‘That isn’t the point.’
‘Really? Then I must be missing something. I thought that was the whole point of sex—other than procreation, of course, and obviously we’re not going there.’ She pushed her mussed hair back from her face. ‘In fact, it might interest you to know that one of your ancestors once wrote in his diary that he preferred members of his harem to administer oral sex because it meant he didn’t have to exert himself in any way—which proved especially valuable in the desert heat, in the days before air-conditioning—’
‘I don’t give a damn what my ancestors said!’
‘No?’ She looked at him, her eyebrows slightly raised, and he was reminded of her expression during those usually frosty encounters when she’d been working at the embassy and he’d been there on official business. His eyes narrowed. What had happened to the woman she’d been then? The woman in the shapeless clothes with her hair scraped back into a tight bun. Had this deeply sensual side always been there—just waiting for a desert sheikh to liberate it? Or would the tall geek from the Foreign Office have managed to produce the same reaction? Zayed felt his body tense.
‘No,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t.’
‘So why are you in such a grumpy mood? What’s your problem?’ she questioned.
She was. She was his problem, and he couldn’t work out why. She was being the best wife she could be in the circumstances—considering he didn’t actually want a wife. She hadn’t tried to rehash all the things he’d confided in her. There had been no more probing questions, nor attempts to delve further into his painful past. She hadn’t preened with pride because she’d been the sole recipient of his confidences. She was discreet, he realised—yet another attribute which had made her so good at her job—but that very discretion was frustrating. He’d told her he didn’t want to talk any more about his past but he’d expected her to at least try.
So that he could rebuff her attempts to get underneath his skin and push her further away from him?
Probably.
The trouble was that she seemed to be binding herself closer without appearing to do anything. He told himself that her appeal lay solely in the fact that she was forbidden to him—and he was a man who had always chased the forbidden. That was what made her so fascinating.
‘Come here,’ he said, lifting her so that she was lying on top of him, belly to belly and groin to groin, and he saw her eyes darken, though a faint frown appeared on her brow.
‘Be careful,’ she said as his fingers slipped beneath her robe.
‘No need to worry,’ he said. ‘You’re wearing panties, aren’t you?’
Her cheeks went pink. ‘You do say the most outrageous things sometimes.’
She was such a delicious contrast, he thought. So prim and the proper and yet underneath it all—she had a wild sexual appetite which only he had untapped. Instantly he could feel himself growing hard again and so, judging by the widening of her eyes, did she. He wondered what she would do if he pushed her panties aside and eased slowly inside her, like two teenagers who could hold back no longer—a state of affairs which had never applied to him because his lovers had always given him exactly what he wanted. But wasn’t that what he felt like now—a teenage boy with little experience, out of his depth in a situation which seemed to have developed a life of its own? He met her gaze and acknowledged the deepening heat which had flared over her cheeks. ‘Wouldn’t it be so easy?’ he questioned. ‘To just do it?’
Wriggling away from his grasp, she quickly got up from the bed and smoothed down her tunic. ‘And then what? All this would have been in vain. The marriage would then have been consummated and we wouldn’t be able to get it annulled.’
‘Nobody would know,’ he continued reflectively. ‘I have looked in the statute books and discovered that non-consummation is unbelievably difficult to prove.’
‘But we would know,’ she said reprovingly and then something seemed to change on her face as she went to stand by the window to gaze out at the desert sky. ‘I think I would find it difficult to live with that level of deceit, Zayed. And we’d be running the risk of perjuring ourselves, which I can’t honestly believe you would be prepared to do.’
He gave a heavy sigh. Why did she always have to be so damned right? ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I guess not.’
Her shoulders were stiff with tension and he found himself wanting to ask what was going on in that head of hers and this frustrated him too, because asking a woman what she was thinking was surely the beginning of the end! ‘Jane?’ he said meditatively.
But Jane wasn’t really listening. She was wondering how much longer she could maintain this façade of pretending she had no real feelings about the man she’d married, of acting as though all this meant nothing. Pretending that she cared about nothing but having orgasms when inside her heart was becoming ensnared by Zayed with each sweet kiss he gave her.
Outside their bedroom window the sky was as blue as the party dress her mother had bought Cleo all those years ago, but inside Jane’s heart felt darker than it had done when she’d unwrapped her own dress to discover it was a dull and sensible navy. Her mother hadn’t intended to be cruel—she had simply been acknowledging the differences between her two daughters, one so pretty and the other so practical. And nothing had really changed. She needed to remember that. She was still practical Jane and beneath all her royal finery she was plain Jane, too. A few dazzling jewels and a title didn’t actually change that.
She had Zayed’s interest now, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. He was fascinated by her, yes—even she with her lack of experience could tell that—but only because she remained elusive. She knew that sometimes he watched her when she wasn’t looking, just as she knew he often smiled at some of the things she said—and he wasn’t a man prone to giving many smiles. But he didn’t know the truth, did he? He had no idea she was trying very hard not to be the Jane she had become... The woman who wanted to melt whenever he kissed her. Who hungered to feel him deep inside her, instead of their controlled and ultimately shallow methods of achieving pleasure. Who longed to carry his child with a passion which startled her.
Because somewhere along the way she’d come to know the man beneath the arrogant exterior. To understand him better and to like him. And that liking was in danger of tipping into loving. Loving someone who didn’t want her love—a damaged man who hid his pain well beneath his success and his swagger. There had been no more bad dreams since he’d told her about what had happened to his mother and he’d never mentioned that painful subject again. She couldn’t deny the satisfaction it gave her to think that she might have helped liberate him from some of his demons. But she shouldn’t take that satisfaction and try to turn it into something it could never be.
And wouldn’t Zayed run a million miles if he guessed what her true feelings were? If he realised that some nights she lay awake wondering how she was going to endure the next f
ew months with him, despite the mutual pleasure they gave each other. Terrified that she was going to reveal herself with a candid word or a slip of the tongue. She thought about the country she had hungered all her adult life to see—and how ironic it was that she spent an inordinate amount of time in their bedroom, despite having been given complete access to all the palace artefacts and its magnificent library.
‘Will I get to see Qaiyama before I leave?’ she questioned suddenly.
‘We have months to think about that.’
‘I know we do, but I’d like to go before winter sets in. I’ve heard over the last few years it’s been snowing in the region and cutting off the city.’ She turned to face him. ‘Is that possible, do you think?’
An arrogant smile touched the edges of his lips. ‘Anything is possible for your Sheikh, Jane. You have only to ask.’