answer I’ll show you the secret passage and the hidden room my great-great-grandfather built for trysts with his wife.”
“Don’t you mean his mistress?”
“No. He was a romantic and wanted to give her a very special wedding gift.”
“So, he built a hidden room.”
“Yes.”
“No wonder.”
“What?” Sayed asked.
“You’re so incredible.” She smiled up at him. “It’s in the genes.”
“I tried to tell you.”
“So, you’re going to ask me a question tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Even though I’m not a princess?”
“I have told you many times, I esteem you highly. If I mistook what was required of me and that hurt you, I am truly sorry, but I have not wanted you out of my sight since the first time my gaze fell on you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Man, he really wanted her. Like, a lot.
“You promise?”
“You have my word as emir of Zeena Sahra and your man.”
“Sayed...” She reached up and kissed him with every bit of pent-up emotion inside her.
He picked her up with an arm under her bottom and another against her back for stability, carrying her into the bedroom without breaking their locked lips.
He loomed over her on the bed. “We are not supposed to do this here.”
“You’re better at breaking rules than you give yourself credit for.” His mother had been right. Sayed did have a wide streak of impetuousness.
He gave her that smile again. “It’s you, you’re very good at tempting me to break them, habibti.”
“Well, I may have gone to a little extra trouble with my appearance today.”
He laughed, the sound so free and happy it filled her own heart with joy. “No need, you are always gorgeous to me. But I do like this dress on you.”
“It’s a dishdasha,” she teased.
“Oh, is it? Pardon me.”
She grinned. “It might be just as pretty off.”
“Doubtful. You, on the other hand, will be infinitely more accessible naked and nothing is more beautiful to me than your body.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll believe them.”
He cupped her face in his big hands. “I will never lie to you, on my honor.”
Too choked to speak, she nodded.
They spent the next minutes undressing between drugging kisses.
She made a sound of victory when he was down to his sexy black silk knit boxers.
He laughed, his hands already busy on her skin.
“You wear more layers than me,” she told him. “I think there’s something wrong with that.”
“The challenge will prevent you from becoming bored.”
“Right, because you aren’t challenging enough.”
He proved just how challenging he could be...to her self-control, drawing forth the response her body would only ever give to this man. For the first time, there was no bitter in the sweet of that knowledge, either.
He made love to her with passion that felt as driven by the sense of reprieve as her own. Could that be possible?
He certainly hadn’t seemed to be upset about the idea of marriage. Though they’d barely talked about it.
Rational thought fled as he drove her arousal higher. Unwilling to be outdone, she did her best to touch him in all the ways she knew drove him crazy.
Their coupling was powerful and intensely intimate, their bodies so in tune for the moments leading up to and during her climax, she felt like they were sharing the same soul.
HAVING LEARNED OF Sayed’s intention to take Liyah out to dinner, Queen Durrah showed up with an ornate crimson dishdasha for Liyah to wear.
“But this is the color of the royal family.”
“Yes, my dear, it is. It is also the gown I wore for the formal announcement of my own upcoming nuptials.”
Liyah put her hands up as if warding off an attack from the dress. “I can’t wear it, what if I tear it or spill something on it?”
“Don’t be silly, Aaliyah,” the queen said with amusement. “If I had had a daughter, she would have worn this gown to her first formal function when she came of age. It pleases me for you to wear it now.”
Tears burned in Liyah’s eyes.
The queen tsked and patted Liyah’s cheek softly. “None of that now. I’m going to be very happy to welcome you into our family, ya ’eni.”
“Mom used to call me that,” Liyah admitted emotionally.
“Then it will be an honor for you to allow me to do so now. Just as you were the precious in your mother’s eyes, you will always be in mine, as well.”
The endearment literally meant my eye, but it carried more the connotation the queen gave it. And it touched Liyah deeply.
“You should be angry at me.”
“No, Aaliyah,” Queen Durrah said with certainty. “I have seen more life in my son in the past week than for two decades. You are so good for him. How could I be anything but happy at the idea of you becoming my daughter?”
“He hasn’t asked me yet.”
“He will.”
“It’s really special, you know?”
“What?”
“That he insists on asking. For all intents and purposes he’s been trapped into this, but he’s not treating it like a business proposal.”
“All of the men of this family have a romantic streak.
