Page 6 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
SHEWASMOREcompelling than he’d expected and Cyrus Ashkan did not care for surprises.
He arranged his entire life to make certain there were precious few.
In the case of Hope Cartwright, the insult had already been delivered. Accordingly, he had already decided exactly who and what this woman was to him.
He did not like the part of him that wondered if there might be another path, despite everything, now that he had finally met her.
Cyrus had not expected to find so much mystery in her gaze. He had not expected that lifting her into his arms to toss her over his shoulder wouldgriphim the way it did. So much so that he could still feel his sex responding to her as if she were his lover instead of merely his possession—not even a prisoner.
For how could he imprison what was already his?
He had expected the gleaming blonde hair, like strands of competing gold in sunlight. He had expected her general comeliness, for he had studied it in too many photographs to count—but in person, she was...something else.
Something unexpected, damn her.
There was a surprising hint of steel about her, as if beneath the pretty picture she made and her sort of English rose loveliness—exactly what he had taught himself to hate, as it reminded him of his own mother’s softness and the childhood he had long ago disavowed—her architecture was as unyielding as his.
He dismissed that immediately, of course.
But no matter what it was, or wasn’t, she surprised him.
As did her curious defiance. He had expected wailing, temper tantrums, tears.
He had not expected...this quiet negotiation. This total lack of fear. The notable absence of any apparent guilt that she had turned her back on the promises her father had made and the deal he had made with Cyrus’s grandmother, for the Kings of the Aminabad Desert had always wedded in this way.
If he didn’t know it to be impossible, Cyrus would be tempted to imagine she truly did not know who he was to her.
But that was absurd.
He reached over and wrapped his hand around one slender wrist, disliking intensely the way so simple a touch exploded within him. Her skin was too soft. And there was the sense of some kind of innocence about her that he knew was a lie, no matter how he might wish it otherwise.
“Come,” he growled at her.
She only smiled. That did not help.
Because his sex did not seem to know the truth of her when he was afraid he knew it all too well. But then, Cyrus was King of a harsh and unforgiving land. He was not ruled by any man alive and he did not take direction from his sex, either.
He was still laughing at the very idea as he tugged her from the car. He marched her over to the black helicopter that waited there for his next command, then led her inside. They would fly north to Germany where one of his jets waited, and only then would they fly out to the deserts he called his own.
Leaving enough international smoke and mirrors behind them that her would-be husband, a man of no small wealth in his own right, could not hope to find them.
He expected her to pitch a fight as he ushered her into her seat as the rotors began to spin, but she didn’t. Instead, Hope came along in a manner he could only describe ashappy.
As if she could think of nothing better to do on her wedding day then participate in her own abduction.
That, too, was not what he’d expected.
Cyrus told himself that this meant only that she was far more treacherous than he’d imagined. For surely she was recalibrating, that was all, and intended to try her hand at negotiating with him further. As if contracts had not been signed years ago.
But as the helicopter took off, shooting up from Lake Como and carrying her away from the site of her latest bit of perfidy, she didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. She didn’t look back at the scene of what would have been the ultimate betrayal—longingly or otherwise. She didn’t even fire questions at him.
Hope simply sat in her seat, folded her hands in her lap, and then closed her eyes.
Very much as if she was taking a nap.
Cyrus sat beside her and seethed.
But then, he had been seething for two years now, because he held the vows he made as sacred. If he did not, he would have married long ago instead of waiting for the bride he had been promised. He was owed this debt.
