Mills & Boon New Voices: Foreword by Katie Fforde
“Interesting. I do not remember you objecting when you screamed my name in pleasure, or afterward when I held you close and called you habiba.”
A sliver of desire sizzled to life inside her. She’d been with a few men in the last ten years, but none had ever affected her the way Zafir had. The way he was affecting her now.
But she’d never seen him like this either. Surely that was what had her blood pumping into her veins like a runaway train? Though she’d known he was a desert prince, he’d never dressed in the tradition of his home when they were together.
He was truly magnificent in the white dishdasha. A gold igal held his headdress in place, and at his waist was a curved ceremonial dagger with a jeweled hilt.
He was exotic and forbidden in a way he never had been when he’d worn jeans and button-down shirts. When he’d simply been handsome and sexy and she hadn’t been able to believe he was hers. That she was the one he spent time with when there were so many gorgeous women he could have chosen instead.
Except he hadn’t really been hers, had he?
“That’s in the past,” she forced out. A past that had never really stopped haunting her.
He turned away in a swirl of robes. “I did not say, by the way, that I would never let you return to your dig.”
Genie shook her head. “I don’t understand, Zafir. What do you want from me?”
“The short answer is that my father had trouble with warring tribes in this region. I am here because I intend to put a stop to it once and for all. Since you were a gift from the chieftain of one of the tribes, I can hardly let you leave.”
Genie’s jaw went slack. “A gift? Like a goat or a camel or a jeweled dagger?”
“Precisely. And until I conclude this meeting I require your presence.”
For the moment, she could only focus on the fact that she’d been given to him. “How can someone give away a human being? What kind of king are you to allow such a thing to happen?”
His jaw was firm. “I am the king of a very old and traditional nation. The ways of the desert are ancient and cannot be changed overnight.”
“But you could have refused.”
He crossed his arms, one eyebrow arching. “Indeed I could have. And you would now likely be back in Sheikh Abu Bakr’s harem, awaiting his attentions.”
She thought of the old man who’d been speaking earlier and shivered. “That’s barbaric.”
“It is the custom.”
“You have a lot of customs, don’t you?” she said bitterly. Like keeping mistresses while marrying another woman and having children with her.
“Indeed—which is why you will remain.”
“And what if I don’t want to stay?”
His dark eyes glittered. “You do not have a choice.”
“You would force me to stay here against my will?”
He inclined his head. “To prove I am not such a barbarian, I will compensate you in the end. This is not a bad deal, Genie.”
For who? Staying here for even a minute longer than she had to was dangerous. Because in spite of everything—all the hurt and pain and agony of the past—her heart was soaring with every minute she stood near him.
“I don’t want money.”
He looked skeptical. “Really? Aren’t archaeological digs expensive?”
“I have funding for my projects.” Not as much as she’d like, but she wasn’t admitting that to him.
“Then I will give you something better than money, Genie. Something you want very much.”
Genie’s knees felt suddenly weak. She had a vision of him naked, of his beautiful mouth on her flesh, taking her to heaven. No. “How could you possibly know what I want?”
His smile was so self-assured she itched to slap him.
“I will give you permission to excavate in Al-Shahar.”
Her heart nearly stopped. “The old temples?”
No one had ever been given permission to excavate the Temples of Al-Shahar. It would be a coup, a crowning achievement. Her career would never be the same.
And he knew it. His smile was predatory, as if he knew she would not refuse. Just as he’d believed she wouldn’t refuse his proposition ten years ago because he’d been rich and handsome and she’d loved him desperately.
Did she have the strength to turn him down this time? The strength to walk away from the Temples of Al-Shahar? But how could she accept? Staying with him now, even for something so wonderful as those temples, would test her in ways she wasn’t sure she was prepared to endure.
But he would keep her here regardless, wouldn’t he? He had the power to do it, and the will.
“I would not refuse this, were I you,” he said softly. “Don’t be a fool because of your wounded pride, Genie.”
She stiffened. “You are quite mistaken if you still think that affects me, Zafir. It was ten years ago.”
“Then what will it be?” Again that predatory gleam. “Because turning down the jewel in the crown of your precious career would be extremely foolish. And you know it quite well.”
She hated that he had her right where he wanted her. Because he was right, and she wasn’t going to refuse. No matter how dangerous staying with him would be to her heart, she had to do it. It was only temporary. It would take weeks to gather what she needed to excavate in Al-Shahar, so she would have time to recover from this experience. And she need not see him when she returned. He was a king now, and she was an archaeologist who would be on a dig in his city. She had a team who would coordinate with whomever in his government handled these things.
They would not meet again. And, even if none of that were the case, she couldn’t let him see that, contrary to what she said, she was still very much affected by the past.
“Very well,” she said, holding out her hand. “I accept.”
Zafir took her hand in his. Instead of giving a firm shake, he turned her palm up and brought it to his lips. A shiver trickled across her nerve-endings on tiny feet, bringing goosebumps to the surface.
“A wise decision,” he said softly.
And then he tugged her into his arms and kissed her.
In the space of a few moments he’d decided he was going to have her again. This need buffeting him was stronger than he remembered. He’d always been enchanted with her body, but had he always felt this reckless desire to possess her no matter the cost?
Surely not. Because right now he wanted to rip the turquoise abaya from her body and lower her onto the furs in his tent. He wanted to lose himself in her, and he wanted to remember what it had been like between them.
The heat, the passion, the pleasure.
She’d filled that hole inside him that no one ever had, and yet he couldn’t call it love. He hadn’t been in love with her. But he’d needed her.
He didn’t need her anymore, but he wanted her.
Her mouth parted, whether in surprise or compliance he did not know. But he took advantage of the situation, slipped his tongue against hers—and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath. Her arms went around him, her body pressing to his so sweetly. If not for the dagger she would be able to feel the effect she still had on him.
He held her close, slanted his mouth over hers to take as much as she would give.
And she gave far more than he would have believed. Proud, beautiful Genie kissed him like a woman starved. Like a woman who’d suffered drought and deprivation and had finally stumbled into an oasis of plenty.
She still wanted him, and the knowledge fired something primal in his blood.
Zafir cupped one of her breasts beneath the soft fabric, groaned low in his throat. He wanted to bare her body and feast his eyes and senses upon her. But he could not do so here—not in the reception tent. He swept her up into his arms and strode toward his sleeping quarters.
Genie clung to him, still kissing him, her passion as hot and intense as ever. He didn’t break the kiss, though he had to keep his eyes open to see where he was going. Her skin was flushed a pretty pink, and her long auburn lashes fanned across her cheeks. He wanted her to open her eyes, to look at him with those deep pools of rainwater-gray, to see the passion flaring in them as he made love to her.
A guard stood at attention as Zafir passed into the interior of his private quarters. He set Genie on her feet. She seemed suddenly wild-eyed as her gaze darted around the room—as if she’d awakened in a prison cell instead of a palace.
“Patience, little one,” he murmured as he unhooked the ceremonial dagger and tossed it aside.
But when he took her in his arms again she stiffened, her hands coming up to brace against his chest. “No, Zafir,” she gasped. “I can’t.”
Frustration and disappointment spiraled through him at once.
“Ah, so this is how it will be. I should have known.” He loosened his hold and she jerked away, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were chilled.
“What’s that mean?” she snapped.
“You know what it means, Genie. You tell me one thing with your body and another with your mouth.”
Her chin tilted up, her eyes flashing. “I agreed to stay for the chance to excavate in Al-Shahar. I did not agree to sleep with you ever again.”
His body pounded with the need for release, and she looked at him as if she’d not just been wrapped around him, wanting him as much as he wanted her.
She was very much the ice-cold scientist she’d always wanted to be. And that infuriated him. How dared she think she was the one in control here?
“Perhaps I wish to attach new conditions to the agreement.”
Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”
He took a step toward her, fury whipping him. “Do not presume that you know me any longer, habiba. The man I was back then is dead.”
“You would blackmail me into your bed simply to get back at me? To punish me because I didn’t want to be your plaything for however long you wanted me?”
Her words stung his conscience. And yet…he didn’t care. He was angrier than he’d been in a very long time. Angry with fate, with her, and with the stubborn sheikhs who argued over territory and made his life difficult when all he wanted was the best for his people.
He focused on the woman before him. She tried hard to hide it, but she was flushed, her lips moist and plump from kissing, her nipples jutting through the soft fabric of the abaya. Not the ice-cold scientist after all.
He was tired of games, tired of lies.
“It is hardly a punishment, habiba. Not when we both know what we want.”
Chapter Three
GENIE couldn’t stop the tremor that slid along her spine. But was it the excitement of what he offered her with the temples, or the thrill of knowing that with one word she would share his bed again?
No. She would not do so. Could not.
“Not everything we want is good for us,” she said. “Bacon double cheeseburgers with chili-cheese fries, for instance. All that fat and cholesterol.” She was babbling, for God’s sake, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
Zafir merely shot her that sexy grin that had always been her undoing. “Do you or do you not want the exclusive right to excavate the temples?” he said silkily. “No other archaeologist has ever been allowed to do so.”
Genie swallowed. With one kiss he’d stolen her breath, her sense, her will. She’d turned into a needy animal, wanting—no, craving—what he offered. If he’d pushed her down on the carpets there and then and lifted her abaya, she’d have been helpless to refuse.
It was only when he’d stopped kissing her, when she’d realized they were in what must be his private tent, that she’d asked herself what the blazes she was doing. She’d been about to negate ten years of her life with that single act. To propel herself back in time and into the arms of the man she’d never really stopped loving.
Never depend on a man, Genie. Make your own career, your own life, and find a partner to share it with. But don’t give up your goals for him. Because he might just leave you with nothing but broken dreams in the end.
Genie shivered. Her mother had said those words to her so often that she could repeat them in her sleep. Zafir was exactly the kind of man her mother had warned her about.
She’d loved him, but he hadn’t loved her. She’d realized it that night when he’d asked her to come to Bah’shar. She’d thought he was asking her to marry him, but she’d been confused because he hadn’t said the words. He’d never said he loved her, had always pushed aside questions of his feelings with more kisses and more lovemaking. And just when she’d thought he’d asked her to share his life, her dreams had been crushed into dust by the realization that he was expected to marry another.
It had been cruel, too ironic, that she should find herself in the situation of loving a man who could never marry her.
She’d known his culture was different, that what he asked was not wrong or immoral to him and his world, but there had been no way on earth she could subject herself to the humiliation. She’d seen firsthand what loving a man who would never be yours did to a woman.
To her mother.
And she was not about to endanger her heart and her hard-earned independence by falling into bed with Zafir bin Rashid al-Khalifa ever again.
“I want the commission, Zafir. But not at the price you’re asking.”
“And what price is that, Genie? I am asking you to share my bed—something you’ve done many times before.” He paused, let his gaze slide down her body. “Or have I erred? Do you have a lover? Someone to whom you wish to be faithful?”
She dropped her eyes from his and shook her head. She should lie, but she found she could not. “There is no one right now.”
“Then there can be no problem, can there?”
What could she say? Yes, there is a problem! The problem is that I still care for you and I’m afraid what will happen if I succumb to my desire instead of listening to my head!
“The answer is still no, Zafir.”
His gaze was laser-sharp. “You would really give up this commission for something so simple?”
“It’s not simple in the least, and you know it.”
“Why is that, I wonder?” He closed the distance between them, tilted her chin up with a finger. “It is simply sex between two adults who want each other. How can there be a problem with that?”
“I’ve traveled this road with you before, Zafir. I’m not prepared to do it again.”
“And I thought you would sell your soul to the devil himself for the sake of your career.”
“That’s not fair and you know it. It wasn’t my career that ruined it between us.” Her breath caught at the silky stroking of his fingers along her jaw.
Apprehension whispered over her like a caress as he smiled. “No, but you will share my bed again. Willingly, eagerly, and without hesitation. I guarantee it.”
Genie awoke in the middle of the night, shivering. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. But then it all came crashing back.
The desert. Zafir. Shock. Desire. Anger. Hurt.
Loneliness.
She sat up, her eyes adjusting to the dim light from the brazier in the middle of the tent. She lay on a large feather mattress, piled high with furs, but she’d somehow managed to kick them all away in the night.
Reaching for a fur, she realized there was a large shape in the bed with her. A man.
Zafir.
He’d left her here last night, telling her to get some sleep. She’d thought she might be shown to her own tent, but he’d informed her there was no other place to go—unless she wanted to go to Sheikh Abu Bakr’s harem.
She definitely did not.
So she’d climbed into this bed and fallen asleep, never realizing he’d returned. And she could clearly see what the problem was now that he was here. Zafir had always stolen the covers.
She tugged the fur away, putting as much distance between them as possible.
“What is wrong, Genie?” he asked, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“You took the covers.”
“Never.”
She could almost laugh if this situation weren’t so surreal. Because he’d always denied stealing the covers when she’d awakened in the night in his apartment.
“It’s a bad habit of yours, and you know it.”
His laugh sent heat spiraling through her. “So you have always said. My wife said the same, so perhaps it is true.”
Now, why was her heart throbbing at the thought of another woman knowing him so intimately? It wasn’t a surprise, after all. A wife would notice those things. She didn’t bother asking which wife.
He propped himself on an elbow. There was the gulf of the bed between them, but still it felt too intimate to be here like this. Too right and too wrong at the same time.
“Has there been anyone special in your life?” he asked, almost as if he could see the wheels turning in her head as she thought about him with a wife.
“Yes,” she said automatically, because she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth. That he had been the only special man in her life.
“Then I am sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Me too.” Now, why did that bring a well of tears to her eyes? And why did she have to work so hard to keep them from falling?
“Much has happened in the last ten years, has it not? Have you been as successful as you’d hoped?”
“I’ve done well enough,” she said. But what was success, really, when she spent her days poring over old documents and maps, living in harsh conditions while she dug pottery shards from ancient dirt? It was what she’d wanted, what she’d worked for, and yet there was something empty about it too.
She’d thought, after Zafir, she might meet a man who shared her love of ancient history—a fellow archaeologist who wanted all the same things she wanted.
And yet though she’d met plenty of men who might fit those criteria, none of them had touched her heart the way Zafir had.
“You will be pleased to know, by the way, that everyone on your team is accounted for. The men who attacked your camp have been disciplined. Unfortunately you were caught between those warring factions I told you of earlier.”
Her guilt at nearly forgetting about her colleagues when her senses were so overwhelmed with Zafir was somewhat allayed by the news that they were all well.
“I should be there to help them collect everything. It will need to be catalogued again, and—”
“They are aware that you are a guest of the King of Bah’shar.”
The King of Bah’shar. It gave her a chill to think of Zafir as king, and yet it seemed appropriate too. He’d always been larger than life—and he’d been the only person she’d ever known who had a security detail in college. She’d never been able to forget he was someone important. Imagining a life with him had been impossible. How true that had turned out to be.
“And how much longer am I to remain your guest?” In her earlier excitement about the temples she’d forgotten to ask how long he intended to keep her here. Stupid, Genie.
“A few days, no more.”
“What am I supposed to do for a few days? Stay in this tent? Isn’t there another way?”
“We will not be staying. Tomorrow we return to Al-Shahar.”
“But I thought you had to stay here…”
“I am the King, habiba. I go where I wish. Tomorrow I wish to return to Al-Shahar. My meeting with the Sheikhs will continue there.”
“Why can’t you just tell them to do what you want? You are the King, after all.”
His sigh was audible. “Yes, one would think it should work that way. But Bah’shar is an ancient country, and things have always been done a certain way. Blood feuds often go back many generations. My father tended to ignore the violence so long as the Sheikhs paid their obeisance.”
“Why can’t you do the same?” Not that she thought violence should be ignored, but she wanted to know why it was important to him.
“I could, I suppose. But then things happen—like border raids, where old fools let their men kidnap Western archaeologists. It makes us look bad in the eyes of the world. I wish us to move forward as a people, not wallow in the past.”
“Isn’t tradition important?”
“Of course. But so is progress. And I believe we can have both—though there are those who resist.”
“I remember that you were going to build skyscrapers. Do you ever get to do that?”
He sighed again. “I did, for a while. Perhaps once I’ve settled into this new role as king I will be able to do so again.”
They’d only been together six months, but she remembered his enthusiasm for building—his sketches and grand plans. He’d been in love with the idea of creating and she’d been in love with him. God.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped,” she said.
“It is as it was intended to be. I accept that.” He threw back the covers and sat up. “Are you tired?”
“Not really.” Too much adrenaline in one day. And too much shock.
“Then come. I wish to show you something.” He hesitated a moment. “You once told me you could ride. Was that the truth?”
“Yes, but I won’t be joining the Olympic equestrian team anytime soon.”
His teeth flashed white in the dim light as he stood and held out his hand. “That is sufficient.”
Genie stared at his outstretched fingers. Did she really want to go anywhere with him? To risk even a moment more in his company than absolutely necessary?
But what was the alternative? Refuse and have him climb back into the bed with her?
She put her hand in his. Electricity snapped along her nerve-endings, sizzling into her core.
No matter how she sliced it, she was in big trouble here. A few days might as well be an eternity.
“What do you think?” Zafir asked.
Genie could only stare at the undulating sand dunes—no, mountains—spreading as far as the eye could see. She’d excavated in the desert before, she knew what sand dunes looked like, but she’d never seen anything so beautiful as the pink-tinged dawn sky, the red sand that glistened with moisture which would soon be burned off by the hot rays of the sun—and she’d certainly never witnessed it from the back of a white Arabian mare.
The horse’s delicately arched neck belied her strength. She’d run up this mountain of sand as fleet-footed as a gazelle. Now she stood, her nostrils flaring, her proud head held high, her bridle dripping with tassels that shook with each prancing movement.
Genie turned in the saddle. Zafir was staring at her. He sat his mount so easily, the white fabric of his dishdasha a sharp contrast with his stallion’s bay flanks. He looked at home here, regal and otherworldly—like someone she should never have met in a million years.
“Well?” he prompted.
“It’s amazing, Zafir.”
He turned his head, his profile to her as he gazed over the dunes. It stunned her to realize that he very much looked like a king. How had she never noticed that royal bearing of his?
“I wanted to show you this before, but it was not possible. I am glad you are here to see it now, despite the circumstances.”
Her heart throbbed. Why did he have to do this to her? Why did he have to remind her of how much she’d once loved him?
“I’m glad too,” she said, though she wasn’t really sure if that was the truth. Far better to be over the border, still in her encampment, digging through sand and rock and not knowing Zafir was here—so close and yet so far. In many ways, though he sat beside her now, he was farther from her than he’d ever been.
Untouchable. Unapproachable. A king.
Genie sucked in a cool breath. The desert air was frigid at night, but it was beginning to warm as the sun crept upward in the sky. Soon it would be too hot ever to believe it had been cold only hours before.
Zafir threw one leg over his horse’s head and jumped to the ground. “Let us walk before we return to the camp,” he said.