardrobe, I thought it might make us look less mismatched,’ he said drily.

‘Even if we are?’

He raised his eyebrows before unclipping the lock

of a slim, leather box she’d only just noticed he was holding. ‘I think we can do our best to put on a unified front on our first social engagement as a married couple. And here is something which will indicate your significance in my life, Jane.’

Before she could challenge him on that, he had pulled out a necklace from its bed of indigo velvet, lifting it up in a dazzle so bright that it actually made Jane blink as she stared at it in disbelief. Hanging from a glittering jet choker was a pear-shaped diamond as big as a giant teardrop and Jane thought she’d never seen anything quite so beautiful as she realised what she was looking at.

‘The Kafalahian Star!’ she gasped.

He nodded. ‘You know of it?’

Her throat felt so tight she could barely speak. ‘Of course I do. But I’ve only ever seen pictures of it. I didn’t even realise you’d brought it with you. I mean...it’s been in your family for centuries, hasn’t it?’ She touched her fingers to her neck. ‘Gosh. I don’t know if I can wear it, Zayed.’

‘Why not?’ He moved behind her to wind the choker around her neck and once again she was acutely conscious of the brush of his fingers. ‘Every Kafalahian Queen wears the Star for her first formal outing.’

‘It’s exquisite,’ she said slowly. But as her finger traced over the teardrop diamond she found herself thinking how shallow women could be. Even her, with all her supposedly lofty ideals, could be dazzled by the shiny sparkle of a pretty jewel!

Their eyes met in the mirror and she identified the smoky darkening of his. When he looked at her that way it made her stomach turn to mush. It made her want to lean back against him and feel the warmth which radiated from his powerful body, but already he was moving away and opening the door with a faintly imperious gesture.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’

And then they were descending the swooping curve of the grand staircase to the smattering of applause from the waiting guests below. Musicians struck up the opening chords of the Kafalahian national anthem as they walked into the vast ballroom and they both stood very still until the haunting melody had finished.

Jane was introduced to countless people that night, but all she could think about was the dark king by her side. A man who, for all his earlier confidences, now seemed as cool and distant as a stranger. And wasn’t the crazy thing that those confidences had whetted her appetite and made her want more of that kind of closeness, even though she knew she wasn’t going to get it?