Married For The Sheikh's Duty

He swallowed his shock at how swiftly lust rose through him.

Her breath fell in rough exhales while a tight stiffness entered her body. He held her loosely enough to not threaten her, leaving it in her hands if she wanted to move away. Other hand sliding to her waist, he exerted enough pressure to bring her closer to him.

Gorgeous brown eyes widened into innocent pools. Very likely, the vulnerability in her eyes was a well-rehearsed act, but still it turned him on incredibly. Pursuing one sophisticated woman after the other, sleeping with women who knew the score, Zayn had forgotten, or maybe he had never known, how hot this kind of vulnerability was.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make her all flustered again. He wanted to see if she would taste sweet as her soft sigh said or tart as her words suggested. When it came to women, Zayn had always taken what he wanted, pursued models and actresses ruthlessly. He wasn’t going to let this rough-around-the-edges woman slip past him.

“I’m going to kiss you, Amalia. This is your moment to go all outraged on me and call me a savage beast.”

If possible, she stiffened even more in his hold. “I...refuse to provide you with any more entertainment. I was right in thinking that you would be just as bloated and corrupt with power as—”

* * *

Whatever outrage Amalia had amassed to fight the man’s autocratic ideas and her own out-of-control senses, all of it disappeared as Zayn’s mouth touched hers.

The scent and taste of him was an overwhelming assault on her senses. He tasted of mint and some dark potency that stirred everything in her to waking. Heat poured through her in rivulets as he pressed one tender kiss after the other, from one corner of her mouth to the other. The softness of his mouth—who could know such a hard man could have such soft lips?—was a delicious contrast against the rough scrape of his jaw, tugging Amalia’s senses this way and that.

If he had kissed her with the aggressiveness she sensed within him, or if he had employed that sensual mastery that had made him a favorite lover of women, maybe she would’ve resisted.

But instead the soft flick of his tongue against the seam of her lips, the kisses punctured by the sweetest endearments in Arabic, Amalia melted like an ice cube on a hot and sultry Khaleej summer day. He tasted her as if he was dying to probe all her beguiling secrets; he kissed her as if she were a treasure he had just discovered.

This supposed connoisseur of women requested entry into her mouth as if she was the most enchanting woman he had ever met. And sensible, rational, rarely discomposed Amalia fell for it all. She eagerly opened her mouth under his questing one.

And just like that, the tenor of the kiss changed. It went from a pleasant seaside breeze to an intense scorching heat wave. His tongue swiped over the moist recesses of her mouth, teasing and taunting her tongue to play with him. The stroke of his tongue over hers released a dampness between her thighs. It was what he had done with words, too. He had somehow provoked her, called the part of her that she didn’t even know existed, made her revel in the moment, made her prolong what was only a dangerous charade.

He was seducing her mind.

He was doing that now, too. It was as if he knew to soften his aggressiveness for her, to slowly draw her out instead of demand. At least until she came to him of her own volition.

With a shamefully wanton moan, she sank her fingers into his hair and pushed herself closer to him. She sucked his tongue into her mouth just as he had done with her.

Large hands roved over her body now, tracing the ridges of her shoulders, the line of her spine, setting every nerve ending on fire. Urgent and aggressive, he stroked every inch of her to the same need. Amalia had never felt like this before and she didn’t know how to stop it, how to gain control over herself or this madness that had overtaken her.

All she knew was that she never wanted to stop.

Her mouth stung and her nipples peaked to tight points, grazed again and again by the hard contours of his chest. His hungry hands finally stilled on her waist and he pulled her even closer. Mouth left hers, giving her a chance to breathe. “Point proven. You can huff and puff and act outraged but truly, you want me. And you can’t see how all your self-control and rules about needing respect and recognition before attraction are out the window already. That’s what all this feminist bluster is about, isn’t it?

“It’s not about my double standards but about your own conflict in wanting me when you do not want to.”

If he had slapped her, Amalia couldn’t have been more shocked. It was like being drenched in an ice bath to douse her overheated senses. Still, her body throbbed in all these newly aware places, slow to cool down.

With a disgusted growl, she pushed away from him and turned around. Lungs burned as if she had run a long distance, her mind blank under the onslaught of such heady pleasure.

She rubbed her palm roughly against her stinging lips as if she could get rid of his taste. A horrified sound escaped her mouth. Dear God, she couldn’t believe she’d been kissing the Sheikh of Khaleej.

The thought of her twin rotting in that jail cell while she played ridiculous games with the man who held his fate in his hand made nausea whirl up through her throat. How could she have forgotten Aslam so thoroughly?

How had she gone from asking for help to a harmless pretense to climbing all over him like a vine?

“You’re offended by the kiss. But I will not apologize for doing something both of us wanted.”

She whirled around, his self-assured words scraping at her. Could she blame him for thinking she was putty in his hands? “I’m not just offended. I’m disgusted with myself.”

He laughed again. And this time the sound was redolent with mockery. “Because you got what you came for? Or because you enjoyed the kiss thoroughly?”

“What I came for?”

“You and I both know that you’re not suitable to be my wife in any way or form. So the only conclusion I draw from your being here is that you came seeking an affair. It is not a secret, anymore, that I treat my women well.”

The gall of the man to think she had expressly come so that she could lure him into an affair. Was there anything bigger in the world than the man’s ego? “You mean you pay them for sex?” she hurled at him.

His mouth curled, a hardness entering his eyes. “I do not like games, Ms. Christensen. I do not find affected outrage of the kind you’re displaying attractive at all. If you find my conclusion that offensive, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

This was it, her opening. To prolong hiding the truth meant resigning Aslam’s life to the jail cell for who knew how long. And yet, Amalia hesitated.

Something in the glittering gaze, in the sensual but hard contours of his mouth, told her he wasn’t going to like it. He wasn’t going to forgive her easily and then offer to help with Aslam. She might have made it worse if the sheikh thought she’d made a fool of him.

She was completely screwed.

“I did not come here hoping to marry you. In fact, I don’t think there’s a couple in the entire world more unsuited to each other for marriage.”

His hands behind his back, he looked at her as if she was one of his subjects. “My sentiments exactly. So I see only one reason why you would be on Ms. Young’s list.”

“No... I’m not one of the candidates lined up for your pleasure by Ms. Young. I would never allow myself to be presented like prize cattle for viewing.”

His hardened jaw told Amalia she was only making it worse, but she couldn’t stop. “I figured that much, too. Which is why I have to believe that you came here seeking a different kind of alliance.”

“I’m not here for an affair with you.”

“No?”

“A hundred times no. I came to meet with a state official about my brother Aslam’s case. I have spent two months dragging myself from one state office to the other, hoping someone would listen to me. He is in jail for—”

“Ah...so you’re a family of criminals, then?” His eyes were cold, flinty, his mouth a study in utter distaste. “Brother goes to jail, and sister inveigles herself into the palace under false pretenses. Is your father really a historian? Is anything you told me the truth?”

Amalia flinched. Her credibility was zero with him and she had no one but herself to blame. She softened her tone, hoping it would appeal to his good side. If he had one. “All I did was tell a white lie. No, I didn’t even do that. I just didn’t clear it up. I...couldn’t pass up the opportunity—”

“Opportunity to do what? To get into the sheikh’s chamber? To present yourself as a temptation?”

He looked so threatening right then, Amalia could practically feel the power coming off him. Utterly different from the man who had kissed her so tenderly, even from the man who’d laughed so openly. “Of course not! I don’t want to kiss you much less want an affair with you. I have a successful career and do not need any favors from a man like you, whether given freely or in exchange for something else.”

She now realized how fooled she’d been by the Celebrity Spy! Article, too. Having read about the sheikh’s escapades and orgy fests, she’d decided in her head that he was someone she could persuade and plead with.

But the man who stared at her with those inscrutably brilliant eyes didn’t have a soft bone in his body. The last thing he looked like right now was a self-indulgent, reckless playboy the exposé had called him.

“I intended nothing like that. I was tired of waiting and I snuck in here out of pure panic. When I realized who you were, for a few minutes, I even completely forgot...” She flicked her eyes closed for a second. Not everything had to be revealed now, even if he knew what her reaction had been to him. Opening her eyes, she willed her tone to be matter-of-fact. “Aslam has been imprisoned unfairly for something he was only a marginal part of. He was angry at life and reckless and irresponsible.”

“How old are you, Ms. Christensen?”