• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He snapped his cell phone out, pressing her speed-dial number.

Her phone rang until the line disconnected. He dialed again immediately. Four more disconnections later, and he was ready to commit violence.

She answered the fifth time. Or rather, the line opened. She said nothing.

But he could feel her on the other end. He could swear he felt her breath flaying his face in its heat and sweetness.

He growled with a spike of anger and arousal, “Why didn’t you answer right away?”

Silence on her end. Then her unsteady inhalation skewered his brain, forked more steel into his erection. How he remembered those fractured breaths that had driven him mad as he’d plunged inside her….

“I answered now.” Her voice was clipped, distant, yet it was still the mellow caress he’d replayed in his memory nonstop, crooning her need for him, crying out as her urgency rose, sharpening with the pain of his first invasion, then losing all inhibition as he occupied her, as her pleasure peaked. “Anything you want?”

I want everything, he wanted to roar.

But he was going to get everything. Starting tonight. No more holding back. For any reason. For better and probably for worse than he could imagine, she was his wife. And he planned to gorge himself on all the advantages of that fact. He’d suffer the disadvantages gladly when he had her total abandon to negate it all.

Her father’s bargain might have blinded him for a while, but he could see clearly now. There was no way she’d faked her responses. Her soul might be that of a mercenary, but her body was that of a hedonist. But what mattered was that he was convinced now that she suffered his same predicament. She craved the pleasure only he could bring her.

“Sebastian is holding a gala party tonight in the VIP tent,” he said, his voice thick with pent-up hunger. “It’s to celebrate our marriage. It’s imperative we show our hosts that we appreciate their thoughtfulness and efforts.”

After another protracted silence, she asked expressionlessly, “How do you suggest we do that?”

“Sebastian requested that we attend the party in full royal garb. Have Hasnaa advise you on how to dress. I’ll send you outfits and sets of jewelry to choose from. I want you to be my princess tonight.”

Another silence stretched in the wake of his directives. Then a tremulous inhalation spilled from lips he knew to be petal soft and cherry flushed and dewy. He hardened beyond agony. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” he hissed with the abrasion of arousal, the knowledge that it would be unendurable hours before he could assuage it. “Don’t straighten or restrain your hair. Leave its curls wild.”

She muttered what he assumed was an agreement, then hung up.

He stared at the phone as if he expected her to call back, to say more. He knew she wouldn’t.

The dynamics between them had changed. Just hours ago there’d been no acknowledgement of how it was between them. Now it was out in the open, and she’d dropped the adoring-bride act in private.

But her indignation this morning had been about more than her worry for her future—it had contained true frustration. No matter why they’d ended up married, she’d expected him, wanted him, to wallow in the carnal connection they shared.

That must be the reason behind her standoffishness just now. She must think he still intended to deprive her of what she needed.

She’d be relieved that he’d decided to disregard how she and her father had set him up and would drag her into the tumults of passion. At every opportunity.

And if they’d attained that much pleasure when he’d been so careful with her, when she’d been so untried, now that he could unleash his passion…well, he couldn’t even imagine how it would be between them. In fact, exacting retribution on her through sensual torment would only take it all to explosive levels.

Starting tonight.

“I think you’ve chosen the outfit that best showcases your beauty, ya Ameerah Sabrina.”

Sabrina caught the genial Khumayran woman’s eyes in the mirror. Hasnaa was truly a beauty, as her name proclaimed her to be. She was Jameel