possible modern convenience and luxury was available to ensure the last word in comfort. She admired him for not having uttered a single complaint while he was forced to stay in the palace in Ashur.
When she returned to the bedroom Raja was talking on the phone in Arabic. He glanced up and then stilled to stare, lustrous dark eyes flaming gold at the sight of her. A wealth of blonde hair falling round her lovely face, her slim shapely figure framed by the flowing blue nightwear, she was a picture. With an abstracted final word he concluded his call and pushed the phone into his pocket.
As she met that intense appraisal Ruby’s face flushed, her nipples tightening into prominence while a melting sensation of warmth pulsed between her thighs. As he crossed the room, his eyes holding her gaze with a stormy sensuality that filled her with yearning, she was welded to the spot.
Without a word, Raja pushed the tumble of silky blonde hair back from her cheekbone and lowered his head to trace the seam of her closed mouth with his tongue and then pry her lips apart. Fingers stroking her slender neck, he plundered her mouth with a hungry ferocity that blew Ruby away. Staggered by the passion he made no attempt to contain, she angled her head back, snatching in a ragged breath as she looked up at him through her lashes and collided with the smouldering urgency in his stunning eyes. Her tummy flipped. One kiss and she felt as if he had switched a light on inside her, bathing her in warmth and dazzling brilliance.
‘I am already so hot and ready for you,’ Raja breathed thickly.
Ruby trembled, insanely aware of the surging dampness and the ache at the heart of her body. She was so wound up she couldn’t make her throat produce a recognisable sound. But it was also one of those moments when she knew not a shred of doubt about what she wanted to happen next. Her hands lifted of their own volition to unbutton his shirt.
A wolfish smile tilted Raja’s handsome mouth. He bent his head to kiss her again with lingering eroticism. ‘I will make it so good for you, aziz,’ he husked in a tone of anticipation that slivered through her like a depth charge of promise.
And the breath rattled in Ruby’s tight throat and her knees went weak because she had every faith in his ability to deliver on that score. He would drive her out of her mind with pleasure and she was way past the stage where she could deny either of them what they both needed. She wasn’t quite sure when wanting had become a much more demanding need and self-denial an impossible challenge. Mesmerised by Raja’s raw sensuality, she stretched up to touch his face with delicate fingertips, tracing those slashing angular cheekbones, and those beautiful sculpted lips. She gasped beneath that carnal mouth as it captured hers with delicious masculine savagery. Suddenly, as if her caress had unlocked his self-control to free his elemental passion, he trailed off the peignoir with impatient hands and pushed her back on the bed. Throwing off his shirt, he came down beside her bare-chested.
Breathing shallowly, the level of his hunger for her unhidden, Raja stared down at her. ‘I don’t know how I’ve kept my hands off you for so long. It was pure torment.’
As she pushed up on her elbows, feeling marvellously irresistible, Ruby’s eyes brightened and she stretched closer to unzip his jeans. The bulge of his arousal made that exercise a challenge and she laughed when he had to help her and then stopped laughing altogether when he drew her hand down to the long, hard length of his erection in an expression of need that was a huge turn-on for her.
She bent her head and took him in her mouth, silky blonde hair brushing his hair-roughened thighs. Watching her, Raja groaned with intense pleasure, knotting his hands in her hair and then finally pulling away at the peak and surprising her.
‘Raja … ?’
‘I want to come inside you,’ he told her raggedly. ‘And once isn’t going to be enough …’
Shivering in reaction to the coiled-tight ache of need in her, Ruby let him move her. Her body was eager and ready, charged by a hunger so strong it made her tremble. He filled her with a single thrust, sinking into her with a power and energy that almost made her pass out with pleasure. She cried out as he lifted her legs onto his shoulders and rose over her to plunge down into her honeyed sheath again and again. Uncontrollable excitement gripped her as he drove her slowly, surely to a delirious climax. At the apex of delight she came apart under him, writhing and sobbing with mindless satisfaction as the wild spasms of pleasure ripped through her in wave after wave. Afterwards he cradled her close, murmuring in his own language, stroking her cheek with caressing fingers while his lustrous eyes studied her with unashamed appreciation.
It was the middle of the night before they ate.
Ruby wakened feeling sick again at dawn and Raja was very insistent on the point that in his opinion it was time for her to see a doctor. He was worried that she had contracted food poisoning. While Ruby lay as still as she could and fought the debilitating waves of nausea Raja made arrangements for a doctor’s visit and got dressed.
An hour and a half later, Ruby received the answer to the big question she had been asking herself for more than a week.
‘Congratulations,’ Dr Sema Mansour pronounced with a wide smile. ‘I am honoured to be the doctor to give you such important news.’
Ruby smiled back so hard her facial muscles ached under the strain. ‘Please don’t tell anyone else,’ she urged, although even as she said that she appreciated that it was not a secret that she could hope to keep for long.
‘Of course not. It is a confidential matter.’ Lifting her doctor’s bag, the young female medic, recommended by Princess Hadeel, took her leave.
A light breakfast was served to Ruby in bed and the maid plumped up her pillows first to ensure her comfort. Indeed all the staff involved in her care in the magnificent bedroom displayed a heart-warming level of concern for her welfare. Munching on a piece of roll without much appetite, Ruby stared into space and wondered how Raja would feel once she made her announcement. Last night they had made love and she had felt buoyant at the knowledge that her husband desired her so much.
But starting a family wasn’t something they had ever discussed or planned, although he had proved keen to encourage her desire to adopt Leyla.
Ruby had always assumed that some day she would want children. But until she had met Leyla and Mother Nature had turned her broody, she had believed that the family she might ultimately have lay somewhere far into her future. Leyla, however, had stolen into Ruby’s heart and she had experienced such a strong longing to be Leyla’s new mum that she had been amazed at herself. And now she was carrying Raja’s baby. That hadn’t taken long, although it was true that they had been very active in that line in the desert. Ruby flushed hotly at the recollection of a night when she had barely slept, indeed had behaved like a sex addict wonderfully well matched with another sex addict. Wretchedly virile fertile man, she thought ruefully and in shock, for there was no denying that a royal baby in the offing would change everything.
In the short term Ruby had been willing to ditch the concept of divorce and future freedom if it meant she could qualify to adopt little Leyla and raise her as her daughter. In spite of that, though, she had still believed somewhere in the back of her mind that there remained a slight possibility that ten years or more down the line she and Raja might be able to separate from each other and lead their own lives without causing too much of a furore within their respective countries. Now with the needs of a second child entering the equation she felt that she had to be a good deal more practical. She had to ask herself if she was willing to subject possibly Leyla and her future child to the rigours of a broken home solely because she wanted a husband who loved her the way she already loved him. Children got attached to their parents living together as a couple. She had seen the heartbreak among school
