Page 55 of Desert King's Forbidden Temptation

She sobbed then and nodded, the palm that was pressed to his chest curling in his clothes. ‘I know.’ She trembled. ‘Me too.’

It was all he needed. They both understood what this was. A one-off. One chance, one time, so that they wouldn’t look back and wonder and wish.

‘No regrets,’ he said emphatically.

‘No.’ But her tears were falling and it was more than he could bear. He kissed her then, hard and passionate, filled with all the dark emotions that were swirling through him, with the feelings that were rioting in his gut, with his need for her and his feelings for her, feelings that went beyond lust, that were knitted into stranger, heavier parts of his soul.

He kissed her like she was a delicate vase at first and then he kissed her as an equal, ancient and primal sensual desire controlling his every impulse. He tasted the salt of her tears and did everything he could to drive them from her heart and mind, so that only pleasure sustained her. They stripped their clothes in unison, a frantic tangle of hands and fingers and limbs moving, shucking fabric from skin until they were naked, their bodies wrapped together, his pulling her to the stone, careful to place her on his discarded robe, to save from the cold hard edges of rock, but she didn’t notice, didn’t complain, only lifted onto her elbows to seek his mouth, to kiss him back, hungrily, needing, with the same abandon of sense and logic that had corrupted him completely.

His life had fundamentally changed and yet this, with Eloise, was the only thing that made sense. ‘Damn you,’ he groaned, but it wasn’t her he was angry with, so much as everyone else. None of it mattered though. Not when her body writhed beneath his and her legs parted, silently inviting him to take her, to be with her. How could he refuse? How could he doubt the perfection of this? The hunger he’d felt since that first day had grown and grown so he thrust into her and almost exploded with the pleasure of that fulfilment. It took a monumental effort to bring himself back from the edge, to stop from coming right there, as her muscles tightened around him and welcomed him in euphoric completion.

She scraped her nails down his back and cried his name, filling the afternoon sky with the proof of her madness, of their madness, and he kissed her harder, tasting that pleasure, hearing it in his soul, aching for her even as he moved within her. It wasn’t just her body he wanted but her total surrender to him, her admission that she was all his, and always would be. What an ass. Even in that moment of abandon he recognised what an awful thing that was to want—he would be married to another woman, sleeping with her, making her pregnant, yet he wanted Eloise to put her life on hold and pine for him always?

It was cruel and unfair but it was also human instinct—his instinct.

It was what he might have done if their positions were reversed.

He pushed the thought aside, terrified by it, by everything that was happening between them, even as he knew the experience was building him up, making him a different man, a stronger man, the man he was born to be.

‘Tariq, I’m—I need—’ He knew what she needed though. He understood her on some soul-deep level. He moved them in their own unique dance, his body anticipating and delivering, until she was trembling and falling apart and then he dragged his mouth all over her skin, flicking her, tasting her, tormenting her, bringing her back to the brink again, and then again, until the fourth time when she exploded and he went with her, wrapping an arm behind her back and lifting her up, so they were melded completely, not a hint of space between them as they shared the richness of that moment, as they found the fulfilment of release as if they were one person, not two, on very different paths.

‘What happened, Tariq?’ She shifted beneath him, ever so slightly, pinned as she was between him and the hardness of the rock.

‘Is it not self-evident?’

She pushed aside his flippant response. This was not a flippant moment. ‘What happened to upset you?’

His lips compressed and a muscle throbbed at the base of his jaw. She lifted a finger to it, touching him gently, then shifting her touch sideways, to lips she’d wanted to reach for since she’d first laid eyes on them. Doing so now was crazy and liberating. She refused to reflect on how temporary this state of freedom was.

He wasn’t hers, and having slept with him, every single anchor point in her life had shifted.

She was adrift, but for right now, there was Tariq, and she would make the most of it, just for a little longer.

He expelled a sigh, pulling away from her so her body thundered with a silent complaint, but he only rolled onto his back then brought her to his chest, reaching for his discarded shirt to cover them a little. She smiled against his skin despite the heaviness that was dragging at her.

This moment was one of the few in life that was absolutely perfect. She closed her eyes and breathed in, waiting for him to speak, her fingers tracing idle, hungry paths over his chest.

‘When I was just a baby, I was in a bad car accident.’

She lifted up, propping her chin on his chest so she could see him better.

‘My body was broken—doctors thought I would die.’

She frowned, the hand that had been tracing lines over his chest coming to rest against his heart, feeling the sturdy beating with gratitude now. She didn’t want to contemplate what could have happened.

‘My recovery was slow. It wasn’t certain that I would ever have full mobility or strength, but the doctors were wrong. I learned to walk, and then to run. To run fast and hard. My father was determined that I would be strong, much stronger than anyone else. He wanted me to be unbreakable.’

She felt his heart and knew that it was the case. Tariq al Hassan had been rebuilt, and he was everything he’d just said.

‘He taught me to ride horses, to swim miles, to walk this desert as though it were the greenest grass in the world. He taught me to climb mountains, to move rocks with my bare hands, to fish and to hunt. He taught me to ignore pain, to endure just about anything.’

She made a soft noise because it was all so evident. When she looked at him, that strength was exactly what she saw.

‘There is a legend about the sheikhs of this land, about the iron that fills our blood that makes us more than mere mortals. Borne of warriors, destined to take our place on the throne, to rule with the kind of compassion that can only come from an unbreakable commitment to what’s right. I’m simply one in a long line of men like me.’ He tilted his face to hers, eyes boring into hers. ‘Only I’m not.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘After my father died, I learned the truth—he hadn’t wanted me to know, but my mother wasn’t comfortable with that.’

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