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His hard expression softened. Amusement glimmered in his eyes. “I worry that your expectations are too low.” His lips curved faintly. “Perhaps it’s time I show you the Kasbah? This is no ordinary desert palace. Its outer walls hide a secret palace.”
“A secret palace?” She looked at him, intrigued. “What does that mean? That there’s a palace within the palace?”
“Yes. That is exactly what I do mean. Would you like to see? I can take you on a tour of the Bridal Palace now if you’re interested.”
The Bridal Palace? Was that its real name? Her eyebrows arched. “I’m very interested.”
He smiled. “Good. We will start the tour with the rooms near your suite.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY LEFT HIS ROOMS, and walked through the maze of halls and corridors with Mikael giving her the history of the palace as they returned to her wing. “This Kasbah is known in Saidia as the Bridal Palace. For hundreds of years this is where the king of Saidia brought his new bride after the wedding ceremony. It is where the royal couple honeymoons, and where the king or prince would introduce his virgin bride to the pleasures of the marriage bed.”
Mikael pointed down one hall, which led to the entrance of the Kasbah. “The bride would arrive, and pass through the same entrance you passed through last night, and then be escorted by her new maids to this wing. On arrival, the bride would be bathed, massaged with fragrant oils, then robed and taken to the first chamber, the white chamber—a room hidden off your room—which historically has been called the Chamber of Innocence. In the Chamber of Innocence, the groom claims his bride, consummating the marriage. In the morning, the bride is transferred to a different suite.
“Here,” he added, walking down another hall to a different corridor and taking a turn to the right. “This is the Emerald Chamber.” He opened the only door in the corridor and stepped back to let her have a look. “This is where the bride and groom spend their second day.”
Jemma carefully moved past him to glance around the room. The walls were glazed green, the floor was laid with green and white tiles. The bed was gold with green silk covers and a dozen gold lanterns hung from the ceiling.
“There’s a courtyard attached,” he said. “The garden is fantastic, and the pool looks like a secret grotto.”
They stepped out of the room, into the hall. They walked in a circular pattern, continuing right, down another hall to another door. “The Amethyst Room,” he said, and it was a room of purple and gold, even more luxurious and exotic than the Emerald Chamber.
“There are eight rooms like these,” Mikael said. “In this section of the Kasbah, the rooms have all been laid out in the shape of a large octagon, with a shared garden in the center. Some of the rooms also have a private courtyard, too. Each of the rooms are significant because they represent a different sensual pleasure.”
He’d just opened a door to the Ruby Chamber but she didn’t even look inside. She stared at Mikael, stunned, and fascinated. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Each suite has a pleasure attached, and it varies from a form of sex, to a particular position.”
Jemma blushed, suddenly very warm. “You’re making this up.”
“Not at all. Each night for eight consecutive nights, the groom takes his bride to a new room, initiating her into new carnal delights, teaching her, pleasuring her, as well as ensuring she knows how to pleasure him.”
Her face burned, hot. It was almost as if a fire had been lit inside of her and she didn’t know if it was the things he was saying, or his tone, but his words created erotic pictures in her head, pictures that were so intimate and real that she could scarcely breathe.
He led her around to each of the eight suites, and she marveled at each. The Bridal Palace was beyond fantasy. It was magical. Jemma felt as if she’d entered another world. A world she couldn’t have imagined existed anywhere. And yet it did. Here.
The exotic perfection was almost too much to take in, each suite more spectacular than the last, the rooms splashed with jeweled color—violet, sapphire, gold, ruby, turquoise, emerald, and silver. The chambers were connected by tall columned corridors, the white and gold tiles shimmering at all hours of the day, while in the very center was a luxurious walled garden featuring pools, fountains, and exotic red, gold and ivory mosaic tiled pavilions.
She’d thought her courtyard was lovely, but the Bridal Palace’s secret courtyard was so lavish and sensual it stole her breath, and made her heart hurt.
She didn’t know why the Bridal Palace’s sensual beauty created pain. She was certain it’d been designed to delight.
“You’re very quiet,” the sheikh said, turning to look at her.
She passed a small waterfall that tumbled and splashed into a deep bathing pool. “I’m in awe,” she said, thinking this was the kind of place you wanted to be on your honeymoon. The low beds covered with the softest cotton and banked with silk cushions. The fragrant garden both hid and revealed the various gleaming pools.
This was a place for passion. Pleasure. Here anything seemed possible...
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she added, voice unsteady. “It takes my breath away. These rooms, the gardens, they’re pure fantasy. I feel like I’m in a dream.”
“I think that’s the point,” he said, leading her from the central courtyard, through a room shimmering with silver, to the outside hall. “The fantasy element is to help both bride and groom overcome their inhibitions. Here, everything is possible.”
The door shut behind them and they were suddenly back in an ordinary hall, in an ordinary world.
She looked at the closed door, amazed by what they’d just left behind. “The rooms...your story...it’s a fairy tale for adults.”
“But it’s not a fairy tale, or a story. It’s real. Part of Saidia’s culture and tradition. This is where every Saidia king has brought his bride for eight hundred years.”
“Your parents came here?”
He nodded. “My father brought my mother here. And now I’ve brought you.”
Jemma’s mouth opened, closed. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. It was all too incredible...the exotic beauty, as well as the seductive nature of the Kasbah. Everything in this palace was hedonistic. Indulgent. And he was using the promise of pleasure to cast a spell over her.
“Tonight is the first of our sixteen nights here. For the next eight nights, I shall pick the pleasure, and then on the ninth night, it becomes your choice.”
He was walking her back to her suite now, and Jemma was glad he was leading. She felt dazed. Lost. Caught up in the most impossible dream.
“Not tonight,” she said as they reached her door. “I’m not ready.”
“A kidnapped bride is never ready,” he said, and yet he was smiling to soften his words. “I also am not insensitive to the strangeness of our situation. I understand you have fears, and misgivings, but I believe it is better to begin sooner than later. You will be less anxious once we know each other.”
“But shouldn’t that happen before physical intimacy?”
“The physical intimacy will bind us together. It is the act of physical love that distinguishes the relationship, separating us from others.”
Jemma pressed her hands together, fingers locking. “One more day. Please.”
“But you had one day already. We had today.”
“I slept most of it away!”
“Which should mean you are rested and refreshed for tonight.” They’d reached the entrance to her suite of rooms. He gestured to her door. “Inside your room you will find several presents from me. You will receive more later. For the next eight days and nights I will shower you with gifts, jewels, and my undivided attention. I think you shall soon discover that these eight days and nights will be everything you ever dreamed...and more.”
His gaze met hers and held, even as his words echoed in her head, making her nerves dance.
Everything you ever dreamed...and more.
Just like that the night crackled, the air hot and heavy, sultry in the exotic pavilion.
Mikael was so close that he made the hair on her nape rise and her skin prickle. All she could think about was the sheikh stretching his big powerful body out over hers. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she fought to control her breathing.
“You are awfully confident, Your Highness.”
“We are married. Don’t you think it’s time you used my given name?”
“I do not feel married.”
“That will change soon.”
* * *
Jemma disappeared into her room, pulse racing. She turned from the door and nearly tripped over the mountain of trunks stacked just inside the entrance to her sitting room.
