Protecting the Desert Heir

THE SOUND OF the helicopter’s rotor blades faded off into the distance, taking with it Sterling’s halfhearted hopes that they might be called back to the palace to tend to some kind of governmental issue that simply couldn’t wait.

And then the only sound—in and around and between the brightly colored tents tucked there between the towering desert sand dunes and arrayed around the series of tree-lined pools that shouldn’t have existed in so arid a place at all—was the wind. It danced over the tops of the tents, making the hard canvas bend and stretch beneath the high sun far above, and then clattered its way through the palm trees.

Sterling was glad, because otherwise she was certain the only noise around for the miles and miles of uninhabited Bakrian desert they’d covered to get here would be the crazy pounding of her heart.

Rihad, of course, didn’t appear to hear any of it. He was conducting a conversation in rapid-fire Arabic into the satellite phone at his ear, striding toward one of the larger tents nearer the water as if he expected her to follow along obediently in his wake.

Instead, Sterling stayed where she was. She tilted her head back and let the desert sun play over her face. She liked the lick of heat, the tease of the dry wind against her skin and in the ends of the hair she’d scraped into a low ponytail beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She liked the murmur of the water from the nearby pools, the suggestion of cool, inviting shade beneath the trees and inside the tents. She would have been enchanted by the whole desert oasis thing altogether were it not for the fact he’d insisted she leave Leyla behind with the nurses, which was making her anxious.

And for what she suspected Rihad meant to accomplish here, which made her...something a lot more complicated than simply anxious.

“Maybe we can go in a month or two,” she’d said when he’d brought up their perception-altering honeymoon again at another one of their dinners. This one had been more intimate, set up in his private dining suite with the wraparound balcony that opened up over the whole of Bakri City, where all she could seem to think about was his hands on her body, his hardness clenched tight between her legs. “When Leyla is a little bigger and will be better about me going away for a night.”

Rihad had appeared focused on the food on his plate that night, not on her, though she should have known better than to believe that.

“It was not an invitation, as I think you know,” he’d said after a moment. “It was an order. A royal command, even.”

“Apparently, I have to remind you yet again that I’m not yours to command.”

He’d laughed, and she’d started in her chair, because it had been genuine. The sound of it had cascaded over her, as if it was poured straight from the sun. “Do you think so?”

She tried to sound prim. Not at all like the sort of woman who would climax all over a man on a wrought-iron table one summer morning. “I’m not one of your subjects, Rihad.”

“You are my queen.” His gaze had risen to meet hers then and she’d flushed hot and red. His dark gold eyes had been alive with something like merriment, and there’d been hints of that laughter in his voice when he’d continued. “And in the spirit of transparency between us, which I know is your dearest hope—”

“What’s wrong with murky?” she’d protested, aware she’d sounded as cranky as she had desperate. “I like a good swamp, especially in my marriage.”

His eyes had gleamed, laughter and light, and she’d felt undone.

He would unravel her completely. She had no doubt.

He’d already started.

“It will be more than a single night in the desert. I already told you it would be two weeks. And so it will.” When she’d started to argue he’d only smiled. “I’d resign yourself to the inevitable, Sterling. Have I yet to promise you anything that didn’t happen exactly as I said it would?”

She hadn’t been able to breathe. But that hadn’t stopped her mouth from moving.

“Are you going to command me to have sex with you, too?” she’d asked in that same absurdly overpolite tone, as if she was inquiring after high tea. “Consummation on demand?”

And she’d had no words to describe what his smile had done to her then, or how that lazy, predatory gleam in his dark gold eyes had made her feel. God, the way it had made her feel. How it had sneaked through her, tangling all around and making her hollow and needy, scared and yearning at once.

Did she want him to command her? Reach up, he’d ordered her that morning. Hold on. Was that why she’d asked?