Sandra Marton - Pleasure - The Sheikh's Defiant Bride

Madison cried out.

He caught the cry with his mouth and fought to hang on to his sanity.

“Please,” she whispered, tugging at his shirt, and he pulled back, stripped it off, groaned as he felt her hands on him, exploring him, stroking over his chest, his shoulders, moving down his ridged abdomen. And when she found him, cupped her hand over the taut denim, Tariq gritted his teeth, gave in to the exquisite pleasure for a heartbeat and then caught her wrists and brought them to her sides before it was too late.

Carefully he gathered his wife to him. She was trembling and he was aroused beyond anything he had ever experienced, but he knew that to take her again would be wrong.

She was pregnant. She was exhausted. She was torn between hating him and wanting him.

And he—he needed something more from her than sex, something that had no name.

The room was dark. The air was cool. He drew up the duvet, eased Madison’s head to his shoulder. Her breath sighed against his skin as he lay his hand gently over the place in her body where the child—where their child—lay dreaming. “Go to sleep, habiba,” he said softly. She bristled, as he should have known she would. “Do not tell me what to do, Tariq! I am not the least bit—” She yawned. He smiled. A second later, she was asleep.

MADISON awoke with a start.

She lay in a canopied bed the size of a football field in a vast, high-ceilinged room. Sheer curtains that diffused the sunlight pouring through a wall of glass.

The bed linens were soft and cool against her skin.

Her naked skin.

She shot up against the pillows, clutching the bedcovers to her breasts. Where am I? she thought and even in that moment of terrifying disorientation, she wanted to laugh at the pathetic cliché.

Except, it wasn’t a cliché, it was the truth.

Her memories of the night were fragments of a dream. The last thing she recalled with any clarity was Tariq carrying her to bed on his plane, undressing her, caressing her, holding her in his arms.

Madison closed her eyes.

Had she really fallen asleep that way? In his arms? Her head on his bare shoulder, his breath warm against her temple?

And after that, what? Everything was murky. The plane, landing. Tariq, wrapping her in a quilt, carrying her to an SUV that sped along a road under a sky shot through with silver.

“Madame?”

Madison’s eyes flew open. A woman stood in the open doorway, a tentative smile on her lips.

“Forgive me, my lady. I knocked, but there was no answer.”

“No.” Madison forced an answering smile. “No, that’s all right. Who are you?”

“I am Sahar. Your servant.”

Her servant? What did you say to that?

“I have brought you mint tea.”

“Mint tea,” Madison said brightly. “That’s—that’s excellent.”

“Do you wish it in bed, or shall I put it near the windows?”

“Oh. Ah, by the windows will be.” Madison took a deep breath. “Sahar?”

“My lady?”

“Where—exactly where am I?” The woman’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “I mean,” Madison said quickly, “what is the name of this place?”

Sahar looked at her. Madison figured the expression on her face was pretty much the same expression that had been on her face the time a befuddled tourist had asked her where the Empire State building was while standing directly in front of it.

“It is the Golden Palace, of course.”

The Golden Palace. “Of course,” Madison said. “And, ah, and the city is …?”

Sahar’s expression went from bemused to alarmed.

“We are in the city of Dubaac, my lady.”

“Right. Dubaac. The city. In the country of—”

“The city, the country are one,” a male voice said. Tariq strolled into the room and waved his hand in dismissal. “That will be all, Sahar.”

The servant bowed and scuttled out the door. Tariq closed it, then leaned back against it, arms folded. Madison’s heart banged against her ribs. He looked different. Taller, somehow. More imposing, if that were possible. And—and, yes, beautiful in a cream-colored shirt, faded jeans and riding boots.

“Good morning, habiba. Did you sleep well?”

“Do you care?”

He grinned. “I can see we’re off to a fine start.”

“We are off to no start.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, you are not welcome in this room, Tariq—and where are my clothes?”

His smile tilted. “Don’t you really mean, ‘Who undressed me and put me to bed?’ ”

Why did he always manage to make her blush? “An excellent question but then, I have a lot of excellent questions. And I’m not asking them until I am out of bed and dressed.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“You are.”

“A little late to worry about modesty,” he said, his voice silken, “don’t you think?”

“Damn it, Tariq …”

“Sahar undressed you and put you to bed.”

He could see it wasn’t the answer she’d expected. Her face, lovely in the bright light of morning, was a study in surprise.

“It would have been improper for me to have done so.”

“But—but I thought—I mean, if you and I are—if we really are—”

“Husband and wife, habiba, are the words you’re searching for.”

“Don’t play games with me.”

He had wondered how she would be this morning. Subdued, he had told himself and told himself, too, that he hoped that would be the case because it would make everything that came next easier.

But his wife was not subdued. Frightened, yes. The tremor in her voice gave it away, but she was facing him as she always did, chin high, eyes steady. A tiger ready to do battle even though he had turned her life upside down, stolen her away from everything familiar, forced her into his bed.

Tariq’s throat went dry.

Except, he hadn’t forced her. She had gone willingly, moved beneath him eagerly, matched him kiss for kiss, touch for touch.

Damn it!

He swung away, shocked by the swift response of his body, angered by it. He strode into the dressing room, determined not to let her see the evidence of her power over him, and returned with a long silk robe that he tossed on the bed.

“Get up,” he said harshly, “and make yourself presentable.”

“Presentable? How? I have nothing to—”

“There are clothes for you in the dressing room.”

“Clothes for the last woman you kidnapped and brought here?”

His jaw tightened. Did she really think he would indulge her in debate … or tell her he had never brought a woman here, to the Golden Palace? There was no need for her to know that.

As it was, he had enough to tell her—and to prepare her to accept.

“Select something appropriate,” he said coldly. “Then we will have coffee and talk.”

“Appropriate for what?”

He looked at her, sitting up in his bed, against his pillows, holding the silk robe over her breasts.

Her skin would feel as soft as the robe.

It would slide over her nipples, turning them into tight little buds. He could still recall their taste. Sweet. Cool. Delicate. And the scent of her skin, just there. Like wildflowers on a June morning.

Was he insane?

They were minutes away from facing his father, from gaining the approval he had not yet told her their union would require, and he was turning as hard as a schoolboy staring at his first centerfold.

It made him even more angry. It was her fault. Surely it could not be his!

“I asked you a question, Tariq. Appropriate for what?”

Her mouth was trembling. He wanted to go to her. Take her in his arms. Tell her—tell her—