The Desert Lord's Baby (Throne of Judar 1)
Her heart lurched like a captured bird in her chest.
Oh God, she’d really done it.
She’d really married him.
She’d lain beneath him, feeling him imprinting her, hard with an indiscriminate reaction to feeling a female body beneath him, had repeated the words that had bound her to him in a marriage without love or respect—or anything, really. A sham. A cold-blooded ruling on his part, a capitulation on hers.
It’s all for Mennah. It’s all for Mennah.
Maybe if she repeated the mantra enough she could endure this. The feeling of forever plummeting into an abyss.
She snatched her gaze away from his, fingered Mennah’s baby monitor receiver, praying for her daughter to wake up so she could run to her and be spared another exposure to Farooq.
All she heard over the amazingly low drone of the jet’s engines was the soothing Middle Eastern music through the surround sound system, and Mennah’s soft breathing.
Mennah had awakened during their departure, had bubbled with excitement in response to Farooq’s delight in her all through the trip in his limousine right up to the jet and through takeoff. She’d executed her sudden sleeping maneuver an hour ago, and he’d secured her car seat in one of the jet’s bedroom suites.
“You haven’t eaten.”
At his rebuke, her eyes fell on the masculine, square-cut silver service set and cutlery, laid out before her on midnight-blue silk tablecloth, nestling among sparkling crystal and crisp white napkins. She’d picked something from the extensive menu Hashem had provided. It had been served with great fanfare under polished brass domes, placed to simmer over gentle flames. Hashem had raised the covers to show her the cookbook perfection below and the aromas of the haute cuisine creations had hit her salivary glands. Her stomach had fed on its emptiness, churned with revulsion against being catered to as if she was a beloved mistress when she was just a necessary evil, an abhorred hostage.
Corrosion surged again in her throat. “I’m not hungry.”
His jaw hardened. “You haven’t eaten in the last seven hours. Your stomach must be feeding on itself by now.”
Gee. What was it with men suddenly being able to read her mind? Or was she just too predictable to live?
“You’ll have to excuse my stomach if it isn’t functioning to your calculated expectations. After all that’s happened in said seven hours, all it feels now is the urge to heave out its nonexistent contents. Just imagine what it would do to existent ones.”
“You’re trying to tell me I make you nauseous?” Exasperation flashed across his face before morphing into derision.
“Still playing games? Still challenging me to expose your proclamations for the feminine taunts that they are?”
She pressed a fist to her head in an attempt to mitigate the pressure building inside. “Just why do you want me to eat? I wouldn’t miss a few pounds. If I ever manage to part with them.”
His eyes changed hue, melted down her enervated body like his fingers once had, following a path of seduction, of destruction over her. “You have gained some weight.”
She snorted. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
“I will. In detail. When I’m in…possession of the full range of…particulars.”
“Gee, thanks. Just what every woman wants to hear. An inventory of her expanding assets.”
He leaned, ran a light touch down her left forearm to her ring finger, circled a nonexistent ring before sawing his finger between hers. “Expanding is an inaccurate word. Your assets have…appreciated.” He pushed a button on her seat’s armrest, swiveling it around, picked up her hand, tugged her out of her slouch, bringing her face level with his groin. “See for yourself how appreciated they are by inspecting my expanding assets.”
A second before he had her performing a hands-on assessment, she snatched her hand from his as if he’d been forcing it into an open fire, darting a look around.
He encroached closer, coming between her legs, making her feel dwarfed, dominated. “Don’t worry about accidental audience. We won’t be disturbed for anything less than an impending crash. Do get on with your reconnaissance, put your mind to rest about the efficacy of your weapons.”
She rolled her eyes, tried to resume breathing. “One more transparent double entendre and you win a food processor.”
His lips spread on a grudging smile as his legs did the same to her knees. He leaned down, his arms braced on both sides of her head, one hand weaving into her hair, pinning her head to the seat, tilting her face upward as his descended. “Don’t start a game you don’t intend to play to the end.”
She lurched as his breath lashed her lips, fresh and male and all him, the movement wrenching at her anchored hair, bringing tears stinging her eyes. His pupils flared, almost obliterating the irises, her name rumbling low in his chest. “Carmen…”
He was going to kiss her.
Every sensation of every time his heat and hunger had devoured her, deluged her with pleasure, drained her of will blossomed, a surround-memory replaying the glide of his flesh on hers, the taste of his tongue, of his vigor inciting her greed for more. Her heart stampeded, her lips, her nipples stung, every nerve discharged…
She couldn’t sit there and pant for him to kiss her.
Her fingers landed on her armrest. The seat swiveled away, taking her out of his reach.
She felt him brooding down on her bent head for a breath-depleting moments, before he exhaled, moved away.
He lowered himself in the seat beside her, swiveling it to face hers. “More games, I see.”
She huffed. “I didn’t comment before because your accusation left me speechless. What games, for God’s sake? The only act I ever pulled in my life was when I was out of my mind needing to get away before you found out I was pregnant. It was so transparent you must have laughed your head off every time you remembered it. I wouldn’t know how to play games if I wanted to. If I did, don’t you think I’d be in a better situation now?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What better situation is there? Every woman alive would kill to be in your place.”
This time the laugh that tore from her hurt. “Every woman alive would kill to have her motives, her anguish ridiculed, her character reviled, her life railroaded?”
His gaze hardened, flared before something like amusement flooded its depths, softening the edges, putting out the fire. “Any more R words? Recounting how I routed you out, ran roughshod over you then through a bit of rough-and-tumble got you to reiterate the vows that have roped you to me, ya rohi?”