Traded to the Desert Sheikh

He had congratulated himself on his magnanimity, proud of himself that he was not like his own forefathers, that he had every intention of winning this woman slowly and carefully—instead of throwing her over his saddle and riding off into the desert with her like the Bedouin chiefs of old who made up a sizable portion of his family tree. He’d had absolutely no intention of playing the barbarian king to a deeply Westernized woman like Amaya, who no doubt had all sorts of opinions about what civilized meant. Oh, no. He’d planned to wine her and dine her like all the urbane sophisticates he’d imagined she’d known all her life, in all the cities she’d visited in all those concrete and glass places he abhorred. He’d planned to do what he had to do, whatever it took, to bind her to him in every way.

She’d led them to that alcove, tucked away out of sight in a far-off corner of the ballroom’s second-floor balcony while the rest of the assembled throng moved about far below, reveling in Rihad al Bakri’s lavish hospitality. Kavian had stared down at her when they were finally alone. He hadn’t smiled. He’d been trying to see inside her, trying to match her exquisite beauty in person to the image he’d carried around with him in his head. He’d been trying to process the fact that she was well and truly his already, no matter how he approached her.

It had felt like sunlight, deep inside him, warm and bright. He hadn’t known what to make of it.

“Well,” she’d said with false brightness. “Here we are. Officially betrothed and still total strangers.”

“We are not strangers,” he’d corrected her, with far more gruffness than he’d intended. He hadn’t meant to speak. He’d found those intricate braids that she’d worn like a crown of her own glossy hair an enchantment, and he’d been deep in their spell. He’d felt her gaze like a caress, an incantation. “I will soon be your husband. You are already mine.”

“I’m not yours yet,” she’d said, and then she’d lifted her chin in a kind of challenge that he’d only understood, in retrospect, had been a bit of foreshadowing he should have heeded. Back then, he’d simply enjoyed it. “And you should know that I can’t marry a man with a harem. A betrothal for political purposes is one thing, especially if it helps my brother, but a marriage under such circumstances? No. I refuse.”

Kavian had only continued to watch her, as if it was a deep thirst he felt and she the only possibility of ever quenching it. Most people caved under his regard, and quickly. Amaya had only squared her shoulders and held his gaze.

He’d liked that. Far too much, truth be told.

“For you,” he’d said, as if she had any choices left, as if she hadn’t just signed herself over to his keeping in full view of two countries and by now, the better part of the world, “I will empty mine. Is that what you require? Consider it done.”

He’d stopped restraining himself then. He’d looked at her with all that fire, all that dark longing, right there on the surface. He hadn’t hidden a single bit of the beast inside him. He hadn’t tried.

And Amaya had done the most extraordinary thing. She’d flushed, hot and red and flustered—but not frightened. Not horrified. Not even particularly scandalized—all of which he’d expected, on some level. Just...hot. Then she’d looked away as if the heat was too much. As if this was too much. As if he was.

As if she felt exactly as he did.

Everything in him had roared, approval and acknowledgment.

Mine, he’d thought, with every cell in his body. With every breath.

And he’d taken her head between his hands, those braids warm and soft beneath his palms, and he’d tasted her for the first time. It had changed everything.

It had blown them both up, right then and there.

That flame had only intensified in all the months since, while he’d had nothing to do while he chased her but imagine her right here, naked before him in his very own bed, the way she was right now. Finally.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Amaya asked, and he could hear the nerves in her voice. The hunger and the heat.

He’d been right about her—about this magnificent chemistry between them—six months ago. He was right now, too.

“I keep telling myself I am going to take this slow,” he said, dropping his hand from her chin but moving closer to her. “Act like the sophisticated gentleman I am not. But that is unlikely, azizty. Very, very unlikely, the longer you look at me with those big, innocent eyes of yours that are nothing but a temptation.”