Defying her Desert Duty (12 page)

By the time he’d rung reception to discover Soraya had left no message, and double-checked every hiding place, he was in a cold sweat.

Returning to her bedroom, he rifled through her belongings: suitcase, clothes, purse and laptop. Even her passport and mobile phone were there.

Where was she?

Zahir scowled at the meagre collection of belongings, as if they could tell him what he needed to know.

Twenty minutes later the hotel had been searched from top to bottom, but there was no sign of Soraya.

Dread curled within him, sending tendrils of fear through his frozen limbs.

He’d done this! With his defensive temper and his unforgivable words. He’d never known such guilt, such fear, as sliced through him now, leaving him bereft and trembling.

Soraya was alone in an unfamiliar city at a time when honest people were off the streets. Only the foolhardy or dangerous prowled the city at this time.

Panic swamped him.

He strode to the window and stared at the empty square as if sheer desperation could conjure her. Somewhere out there, distressed and defenceless, was the woman he’d sworn to protect. The woman he cared for.

If anything happened to her …

Soraya put one foot in front of the other and plodded on. She was near the hotel but the fact she couldn’t remember its exact location didn’t bother her. She’d prefer never to return.

Yet the future had to be faced.

A hollow laugh escaped her. Weeks ago she’d thought life couldn’t get worse than an arranged marriage. She’d fretted over it till she had felt sick with anxiety.

Now she knew what real despair was.

To marry one man while loving another.

To have the man she loved despise her for wanting him.

Pain lanced her and she stumbled, putting out her hand to lean against a stone wall. Even now she couldn’t stop trembling.

She couldn’t remember dressing or leaving the hotel. All she recalled were Zahir’s words.

Had she been so wrong? Did he feel nothing for her?

She bent her head till the world stopped spinning. Maybe the grappa had muddled her senses.

She’d been watching water spurt from an old fountain when a motherly looking woman asked if she was all right. According to her, Soraya had been standing there for over an hour.

She’d led Soraya into a tiny courtyard filled with the scent of geraniums and the rumbling purr of a ginger cat. The woman had invited her to sit then pressed a glass of grappa into her unresisting hands. Then she’d taken the other seat and tilted a lamp towards her embroidery.

How long she’d sat there, Soraya didn’t know. She’d lost track of time, soothed by the rhythm of the cat’s breathing as it stretched across her lap and the chatter of a late-night radio talk show.

Finally she’d noticed the weariness on the other woman’s face and, thanking her for her kindness, made her way onto the deserted street. Now she just had to find her way back. A shudder racked her at the idea of facing Zahir’s piercing disapproval. But she had no choice.

After all, what more could he do? Her heart had already splintered into raw, jagged pieces.

From somewhere she dredged the strength to walk on. She’d covered just a metre when a figure came in view. A tall man with a purposeful stride.

Instantly she shrank back, her heart battering her ribs. In her dazed state he looked too much like …

‘Soraya!’

He sprinted, his feet pounding the pavement, and before she
could gather her wits to retreat he was there, his hands on her shoulders, gripping her tight.

‘Are you all right?’ He didn’t wait for her answer but ran his hands lightly across her shoulders, arms and face, as if needing to feel for himself that she was whole.

‘Don’t touch me!’ She stumbled back a step till she collided with a wall but he followed, hemming her in.

‘Tell me you’re unhurt.’ His voice was as raw as hers. In the dim light she almost didn’t recognise him. He seemed to have aged a decade in one evening. ‘Please, Soraya!’ His fingers shook as he smoothed the hair back from her face. Something sharp twisted inside.

‘I’m fine,’ she said over a lump of congealing emotion. ‘Don’t worry; you don’t have to soil your hands by touching me.’ Though for one precious moment she let herself believe his concern was for her personally, not because he’d committed to bring her back in one piece.

‘Soraya. Don’t.’

Before her stunned gaze, Zahir dropped to his knees. He gripped her fingers in an unbreakable hold and pressed fervent kisses to the back of one hand then the other.

‘Zahir?’ Her befuddled brain couldn’t grasp the change in him. To have him literally at her feet was unthinkable. His arrogant rejection was too fresh in her mind. Yet there he was, wretchedness written on his once-proud features.

He made her heart turn over despite her anger.

‘I’m sorry.’ He looked up, his gaze fiercely direct and a wave of emotion rocked her back on her heels. ‘What I said to you.’ He shook his head. ‘It was unforgivable, as well as being untrue.’

His hands tightened and with a sense of wonder she read desperation in his grim visage.

‘I lashed out because I felt myself crumbling.’ He tore in a ragged breath that pumped his chest hard. ‘Every word you spoke pulled me closer to deserting my principles, my duty, my loyalty. You
scared
me.’

He shook his head, though his eyes never wavered from hers. ‘I wanted you so badly—
still
want you—it was torture having you offer yourself when I was so weak.’

‘You want me?’ Her heartbeat stalled.

‘How could I not?’ His voice was hoarse, his breath hot against her hands. ‘I’ve desired you from the moment I saw you in that club. Every day and every night you fill my waking thoughts as well as my dreams. Soraya. Can you ever forgive me? To call you that …’ His breath shuddered out in a rattling rasp. ‘You were being honest, when I couldn’t even face what I felt.’

He threaded his fingers through hers, turned her hands to plant heated kisses on her palms. Tremors of sensation shot up her arms, to her breasts and down to her womb. Her knees shook so hard she thought they’d give way.

‘What do you feel, Zahir?’ Soraya was light-headed, overloaded on emotion. She gripped his fingers hard, knowing it was only the current of energy flowing between them that gave her strength to stand.

‘This.’

He was on his feet, looking down at her with an expression that melted her bones. His palms were strong and warm on her cheeks, his breath a ripple of heady pleasure as it caressed her lips.

Instinctively her lips parted as, with a groan, he lowered his mouth.

Their lips met and the world exploded. Caution vanished, incinerated by the fierce need devouring them.

Soraya sagged against Zahir, clinging to his broad shoulders as he took her mouth in a kiss that devastated and fulfilled. It pulsed with raw, unvarnished desire and sweetest longing. Soraya couldn’t get enough.

His body pressed against hers from thigh to chest, imprinting her with his heat, his hunger. And she was just as eager. Just as unrestrained.

Their lips mashed as she kissed him with more fervour than
expertise. He gathered her close, his hands proprietorial as they stroked down her back till she arched high against him, eager for greater contact.

An instant later he stepped back, despite her moan of protest. Before she could complain, he hoisted her into his embrace and held her close to his pounding heart.

‘Not here,’ he growled in an unrecognisable voice that set off sparks of excitement deep in her belly.

He turned and strode towards the hotel, a man on a mission. ‘We need privacy.’

Z
AHIR’S
hold remained unbreakable as they entered the suite and the door crashed closed behind them.

Soraya carried jumbled impressions of the hotel foyer and the gawping receptionist’s stunned expression, though Zahir hadn’t slowed his purposeful stride long enough for her to feel anything but excitement at his possessive hold.

The mirrored lift to the penthouse suite reflected Zahir’s granite-set visage, his jaw angled in a way that warned he’d brook no interference. No wonder the receptionist had stayed safely behind his desk.

Zahir’s expression sent a wave of pleasure coursing through her.
A
purely feminine pleasure of anticipation.

His pace didn’t falter as they crossed the suite’s foyer. Lamplight beckoned them into his room where light spilled across the sprawling bed.

Zahir slammed to a stop and in the quiet Soraya heard only their breathing, merging like a single heartbeat, fast and eager.

‘Soraya.’ It wasn’t Zahir’s voice; not the easy, calm voice she’d come to know. This sound was dredged from the depths of a tortured soul.

She shivered luxuriously as it wrapped around her, connecting to a deep, visceral part of her.

This was unknown territory yet the world had never felt so right as in his arms. Doubt and uncertainty fled before the
force of them together: Zahir the epitome of conquering male, and she all melting, wanting female.

He lowered her to her feet, sliding centimetre by slow centimetre down his taut frame till she was strung so tight with need she could barely stand. She leaned in, latching needy fingers around his strong neck so she could feel his hot flesh.

That simple contact was almost unbearably wonderful.

‘If you don’t want this, say so,’ he groaned, his lips a caress against her hair that set a whole new set of nerve endings into spasms of delight. ‘Soraya!’ His chest expanded mightily as he dragged in air. ‘I can let you go but you have to tell me. Now!’

The way his big hands claimed her hips, pulling her up against him so she felt the rigid length of his erection, it seemed impossible he’d ever release her. Yet she knew his formidable will-power.

‘No! Don’t let me go.’ Part demand, part plea, her words were harsh in the thundering silence.

Don’t let me go, ever
.

For ever. That was how long she wanted Zahir. She needed him in her life always.

She loved him with a raw, soul-deep passion that cut so deep she knew she’d carry it with her the rest of her life.

Soraya felt a great sigh of relief pass through him and recognised the unsteadiness in his touch—it was the same for her. Zahir needed her so vehemently, so completely he burned up with it. His flesh was hot beneath her fingers and tremors coursed his body.

A lifetime’s reserve and caution disintegrated under the onslaught of feelings that welled free at last. Zahir’s hot skin against her fingers was a benediction. She watched his brilliant eyes, heavy-lidded and mysterious as he drank in the sight of her.

The way he looked at her …

She slid her hands to his collar and with one quick tug wrenched it open.

His chest, contoured muscle and flesh dusted with dark
hair, beckoned. Her heart galloped as she spread her fingers wide, learning him.

My love.

She leaned in, breathing deep the intoxicating essence of him. Of the man she loved with all her being.

‘Soraya.’ She felt the breath rise in his chest as his voice trailed across her skin. Still their gazes locked.

The world stopped as they trembled on the brink.

Then, with magnificent disregard for her wardrobe, Zahir copied her action. Yet when he took her dress in his big hands and yanked, the silk ripped. It tore so far it was the work of a moment for him to slide it off her shoulders. The fabric slithered down her body in a furtive caress that made goose bumps prickle her flesh.

She hardly noticed, for the look in Zahir’s eyes blotted all else from her mind.

Words poured from his lips, a whispered stream of praise and thanks as his gaze followed her dress down, then rose again to her now-rosy cheeks. That hoarse litany of heartfelt appreciation was enough to make any woman blush.

‘No woman is perfect, Zahir.’

Why she demurred, she didn’t know, except perhaps that he overwhelmed her. She wished she could be perfect—for him. The heated intensity of his stare, the guttural depth of emotion in his voice made her feel for a moment like the goddess he described.

How could any woman live up to that?

‘Yet you are perfect,
habibti
.’ He looked into her eyes and she felt that half-familiar shudder rip through her from the impact of an unseen force. ‘To me you are.’

The glow in his eyes made her heart swell.

He said more but it was muffled against her throat as he kissed her. She tilted her head back in ecstasy and he lashed an arm around her waist to keep her from falling.

Yet she fell. Into a vortex of tumbling emotion and sensations.

It wasn’t just the pleasure of his kiss. It was the way he made her feel: treasured, appreciated, loved.

This time when his hand cupped her breast it wasn’t at her clumsy invitation. Zahir’s was an expert’s touch, moulding, caressing, teasing till wildfire roared through her to rush in a whirlpool of heat between her legs.

Her hands slid to the smooth flesh of his shoulders as he bowed her back, further and further, till she lay draped across his arm. His mouth closed over her breast through the filmy lace of her bra and she whimpered in delight, her fingers clutching at him frantically.

‘Zahir.’ Did that low, keening throb of sound come from her?

‘You have no idea how much I want you.’ His lips moved across her breast and throat as he spoke. ‘I’ve tried to resist but I’m only human.’

‘I don’t want you to resist,’ she gasped.

‘Just as well.’ He licked her nipple and her breath clogged in her throat. ‘I couldn’t stop now to save myself.’

She felt the mattress beneath her and when his arms came away from behind her they dragged her bra too. Dazed, she watched it arc over Zahir’s shoulder as he stripped her panties and shoes away.

She should feel nervous as he ate her up with his eyes. Despite a lifetime’s modesty, she couldn’t. Not when the pride and pleasure in his expression made her feel like a queen.

He braced his arms wide and a shiver of delicious trepidation shot through her at the sensation of being surrounded by such a virile, dominant male. But, instead of lowering himself to her, he retreated down the bed.

Anticipation hummed through her, knowing that soon, when he’d stripped his trousers off, they’d …

‘Zahir?’

‘It’s all right, little one.’ His deep voice reassured but she couldn’t relax, not when he settled himself deep between the V of her legs, splayed wide by his gently insistent hands.

‘What are you …?’ A hiss of indrawn breath clotted the
words in her throat. First his hand and then his mouth stroked her there, where need throbbed strongest.

Soraya’s whole body jerked hard, as if from an electric shock. But this was pleasure, pure pleasure so intense it overwhelmed her senses.

One caress, another, and she almost lifted off the bed, held in place only by Zahir’s solid weight as a shower of sparks ignited in her blood.

She needed to escape, keep some fragment of control, but delight as well as his imprisoning body kept her there, splayed and open before him.

Her eyelids drooped. Her mouth sagged as she gasped in another raw breath and suddenly, like a roiling tide that grew till it blotted out the world, ecstasy engulfed her. She shook and sobbed with the force of it, abandoned to a delight so intense she could never have imagined it.

A delight of Zahir’s giving. Through the maelstrom her hand gripped his where it rested on her thigh. That was her lifeline, her connection to him.

Finally, as she lay spent and gasping, he slid from her grasp. She roused herself to protest, but the press of his mouth to the flesh above her hipbone stifled her words. Just the touch of his lips there evoked a pleasure she should be too spent to feel. His hands skimmed her lightly and she shifted under his touch, like a cat curving into a petting hand.

Except Zahir’s hands moved with deliberate, erotic delicacy that soon had fire running in her veins again.

‘Come to me?’

At her husky plea, his head lifted. Soraya’s heart somersaulted as she saw how the skin dragged taut over those strong features. His eyes held a febrile glitter that spoke of fierce yearning.

‘Not yet.’

‘Why not?’ She grasped his shoulders and tried to haul him close. It was like trying to loosen bedrock. ‘Please.’

‘I can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I have no control left. Once I … ‘

‘Don’t you understand?’ Her voice shook. ‘I don’t care about subtleties or control.
I need you.
Just you.’

Soraya’s heart gave a great leap as she read relief in his face and eagerness. She watched, mesmerized, as he reared up, dragging his clothes off.

She’d seen his body before at the pool, but now, in the golden glow of the lamp, he was hers. Her gaze lingered on the strong, lithe form of the man she loved. Even his scars, reminders of the dangerous life he’d led, seemed precious. Her pulse raced as she read the taut power in his heavy thighs, the wide span of his shoulders and the arrogant jut of his erection. As she stared he smoothed on protection.

She licked her lips, her mouth dry. But as he prowled up the bed, caging her with his body, Soraya felt no hesitancy, just gratitude and fizzing anticipation.

A mew of delight escaped her as he settled over her. To feel his chest against hers, the fuzz of his hair tickling her nipples, the smooth heat of his belly against hers—she hadn’t known that alone would be bliss.

Hands tunnelling through his thick hair, she kissed him with all the love and wonder burgeoning within. His response was all she could have hoped for. Tender yet urgent, lavishly satisfying, even as her body stirred anew at the masculine weight pressed high between her legs.

‘Soraya.’ It was a groan of need as he centred himself above her.

‘Yes.’ She kissed him feverishly, holding him tight, almost afraid to believe this was real.

Then anticipation shattered, as with one surging movement he thrust sure and strong.

Her eyes sprang open. She was stunned by his overwhelming weight, the fullness that surely was impossible despite being so patently real. She was pinioned in a way that made something like panic rise and spread.

Her breath hitched and she forgot how to breathe as her body locked in shock.

She heard Zahir’s heartbeat, loud as her own, fast as her own, and his laboured breathing, harsh in the stillness.

Dazed, Soraya groped for the pleasure that till a second ago had hummed in her needy body. She found only blankness.

‘Breathe,
habibti
.’ Zahir nuzzled the tender skin below her ear. ‘Breathe for me.’

It wasn’t his command that broke her stasis but the tiny shimmy of delight raying from the point where he kissed her.

He kissed her again, taking his time to lave her pulse-point and she dragged in a shuddering breath, her chest rising beneath his. Her skin tingled at the friction between their bodies and her next breath was deeper, filled with the male scent of him.

Zahir insinuated his hand between them to touch her breast, plucking delicately at her nipple, and a judder of heat rippled through her. Her frozen limbs eased a fraction and her stunned rigidity eased, replaced by a different, delicious tension.

Slowly, lavishly, Zahir seduced her mouth with his till the hint of panic eased.

‘That’s my girl. It’s all right, see?’ He moved, withdrawing from her little by little, till she missed the press of his body above hers and even the strange, too-full sensation of his possession.

Instinctively she slanted her pelvis and he responded with another thrust, this time claiming her body centimetre by slow centimetre. Now the sensations he wrought brought fire to her blood and a different sort of tension.

‘Zahir!’

He lifted his head to see her face. To her shock he looked to be in pain, his features pinched. Yet his eyes blazed with a brilliance that stole her breath all over again.

Her hand lifted to his cheek. Tenderness filled her as she read what it cost him not to take as his body dictated, but to harness his impulses.

‘Tell me what to do.’ She felt so useless.

His lips quirked in a brief smile that looked more like a grimace.

‘Lift your legs.’ He nodded as she complied. ‘Higher. Around my waist.’

Soraya tentatively followed his instructions as Zahir once more slid away, then back with an ease that evoked a stab of pleasure.

Her eyes widened. ‘That feels … ‘

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ His eyelids drooped till she saw only slits of dark green. One more easy thrust and this time she anticipated him, rocking up and back with Zahir, eliciting another sharp pulse of pleasure.

She tightened her hold, wanting to comfort him even as another rush of erotic sensation undermined thought.

They rocked together, finding a rhythm so excruciatingly slow it alternately stoked her arousal to fever pitch and satisfied it with a blinding flash of searing pleasure. The pleasure was the greater for seeing its reflection in Zahir’s face.

Each dazzling, joyous pinnacle was shared so intimately it seemed they were one, their bodies moving in tandem, their minds linked as they shared something profound.

Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, pleasure crescendoed. Soraya’s eyes fluttered shut and she clung to Zahir as, with a rush, their mutual climax splintered thought in a crash of crystal shards.

The sound of her name on Zahir’s lips echoed through the velvet darkness that claimed her.

Zahir paced back from the bathroom into the darkened bedroom.

Was she asleep? He hoped so. He had to think, had to come to grips with what they’d done.

What
he’d
done.

Never, since the day Hussein had rescued him from his father, had Zahir acted on pure instinct without thought or plan.