The Sheik's Angry Bride (10 page)

She shook her head, unaware that she’d already done that only moments before.  “No,” she whispered but then he moved and the denial came out as a gasp.  And oh, he knew how to move.  The man was a virtuoso and played her body perfectly.  Moving inside of her, shifting and adjusting, causing the most glorious friction she’d ever imagined.  What he didn’t know was that she was already lost, she was so lost in his movements that she couldn’t think, couldn’t hold back.  So when he picked up the pace, she threw back her head, arching into his pounding while she screamed out his name, digging her nails into his arms as her body splintered apart.

Garon held out as long as he could, but she just felt too incredible and he couldn’t hold back his own climax any longer.  Holding her in his arms, he rode the wave of incredible pleasure. 

“You’re beautiful,” he said as he rolled over, pulling her onto his chest. 

Layla rubbed her cheek against his chest, wondering what had just come over her.  She didn’t like the woman that she became when he touched her.  She hadn’t liked it from the first moment he’d held her hand. 

“Why?” she whispered.  It was the same question she’d asked yesterday as he was holding her in their aftermath but this was a different question. 

“Because you were meant to be right here, in my arms.  You’re the perfect lover,” he told her, skimming his hands along the curve of her back.  “And I like it when you can’t hold back from me.”

She buried her face in his warm skin, wishing she hadn’t been so crazed.  “I don’t like it at all.”

He rolled again, this time so that she was underneath him and he could see those fairy eyes of hers.  “Why not?”

“I don’t like losing control.  I don’t like being out of control in any situation.”

“Even in bed?”

“Especially in bed!” she snapped, wanting to scoot out from underneath him but he just slipped his leg between hers, trapping her more completely. 

“Explain,” he commanded, his hands still even though he wanted to touch her, feel her come alive under his fingers and mouth once more. 

She shook her head. “Can I please just get up?” she asked, fighting tears.  “I need to take a shower.”

“No.  You’re going to talk to me.  You’ve been resisting me ever since we met.  I want to understand why.”

She blinked hard, trying to stifle the tears that threatened.  She knew from the look on his face that there was no way she could say anything other than the whole truth. 

“You have your world, Garon.  You have power and control over the things in your life.  Perhaps not everything.  But you have more than most people.”  She blinked back the tears and looked over his enormous shoulder, unable to make eye contact with him when revealing something so personal to him.  “I have no power.  I was sold to you.  My father’s representative and yours haggled over my price.”  She looked at him then, wanting him to understand how that felt.  Her blue eyes glared into his darker ones, begging him to understand.  “Put yourself in my place and think of how I feel.  You might have had to get married, Garon, but at least you had a choice.  You might have been given three or four candidates and you got to choose which one suited you the best.”  She let those words sink in for a moment.  “I didn’t have any choice.  I woke up one morning and, over a meal, my father announced that the negotiations were finalized and I was to marry you.”  She blinked again, her fingers curling up into fists so that she couldn’t touch his tempting chest any longer.  “I hadn’t even been told that marriage to you was a possibility.”

She could tell that he didn’t completely get her perspective.  “I want some control, Garon.  I have nothing else except my physical body and you take even that away from me.  And so I don’t like it.  I don’t like losing control, but I have no choice when you touch me.”

He loved those words even if he didn’t like the way she was saying them.

“I’m not so bad for a husband, am I?” he asked, easing his hold on her wrists.  He shifted so that he was almost cradling her now.  Because she had a valid point.  He’d never understood her resistance but her words, as well as the tears she was fighting to control, were tearing him apart. 

“I’m sure that, when I get over my anger and resentment towards my life, I will find you a very acceptable husband.  And you probably didn’t have much say in who your wife was either.”

Garon didn’t mention the hundreds of photos and biographies he’d gone through.  He’d narrowed the selection down to ten woman and his aides had done the rest of the work.  “Would it help if I told you that I’m thrilled with you as my wife?  More than thrilled?  I consider myself a very lucky man.”

She laughed, but it sounded a bit like a hiccup.  “The sex is good for you.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Layla, if you’re going to try and tell me that you didn’t enjoy what we just did, then I’m going to have to prove you wrong and do it all over again.  And I’ll have more focus this time.”

She did laugh at that comment, but she buried her face in his chest while she laughed.  “Please don’t,” she gasped.  “I don’t think I could take any more.”

“Then you’re willing to acknowledge that the sex was good for you too?”

She sighed, resting her chin on his muscular chest.  His head was propped up by a pillow behind him and he was looking down into her eyes with a challenging look. 

“Yes, you obnoxious man.  I’ll acknowledge that.  If you’ll admit that you wouldn’t like to be powerless.”

He looked at the curls of her hair that were now splayed across his chest and her shoulders.  She looked beautiful and he understood.  “Yes.  I can see your point.”

She’d never thought that acceptance or understanding would make her feel significantly better because she would still be trapped, still be in the same predicament.  But she had to admit that his words of understanding meant a great deal to her.  And in a strange way, they did help.  “I was raised to become some powerful man’s wife,” she explained.  “I was taught how to entertain without causing offense, to charm angry dinner guests, to maneuver around a party with ease.  I know what to wear to any occasion, how to do my hair, my makeup, how to smile so as not to cause offense to anyone while at the same time, not be overly effusive either.  I had no choice in my future.  I wasn’t given the option of becoming a scientist or a librarian.  I was told that I would become a wife.  A wife without power.”

He shifted once more, his lips kissing her neck.  “Ah, but you forget that I was raised in that manner as well.  There was never a choice for me.  I was taught from an early age to recognize lies, to manipulate events to benefit my country, to see through what someone was telling me and know that they were basically trying to manipulate me.”  He kissed her ear, biting the lobe.  “I was raised to know who to sit next to, who to avoid.”  He moved lower, his hands caressing her breasts, noting that her breathing ratcheted up as his fingers teased her nipples.  “I was never allowed to show weakness because I represented my country.  Showing weakness in any way meant that my people were weak, my country’s defenses were weak.”

She loved the way he was touching her and his words started to ease something inside of her.  He had a valid point as well.  He hadn’t had many choices either.  He understood what she was going through.

She didn’t have a chance to tell him that because he was moving further down her body.  “Garon, what are you…” she gasped when she felt his fingers down along her thigh.  “You don’t have to do that,” she whispered, but her whole body was tense, waiting for him to do just that.  And when his mouth did, she couldn’t hold back the noises his activities caused.  And for the first time since she’d met this man, she felt free.  She felt like something had broken through and she didn’t try to stop those sensations from screaming through her body as she shouted out her release.  Garon understood!  She was reveling in that realization as well as her climax when he moved up her body and filled her up, rolling her over so that she was on top this time.

“And now you are in charge,” he told her, taking her hips and showing her what to do.

Layla bit her lip as she concentrated on this new position.  “I’m in charge,” she whispered, smiling as she moved against him, thrilling in the way he let her move and shift, finding her own rhythm that she enjoyed.  In the end, Garon wouldn’t give her complete control.  He rolled back over and finished them off but Layla didn’t mind.  She actually preferred this side of Garon.  And it made a huge difference in how she viewed their marriage after talking with him.

Fourteen days later, Layla sat in the council room, listening to a group of men debating the various issues.  Layla didn’t know why she was sitting here.  It was a complete farce that she should sit through the council meetings.  The men sat at the table, arguing back and forth about the proposals bandied about on the issue of military reforms, environmental controls, immigration policy, even the more recent border problems. 

She stifled a sigh as each of the men went through their arguments again, trying to convince the others that they had the better idea.  Layla looked over at Garon, her mouth falling open slightly when she realized that he was staring right back at her.  The man wasn’t paying any attention to the topic under discussion.  In fact, he looked like he was…

He wasn’t! 

He couldn’t be!

Good grief, the man was making love to her with his eyes!  

Her body turned hot, then cold, then she had to shift uncomfortably in her chair when he slid his finger over his lower lip.  It was as if he were sending her a message that he wanted to kiss her, to bite her lip.  When his eyes dropped to her breasts, she looked away.  She was already feeling that strange sensation in her belly, which she knew from experience now what he could make happen.  But Layla wasn’t going to encourage him in this distraction. 

She focused all of her attention on the man speaking, refusing to look at Garon.  Unfortunately, she had spent two weeks alone with him and she knew what he was thinking.  She knew the exact moment that his eyes shifted lower, then back up to her eyes. She could feel the heat from his gaze, knew exactly what he was doing and where he was looking. 

She was not going to look at him, she told herself.  He could stare at her all he wanted but she would not be pulled into that mental game. 

No!

She shifted again in her chair, still refusing to look at him but she could feel his gaze. 

Sure enough, when her eyes were pulled back to his, he was staring at her.  Hard!  His roguish eyes were telling her that he would not let her get away with even silent disobedience and her whole body tightened at the sinful promise.  Her mouth fell open and she squirmed again despite all of her efforts to remain aloof and reserved.  When his lips twitched up into a knowing grin, she sighed and rolled her eyes.  Not enough so that anyone else could see but enough so that he got her silent message. 

A message that he ignored.

“No, we’re not going down that road,” he interrupted his council, proving that he was the master of multi-tasking.  All the time that he had been making love to her with his eyes, he’d been paying attention to the fervent arguments going on around him. 

She almost resented him for that ability.  But in the end, she had to admire him for his proficiency at concentrating so well, even when he was obviously thinking about two different issues.  He really was a brilliant man. 

The conversation moved on and there seemed to be no end to the number of issues that needed to be discussed.  But there was one subject in particular that caught her attention.  Someone mentioned building a road through the mountain area.  She sat up straighter in her chair, trying to listen more attentively.  That mountain contained several villages that would be destroyed if the road went through in the direction they were proposing.  She’d visited those villages only last year.  They weren’t wealthy towns and the people came and went through the mountains easily whenever they needed to get something from their neighbors, but building the road would devastate their way of life.

She listened intently, trying to hear about the other possibilities.  There was another option, she thought.  If they could just build the road around the mountain instead of through it, that would save those people and preserve their way of life.  The people of that village might live a subsistence existence, but they preferred it that way.  They wanted it that way.  When one of the villagers wanted a different way of life, they moved on although she knew that many of them came back when they grew tired of the frantic way of life outside of their village. 

She had been told how the whole town would pull together to help someone if they wanted to leave, to find a different way of life. And each of the villagers had relatives so they knew exactly what they were missing.  This was not a poverty-stricken village.  This was a group of people who banded together to live a subsistence existence because they chose to do that, wanted to appreciate life and the earth and sky.  They knew what was out there in the big, bad world and they’d decided to live in the mountains in order to avoid that.

“Why would we blast our way through the mountains,” one of Garon’s advisors argued.  “It is cheaper to go around the mountain.  And safer as well.”

Layla relaxed when that argument was offered.  It made sense and several of the others were already nodding their heads about the issue.  She relaxed back against her chair, feeling relieved that the issue might be swayed away from the mountain road.  But when the vote was cast, it was split right down the middle with only Garon not voting. 

Layla tensed but she couldn’t think of any way in which to sway his vote.  She didn’t want that road to be built directly through the mountain, but who was she?  She was only his wife, a little woman who he probably didn’t think knew enough about the issue to voice an opinion. 

Her anger started to simmer and she clenched the arms of her chair. 

“We’ll table this issue until after lunch,” Garon ordered and quickly stood up, walking out of the council room.

Layla jumped up from her chair and moved off towards the dining room herself, frustrated that she felt so powerless in this situation.  She’d love to just walk up to Garon and tell him to vote one way or the other, but that wasn’t her role and she doubted that Garon would appreciate her stepping into his responsibilities.  She didn’t want to eat with these men, she thought.  And especially not Garon. 

“Layla,” Garon called out, his long legs easily catching up with her.

He took her arm and guided her out of the main dining room and towards the area reserved just for the two of them.  “Apparently we have something to discuss.”

Layla couldn’t stop the glare in her eyes but she smothered her anger, tamping it down deep inside of her.  This was not her role, she told herself yet again.  Garon didn’t want her opinion, just her company and….

It was no use.  She couldn’t stop the anger from welling up inside of her at the idea of those men, probably this man standing in front of her, plowing through a small town’s village simply because of expediency.  It was just wrong!  She followed him, but as soon as they were seated and their lunch was set down in front of them, he nodded to the servants to leave them alone. 

He poured her a glass of white wine, then lifted his own glass.  “Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” he started off.

Layla looked at him carefully and then decided to simply present her arguments to him and he could be angry with her.  She simply couldn’t be quiet about this village.  It was wrong and he had to know it.  Someone had to stand up for the people who didn’t always have a voice, she rationalized.  So instead of swallowing her resentment, Layla passionately defended the rights of the mountain people to not have their way of life disrupted simply because it will cut a half hour out of a person’s drive around the mountain area of the country. 

Garon didn’t interrupt her until the end of lunch, nodding his head at each of her points.  When he lifted his linen napkin to his mouth and stood up, he simply said, “Okay.”

Layla stood up as well, not sure what he meant.  “What do you mean, ‘okay’?” she demanded, assuming she’d failed in her efforts to protect that quaint mountain village.  She was ready to lambast him for being so insensitive and ignoring all common sense when it came to defending his people.  But the look in his eyes caused her to hesitate for a moment. 

Garon took her hand and led her back to the council room.  “I mean, okay, I won’t let them build the road through the mountain.”

She stopped and that forced him to stop in the middle of the hallway.  “Just like that?”  She stared up at him, stunned for a long moment as her whole body waited for clarification. 

Garon shrugged one of those massive shoulders.  “Yes.  You presented a good argument,” he told her, tugging her hand so that she would start walking again.  

Layla walked, but her mind was spinning.  He agreed with her?  Before lunch, he’d seemed undecided but now he was agreeing with her?  Could it really be that simple? 

He escorted her over to her chair before resuming his own seat at the head of the council table.  All of the other advisors were already in place and everyone took their seats when Garon sat down.  “We’ll go around the mountain,” he announced.  He turned to the man in charge of the transportation department and went over the details, giving additional guidance about the road situation.  After that, the next subject was brought up and no arguments were made against Garon’s decision. 

Layla sat in her chair, her mind still in a whirl.  He’d agreed with her!  She’d stated her opinion, told him why the villager’s choice in how they lived was important and he’d accepted her argument!  She’d offered her side of the debate and he’d accepted her opinion.

Looking at her new husband, she couldn’t believe that he’d done that!  She felt…empowered for the first time in her life. 

She felt her cheeks start to warm when she thought of the few other times he’d let her take charge.  Every once in a while, when she was very firm and gave him that smile that told him she wasn’t taking no for an answer, he’d let her take charge in bed.  And he only gave her that control for limited amounts of time before he took that control back.  Goodness, she liked it when he allowed her to have her wicked way with his body, touching him everywhere that she wanted.  It was never long enough though.  She didn’t realize that her eyes were unfocused and her mouth had opened slightly as she remembered those secret, private moments in their bed.  Of course, he didn’t give her full control, and he generally took charge of their lovemaking again quickly.  It was pretty easy for him to do that too, with his superior strength but he was always gentle and careful as he expertly reversed their positions on the bed.  And then he emphasized his power by lifting her arms over her head and driving her insane with desire but she was okay with that aspect of their lives.  Now more than ever. 

Something blossomed inside of her and she relaxed back against the chair, her eyes never leaving Garon’s handsome face as she contemplated the end of this council session.  Layla wasn’t sure what this new feeling was about, but she felt all tingly and warm inside.