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He picked her up off the ground and carried her out of the ballroom. She was stark naked. And she clung to him.
If any of the staff saw them, they quickly melted into the background, making themselves invisible. They would betray nothing. He knew that. He almost expected her to gasp with maidenly modesty at being paraded through the public space bare as she was. But she didn’t. She only clung to him. And he was intent on making her his own.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing. He carried her up the stairs, and into his bedroom. One entire wall was a window that looked over the valley below.
The room felt exposed, though nobody could see up this far to see inside. And anyway, no one would ever be out in that unforgiving part of the desert. He set her down, on the highly polished floor, just in front of the window. He held her chin, guided her to look straight ahead. “Do you see? Down there, and ahead. That is Nazul. That is Riyaz’s domain. But this here... This is mine. And while you are in it, you are mine as well. Do you remember when I showed you the jewels?”
“Yes. The jewels meant for Riyaz’s bride.”
“Yes. I showed them to you because I had a fantasy. Of putting them on your wrists. Your head. Your neck. Of binding your hand to mine. I was but a fourteen-year-old boy. I knew nothing of life or the things which might happen in the future. I only knew that you belonged to Riyaz, and could not belong to me. But I wanted you to.”
“I thought that you showed them to me to remind me. I didn’t think...”
“Perhaps I was attempting to remind myself, but I do not think I was half so present. What I wanted, what I truly wanted, was to betray my brother.”
And now... He had lived his life in service of freeing Riyaz. He would demand her payment. Yes. She would be his bride. His. He would bind her wrists with a red scarf before all the nation. And then he would bind her wrists with it in their room, his willing supplicant. Not a prisoner.
“From up here you are the queen of the desert,” he said. “Look at the way the light shines on you. You have nothing to hide. You are beautiful. Glorious. Did you not take a lover because you did not know?”
She looked at him. “I didn’t take a lover because I didn’t care to. It is that simple.”
“But I can feel your desire. The evidence of it still is coating my fingers.”
She shivered. “Perhaps it is because I left my desire with you. It is a scary thought. That you hold the key to my desire. I did not wish that it were true. When we knew one another we were innocent. At least, it felt innocent to me.”
“It was,” he said. “I was drawn to you. I thought you were beautiful. But I did not think of stripping you naked. I thought of kissing your lips. I thought of marrying you, but not of taking you to bed. And now... I am consumed by the idea of thrusting inside of you. Deep and hard. Feeling your tight wet body closed around mine. Would you like that? My possession?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You understand that there will be no question of you going to Riyaz after this?”
She looked wide-eyed and confused. “There won’t be?”
“No. You will be giving up the throne in exchange for the knowledge of my body. Does that seem a fair trade to you?”
His body ached. Pulsed with desire. He needed her to say yes. He needed it more than he needed his next breath.
“Yes,” she said.
“There is no turning back from this. There will be no remaking the moment into something else. We are not children trading oranges in a garden.”
“I understand.”
He wondered if she did. But he was past the point of talking. He took her hand and pinned it to her lower back, walked her up toward the window, sweeping her hair to the side and exposing her neck. Then he pinned her other hand with the first, holding her fast with one hand wrapped around both of her wrists. He kissed her neck, and she arched forward, her breasts pressing against the window. He grunted in approval. This game of both possessing her and making a show of displaying her appealed to something darkly possessive within him.
He himself was not a modest man. He had never thought much of engaging in intimacy and semi-public places if the opportunity presented itself. But he could not say that he had ever taken particular pleasure in it either. But there was something about this moment. The declaration of it. The pleasure deferred that made it feel like a rush. A flood of excitement that overtook everything.
“Imagine, if the sands below were filled with adoring subjects. Watching how I worship you. Gazing upon your beauty.”
He heard the sound of her swallowing hard in the silence of the room.
“It excites you.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Because you like that I make you like this. Only me. Is that true? Do you wish the world to know that only I make you so wet? That only I could ever entice you to such sin?”
“You arouse me, it’s true. But I like to think that I’m wild enough to stand naked before the desert all on my own. Aren’t I the one who asked for this?”
