Scandal: His Majesty's Love-Child (13 page)

Tahir swallowed hard. He stepped inside, his mind whirring.

‘Annalisa’s not here, I’m afraid.’ Her voice was crystal-cool, like the fountains tinkling in the exquisite courtyard outside her chambers. ‘If you come later, I’m expecting her for tea.’

’I know.’ His voice held an unfamiliar rough edge. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s you I came to see.’

Hours passed and Tahir was still in Rihana’s rooms.

He felt odd—something like the sensation he’d experienced the first few times his father had used him as a punching bag. As if someone had rearranged his internal organs.

His mother smiled up at him from one of her photo albums and he felt the warmth and wonder of it embrace him.

The albums were filled with photos he hadn’t known about. Him on horseback. Him striding down the beach. Him stepping from a four-wheel drive after speeding over the dunes, a rare smile on his teenage features.

Annalisa was right. His mother had cared all along. He’d been too caught up in his bitter struggle against his father to understand how the old man’s hatred had affected Rihana and why she’d had to hide her feelings.

He returned her smile, enjoying what he saw in her face and the way it made him feel.

He tried to analyse the sensations and couldn’t. He felt too…full, as if all those emotions he’d learned to repress in childhood now pushed too close to the surface. As if it would just take one more tiny scrape of his skin to set them free.

‘Mother, I—’

A crash of sound, a deafening boom, rent the air.

Tahir was on his feet before its echo died away. In slow motion he processed the sight of the walls and ceiling dipping and swaying. The decorative lanterns swung impossibly wide.

Memories of a day in Japan that he’d rather forget crowded his brain.

‘Earthquake!’ He hauled Rihana to her feet, taking in her dazed eyes. ‘Quickly, this way.’ He half carried her out into her private courtyard.

The initial eruption of sound died, but in the distance he caught an ominous rumbling. Another quake, or a building coming down? Automatically he held Rihana protectively close, well away from the decorative arches lining the courtyard. He scanned the roofline but could see no damage. Could hear no cries for help.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘Either I or someone else will come for you.’

‘Tahir!’

Her urgent tone and her grasp of his sleeve stopped him in mid-stride. He turned. What he saw in her face made him want to stay and comfort her. But he couldn’t. Others mightn’t be as lucky as they’d been.

‘Be careful,’ she murmured.

Those two simple words turned his heart over in his chest. He stepped close, gently embraced her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. ‘I will. Now, don’t forget. Wait here.’

It was the first time he’d kissed his mother in more than a decade.

The news was bad. No damage to the palace, but a section of the old town was devastated. Ancient structures and adobe walls had tumbled into narrow streets, making rescue difficult.

A check on the provinces brought news that only the capital was damaged. Nevertheless, Tahir set in motion national arrangements for evacuation should there be aftershocks.

Rescue and medical teams worked at full stretch. Tahir had contacted his cousin, Zafir, once King of Qusay and now ruler of nearby Haydar, and arranged for more rescue specialists to fly in. Tahir’s brother, Kareef, had already sent men from the mountains of Qais to help.

As afternoon faded into night Tahir was still busy directing, reassuring, planning. He did it on autopilot. Beneath his calm façade lay a fear so potent it froze his bones and threatened to paralyse his brain.

Annalisa was missing.

Just thinking it sent dread spiralling through him.

Every centimetre of the palace and grounds had been searched. Surrounding streets had been investigated.

Had she gone home, angry after their last encounter?

Guilt lanced him. Even as he pored over city plans with engineers and officials he was alert for footsteps, lest one of his staff return with news of her. He hoped for and feared it.

It was his fault she’d gone. He’d barked at her, furious that she’d dared to pry into the most private part of his life. He’d punished her for trying to heal the rift between himself and his mother.

His stomach churned at the knowledge that he was to blame for her disappearance.

Silently he told himself over and over that she wouldn’t have ventured into the old
souk.
But he didn’t believe his own reassurances. He wanted to scour the streets himself, looking for her.

Already he’d been down amongst the wreckage too often for his staff’s liking, hoping to find her. They’d protested he was in danger. Only the knowledge he was more useful coordinating the rescue efforts had kept him in the makeshift emergency centre on the edge of the damage zone.

The acrid scent of fear filled his nostrils with every breath. His heart drummed frantically.

Never had he felt so powerless. If anything happened to her…

He’d rather endure a lifetime of beatings than this. Waiting, trying to be strong for those needing his leadership, while terror gnawed at his vitals. If only he had some clue where she’d gone.

He’d thought himself safe in his isolated world, relying on no one, caring for nothing.

What he felt now obliterated that self-deception.

Finally he gave in to those urging him to rest for an hour before daybreak. But instead of returning to the palace he prowled the streets. People welcomed their King’s presence. But it was the need to find Annalisa that kept him going.

He’d almost given up hope when he came upon a temporary triage centre on the furthest side of the disaster zone. Makeshift awnings protected the wounded and lights were set up to assist the medics.

Movement caught his eye: a spill of rich dark hair. Golden highlights glinted as the woman turned her head. Impatiently she reached round and secured the waist-length tresses in a familiar gesture.

Tahir felt a huge weight rise to block his throat and impair
his breathing. He strode through the debris, past stretchers, piles of rubble and huddled figures. He heard nothing but the rush of blood in his ears.

As he approached she turned, her hand out to grasp a nearby pole for support. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty. A dark stain marred her shirt.

Terror jammed his throat as he realised it was blood.

She stumbled and he ran, just in time to scoop her off her feet before she fell.

Tahir’s heart pumped out of control as his arms closed convulsively around her. She felt warm and wonderful and alive. Alive. Thank God.

He was whirling around, looking for a doctor, when her voice finally penetrated.

‘Put me down. I have work to do.’

‘Work?’ He stared down into her exhausted face, terrified at the intensity of what he felt.

‘I’m helping the wounded. You have to let me go.’

‘You’re injured.’ He shouldered through the crowded space towards a couple of doctors bent over a patient.

‘It’s not my blood, Tahir. Tahir?’

But he was already talking to a white-haired medic who explained Annalisa had been here all night, helping.

Even then Tahir couldn’t release her. He listened as if from a distance as the doctor reassured him that she was unharmed, heard praise for her efforts. But he couldn’t trust himself to believe.

Blind instinct urged him to ignore the expert’s words and Annalisa’s urgings. He needed her close.

‘You need rest,’ he said as her voice grew strident. ‘You’re pregnant, remember?’

His words fell into a pool of silence. The emergency staff, patients, even his staff who’d followed him seemed to still.

Then the doctor was agreeing, saying she’d done enough and urging Annalisa to go. They were closing this centre anyway and moving to the hospital.

Tahir instructed his staff to help pack up. He’d be back
soon. His stride lengthened as he passed into the wider streets of the new city.

‘Tahir?’ She didn’t sound angry now. ‘You can put me down. I’m fit and healthy. Honestly.’

But he walked on, arms tight as steel as he cradled her close.

He didn’t want to let her go. He wouldn’t let her go.

He looked into worried dark eyes, saw a flush stain her lovely face, the pout of concern on her lush mouth.

Tahir remembered the terror of losing her. The sense of loss. The fear he’d never find her. Horror still trickled through his belly at the recollection.

Realisation struck him with the force of an act of a divine power.

He couldn’t let her go.

The man who’d turned independence into an art form, self-reliance into a way of life, had met his match.

He needed her.

I
T
WAS
late in the day when Annalisa woke. She’d fallen exhausted into bed. Yet she hadn’t slept for hours. Instead she’d replayed events in her mind. The quake, her work to help the wounded.

And Tahir, appearing out of nowhere and sweeping her into his arms. Her heart fluttered at the memory.

He’d been a stranger: intent, focused, all hard-muscled strength and determination. No hint of the playboy, just one hundred percent powerful, commanding male. One look at the set of his jaw had told her she hadn’t a hope of escaping his hold.
Even if she’d wanted to.

In his embrace was exactly where she’d wanted to be.

She’d been so worried for him, but had found herself in the thick of disaster and hadn’t been able to turn her back on the pitifully wounded victims.

Tahir had barely heard her as he’d marched through the dark streets. Nor had he relinquished his hold when he’d reached his vehicle. He’d held her tight all the way, then carried her through the palace to her rooms.

Ignoring propriety, he’d only released her when he reached her bed. Even then he’d loomed close as servants scurried to provide food and run her a bath.

He’d looked immovable, his features a study in potent masculinity as he stared silently down at her.

Something had stretched taut between them. A tension she
hadn’t been able to name but had felt with every slow breath, every tingle of awareness across her burning hot skin and in the deep, slow, coiling excitement in her belly.

When a maid had announced the bath was ready he’d abruptly disappeared, leaving her to ponder what had just happened.

When Tahir looked at her that way her doubts melted into nothing. It was like the sizzle in the air the night they’d made love. But more. Something stronger still.

Was she a fool, reading too much into his actions? Had he just been protecting his unborn baby?

And yet…she found herself hoping it was more.

She turned from her view of the sun setting in a blaze of colour. It was time to—

Annalisa’s footsteps faltered as she spied the figure just inside her room. His hand clenched high on the filmy curtains that separated the entry foyer from her chamber.

‘Tahir?’ Her husky voice betrayed her longing.

Need rose. It had gnawed at her so long. A need that had escalated last night as he’d carried her with the stern certainty of a man claiming his woman.

She
wanted
him to claim her.
She wanted to be his.

Every warning, every doubt, ebbed in the face of her feelings for Tahir. She’d tried to focus on the negative, to tell herself she shouldn’t care for a man who didn’t love her. But stern logic didn’t work any more.

Flutters of excitement whirled and swooped in her abdomen. She stroked trembling fingers down the opalescent silk of the gown Rihana had given her.

His gaze followed the movement.

Heat blossomed low in her womb and at the apex of her thighs. She tried to calm herself and failed.

Last night’s crisis had cut through her attempts to be sensible and careful. All that remained was raw feeling.

What she felt for Tahir was stronger than ever.

He was the embodiment of every dream she could no longer deny. Tall, suave and potently masculine in dark trousers and a black shirt, his head bare.

Tension radiated from him. His jaw was rigid, his face composed of taut angles and lines. His eyes blazed like the sky at midday. Almost too bright to watch. Yet she couldn’t look away.

She took a step towards him and his hand clenched white-knuckled on the gossamer fabric. Her heart thumped out of kilter at what she read in his expression.

He looked fierce, stern, forbidding. Yet she felt no fear. For there was warmth too. Such warmth.

Surely it was real, not a product of her needy imagination?

For so long she’d wanted him to want her, really want
her,
as she did him. Now she had her wish. The force of that look almost buckled her knees.

Instinctively she realised he battled with himself. She had so little experience yet at some primitive level she understood her power over him.

For he had the same power over her.
He’d wielded it from the first. She’d been blind to think she could escape its pull. Foolish to think she could walk away.

They might be king and commoner but in this they were equals. That knowledge gave her strength.

‘Tahir?’ Her voice was a barely audible throb of sound.

His fingers eased their grip on the fabric and his arm dropped to his side. He hefted a breath that inflated his chest and lifted his shoulders. It shuddered from him in a sigh. Annalisa felt its twin tremble through her.

He stepped forward, his long stride closing the distance between them. All she saw was him.

‘Habibti.’ My darling.
His deep voice was hoarse and unfamiliar. The sound of his endearment crept like warm fingers up her spine till she shivered, her nipples peaking.

This close, she saw the lines of fatigue around his eyes. Had he been up all night and all day too?

Annalisa opened her mouth to ask about the rescue, but he reached out and pressed his index finger to her lips. She inhaled the warm scent of man, of Tahir, and heat pooled low in her body. She felt herself tremble on the brink of a precipice. No thought now of their turbulent past. The emotion she’d read in
his ravaged features last night was more important than what had gone before.

For countless moments they stood, drawn by a force so strong the air crackled with it.

The tension was too much to bear. Annalisa swayed towards him. A muscle in his jaw worked; his eyes devoured her.

Tentatively she lifted her hand, unable to stop herself. She needed to feel him, safe and real.

Before she could touch him he hauled her close, slamming her into his rigid body. His arms wrapped hard round her, tucking her against him as if he had no intention ever of releasing her.

Annalisa trembled as his fiery heat encompassed her. Beneath her ear his heart thudded, matching her own racing pulse. She hugged him close, squeezing tight as tears she didn’t even understand stung her eyes.

A hiccough escaped as she fought back surging emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.

Long fingers cupped her chin and tilted her face up. Then Tahir was kissing her, lips slanted across her mouth in stormy possession. He gave no quarter, allowed no hesitation, as he took her.

He delved deep, kissing her thoroughly, like a conquering marauder taking his fill. Yet there was a piercing sweetness to his caress that spoke of far more than easy gratification. Her heart soared at his urgency and underlying tenderness.

His hands shook as he cupped her face. For all his power and physical strength, Tahir was as needy as she.

Annalisa answered his kisses with her own, leaning on tiptoe and planting her hands in his thick, soft hair, as if to prevent him pulling away.

Tahir groaned deep in his throat as she slid her tongue into his mouth, mimicking his caresses, luxuriating in the dark mutual pleasure consuming them.

He bowed her back over his arm, his legs wide around hers as he demanded even more. Gladly she gave it, sinking into a warm tide of delight as their open-mouthed kiss grew needier, deeper, hungrier.
This
was what she’d craved.

A barely familiar throb quickened in the place between Annalisa’s legs and she shifted restlessly, finding comfort in the press of his body against hers.

The pressure inside rose and she kissed him feverishly. She needed him closer even than this.

A moment later she was falling, and the air was squeezed from her lungs as he came down on her, pressing her into the cushioned mattress of her low bed.

Eyes wide now, she saw him prop himself on one arm, keeping most of his weight off her. Her eyes met his and thought fled.

Such fierce passion in his sky-blue eyes. Annalisa only had to meet his look and she spiralled towards paradise.

‘Tahir.’ Every scintilla of longing and hope and tremulous desire was in that one word. And she didn’t care. All she cared about was having this one man who meant so much, here where he belonged. For this time it was right.

Her body softened, accommodating his hard length, readying for his possession.

A shudder racked his big frame and she saw the tendons in his neck stretch taut. Tenderness filled her at his vulnerability.

‘I had to come. I need…’ He shook his head, eyes squeezing shut.

She felt a spasm of sympathy clench her heart, seeing his inner turmoil, feeling the same driving force for intimacy.

‘I need too, Tahir.’

At her whispered admission his eyes snapped open. Cerulean fire blazed down, scorching her face, her lips.

‘Habibti.’
The endearment was a low hum of sound that curled up and wrapped itself around her, warming every last recess of her body. Emotion shimmered in each syllable.

He lay poised above her as her heart thudded out a rhythm that spoke of desire, need, love. A love she could no longer deny for this proud, complex man.

Acknowledging her love didn’t scare her when she saw Tahir at the mercy of his own emotions. Not just desire but tenderness, relief and regret. She recalled the stark fear on his face
last night, the convulsive clamp of his arms around her, and wanted to soothe the remnants of his anxiety away.

She raised her hands to his face, to the strong jaw so smooth it must be freshly shaved. Over high cheekbones, feathering his brow, his ears, his nose and lips. She learned his face as a blind woman would, committing each detail to memory.

His tongue sleeked across her palm and she stilled. He clasped her hand to his mouth and kissed her there, laving and nipping and caressing till longing bubbled up inside and burst out in a throaty moan of bliss.

Then he was gone, rolling off her and leaving her bereft and wanting. Instinctively she turned towards him, but already he’d moved. He knelt, hands skimming up her legs, drawing the delicate silk she wore higher and higher.

Excitement rose as their gazes meshed. She lifted her bottom so he could push the fabric up. Then he peeled the dress over her shoulders and head, tossing it in a stream of pearly colour across the room.

Movement ceased as he loomed above, straddling her hips. His chest heaved, straining the buttons of his shirt. His gaze roved greedily.

A twinge of self-consciousness penetrated Annalisa’s heady pleasure. Had her waist thickened? Her breasts seemed fuller. Too full? Instinctively she lifted her hands to shield herself, but he clamped hold of her wrists and pulled her arms wide.

She
felt
his eyes on her skin, like the graze of flesh on flesh. Tiny explosions erupted within her. Excitement reached feverpitch just at the way he devoured her with his eyes. Her breasts seemed to swell against the lace of her bra and between her legs she felt dampness.

She revelled in his breathless regard. The way he looked at her made her feel like the most important being on the planet.

Deliberately he bent and planted a kiss to her belly, where her womb cradled the tiny new life they’d made.

Annalisa’s heart turned over, undone by the reverence and tenderness of the gesture. She slipped her hands free to cup his
head in her hands, cradling him to her as a flood of emotion stole her heart.

Seconds later he was moving, slipping off her bra and panties with an ease that reminded her just how practised he was with women.

Yet even that knowledge didn’t give her pause. Not now.
This was meant to be.

She welcomed his caressing hands, shifting under each sweep of his palm, each circling finger. She gasped as he bent his dark head to suckle at her breast, gently at first, then, as she held him close, tugging greedily, in a way that sent shafts of fire arrowing through her.

His hand slipped down, restlessly stroking her hip, her thigh, the secret needy place where his touch sent waves of pure pleasure rushing through her.

Annalisa’s heart raced. Her skin bloomed, flushed with sexual arousal and a soaring happiness she’d never known. Her hips lifted off the bed, towards Tahir’s caress. Yet he took his time, pleasuring her slowly, as if eking out every nuance of delight.

‘Please, Tahir,’ she gasped. ‘I want…’

Hooded eyes met hers. She drank in the sight of his desireridden face just centimetres from the peak of her breast. Dark burnished golden skin beside pale.

Her proud lover.

A tremor shook her, and another.

‘Then take what you want,
habibti.’
He ripped open his shirt and tossed it aside, revealing his powerful torso. A moment later he shoved his trousers and underwear off and onto the floor. His feet were bare, and she had no idea if he’d come to her like that or shucked off his footwear beside the bed.

Her throat dried as he stretched out beside her, propped on one arm. He looked utterly relaxed, like some long, lithe predator, resting in the heat of the day. Only the rapid rise and fall of his powerful chest gave him away. And his jutting erection.

Her eyes rounded as she took in the glory of Tahir, fully
aroused. How could she have forgotten his sheer magnificence? Or had she been so overwhelmed by her first experience of lovemaking that she hadn’t looked? This time she felt no nerves, no anxiety. Just love and a soul-deep need.

His erection throbbed as she watched. ‘See what you do to me?’ His voice sounded curiously tight, as if he were in pain.

Her eyes roved him and hunger grew. She reached for him, curling fingers tentatively around his surprisingly soft skin. Warm silk over iron, over pure potent masculinity.

Something plunged deep inside her and she moved nearer.

His hand closed around hers, prying her fingers loose and then dragging her hand wide, to his other side, as he rolled onto his back. He held her like that, poised over him, holding her more with the searing intensity of his eyes than with his touch on her hand.

‘Take what you want,’ he repeated. This time the words were so slurred she wouldn’t have understood if she hadn’t been watching his face.