Page 8 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
Cyrus settled himself and then watched her closely as the plane taxied down the runway, then made its smooth jump into German airspace. He studied her for clues as the plane made a slow, lazy turn to head south. Hope sat in the seat opposite him, her hair clipped back by some or other set of quietly elegant jewelry and that white dress gleaming.
Like a reminder. Like another insult.
Not that he needed his memory jogged on that score.
He waved a hand when the plane steadied on its course, and his attendants hurried to set out the in-flight meal he normally preferred. A selection of meats and hard cheeses, the fragrant flatbread his people made in the heat, and the filo dough tarts stuffed with something sweet. He indicated the plate before her when all Hope did was stare down at it.
A lot like she’d never seen a meal before.
“Let me guess,” he said, and he did not try particularly hard to keep the censure from his voice. “Like so many women, you prefer to starve yourself for attention.”
“Oh, I would love to starve myself,” the impossible woman replied. And she seemed to mean it, it had to be said. “I’ve tried and tried. It turns out that I don’t really have the knack. I’ve always preferred to eat my feelings whenever possible.”
Then, as he watched in no little astonishment, she dipped the flat, dull knife the attendants had provided her into the pots of butter and jam, slathering both all over the flatbread before her. And then, holding his gaze with an insolence that left him rigid in astonishment, she took an enormous bite.
More, she then seemed wholly unfazed as they both sat there while she chewed and chewed, even having press her fingers over her lips to keep the enormous portion of bread and butter and jam within.
Like a child, Cyrus thought.
But the true outrage was that his body did not consider her any kind of child. Not in any respect.
He thought that would be the end of her games. He assumed that at any moment she would show some sign that she understood the precariousness of her position here, but glare at her though he might, she continued to eat her fill.
With what looked a great deal like pure, unselfconscious delight.
And only when she cleared the plate before her, filled it again, and then picked her way through the better part of the tray besides did Hope sigh happily and sit back in her seat. Fell back, more like, he thought darkly as she sighed again.
With every appearance of deep and total contentment, one hand slung over her middle.
“I can’t remember the last time I really ate anything,” she confided, as if he had inquired. “Left to my own devices I would make sure to keep my stomach full at all times, because I do tend to act out when I’m hungry, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it when there were dress fittings to consider. I feel as if I’ve been fasting for weeks.”
“Nerves?” But unlike every last one of his men and most of his subjects, Hope did not react to the ice in his voice with instant obedience and respect. “I hear they are common in brides.”
That languid hand made a line through the air between them. “Hardly. Or not the way you mean, I think. It’s just that managing my mother takes a good bit of effort and it can sometimes be difficult to slot in meals around her.”
And Cyrus was hailed far and wide for his ability to see the truth of a man at a glance. To know the truth of whoever dared face him, no matter how unpleasant or hidden. Because of this, he had maintained a constant peace with his neighbors no matter how many new rulers rose and fell in those lands. Aminabad ever remained.
This was one of his great talents in this life, this discernment that had served him so well while he ruled. But he could not, for the life of him, make any sense at all of the girl before him.
Instead he found himself noticing tiny, unimportant details that he should have considered beneath him. Meaningless details, like the fact that her eyes seemed laced with gold and seemed far more intriguing than the more prosaic shade of muddy hazel he had expected. It was the way they shone, perhaps. As if she carried untold treasures inside of her.
He was, equally, not best pleased with the curve of her cheek or the way her lips tipped upward, making it look as if she was smiling all the while. No doubt smug and happy in her many betrayals.
And then there was that curvy figure of hers. She was not one of those lean, willowy tree trunks—much like his reedy mother, betrayer though she was, and that whole side of his family, though he did not like to think of his childhood years at her side—that some men found so attractive. Hope was a lush little creature with the kind of hips real men appreciated. Not only because they suggested a woman would bear children well.
She possessed the wide hips and ripe breasts that enhanced pleasure, and childbearing was secondary to such pursuits. His own palms itched to test the weight of the breasts she wore strapped into the bright white bodice of her gown. And though her waist nipped in, it only made him want to span the width of it with his hands, then see how the flare of her hips felt in his grip.
He had not expected this overwhelmingneedfor her. He was having some trouble accepting that he could not brush it aside as he did so many of the things he desired in this life, second always to the demands of his people, his position.
For no reason he could fathom, he remembered how he had once yearned for his mother when he had been taken from her so suddenly, and the way she had always sung to him, crooning and nonsensical songs she made up as she went—
But over time he had turned his back on nonsense and found reason instead.
He no longer permitted himself childish things, and yearning was one of them.
“Have you no questions?” he demanded when he decided he had glared at her long enough, the ferocity his voice a shock to his own ears. The fact that Hope did not seem to notice only kept him on edge. “Do you accept, so easily, simply being removed from your life? On such a day as this?”
“What would you have me do?” And though her tone was easy, there was that hint of something flinty in her golden gaze. It reminded him that she was not so easygoing as she pretended. “Should I have wrestled with you, a man who must outweigh me by some hundred pounds? There in your vehicle, or here, surrounded by your men? Have would that go for me, do you think?”
