‘My goodness, you saw that snap? Mum sent it after we came home from that holiday in Ashur when we were turned away from the palace gates,’ Ruby explained. ‘I think it was her way of saying that we were perfectly happy whether the royal family ignored us or otherwise.’
‘I was very impressed with the photo, and when I saw you for real I was stunned by your impact on me and by how much you challenged me,’ Raja confided. ‘I only had to look at you to want you. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you either,’ Ruby said. ‘But you admitted earlier that you were very resentful of the need for us to marry…’
‘The instant I saw my beautiful bride my fate became instantly more bearable,’ Raja told her, laughing at the face she pulled. ‘Yes, I’m a very predictable guy—I desired you at first glance and I’m afraid that went a long way towards settling my objections to our arranged marriage.’
Ruby frowned, studying him in disbelief. ‘That is just so basic.’
Raja spread his hands as if to ask her to hold that opinion. ‘But then when I was least expecting it I fell in love with you…’
‘And then you…what?’ Ruby gasped, utterly bemused by that declaration.
‘At first it was just sexual desire that motivated me and then it was your smile, your strength and your sense of fun that had even more appeal. I fell in love without even realising what was happening to me,’ Raja declared, gazing at her with hot golden eyes in which possessiveness was laced with pride. ‘All of a sudden you became the most important element in my world.’
‘I don’t believe you. You said you slept with me in the desert because you wanted to make our marriage a real marriage.’
‘I slept with you purely because I wanted you. Any other aspirations which I cherished were secondary to that simple fact,’ Raja intoned levelly. ‘I’m not too proud to admit that I wanted you any way I could get you. I was very hurt when you said later that you didn’t care what I did.’
Ruby was beginning to believe but she wasn’t prepared to let him off the hook too easily. ‘But there was a seduction plan?’
Raja curled her fingers into his palm. ‘I couldn’t resist you.’
‘I was pretty horrible to you in the desert. I mean, it wasn’t your fault that we were there but I behaved as though it was.’
‘You were scared and trying not to show it. I understood that.’ Raja bent his dark, arrogant head and brushed his sensual mouth very slowly and silkily across her soft pink lips. ‘And then you gave me your body and there was nothing I wouldn’t have done for you, nothing I wouldn’t have forgiven.’
‘I thought that night was amazing but it can’t have been so special to you.’
‘It was, aziz.’ Raja extracted a deep drugging kiss that made her tremble and look up at him with dazed eyes. ‘But I think I fell in love with you when you said over that hotel lunch you walked out on that I would have been equally willing to marry a dancing bear. No other woman would ever have said such a thing to me. Or maybe our defining moment came when you said very ungraciously that you would only drink bottled water from now on—’
‘Stop teasing me.’ Her fingers speared into his thick black hair and she kissed him back with all her heart and soul, the longing he could awaken slivering through her in a piercing arrow of need.
‘That second night we spent together was extraordinary. It was our wedding night,’ Raja pointed out, his brilliant eyes resting appreciatively on her beautiful face. ‘And wonderful.’
‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ Ruby agreed, arching up to taste his mouth again for herself and hauling him back down to her again with greedy hands.
‘I thought I would never love a woman again and then I met you and it was a done deal right from the start. I was so resentful of the need to marry you until I actually met you. You got right under my skin. I tried to stay in control but it didn’t work. And then after we were rescued you made it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me. The flowers and the diamonds didn’t make much of an impression and that’s about all I had in my repertoire. You vanished every evening and only spoke to me when you had to. I’m not used to being ignored.’
‘It probably did you the world of good. I felt stupid.’ Ruby wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d demanded a platonic marriage and then got intimate with you the first chance I got. I didn’t know how to behave after that.’
‘I lay in that bed every night burning for you.’ Raja groaned, his body shuddering against hers in recollection. ‘I have never felt so frustrated and yet so aware that I would be putting unfair pressure on you if I made another move.’
‘I did need breathing space.’ Ruby rubbed her cheek comfortingly against his hand in a belated apology, hating the idea that he had been unhappy, as well. ‘I wanted you as well but I had so many other things—like my new royal life—to worry about. I was exhausted and living on my nerves and afraid that it would be a mistake to trust you too much.’
‘The greatest mistakes were mine. I was too impatient, too hungry for you.’ Raja sighed, discomfiture darkening his beautiful eyes and stamping his features with regret. ‘I should never have touched you in that tent. I rushed you into something you weren’t ready for and almost lost you in the process.’
‘You can’t plan stuff like that. I fell in love with you too,’ Ruby murmured, looking at him with loving eyes, revelling in the tenderness of his embrace and loving his strength and assurance. ‘But I was so scared I was going to get hurt, that I was falling for a guy who would never feel the same way about me.’
‘I won’t hurt you, aziz. You are my beloved and I can only be happy if you are happy with me—’
‘Obviously you got over that trapped feeling—’
‘I trapped you with me,’ Raja pointed out, dropping the mask of his reserve completely. ‘I felt so guilty about letting you fall pregnant. That shouldn’t have happened. I was selfish, thoughtless. I should have abstained from sex when I couldn’t protect you.’
‘That night was worth the risk. I would make the same choice again,’ Ruby told him, running a caressing hand across the muscular wall of his warm hard torso and smiling with satisfaction when he pushed against her and sought out her mouth again with barely restrained passion.
‘Some day I would like to take you back into the desert and show you its wonders.’
‘You were enough of a wonder for me,’ Ruby countered, in no hurry to recapture the magic of sand and scorpions, before he kissed her breathless and all sensible conversation was forgotten.
‘I really do love you,’ he told her some time later when they had sated their desire and they lay close and satisfied simply to be together.
‘I love you too but words are cheap—you didn’t give me the poetry or the hand-holding,’ she complained with dancing eyes.
‘Not the poetry, please,’ he groaned, wincing at the prospect. ‘I don’
t have a literary bone in my body.’
Unconcerned, Ruby squeezed the fingers laced with hers and kissed his stubborn jaw line, loving the scent of his skin. She was very happy and she would settle quite happily for the hand-holding.
EPILOGUE
A LITTLE less than two years later, Ruby smiled as Leyla told her brother, Hamid, to put away his toys and began showing him how to go about the task.
A lively little girl of five years, Leyla was very protective of her little brother but bossy, as well. For the sake of peace, Hamid toddled across to the toy box on his sturdy little legs and dumped a toy car in it, ignoring the rest of the cars scattered across the rug. Of course, even as a toddler Hamid was accustomed to the reality that servants would cheerfully tidy up after him and go out of their way to fulfil his every need and wish.
Hamid, the heir to the united throne of Najar and Ashur, was treated like the eighth wonder of the world in both palaces. Hamid might easily have become spoilt by overindulgence but Raja was very aware of the potential problem and he was a strict but loving father. With his black curly hair and big dark eyes, Ruby’s son was the very image of his father and an energetic child with a quick temper and a wilful streak. Ruby tried not to laugh as Leyla tried to pressure her brother into lifting more cars and he sat down and refused to move another step in silent protest.
Ruby still felt surprised to be the mother of two young children, nor did it seem possible to her that she and Raja had already reached their second wedding anniversary. The two years had flown by, packed with events and precious moments. Leyla’s adoption had been a joy. Ruby still remembered the memorable day when she and Raja had collected the little girl from the orphanage and explained that they would now be acting as her mother and father and that she would be living with them from then on. A decree from the throne had made Leyla an honorary princess so that she would not be the odd one out among any siblings born to her adoptive parents. Happily many of the other inmates of the orphanage had also found adoptive homes since then.