had a different life now and different opportunities. Which was why she had agreed to carry on working for the Steel organisation on a freelance basis. That way, she could travel with her husband and everyone was happy.
She gave a contented sigh. Their wedding had been the best wedding she’d ever been to—although Suleiman told her she was biased. Alice from the office had been invited—and her expression as she’d been shown around the Dhi’ban palace had been priceless. Gabe had been there too—and Sara thought that even her cynical boss had enjoyed all the ancient ritual and ceremony which accompanied the joining of her hand to Suleiman’s.
The best bit had been the Sultan’s surprise appearance, because it signified that he had forgiven Suleiman—and her—for so radically changing the course of desert history.
‘Murat seemed to get on well with Gabe, don’t you think?’ she questioned as she slid her diamond bracelet onto the dressing table, where it lay coiled like a glittery snake. ‘What do you suppose they were talking about?’
‘Right now I don’t care,’ Suleiman murmured. ‘About anything other than kissing you again. It seems like an eternity since I had you in my bed.’
‘It’s almost a week since you had me in your bed—palace protocol being what it is,’ she agreed. ‘But less than eight hours since you had me. In the stables, no less—on the eve of my wedding. And I wasn’t allowed to make a sound.’
‘That was part of the thrill,’ he drawled, watching as she kicked off her high-heeled shoes. ‘Not very much keeps you quiet, but it seems that at last I’ve found something which does. Which means that we are going to be indulging in lots of illicit sex in the future, my darling wife.’
She walked over to the bed to join him, still wearing her panties, her bra and her white lace suspender belt and stockings. It felt warm in his embrace, and safe. So very safe.
They were going to honeymoon in Samahan and she was going to learn all about the land of Suleiman’s birth. Afterwards, they would decide where they wanted to make their main base.
‘It can be anywhere,’ he had promised her. ‘Anywhere at all.’
She closed her eyes as he tightened his arms around her, because where they lived didn’t matter.
This was home.
* * * * *
USA TODAY bestselling and RITA ® Award–nominated author CAITLIN CREWS loves writing romance. She teaches her favourite romance novels in creative writing classes at places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Programme, where she finally gets to utilise the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in California, with her very own hero and too many pets. Visit her at www.caitlincrews.com.
To all the fantastic writers at the 2011 Romantic Writers of Australia Conference who were so lovely and welcoming to me, despite my crippling jet lag. It was such a treat (and an honour) to get to spend time with you — and I hope I did justice to your beautiful country!
And to my favourite Los Angeles-based Australian, Kate Rogers, who told me the truth about magpies.
CHAPTER ONE
“LOVELY view.”
Kiara didn’t turn toward the deep, commanding voice, even as it washed over her and somehow into her blood, her bones, making her very nearly shiver. She’d sensed his approach before he’d helped himself to the chair next to hers—there had been a certain expectant stillness in the air around her, a kind of palpable, electrically charged quiet, as if all of Sydney fell silent before him. She’d pictured that easy, confident walk of his, the way his dark, powerful masculinity turned heads wherever he went, the way he’d no doubt been watching her with that intense, consuming focus as he drew near.
But then, she’d been expecting him.
“That’s a terrible pickup line,” she pointed out, a shade too close to flippant. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She decided she wouldn’t look at him unless he earned it. She would pretend to be enchanted by the water of the harbor, the coming sunset. Not by a man like him, no matter how tall, dark and dangerous he might be, even in her peripheral vision. “Especially here. This particular view is famous, I think you’ll find. Renowned the world over.”
“That should make it all the more lovely, then,” he replied, a thread of amusement beneath the steel-and-velvet seduction of his voice. She felt it like heat, pressing into her skin. “Or are you the dreary sort who finds a view is spoiled forever if too many others look upon it?”
Kiara sat at a small outdoor table tucked in on the lower concourse beneath Sydney’s glorious, soaring Opera House and the sky above, with full and unfettered access to the famous and beautiful arch of the Harbor Bridge opposite. The setting sun above had just settled into rich and tempting golds, sending the mellow light dancing over the sparkling water of the harbor itself, as if taunting the jutting skyscrapers of the city—as if daring them to look away from the spectacular evening show.
She certainly knew the feeling. And she wasn’t even looking at the man who lounged next to her as if he owned the table, the chair, and her, too, though she was aware of him in every possible way. In every part of her skin and blood and bones.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” she said mildly, as if wholly unaffected by him and the great tractor beam of power and charisma that seemed to emanate from him. He was lethal. So compelling it almost hurt not to turn and let herself look at him, drink him in. “You’re the one who trotted out a tired old line. I only pointed it out. I don’t think that makes me dreary.”
She knew intuitively that his particular brand of dark male beauty—so fierce and breathtaking, laced through with all that dizzying masculine power—would be equally dazzling if she dared turn her head and look at it. She could feel it. In the way her stomach clenched and, below, ached around a deep, feminine pulse. The way the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood at attention, almost making her shiver. The way the whole world seemed to shrink to just this table, this chair.
Him.
Instead, she fiddled with the coffee cup she’d drunk dry a while ago, even toyed with the ends of the wavy light brown hair she’d swept back into a high ponytail, her hands betraying her even as she sat there with such studied carelessness, pretending she was unaware of the great strength of him next to her. The imposing fact of him—ink-black hair against oddly light eyes, the stamp of his Arab ancestry in his fierce features, and that mouthwatering fantasy of a body—that she could grasp even with only the briefest glance from the corner of her eye. The impact on not only her, but the whole of the Opera House Bar around them.
She could see the group of older women at the next table—the way they turned to look at him, then widened their eyes at each other before dissolving into besotted giggles better suited to the girls Kiara imagined they’d been some thirty years before.
“Tell me how to play this game,” he said after a moment that seemed overripe
