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‘Yes, and I learned some things that made me unhappy,’ he admitted in a driven admission of regret. ‘Hashir was forced into a divorce because of his lack of a male heir. His ex-wife and daughters had already moved out of the palace before his death. I have asked her to visit us once she is established in her new home in Kazan. I am keen to get to know my nieces.’
‘What happened to Waleed’s widow?’ Claire asked uneasily.
‘She has returned to her family as well. I gather it wasn’t a very happy marriage, but in his case my father did not want them to divorce because he was still hoping Waleed might provide Hashir with a male heir,’ Raif explained wryly. ‘But listening to my father trying to teach me how to follow in his royal footsteps taught me a hard lesson. I assumed that my brothers had had an easier time with him than I. Now I realise that I was undoubtedly lucky to be forgotten about and freely live my life all these years without his destructive interference.’
That admission struck a familiar note in Claire’s thoughts. She had learned to live with her father and stepmother’s lack of attachment to her, but only now could she really comprehend what had lain behind their attitude. Her mother had inflicted a world of hurt on them both and then run away, leaving her child to ultimately reap the consequences. What Claire now knew would make it easier for her to hold out an understanding hand to her stepmother. Nothing, she had discovered, was as black and white as she had once assumed.
‘My father did, however, admit that he regretted divorcing my mother and the fact that he made little effort to get to know me. He explained that he felt very guilty over causing my mother such distress and that it was easier for him just to evade any further contact with us. He then urged me to make a go ofourmarriage and not to be distracted by a pretty face when I reached middle age. I gather that, in a nutshell, is what happened to my parents’ marriage. He was attracted to another woman and divorced my mother so that he could marry her,’ he explained heavily. ‘But that second marriage barely lasted two years before he divorced her as well.’
‘Well, at least he worked out where and why he went wrong and, if he had lived longer, he probably would have tried to make amends to you,’ Claire pointed out gently.
‘We spoke for several hours. It was an exhausting meeting, but I do now understand my own background better.’
Before her very eyes, she was watching Raif relax and slowly shake free of the day’s stress and strain. She studied him with silent, appreciative intensity, scanning his lean, sculpted bone structure, the perfect moulding of his brows and cheekbones and wide sensual mouth. Secret, delicious heat curled in her pelvis as she collided with the flare of his stunning dark golden gaze.
‘I want you,’ he admitted with unashamed hunger.
Claire rose from her seat, and he was just meeting her at the end of the table as the coffee arrived. He laughed and said something in his own language to Shahbaz, and linked his hand freely with hers to walk her down the corridor to their room, leaving the coffee behind untouched. Her face was red as fire.
‘What must he think of us?’ she muttered.
‘That we are a normal couple behind the scenes,’ Raif parried with quiet amusement, leaning back against the bedroom door and pulling her close to kiss her with passionate urgency. ‘And this is that very special moment that I’ve been waiting for all day when it is finally just you and I alone together.’
Her skin tightened over her bones and warmth flooded her. Nobody had ever wanted her the wayhewanted her, and it gave her a high that she could be that important to him. All her life she had longed to be important to someone and she had found that briefly and unforgettably with her mother, but never with anyone else she loved. That Raif, who had so many more important tasks to concentrate on, could still find time to miss her and need her, gave her a powerful sense of well-being and security.
She tipped his jacket off his shoulders and allowed it to fall. He wrenched off his tie and paused in the midst of doing so to crush her lips urgently beneath his, the flick of his tongue inside her mouth making her tremble with anticipation.
He turned her round to unzip her dress, skimmed it off her slim shoulders, pausing to run his lips across the soft smooth skin there before she stepped out of it, her knees weak, her body heating of its own accord. Lifting her onto the bed, he paused to rest his palm against the almost imperceptible but still firm swell of her no longer flat stomach. ‘Our son is beginning to make his presence known,’ he noted with satisfaction. ‘It’s incredibly sexy.’
‘Sexy?’she repeated in astonishment. ‘How can it be sexy?’
In the act of removing his shirt, Raif studied her from below his black lashes, visibly surprised by the question. ‘That’s our baby inside you and that can only make me feel amazingly proud.’
He spoke with such sincerity that she could not doubt him and she went from pointlessly striving to suck her tummy in to smiling and kicking off her shoes. He stripped off where he stood, unveiling lithe bronzed flesh rippling with lean muscle. For a split second he paused to take in the vision of her in her lacy, highly feminine lingerie and he marvelled that he had found her, that she asked and expected so little from him and yet freely gave him so much.
Excitement lit Claire up inside when he came down to her, fluid and graceful as a jungle cat. She loved the boneless way he moved. She loved the look of him, the scent of his skin, the very touch of him. He eased her gently free of her bra and knickers, knowing that her swollen breasts and distended nipples were tender with pregnancy. He bent his dark head and used the tip of his tongue on the sensitive peaks, until a muffled moan escaped her and her spine arched in response.
‘Too much?’ he asked.
Claire let her greedy fingers spear through his cropped black hair. ‘Not enough,’ she told him truthfully, pulling him down to her again with unhidden impatience.
Her entire being was fizzing with energy, her heart racing, her skin buzzing with the kind of need she had not even known existed until she met him. A scorching kiss sealed them close, their bodies straining into connection for the satisfaction they craved. She was ready for him, downright eager as he explored her quivering length. He grazed the tight aching buds of her nipples, delved into the tingling folds between her thighs and, that fast, that unstoppably, her body exploded into a climax. She convulsed and cried out, all tension dredged from her in a wild surge.
‘And I have barely started,aziz,’ Raif groaned.
‘Is that a complaint?’ she whispered shakily.
‘Hell, no. Thanks to you, I’m now on an even bigger high,’ he confided huskily, pressing his mouth to hers in light acknowledgement before turning her over and raising her up on her knees.
Her breath caught in her throat as he penetrated her in one fluid stroke. As her sensitive flesh stretched to accommodate him, her heart thundered and the liquid heat in her pelvis increased with an intense burst of exhilarating excitement. Every thrust of his body into hers pushed that excitement higher until she was gasping for breath, overpowered by the raw pleasure engulfing her. The muscles in her lower body pulled tighter and tighter as the tension built until his completion suddenly triggered hers. Heavens, she felt as though her body went flying off into the sun and she burned up in a wave of ecstasy, so powerful that she flopped down on the bed and promised herself that she would never willingly move again.
Raif flung himself down beside her on the tumbled sheets with an extravagant groan. ‘You are amazing,’ he murmured softly, trailing idle fingers through her tousled hair. ‘You’re very quiet. What are you thinking about?’
‘What you said about seeing your father in a different light after your final meeting with him.’ She sighed. ‘I think it was because you’re an adult now and you saw him and the past through clearer eyes. I’ve been going through the same process with my mother, my stepmother and my father.’
Leaning up, Raif frowned down at her. ‘How?’
‘Mum told me how she first met my father. She lost her parents suddenly in a car accident and she joined the church because she felt that she needed a support system. My father became that support system, advising her on everything relating to her parents’ estate and, in the process, he fell in love with her,’ she explained ruefully. ‘But until I met Mum, I didn’t know that my stepmother, Sarah, was already on the scene, a leading light in the congregation and in love with my father even then. Then Sarah had to stand by and watch him fall for my mother, which must have hurt her a great deal.’
