Midnight in the Desert: Jewel in His Crown / Not Fit for a King? / Her Desert Prince

Temper roused by that tranquil response skittered up through Ruby in an uneasy rush. He made it sound so simple but their relationship was anything but simple. ‘I didn’t realise that but for that plane crash you would have married my cousin Bariah,’ she admitted. ‘I hadn’t worked that out yet.’

‘A marriage would hardly have been included in the peace accord if the royal families did not have a bride and a groom in mind.’

As usual what Raja said made perfect sense and her teeth gritted in frustration. ‘I’m sure you would have preferred a proper Ashuri princess!’

Face deadpan, Raja gazed steadily back at her, patently refusing to be drawn on that touchy topic.

Tension roared through Ruby’s rigid stance like a hurricane seeking an outlet. ‘I said—’

‘I am not deaf,’ Raja cut in very drily. ‘But I do wonder what you expect me to say in reply to such an assumption.’

Flushed and furious, Ruby surveyed him. ‘Is an honest answer too much for me to ask for?’

‘Not at all, but I will not insult either you or your late cousin with the suggestion that I might compare two completely different women and voice a preference for either,’ Raja advanced, eyes cool while his strong jaw-line set hard as iron. ‘That is not a reasonable request.’

‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly reasonable!’ Ruby slung back heatedly.

‘But to answer you would be disrespectful.’

‘Unlike you I’m only human. Naturally I want to know although I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask. Bariah was a real princess and would’ve had much more in common with you than I have.’

‘No comment,’ the prince pronounced stonily and with much bowing and scraping the little maid emerged from the bedroom and left the suite.

‘Bariah spoke the language, knew this country.’ Ruby’s statement was pained for after spending only hours in the Ashuri palace she was all too conscious of her deficiencies.

‘Given time and patience you will learn,’ Raja murmured quietly, his lack of tension merely increasing the adrenalin surge ready to charge through Ruby’s veins.

Ruby was in no mood to be comforted. ‘My cousin would have known automatically how to behave in every situation—’

‘Wajid already thinks you’re doing a marvellous job,’ Raja imparted gently.

As she stiffened defensively her eyes flared bright as topaz gemstones. ‘Don’t patronise me!’

‘I’m going for a shower,’ Raja breathed, casting his jacket down on a chair and striding into the bedroom.

Ruby stilled in her restive stalk round the spacious room and shot a startled glance in his direction as she followed him into the bedroom. ‘You’re actually planning to sleep in here with me?’

In the act of unbuttoning his shirt, Raja dealt her an impatient glance and said nothing.

For a timeless moment Ruby watched a wedge of masculine torso appear between the parted edges of the shirt. ‘There are two big sofas in the room next door,’ she pointed out, in case he had not yet noticed the possibility of that option.

Raja treated that reminder to the contempt he evidently felt it deserved. His eyes burned hot gold below his black, spiky lashes, his jaw squared, giving his face a dangerous edge.

‘All right … I’ll take a sofa,’ Ruby pronounced, determined to stick to her guns. It was her belief that if she reinforced their separation they would both soon forget those boundaries they had unwisely crossed and return to their original agreement.

Raja elevated a deeply unimpressed and sardonic black brow and stripped off his boxers to walk fluidly into the bathroom. As nude exits went it scored an impressive ten in the cooler-than-cool stakes. While the shower was running, Ruby made up a bed on a sofa for herself, donned her pyjamas, doused the lights and climbed in. Hermione snuggled in next to her feet.

A little while later, a wild burst of barking drove her from the brink of slumber.

‘Call off the dog or I will put her out to the kennels,’ Raja growled, his face grim in the light spilling from the bedroom.

Ruby leapt off the sofa, snatched the snarling Hermione up into her arms and attempted to soothe her overexcited pet. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Retrieving my wife,’ Raja traded in a wrathful tone of warning.

‘I’m not your wife, not your proper wife!’ Ruby launched furiously back at him, inflamed by that insistence and the label.

‘So you’re not a real princess or a proper wife. Then what are you?’ Raja challenged impatiently, bending down from his considerable height to haul her up into his arms while she clutched Hermione frantically to her chest. ‘My sex buddy? A friend with benefits?’

He then went on to employ a third term of description, which was crude enough to make Ruby’s soft, full lips fall open in shock and her big, brown eyes flame. ‘How dare you?’

Raja settled her down on the bed with a good deal more care than she had grounds to expect from an angry man. Hermione tried to bite him. Composed in the face of that attempted attack, he scooped up the animal and put Ruby’s pet out of the room. From the other side of the door Hermione whined and scraped the wood.

‘Are you planning to do the same to me if I stand up to you?’ Ruby enquired furiously. ‘I am not sleeping with you again—’

‘I’m not very interested in sleeping right now either.’ At least six feet three inches tall and magnificently male, Raja threw back the sheet and slid into bed beside her.

‘I am not your sex buddy or that other thing you mentioned!’ Ruby proclaimed in a rage.

‘No, you’re my wife,’ Raja repeated again, immovably stubborn on that point.

Ruby was taken aback when he got out of bed again and crossed the room to reach for his jacket and retrieve something from a pocket. He returned to bed and reached for her hand.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded apprehensively.

‘I’m replacing your wedding ring.’ And this time the ring on her finger was a perfect fit as well as being very different from its predecessor. The first ring had been a plain gold band but the second struck her as a good deal more personalised for it was a slender platinum ring chased with ornate decoration.

‘Don’t call me your wife again,’ Ruby muttered helplessly, twirling the ring round her finger with a restless hand. ‘It makes me feel trapped.’

This time Raja did not hide his anger. His nostrils flared and his dark golden eyes scorched hers like burning arrows, leaving her feeling alarmingly short of breath. ‘You should be proud to be my wife,’ he told her without hesitation.

Her breath rattled in her tight throat. She had not meant to insult or offend. Without warning things had become terrifyingly personal. ‘I’m sure I would be proud if I loved you,’ she whispered in a response intended to soothe.

‘Love!’ Raja loosed a derisive laugh of disagreement. ‘What need have we of that with the fire that burns between us?’

Well, so much for the emotional angle, she was thinking irately, for clearly she had not married a romantic guy, when sure fingers trailed across her cheekbone and captured her chin. His other hand curving to her waist, Raja lowered his proud, dark head and claimed her full, pink mouth hungrily with his. There was a split second when she might have pushed him away and her slim body braced and her hands rose in protest against his broad shoulders to do exactly that. But the moist slide of his tongue between her lips and the hand rising below her pyjama top to curve to the plump swell of her breast sent a flood of damp heat to the tender flesh between her thighs and a surge of such hunger that she shivered in shock. The dark force of desire took her by storm, every fibre of her being sitting up, begging and clawing for more.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_33ab2162-cc78-597a-96b2-254cd7e353d9)

‘WE SHOULDN’T do this!’ Ruby gasped in a last-ditch attempt to reclaim control of the situation while she mustered sufficient self-discipline to drag her tingling mouth from the unadulterated magnetic allure of his.

Having already whisked her free of her pyjama bottoms, Raja threw back his tousled dark head and angled his lean hips to let her feel the hard evidence of his erection against her stomach. She quivered, fighting her desire for him with all her might, for at that instant desire had as much of a hold on her as a powerful addiction in her bloodstream.

‘You mustn’t get me pregnant!’ Ruby exclaimed in a sudden panic, anxiety gripping her at the thought of suffering such a far-reaching and serious consequence. Just for a moment she could barely credit that she had ever been stupid enough to run that level of risk.

A hand spread below her hips to raise her to him. ‘We took no precautions in the desert,’ Raja reminded her with a frown.

‘But we don’t need to run that risk now. I take contraceptive pills but I missed some when we were there so for the rest of the month I need to take extra precautions.’