The Sheikh's Bought Wife Page 8

  ‘Many reasons. Natural curiosity, for one. Perhaps because I’ve never spent the night with a virgin before. I’ve certainly never had sex with one.’ He narrowed his eyes as if running through his memory. ‘Or if I have, I wasn’t aware of it.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘You’re disgusting.’

  ‘So you keep telling me,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve been called many things in my lifetime, Jane—but never that.’

  ‘Probably because people are always treading carefully and kowtowing towards you because you happen to be a desert king.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded, his gaze travelling over her, but there was open interest in his eyes rather than any element of flirtation. ‘You think it’s disgusting to talk about sex? For me to ask you something which I’d already suspected? That you are an innocent, which is rare enough in this day and age—but almost unheard of in a western woman of almost twenty-eight years. I admit I find it difficult to believe but my intention was not to make you feel like some kind of freak.’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s not what’s making me angry.’

  ‘Then what is?’ he challenged.

  ‘You! The way you talk! The arrogant statements you keep coming out with. Telling me that you’ve never...had a virgin before! As if women were some kind of sport. What kind of a boast is that, Zayed?’

  ‘It was a statement of fact,’ he corrected. ‘It was not intended as a boast. But talking about sex clearly bothers you.’

  His voice had grown thoughtful and Jane looked down to see where his gaze was directed, horrified to notice that the sheet had slipped down to her waist, revealing breasts covered only in the delicate white silk of her nightgown. Breasts which seemed to have grown in size as well as in sensitivity. She could feel the aching hardness of their tips as she grabbed at the sheet to cover herself, trying to ignore the sound of his mocking laughter. Suddenly she felt hot and flustered and pleased that he hadn’t woken up to discover her trying to comfort him.

  ‘Are you trying to embarrass me, Zayed?’ she demanded.

  ‘No, Jane, I’m not. I was trying to establish a fact and to decide where we go from here. But I discover that I now find myself in a somewhat invidious position.’

  She gazed at him suspiciously. ‘Which is?’

  He shrugged, and as he moved the billowing white silk shirt whispered against his skin. ‘This is a marriage of convenience and you were chosen specifically because I did not find you attractive.’

  ‘But suddenly you do?’ she questioned sarcastically, hoping that would detract from her crushing insecurity.

  ‘Actually, yes. Inexplicably and inconveniently, suddenly I do,’ he agreed, and then he sighed. ‘Perhaps it was the sight of you with Kafalahian emeralds in your hair, wearing that bridal gown which seemed to cling to every pore of your body.’

  ‘How very superficial.’

  ‘But men are superficial, Jane,’ he argued. ‘We are simple creatures, programmed to respond to very obvious stimuli. The tremble of a mouth stained with berries...the flutter of lashes around eyes which have been darkened with kohl. A body which you had never seen before—suddenly outlined as if by the loving detail of an artist’s brush and revealing something underneath which is quite exquisite. Quite spectacular, if you must know. You looked beautiful on your wedding day and that is the image which has replaced the one I had of you before—of the woman in the shapeless clothes with her hair in a bun.’ He shrugged in an apologetic gesture but the dark glint in his eyes didn’t look remotely apologetic. ‘And now I find that I cannot look at you without a hard and painful throbbing in my groin. It is a very...uncomfortable feeling.’

  She would have chastised him with the most withering words in her vocabulary, if her cheeks hadn’t been so red and if she hadn’t suspected that it would fall on deaf ears. Because he wasn’t seeking her praise or her approval, was he? He didn’t care if she disapproved of the way he spoke to her. He was simply telling her what was on his mind. And yes, he was doing it in a manner which was brutally blunt—he certainly hadn’t lifted his words from the pages of a diplomatic handbook! He made his physical reaction to her sound almost anatomical, which in a way, she supposed, it was. It shouldn’t have been in the least bit flattering and yet...

  Jane licked her lips. She couldn’t deny the unexpected thrill of pleasure it gave her to know she was capable of arousing such a reaction in the Sheikh. To think that she, of all people, should make such a man experience desire. Was it that which gave her a brief taste of her own power? Which filled her with a sudden cool confidence as she tilted her chin to look at him? ‘So deal with it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re the expert. How do you usually deal with it?’ she said, aware too late that she’d walked into some kind of trap, which she might have noticed if she hadn’t been trying to distract herself from the squirmy feeling which was making her want to wriggle her bottom against the mattress.

  His eyes glinted. ‘My virgin bride is really asking me a question like that?’

  ‘Stupid of me. You find a woman, I suppose. Only this time you can’t because you’ve sworn off sex.’

  ‘Often sex is a solution, yes.’ He shrugged. ‘But a woman is not always available—especially when I am in the desert.’

  Another question she shouldn’t have asked, but right then her heart was pounding so fast that she didn’t really think it through.

  ‘So then what?’

  ‘Oh, come on. Work it out.’ His black eyes gleamed as if registering the lack of comprehension on her face. ‘I pleasure myself, of course.’

  It took a moment for his words to sink in and when they did, Jane found herself blushing again. ‘Oh,’ she mumbled, all her earlier confidence crumbling away.

  He studied her, as if he couldn’t quite believe the implication of her reaction, and all at once his eyes were beseeching. ‘Please tell me you don’t deny yourself pleasure, Jane—even though you may have never known true intimacy with a man.’

  Her colour deepened because unerringly he had hit on the truth—and how humiliating was that, because in this day and age wasn’t it doubly shameful to be both a virgin and never to have experienced any kind of sexual pleasure? Especially when you lived in a society which was bombarded with sexual imagery. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. Her reasons were complex and probably seemed stupidly old-fashioned, but sometimes circumstances helped create a situation which was not of its time.

  How could she possibly explain that she’d always seen herself as clever Jane and plain Jane, just as everyone else had? That she’d helped care for her sick mother and stepped in when their father had gone to pieces afterwards? She’d cooked and cleaned and tried to dampen down her sister’s wild and unpredictable nature—and in the midst of all that she’d done her best to study and work hard to gain the exams she’d needed. There hadn’t been time for anything else—especially not the boys who’d looked straight through her because they’d been seduced by Cleo’s abundant charms.

  And when she’d gone to college, the only men she’d mixed with had been the tutors keen to capitalise on her eager intellect, or the occasional study partner she’d teamed up with in the university library. Her first fumbling experience on the college dance floor had been followed by another couple of dates with men who had left her completely cold. Perhaps she was simply guilty of preferring the fantasy desert lands she studied, which had made her unable to settle and uninterested in the whole dating scene.

  She’d sublimated her own sexuality for so long that she didn’t know if she was capable of feeling the things she knew most other women her age experienced. She’d never touched herself in the way to which Zayed was alluding because it had felt somehow...wrong. She was like someone who had never tasted sugar, who couldn’t believe that sweetness existed. And now, with Zayed’s black gaze piercing through
her, she could feel herself start to bristle defensively.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she said.

  ‘I think it is my business. We’re stuck with each other for six months and I think I need to know whether or not my wife has ever had an orgasm.’

  Briefly Jane closed her eyes, telling herself to change the subject before the conversation got even more embarrassing. But reason wasn’t strong enough to stem the suddenly powerful rush of her imagination. She thought about the erotic Kafalahian texts she’d been studying just before she’d come here, which she had read as matter-of-factly as if they’d contained reams of mathematical formulae. Within their heavy and beautifully illustrated pages had been acts which were completely alien to her. Things she’d never imagined would relate to her but which now began to invade her mind because somehow she could imagine Zayed doing them to her. Zayed’s mouth upon her breast and Zayed’s head between her thighs.

  And she needed to pull herself together because such thoughts were insane. She needed to protect herself—in all ways. She mustn’t get used to a level of intimacy which could never be sustained. Because within a few short months, she would be history and this man would be gone from her life for ever.

  ‘I refer you to the terms of our agreement,’ she said. ‘And since we are in a short-lived marriage which forbids sex, I suggest we don’t discuss it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it would seem to me, even with my vast inexperience, that to do so will make you increasingly frustrated. Wouldn’t you agree? And now I think it might be best if you left me alone so that I can get dressed.’

  His mouth twisting, Zayed rose to his feet. Her logic was infuriating but he couldn’t fault it. And wasn’t there a reluctant part of him which admired her cool intellect and powers of reasoning, even if his body was protesting at being kicked out of his honeymoon suite without so much as a glimpse of one cherry-topped nipple? ‘Very well. I will leave you to get dressed,’ he said tersely. ‘Without feeling you have to hide away to prevent me from observing you in a state of undress. Heaven forbid I should see my wife naked!’

  Frustration now pulsing through his veins like a fever, he wrenched open the door of the eastern tower and slammed his way out, knowing she had done nothing but speak the truth and not sure why he was so angry. Frustration, yes—but there was something else. Was it the fact that her will was strong? Maybe even as strong as his? That she hadn’t given into temptation, even though she was obviously turned on by his presence? Probably. Or because he’d been left feeling as though she’d been the one calling the shots, when that was usually his role? Something else nagged at his mind too, but he was too full of exasperation to heed it.

  Outside, the sun was much higher and he sucked in a breath of clear desert air, his gaze sweeping over the rose-gold of the palace walls, its cobalt domes contrasting with the paler blue of the sky. It was a sunny and beautiful day, but inside he felt as cold as ice. He found himself wondering if he would ever feel truly contented. Not happy, because he knew his limitations and happiness was something he’d never aspired to—for how could a heart know happiness when it had been ripped from his chest and crushed into a million pieces? But sometimes he wondered if he would ever experience the contentment which other men enjoyed.

  His stocks and shares were riding high, his country was the world’s fourth biggest exporter of oil and there had been no wars in the region for almost thirty years. His heart gave a savage twist of pain, because wouldn’t his acquisition of Dahabi Makaan ensure that peace was likely to continue until the end of his reign, and beyond? He looked up at a distant bird of prey as it circled slowly in the thin air before poising to make its strike.

  So where was this elusive thing called contentment—and why was its absence so glaringly apparent today, of all days? Was it because the strangely poignant words of the marriage ceremony had opened up the floodgates to feelings he’d been suppressing for as long as he could remember? Or because he found himself in uncharted territory—not simply because he was now a married man, but because he was dealing with a woman the like of whom he’d never known before.

  He’d guessed Jane was a virgin but had failed to realise how sexually naïve she really was. Mightn’t this bizarre situation have been easier if she had been more experienced? If she’d been one of those faintly cynical women he tended to favour. The ones who would do anything to accommodate his every need. His lips hardened. Perhaps not. It was easy to be bored by women like that. Sometimes he had made demands on them which had been thoughtless and cold. As if he was trying to test them. To push them to see just how far they would allow themselves to be pushed. And those women had always agreed to his requests, hadn’t they? Had Jane been accurate when she’d claimed that people kowtowed to him because he was royal?

  Yet Jane did not kowtow to him. She told him things straight. She answered him back, which nobody had ever done before. Part of him resented it but a much bigger part of him was tantalised by it—and surely that was dangerous. But he supposed he should be grateful that the last thing she did was bore him.

  Slowly, he made his way back up the steep stone steps of the tower to discover his new wife dressed in some of the carefully selected robes which had been hurriedly assembled before their wedding. A selection of traditional Kafalahian royal garments had been provided as well as couture western clothes and it filled him with unexpected pleasure to note that she had chosen the former. A long, embroidered silk tunic the colour of new leaves skimmed her body—but, despite its relatively demure lines, he couldn’t eradicate the vision of Jane in her wedding night lingerie, the slippery material clinging to every fleshy pore. He concentrated instead on the way she had pulled the hair tightly back from her face and wound it into the habitual bun.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘That will not do.’

  He saw a faint look of disappointment cloud her eyes. ‘I thought your people would prefer me to wear Kafalahian clothes while I’m here.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant—and just for the record, the tunic suits you very well. It’s your hair which is bothering me.’

  She touched her fingertips to the tight bun. ‘My hair?’

  ‘Indeed. While you are with me, you will wear your hair down. If we want the world to believe in our union, it will be better if I don’t appear to be married to someone who looks like some uptight librarian.’

  ‘But I am a librarian, Zayed,’ she said. ‘Of sorts.’

  ‘Not any more you’re not,’ he corrected. ‘As of now you are my Sheikha and you will dress to please me.’

  She opened her mouth to object but maybe she read the determination in his eyes, for slowly she unwound the bun and shook her hair free. He watched as it flowed down over the embroidered silk of her green tunic—a heavy fall of golden brown tumbling over her shoulders. A lump rose to his throat as his gaze flickered, mesmerised, to the pale oval of her face. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her. Well, he knew exactly what she would do. After an initial hesitation, her lips would open to allow the thrust of his tongue and then she would respond hungrily, if the expression in her eyes was anything to go by. His imagination began to fly. How long before her conscience forced her to stop him? he wondered. Long enough for him to explore beneath her tunic to discover if her panties were already wet? Long enough for him to peel them down and pleasure her with his finger, feathering it against her moist crack until she was screaming out in helpless pleasure?

  He swallowed.

  No. He must not allow himself to be distracted by lust. They had a deal and he would stick to it. And besides, wouldn’t it give him an added power over her if he allowed her desire to simmer away without provocation? To let her discover the strength of his indomitable will in resisting her?

  He flicked her a glance. ‘We need to think about our honeymoon.’

  ‘Yes.’
She spoke carefully. ‘It is a great honour to accompany you on a state visit to your embassy in Washington.’

  His eyes narrowed as he heard the stilted quality of her words. Was she disappointed he hadn’t taken her to one of the desert cities he suspected she craved to visit? Perhaps to the fabled and wondrous city of Qaiyama, with its ancient monuments and some of the country’s oldest artwork? Well, that was too bad. He wasn’t going to risk being alone in the romantic beauty of a Bedouin tent with her when he wasn’t allowed to touch her.

  Up until their wedding yesterday, Zayed wouldn’t have cared where they had gone but he had witnessed some profound changes in his new wife over the last twenty-four hours. He had seen her body as no other man had ever seen it. He had spent the night with her even though they had not kissed, and that had been a first. He had discovered she was a stranger to pleasure but realised that her young and fertile body was instinctively crying out for a man like him to show her such pleasure, because the drive of the hormones was more powerful than the voice of reason.

  This whole make-believe marriage was based on it not being consummated, but there was another reason why he could not contemplate being alone in the desert with her. Because Jane was the kind of woman who would never recover from a liaison with a man like him, if his will should weaken. He suspected she would become obsessed with him if he made love to her—and who could blame her? In many ways, he guessed he was her ideal man—he was the ruler of a country she adored. Like some fantasy figure from the pages of the manuscripts she spent her life deciphering, he had stepped into her life. He had transformed her into his Sheikha—and that was pretty stirring stuff for the Englishwoman. Just imagine if he allowed them certain intimacies... If she discovered what he was truly capable of in bed—or out of it. Why, she would spend the rest of her days heartsick and aching for him and he would not do that to her. He must not hurt her in that way.

  Infused with a sudden sense of satisfaction at his own magnanimousness, he smiled. ‘Yes, an honour indeed,’ he said. ‘Our embassy in Washington is eagerly anticipating our arrival and preparations are under way for a party to introduce you to the wider world. And we can enjoy the city, which has much to offer—have you ever been there before?’