Royal Weddings: The Sheikh's Princess Bride / The Doctor Takes a Princess / Crown Prince's Chosen Bride

Samira breathed him in hungrily, clean sweat and warm spice. Moisture sheened his forehead and the burnished skin of his collarbone. Her eyelids flickered as the pulse between her legs quickened.

‘How did you do that?’ she asked, needing words to fill the expectant silence.

‘Do what?’ His eyes were on her mouth and her nipples pebbled in anticipation. She shuffled back a step.

‘That.’ She nodded to the stallion. ‘The way you break in a horse.’

‘Ah.’ He drew the sound out as he followed her a pace. Heat beaded Samira’s brow. He was too close. ‘That’s the secret.’ He bent his head and his words feathered warm breath across her face. ‘I don’t break them. I gentle them.’

His eyes caressed her and she felt it like the graze of hard fingers along her throat and over her cheek.

She blinked. ‘Gentle?’ Was he some sort of horse whisperer?

‘It’s a matter of trust,’ he murmured in that low voice with just a hint of gravel. It trawled through her insides, furrowing pleasure in its wake. ‘Once they know I’m not going to hurt them, they learn to trust.’

The liquid heat in his eyes told her he was talking about more than horses.

She stiffened. ‘You won’t hurt them while they abide by your rules, you mean. You want to be master.’ Just as he wanted to be hers. Disillusionment was still fresh in her memory. Of how he’d duped her into believing he was safe.

No man had ever looked less safe.

Or more appealing. That was the problem. Her heart hammered her ribcage as if yearning for her submission.

‘You think it’s about power?’ Slowly he shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. ‘You had the wrong teacher, Samira.’ Heat scorched her skin at his words. They both knew he was referring to her ex-lover. ‘It’s all about partnership, mutual understanding and enjoyment.’

‘Enjoyment?’ Instead of disbelief, the single word sounded...needy. She swallowed hard, unable to break away from the enchantment Tariq wove around her with his rich voice and those slumberous eyes that yet danced with anticipation.

‘Of course.’ He smiled and something hitched in her chest. ‘If we don’t both enjoy the partnership it won’t work.’

Tariq’s words hung in the air like a promise. Partnership, enjoyment...was that what he offered where she saw only capitulation and danger?

Samira looked over his shoulder to the dark, glistening eye of the big stallion. Far from being cowed, mischief glinted there. And delight.

Or perhaps her imagination ran away with her. She shook her head, stepping back abruptly to break the spell Tariq wove around her.

Long fingers closed around her hand. His grip was firm but not unbreakable, yet she found herself stilling.

‘We’re not enemies, Samira.’ His tone coaxed. ‘We want the same thing.’

She swallowed the words all but bursting on her tongue. Emotionally charged accusations that stemmed from fear, not of Tariq as much as of herself, of this weakness she couldn’t eradicate but dared not give in to again.

‘Risay is here,’ she said stiffly. ‘Unlike his brother, he refused to settle for a nap without seeing you.’

Tariq’s hand loosened around hers as she pulled away, yet even with four whole paces between them the imprint of heat still shackled her.

Then he moved past her in long, easy strides. He hunkered down to Risay’s level and weathered his son’s enthusiastic embrace with a smile that confirmed what she already knew: that his boys were the light of his life.

He didn’t look back over his shoulder at her. His whole attention was focused on his son.

To her dismay, Samira felt excluded. She wanted some of what he gave Risay: his attention, his loyalty. She wanted to bask in his smiles, share his laughter.

And more...so much more.

* * *

Laughter rang out, the sound curling around Samira’s heart, making her smile. Adil shrieked with joy as his father threw him up and deftly caught him in strong arms. Water droplets caught the dying light as Tariq shook his head. Samira made herself look away. She’d spent too long furtively ogling his powerful body.

This time at the oasis had been far more confronting than the night of their wedding, when Tariq had come to her bedroom and insisted she kiss him. A week had passed and with each day the tension in her had twisted harder.

Her husband stood thigh-deep in the shallows, his swim shorts clinging to powerfully hewn thighs. The sight of him sent Samira’s blood pressure hurtling into the danger zone.

She’d never been one to gawk at men. But she’d never spent time with a man like Tariq.

Her one and only lover had been handsome and oh-so-charming, wiry rather than muscular. He’d looked better modelling chic designer clothes than out of them. And she’d discovered that his charm was more often for the camera than for her. Yet here was Tariq, even more appealing in the role of doting father and considerate husband than he was in public.

His eye caught hers and a pulse of awareness passed between them, making her heart beat like a drum. One glance and instantly she reacted. It had been like that since the wedding, even though Tariq hadn’t pressed her for more.

Each day, each hour, she waited for him to try persuading her into intimacy, only to be disappointed when he treated her with careful courtesy! After their conversation in the stables she’d expected him to make a move on her, confident of success. Yet he’d let her be. Only the warmth in his gaze and the way his hand lingered when they touched proved it hadn’t all been a dream. She hadn’t imagined his proposition.

Samira tore her gaze away, kneeling and opening her arms to Risay as he splashed through the shallows towards her.

The sight of the brilliant smile on his dear baby face tugged at her heart strings. He and his brother had welcomed her into their world with an uncomplicated enthusiasm that reinforced all her fond hopes.

Silently she vowed she’d repay their generosity with all the love and support they deserved.

Her arms closed around Risay and she snuggled him close. He was wet and cuddly and chuckled as inevitably he reached for her hair.

Samira let him play with the knot at the back of her head. Tiny fingers snagged and pulled. She sighed, acknowledging it was easier to do it herself. With a few swift movements she released her hair. It tumbled down and Risay clapped his hands, sitting with a splash in the shallow water, threading his fingers through her long tresses.

‘What is it with you boys and my hair?’

‘It’s the novelty.’ Tariq’s voice seemed ridiculously deep after his son’s high squeal of pleasure. And it held a husky note that brushed along her nerves like rich velvet. ‘They’ve never seen anything like it.’

Samira looked up to meet his eyes. There it was again, that flash of brilliance that made her catch her breath. She was grateful her hair was loose. It hid the way her nipples swelled against her swimsuit, as if reaching out for his touch. The idea sent discomfort squirming through her.

Yet it was true. Every instinct she possessed urged her to forget her qualms and take what Tariq offered. This honeymoon with him and the twins at the ‘small’ summer palace on the edge of the desert and the mountains had worn down her doubts and her resistance.

They’d spent almost every waking hour together since he’d set aside royal responsibilities for a week and declared this family time.

It had become appallingly difficult, trying to remember exactly why intimacy with Tariq was such a bad idea when he was with her all the time.

‘Sofia, their nanny, has short hair. So do the other staff.’

As he spoke his gaze followed the fall of Samira’s hair. That took his stare down to her waist, then lower to the high-cut edge of her swimsuit and her bare thighs. Immediately fire zinged along her veins, concentrating at the sensitive spot between her legs. She shifted her weight and watched a tiny smile tug at his mouth. As if he knew exactly how she responded.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seemed to know more about her desires than she did herself.

‘Maybe I should get it cut.’ Carefully she extricated Risay’s fingers from her hair and distracted him with a brightly coloured bucket. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for ages.’