Protecting the Desert Heir

“Say it,” he demanded.

But this was Sterling, his Sterling. So even as she writhed against him, even as her hips met his in this wild dance of theirs, she defied him.

And God help him, he loved it. He loved all of this more than he’d ever imagined was possible, more than he’d ever loved anything or anyone. Sterling was his, damn it. All of her. Her body and her heart alike, and he didn’t much care if she thought otherwise. He knew the truth.

He wasn’t giving her up. Ever. Even if his kingdom came down around him. Even if the world followed suit.

For the first time in his life, he didn’t care about his duty. He cared about her.

“Say it,” he told her again. “I can do this all day. And if I can, you will. But you will not come until you admit what we both already know is the truth.”

She let out a sound then, half fury and half need, and Rihad laughed again, because he was as hungry as she was. As greedy for her.

“All yours,” she gritted out, her blue eyes slick and warm on his, and he felt it like a caress. This was who they were. Caress, capitulation, it was all the same thing. It all led to the same place. “Damn you, Rihad, I’m yours.”

He reached down between them and pressed hard against the taut center of her hunger, and she bucked hard against him, arching her back and digging her fingers hard into his shoulders, then screamed as she plummeted over the edge.

But Rihad was only getting started.

CHAPTER TWELVE

STERLING HADN’T MEANT to eavesdrop.

She’d been enjoying the gala, held in the grand art gallery that was one of the jewels of the new Bakri City, a testament to the country’s bright new future. Or so Rihad had said in his speech earlier, in English, for the benefit of the foreign press. She’d allowed the phalanx of docents to lead her through the first great exhibit, on loan from the Louvre, and had honestly enjoyed looking at the collection of world-class, world-famous art.

It had reminded her of her favorite way to spend a day in New York City: wandering aimlessly around the Metropolitan Museum of Art and losing herself in all the marvelous things collected there for the viewing, from paintings to metalwork to Egyptian tombs. Except here in Bakri City there was the sea on one side and the beckoning desert on the other, reminding her that she was across the world from the things she knew.

It had been ten days since she’d realized that she loved Rihad. Ten long days and longer nights since she’d understood that she must leave him and, worse, Leyla, too. Every day, she’d woken up and vowed that it would be her last in Bakri, that she would find a way to leave the two people she loved most. Yet somehow, there was always another reason to stay.

And here she was on yet another night, dressed in beautiful clothes as befit the queen she still had trouble believing was legitimately her. She’d smiled prettily on command, quite as if she couldn’t see the speculation in every gaze that met hers. As if she couldn’t hear the whispers that followed her around the great courtyard.

As if she wasn’t aware that at least half of the people who spoke to her were thinking the word whore as they curtsied and called her Your Majesty.

“Your daughter is the bright jewel of the kingdom,” professed one Bakrian aristocrat whom Sterling had recognized from her wedding. Where this woman and her husband, both possessed of crisp, upper-crust British accents when they spoke in their perfect English, had gazed back at her as if they couldn’t understand a word she’d said.

“I certainly think so,” Sterling had said.

“One can only hope she grows into her mother’s beauty,” said the husband, and Sterling hadn’t much liked that look in his too-knowing eyes when he said it, or the way he’d leaned closer than was strictly appropriate when he’d continued. “What a blessing it is for a daughter to become like her mother in every way.”

It took a moment for Sterling to understand that this person had, in effect, just called her infant daughter a whore. A potential whore.

She was going to ruin Rihad if she stayed. That much was obvious, no matter how he tried to dismiss it.

But aside from worrying over her biological limitations and the genetic propensity for ruining children she might have inherited from her own terrible mother, Sterling hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how her presence in Bakri would destroy Leyla. She’d thought that as Rihad’s daughter in every way but her biology, Leyla would be safe. More than safe.