a lucky man.’
Kamel glanced at Steven and followed the direction of his gaze. The breath caught in his throat. Bedraggled, she had been a beautiful woman, but this tall, slender creature was a dream vision in white—hair falling like a golden cloud down her back, the diamonds glittering on her lacy veil fading beside the brilliance of her wide blue eyes.
‘That remains to be seen.’
Kamel’s murmured comment drew a quizzical look from his best man but no response that could be heard above the strains of ‘Ave Maria’ sung by the choir as the bride on her father’s arm, preceded by her matron of honour, began her progression.
A weird sense of calm settled on Hannah as she stood facing her bridegroom. It did not cross her mind until afterwards that the whole thing resembled an out-of-body experience: she was floating somewhere above the heads of the people gathered to witness this parody, watching herself give her responses in a voice that didn’t even hold a tremor.
The tremor came at the end when they were pronounced man and wife and Kamel looked directly at her for the first time. His dark eyes held hers as he brushed a fold of gossamer lace from her cheek and stared down at her with a soul-stripping intensity.
In her emotionally heightened state she had no idea who leaned in to whom; Hannah just knew she experienced the weirdest sensation, as though she were being pulled by an invisible thread towards him.
Her eyes were wide open as he covered her lips with his, then as the warm pressure deepened her eyelids lowered and her lips parted without any coercion and she kissed him back.
It was Kamel who broke the contact. Without it, her head was no longer filled with the taste, the texture and the smell of him, and reality came flooding back with a vengeance. She’d just kissed her husband and she’d enjoyed it—more than a little. That was wrong, so very wrong on every level. It was as if he had flicked a switch she didn’t know she had. She shivered, unable to control the fresh wave of heat that washed over her skin.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips, watching the rapt glow of sensual invitation in her velvet eyes be replaced by something close to panic. He was not shocked but he was surprised by the strength of the physical response she had shown.
‘Smile. You’re the radiant bride, ma belle,’ he warned.
Hannah smiled until her jaw ached. She smiled all the way through the formality of signatures, and all she could think about was that kiss. The memory felt like a hot prickle under her skin. For the first time in her life she understood the power of sex and how a person could forget who they were under the influence of that particular drug.
She was kissed on both cheeks by the leaders of two countries, and then rather more robustly by her father, who held her hand tightly.
‘You know that I am always there for you, Hannah.’
‘I know, Dad. I’m fine.’ She blinked away emotional tears but couldn’t dislodge the massive lump in her throat.
‘I will take care of her, Charles.’
His sincerity made her teeth ache. You couldn’t trust a man who could lie so well, not that Hannah had any intention of trusting him. Aware that her father was watching, she let it lie when Kamel took her hand in his, not snatching it away until they were out of sight.
His only reaction was a sardonic smirk.
It took ten minutes after the farewells for them to walk back to his private apartments. His bride didn’t say a word the whole time.
It was hard not to contrast the brittle ice queen beside him with the woman whose soft warm lips he had tasted. That small taste, the heat that had flared between them, shocking with its intensity and urgency, had left him curious, and eager to repeat the experience.
He was lusting after his bride. Well, life was full of surprises and not all of them were bad. The situation suited a man who had a very pragmatic approach to sex.
The room they stood in was on the same grand scale as all the others. This one apparently connected two bedrooms, if she had understood him correctly. Her exhausted brain was filled with a low-level hum of confusion, and two images from the wedding kept flitting through her head—her father’s tired, ill face and the predatory heat in Kamel’s eyes when he claimed his kiss.
‘Has it occurred to you that this marriage might not be something to be endured...but enjoyed?’
Hannah’s fingers slipped off the door handle. She turned around, her back against the wooden panels. He was standing too close...much too close. She struggled to draw in air as her body stirred, responding to the slumberous, sensual provocation shining in his dark eyes.
‘The only thing I want to enjoy tonight is some privacy.’
‘That is not what you would enjoy.’
She threw up her hands in a gesture of exasperated defeat. ‘Fine! So I find you attractive. Is that what you want to hear?’ She angled a scornful glance up at his lean dark face. ‘I find any number of men attractive, but I don’t sleep with them all.’
Make that none.
‘You’re discerning. I like that in you.’
‘You may be good to look at but your ego is a massive turn-off.’
‘I could work on it. You would teach me.’
Big, predatory, and sinfully sexy—she was willing to bet that that were quite a few things he could teach her! Her stomach tightened in self-disgust. Shocked by the thought that had insinuated itself into her head, she tilted her chin, channelling all the ice princess she could muster, and retorted haughtily, ‘I’m not into casual sex or tutoring.’
‘We’re married, ma belle. That is not casual...and I do not need instruction.’
Hannah’s eyes went to the ring on her finger. It felt heavy. She felt...consumed. She frowned at the word that formed in her head. Consumed by feelings, a need. She gave her head a tiny shake. It was dangerous to imagine something that was not there. She blamed the bottle of champagne that Raini had cracked open in the limo. Had she had one or two glasses? Regardless of her alcohol consumption, the only thing she needed was sleep.
He laid a hand on the door beside her head and leaned into her. ‘Well, if you change your mind you know where I am.’ His eyes not leaving hers, he tipped his head at the door next to her own. ‘And for the record I’m fine with...just sex. I will not feel used or cheap in the morning.’
His throaty, mocking laugh was the last straw.
Her blue eyes narrowed and her chin lifted to a combative angle. She could actually feel something inside her snapping as she reached up and pulled his face down until she could reach his lips. In the instant before she covered his mouth with hers she saw his expression change—saw the mockery vanish and the dark, dangerous glow slide into his heavy-lidded eyes.
In the tiny corner of her mind that was still sane Hannah knew she was doing something incredibly stupid, but it was too late to pull back, and then he was kissing her back with a sensual skill that made her sleep-deprived brain shut down—she just clung on for the ride.
Kamel was a man who was rarely surprised—but Hannah had surprised
