Page 15 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
Though perhaps that was temper, not longing, that he had watched her over these past years and failed to intervene. Either way, she was completely unable to tear her gaze from his.
“It is lucky for you that you appeal to me,omri,” he told her, and the strangest thing was that she really did feel lucky for a long, dizzying sort of moment. Then he kept talking. “I did not expect that you would, but I am happy to accept the gift of your body in return for the mercy I have shown you already, and the incalculable honor I bestow upon you by marrying you.”
“Will my body truly be a gift in this marriage of yours?” She made herself ask the question, somehow not giving in to the trembling thing deep inside her that she was terribly afraid was not fear at all, but desire. Another thing she had never felt before. “Will it be mine to give—or not give? Notably unlike this kidnap?”
“You will beg to bestow this gift of yours upon me,” he assured her, as if he knew. As if he could see the future. And the look on his face was so intense that she thought for a moment that she could see it too. Because the mad whirl deep inside her was unlike anything she had ever felt before in her life. Almost as if it really was a gift, these things he thundered at her so sternly in all this wild heat. “But you may be certain that I will never give you the gift of my sons.”
Hope blinked at that, and maybe it was a welcome break from all those vast things inside her, changing her where she stood. “No gifts in the form of sons I didn’t ask for. Got it.”
Cyrus took a step closer, making her catch her breath. Then he reached out and took her chin between his fingers.
That was all. A minor touch, really. Nothing at all in the grand scheme of things.
But she could feel the strength of him, the heat. She knew without having to ask that he was a man who took pride in the fact he used his own hands. There was nothing soft on him. The was not so much as the faintest hint.
“I will enslave you with passion,” he informed her, and even though the way he said that was almost remote, the look in his gaze was nothing short of a forest fire. And here in a place where there were no trees, the only thing that could burn was her. “There are few women on this earth who can resist the Supreme Ruler of the Great Sands, and I doubt very much you are one of them.”
“Thanks for that,” Hope managed to reply, though she felt dizzy again. Andon fire. “That’s something to look forward to, then. Supreme and sandy passion on command.”
“I will use you and then cast you aside,” he told her, almost tenderly. A new promise. “I will sentence you to a life of fruitless yearning in my harem, a drudge of a wife with no standing while the other wives I will marry give me many, many sons. This is the life you have earned, and you will thank me for it.”
She heard him. On some level, she even understood what he was saying. Drudgery, yearning, unlikely expressions of gratitude on her end. But his hand was on her chin, his fingers pressing into her flesh. And all she could seem to do was tip her head back and gaze up at him, as if he really was as powerful as the desert sun.
Maybe more.
“R-right,” she managed to stammer out. “Used and cast aside, no standing. With the passion.”
It was the passion as punishment part she couldn’t really get past.
The part that made something deeply feminine and knowing, tucked away in a place she’d never encountered within herself before, turn over and stretch. Like it was waking up after a long sleep.
Like it had been waiting there, just beyond desire, all the while.
But there was no time to worry about such things,knowingor passion or the kind of punishment that Cyrus still seemed to think sounded like something other than a luxury retreat. There was no time left.
He dropped his fingers from her chin. He raised his arm, up over his head in a grand sort of slashing motion, as if he meant to slice the sky above in two.
Bringing with it a pack of horses from behind the hills, descending upon them like riders on a storm.
Like fate.
And there was a part of her that was rightly overwhelmed. More than overwhelmed, as Cyrus swung her up into the saddle of a horse, then held her up in front of him, like the spoils of war.
But inside, in that part of her that was newly awake, she was smiling.
CHAPTER FOUR
CYRUSRODEATthe head of the pack of fine Aminabad horses, as befit him as the Lord and King.
And he was not certain he had ever felt more like a desert king of yore than he did now. The merciless sun above, the sand below. His men at his back and a woman caught up before him, in that great white dress that billowed around them as his cavalry galloped with him over the dunes.
It was almost enough to make him wish his father was still alive, that the old man might see that he had achieved what he had always set out to achieve. He had made his only son over into an appropriate heir to this ancient, dusty kingdom, despite the best attempts of the mother who had stolen Cyrus away.
Yet as he rode, he found that he thought less of what he must do as King and more of the needs that rose in him—as a man. Because he had claimed this woman as his wife. Not merely some bit of sweet flesh for an evening’s entertainment. And she sat before him, as wives and captives alike had done for centuries on horses like his, the lush curves of her bottom nestled up tight against his sex.
Making sure that ache in him only grew as the miles passed.
An ache he intended that she would soothe, though he had not lied to her. He wanted her, yes. That wanting had astonished and outraged him—that was also true.
