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A touch mollified, Ella nodded. ‘But you did keep women there?’ she could not resist asking, her curiosity thrusting to the fore naked and embarrassing in its strength.
‘One at a time,’ Zarif divulged, lean, strong face set hard. ‘I have needs like any other man. I will not apologise for that.’
Ella studied him with a sinking heart, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. ‘Tell me, how did I escape an invite to occupy the apartment in Dubai?’
Zarif vented a harsh laugh. ‘I wanted to see more of you—an ambition that is presently ebbing fast.’
Ella felt the bite of that derisive dismissal like a knife piercing her breast. This was her lover talking down to her as if she was nothing, nobody, virtual mud below his royal feet. This was not the respect he had promised her. ‘On both sides,’ she stressed tightly. ‘But it’s perfectly obvious to me that all I am is your mistress within marriage.’
‘If that is true,’ Zarif countered with a raw edge to his deep dark drawl, ‘then go and wait for me in bed and put on something sexy before you go there because I am in the mood to play and dispel the memory of this distasteful scene.’
‘You can go take a running jump into the nearest sand dune!’ Ella launched back at him in outraged disbelief.
The door opened on the servants entering to clear the table. Zarif was rigid and the silence smouldered and crackled like an invisible fire. His stunning eyes were a ferocious golden blaze of unashamed fury.
‘Or not,’ Ella framed, just a little unnerved by the unholy temper she could see him restraining for she had never, ever seen him lose it.
‘A word?’ With an imperious signal of one lean brown hand, Zarif virtually ordered her out into the corridor where he lowered his arrogant dark head to say, ‘Three years ago I asked you to marry me and you said no. Do not expect to enjoy the same privileges that I would have offered you then,’ he advised grimly. ‘That time is past.’
He was a bad loser, Ella translated, a little shiver of foreboding travelling down her taut spine. ‘I think I liked you better back then.’
‘But not enough to marry me.’
You stupid, stupid man, I loved you! she almost screamed after him as he strode off, shoulders back, military carriage obvious in every angle of
his bearing. She went out to the gardens to walk at a fast pace. She had to do something to expel the billows of rage still shrieking around inside her in need of an exit. The two guards following her down every path taxed her patience as she could not imagine that any possible ill could befall her in a literal fortress surrounded by high walls and enough armed men to fight a war. Her temper under control again, she opted for a long bath and an early night.
She could not stop thinking about the apartment in Dubai where Zarif had clearly been entertained by a steady procession of women. Sexually sophisticated women, who would think nothing of putting on adventurous lingerie to titillate him. Women who probably did exactly what he told them every time because they were eager to please and be rewarded for their obedience. Shallow, superficial affairs, she decided heavily. Yet Zarif, as proven by his deep attachment to his first wife, was capable of so much more.
Only he didn’t want more, particularly not with Ella, who had once turned him down. He wanted only convenient sex, and her wedding ring simply put a stamp of respectability on the arrangement. In reality, however, she was as much of a whore as the women he had kept in the Dubai apartment, she reflected wretchedly. She might think that she did not have a submissive bone in her body but she had pretty much done exactly as she was told from the minute she agreed to marry him. And why had she agreed? For the cold, hard cash that had put her parents’ lives back on the rails. Consequently, she had no right to feel superior in any way to Zarif’s mistresses. He had recognised that at heart she was just the same as his other sexual partners and willing to do whatever it took if the reward was great enough, so how could she ask for respect?
Zarif came to bed late and stayed on his own side of the bed while Ella pretended to be asleep. She was ashamed of the facts he had forced her to face and deeply unhappy at the position she had put herself in because she could see no escape hatch. In the morning Zarif was gone and that was the start of a very lonely three weeks during which Ella scarcely saw him. He breakfasted before she got out of bed, which relieved her as during the third week she realised that she seemed to be suffering from a lingering tummy bug, which she blamed on her new diet. She was nauseous several mornings and actually sick on a couple of occasions but was fine the rest of the time.
Unaware of those early morning travails, Zarif occasionally appeared for lunch, during which time he would make perfectly polite conversation, which chilled her. He went back to dining nightly with Halim. One morning he announced without any self-consciousness that he was flying out to a meeting in Dubai. She lay sleepless in bed that night, wondering if he had betrayed her trust because, while he was not sleeping with her, she did not think she could afford to assume that he would not seek relief with someone else. She kept busy during the days, reading and bathing in the giant deserted swimming pool in the basement that had once housed the harem. She also embarked on lessons in Arabic and wandered aimlessly round the shopping malls, rarely buying anything but frequently photographed.
During the second week, Zarif’s uncle came unexpectedly to her rescue by asking her through the medium of Hamid if she would like to preside over the official opening of a new school. Realising that a positive response would be expected of her, she agreed and then fretted about what to say and do at the event until Hamid offered her his wife, Soraya, as an advisor.
Soraya gave her invaluable help. The other woman helped her write a short speech, taught her to say it word perfect in Arabic and even advised her on what to wear. Ella made the visit, inwardly quaking with nerves, but soon relaxed at the friendly response she received and she loved chatting with the children, who wanted to practise their English on her. She managed to smile for the photographers and was feeling both proud and defiant by the time she returned to the old palace.
‘You did well today at the school,’ Zarif startled her by saying when he was undressing for bed. ‘Everyone was impressed.’
The sudden break of his icy reserve disconcerted her. ‘I didn’t know you were aware of it.’
‘Who do you think suggested it to Halim?’
Ella flushed and felt foolish. She watched his silhouette, which was starkly apparent in the moonlight piercing the drapes. As he dropped the towel he wore round his hips she glimpsed the long thick length of his erection and stared before hastily shutting her eyes tight. Perhaps he hadn’t had his needs met in Dubai, after all. But then she hadn’t had her needs met either, she thought impatiently, pressing the swollen tenderness of her breasts into the mattress and clamping her thighs tight shut on the ache stirring there.
It was all his wretched fault, Ella decided angrily. She had managed fine without sex until Zarif appeared on her horizon like a battleship bent on a seek-and-destroy mission. Now the scent of his cologne, the memory of their lovemaking or even the sounds he made getting ready for bed lit a fire of treacherous longing in her pelvis. She told herself that it was good to know that he was suffering too and that his self-control was little better than her own. But she still cursed the fact that he had refused to let her occupy a room of her own. And then she thought, Why should he have it all his own way?
In a movement that startled Zarif she flung back the sheet and flipped over to study him. His long, lean, aroused body lay extended for her perusal and the fire inside her leapt higher, a surge of wetness moistening her feminine core. Before she could even think about what she was doing she pressed her mouth to the smooth, muscular expanse of his bronzed stomach. The salty taste of his skin went to her head like wine and the way he jerked in surprise sent a wicked smile of amusement across her mouth.
One hand resting on a hair-roughened thigh, she trailed the tip of her tongue along the length of his bold shaft and felt every muscle in his body snap taut. She traced his hard, velvet-smooth contours with lingering enjoyment, a sense of power flooding her when he laced his fingers into her hair and arched his hips up to her in ready acquiescence. As she sucked him deep he groaned out loud and she wanted to punch the air at finally smashing through the icy deadlock barrier of his reserve. Long fingers caressed her scalp.
Zarif was in shock but incredibly turned on by her unexpected sensual assault. Once or twice he winced when she grazed him with her teeth and then suddenly he smiled triumphantly at her down-bent head, guessing that he was very probably the first man in her life to benefit from her attention. As the intensity rose he gently tugged at her hair. ‘No more, habibti,’ he husked. ‘I want to finish inside you...’
A little uncertainly, Ella lifted her head and he sat up so fast and claimed her mouth in a searing kiss that she felt dizzy but unbelievably eager for him to continue.
‘I’ve been such a fool,’ Zarif groaned, flattening her to the mattress with more haste than finesse and sliding between her slender thighs with barely contained eagerness. ‘I’m too proud, too used to winning every argument. Azel never argued with me, never confronted me.’
