Under Command Read online

  Breath escaped her in an angry whoosh. “You were toying with me, Zakir!”

  He stepped up to her, a wicked smile ghosting his sculpted lips, his dark eyes dancing with an exhilaration she found infectious in spite of her fury.

  She’d just witnessed Zakir in his prime, spirited and confident on his horse. Happy. How would he be when his vision was gone? Would he miss this?

  The thought saddened her. And before she could stop herself, Nikki reached up and gently touched the side of his face. He stilled.

  Unable to stop herself, Nikki moved her hand slowly, exploring the angular shape of his jaw, the suppleness of his dusky skin. Gently, she slid her fingers over his eyes.

  She felt one of his dogs brush against her skirt.

  Eye of the desert.

  “That’s why you got the salukis, didn’t you, Zakir?” she whispered. “It’s not for the hunt, but so that they can be your eyes.”

  Silence thrummed. Anger twisted into his features, his pulse increasing at his neck. A wariness crept into Nikki. She’d just confronted this powerful sheik with his deepest secret. His Achilles’ heel.

  But she had to do it. She could not pretend any longer. Zakir was awakening feelings she hadn’t experienced for a long, long time, and she was unable to ignore them—or him. “I’ve seen it in your actions, Zakir,” she said softly.

  “I saw it in the way you stumbled back at the palace before we left for the Rahm Hills. And in your relationship with your dogs, the way you reach for them, how you need them more at dusk—”

  He gripped her wrist hard. Silencing her.

  The muscle at his jaw pulsed faster, his eyes narrowing, fierce, glittering. The strength in his grip was phenomenal. Suddenly, she was scared, fisting her hand as she tensed her arm to pull away.

  But he held her fast, up against his body. Wind soughed through the scrub, and the falcon’s feathers rustled as it came in to land. Bells chinked as it settled on the high horn of Zakir’s Moorish saddle. And very slowly he lifted her fisted hand back to his face and forced open her fingers. He pressed her palm flat against the side of his temple and leaned into her touch.

  Emotion surged through Nikki, bringing tears to her eyes. She could feel the tension thrumming inside him.

  “I am going blind, Nikki,” he whispered finally.

  The revelation was raw, volatile, and it rocked them both. Nikki had expected him to deny it.

  “I…” She swallowed. “I am so sorry, Zakir.”

  He nodded, shutting his eyes, a tangible sense of relief shuddering through him, as if by sharing this burden he’d released the unbearable tension of keeping this secret private.

  “No one else knows, do they, Zakir?”

  “No,” he said softly in Arabic. “Only my sister and my two brothers and an ophthalmic specialist in Chicago with whom Tariq consults on my behalf. It is a genetic fault in the men of my family that affects every third generation or so.”

  She’d guessed right—Zakir had Naveed’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy, the same condition Tariq had been studying when he’d approached her at the medical convention all those years ago. Compassion ripped through Nikki’s chest. She traced the side of his face with her fingertips, looking deeply and openly into his eyes with the knowledge of a doctor—her own secret she couldn’t divulge. But she burned to tell Zakir now. It was no longer right to withhold the truth from him. “Zakir—”

  He silenced her by placing two fingers over her lips. Zakir didn’t want to talk about his disability. The sense of catharsis that punched through him as Nikki looked up into his eyes was enough. And her features were suddenly so unguarded, so open, so beautiful, her touch so full of care that it cracked open his control.

  He wanted her. All of her. Now.

  Forever.

  And the urge to sink himself between her legs and claim her, right here in this desert under the open, bright sky surged so powerfully through his blood that he began to shake. He inhaled sharply, feeling as though he was going to implode with the desire to be one with her, to share everything, to no longer be alone.

  “Tell me,” he whispered hoarsely, “that I have not made a terrible error in judgment in revealing this to you, Nikki. Tell me I can trust you. Tell me you will never betray me.”

  Her answer was to lean up, cup the back of his head and draw his lips down toward hers.

  Zakir thrust his fingers into her tangle of curls and fiercely crushed his mouth down on hers. Her body sagged for an instant, and he caught her weight at the small of her back, yanking her into his arms, feeling her pelvis press against his arousal. It drove him wild.

  Her lips opened warmly under his, and a small sound of pleasure came from her chest as she felt his tongue enter her mouth. A rush of aggressive passion seemed to surge through her body and she moved hungrily, kissing him back, her breaths coming short and fast. Zakir slid his hands lower, cupping her buttocks and pulling her skirt up her thigh until his fingers met flesh. For an instant he couldn’t breathe—or see. But as she hooked her naked leg up around his thigh, she bumped his sheathed scimitar, and it jolted him back.

  He didn’t really want to take her out here in the desert, in the sand. As much as he would relish the wildness of it, he wanted her in his chambers, naked on his bed, with sunlight streaming in over her body spread before him.

  He wanted to treat her like a princess…like his queen. He wanted to love her all night long. And again when the sun rose over his estate.

  “Come,” he whispered against her mouth, his hand feeling the delicious silk of her panties as he spoke, the dampness of her desire. His heart began to race even faster, and the vision in his left eye began to blur. “Come back with me to the palace and to my bed.”

  Chapter 13

  They rode fast over the hills, their hearts pounding—a race as urgent as it was playful. Zakir’s dogs flowed with fleet-footed grace alongside the horses as the falcon soared above, following them.

  When they arrived at the stables, Zakir left the horses and his bird to the experienced care of the palace grooms and dedicated falconer, and they moved quickly to his private quarters.

  His chambers were extensive—marble arches opening out onto a private walled garden complete with lush blooms, an oasislike pool and a waterfall. Dates, grapes, almonds and honey had been placed on a table outside under the shade of a lemon tree, along with jugs of minted water. A stained-glass dome rose in the ceiling. Zakir’s bed was positioned under the dome and sunlight streamed down through the colored glass, painting a rainbow of light over the white Egyptian linens.

  Down a corridor off the room, behind a heavy mahogany door, lay his private study.

  But the sumptuous grace of the private chambers was lost on both of them as Zakir hurriedly, breathlessly backed Nikki onto his ornately carved bed.

  She fell back onto the linen, hair splaying out around her, and Zakir stilled suddenly.

  Malaak er-ruhmuh.

  An angel.

  And to Zakir, that was exactly what she looked like—her tangle of strawberry-blond curls spreading in a halo around her head as the colored rays of sun streamed down through the stained-glass dome above her.

  The image stole his breath away.

  How was it that he was so lucky to have this woman just walk into his life at a time he so urgently needed an ally—and a queen?

  Or was it more than fate?

  Again that icicle of unease pricked cool and deep into his gut, but he shoved the sensation aside. Why should he not be lucky?

  Why must he always be so suspicious?

  Zakir felt in his heart that this woman was good, pure. He’d sensed it the way she’d touched his face. He’d glimpsed the depths of tenderness in her eyes. He’d seen just how far she’d go for her orphans. And to save an old Berber shepherd.

  He edged onto the bed beside Nikki, propping himself up with one elbow, leaning closer. Her eyelids fluttered as if she anticipated that he was going to kiss her again. But he di
dn’t.

  Instead, he reached for the braided cords and ribbons that secured the front of her robe, and slowly he began to pull them free.

  “Oyoon el waha,” he whispered as he slid the fabric back from her breasts, exposing them to the glowing light from above. “Eyes of the oasis,” he murmured. “I have never seen eyes like yours, Nikki.” He unclasped her bra, and her breasts swelled free, dusky rose nipples tightening under his touch. She inhaled sharply as he gently pinched a nipple between his fingertips, and her cheeks flushed with pleasure.

  Molten desire surged between Zakir’s thighs at her response, and his breath became lighter, faster. With it came a whisper of worry, because as sexual urgency increased in Zakir’s body, so did his pulse rate…and the dark blur in his left eye.

  You need to stay calm…

  He ignored the warnings in his head as he leaned over her. He was going to go blind anyway. If making love to Nikki meant there was a chance he could savor and commit this vision of her naked on his bed to his memory, he’d take it. Because he’d be able to recall it during his dark days and relive it forever.

  She shivered slightly as he trailed his fingers over the swell of her breasts, tracing a line slowly down the center of her abdomen, peeling back the fabric of her robe as he went.

  Zakir absorbed every visual detail—the way her bare breasts rose and fell with each breath, the way her lids dipped over her eyes as she felt him touch her, the way her lips were swollen, glossy from their kiss, and parted.

  Zakir circled the inside of her belly button with his fingertips. Her eyes darkened with lust on a sharp intake of breath. It fired him. Made him want to move quickly, take her hard and fast. But he bit down on his urgency as he trailed his fingers, ever so slowly, to the hem of her silk panties. She began to tremble, and her eyes suddenly filled with moisture. “Zakir—”

  He stopped. “What is it, Nikki?”

  “I…” She closed her eyes. “It’s nothing.”

  “You haven’t been with a man for a long time, have you, Nikki?”

  “No,” she whispered on a breath.

  She was like a virgin, nervous, yet he’d tasted the rawness of her sexual hunger, her capacity for fun, her boldness. This dichotomy excited Zakir to an aching pitch.

  He was an experienced lover. His goal had always been to hunt, seduce and then to please a woman physically. And he wanted it to be good for Nikki. He wanted her to cry for more, to need him all over again. And again. His arousal throbbed at the mere thought of her opening her thighs for him, arching her pelvis to him, aching for him.

  She placed her hand over his suddenly, firmly urging him to move faster, farther into her panties as she kept her eyes closed. He slid his fingers under the silky fabric as he whispered against her mouth. “I will be gentle, Nikki. I will do nothing you don’t want. You can tell me to stop anytime—” But Zakir’s hand stilled as his fingertips met a thin ridge of a scar across her pubic bone. Nikki stiffened.

  He glanced up at her face, and tears began to roll softly from the corners of her closed eyes, into her hair.

  “Nikki?” he whispered, bending his head down and gently kissing away the tears, his heart aching even as every nerve in his body was screaming to take her right this minute. Because Zakir knew what the scar was—it was from a C-section.

  Nikki had had a child.

  And that child wasn’t with her now. Which meant it was either somewhere else or she’d lost it.

  And suddenly all Zakir could think about was how desperately she was trying to save other people’s lost children. Something deep was going on inside Nikki. Something in her past had changed her fundamentally. This was the thing she might be trying to hide.

  “Nikki,” he whispered again. “Do you want me to stop?” She shook her head angrily, grasped his hand and moved it lower into her panties, between her thighs. She was hot. Wet. She opened her legs to him. “Please,” she murmured, kissing him harder, guiding his fingers between her legs, guiding him inside. She gasped as his fingers entered her. “Please…don’t stop.” And as he moved his fingers inside her heat, she kissed him—hungry, desperate, arching into his touch even as the tears streamed down her face, and her body moved hungrily, urgently, angrily against his.

  He quickly removed her skirt, sliding the fabric off her body. Her skin was smooth, firm, supple. Pale. And quietly Zakir noted another scar—a whorl of angry tissue that ran all the way down the side of her hip to the outside of her knee. And another across the inside of her ankle. He didn’t say anything.

  But it shifted something inside him.

  It burned a powerful compassion into his lust, a desire to nurture, care. Heal. To love her. To make her whole again.

  It made what they were doing feel serious, precious, something not to be taken lightly.

  Zakir stripped off his own clothes. The sun was warm on his skin as he positioned himself between her thighs and eased his weight over her, coaxing her legs open wide with his knees. He paused, controlling himself. Then slowly, as he watched her eyes, he entered her with just the tip of his erection. She leaned up toward him, her legs opening wider, trembling. He slowly slid in. She caught her breath, her lips parting and eyes going wide as her body accommodated to his size. Her fingers dug into his back, and he felt her grow hotter, wetter, her muscles quivering around his erection.

  He slid out, penetrated again, thrusting just a little harder, easing a fraction deeper as he felt her melting and burning around him. She began to move urgently, her breathing faster and lighter as she arched her back, and her skin turned damp.

  Trying to control himself became almost unbearable, his vision swirling to shades of scarlet and black as he thought he might implode. Zakir couldn’t last.

  Nikki felt him pull out suddenly, and she could feel air and the warmth of sun on the exposed dampness between her legs. Zakir’s dark gaze met hers, intense. Then he raked his eyes slowly, pointedly over her breasts, then down to her belly, to her open legs. His breathing came faster. His dark skin glowed in the sunlight, and Nikki’s gaze followed the dark whorl of hair from his navel to where it flared deliciously between his very powerful thighs. His erection was glistening, wet. She couldn’t breathe.

  Leaning forward, she reached out to him, taking his hand, drawing him back down over her. He used his knees to brusquely widen his access. He slid his hands under her buttocks, lifting her pelvis, and with a sudden, hard thrust, he reentered, pushing all the way to the hilt.

  She gasped, arched her pelvis up against his, her nails digging into his back and shattered with a cry, the rolling contractions seizing hold of her body, her breath, her mind.

  Her release seemed to crack Zakir’s control, and he plunged into her repeatedly. Then with one final deep thrust, a shuddering release ripped through his entire body.

  They lay coupled under the shafts of colored sunlight, him softening inside her, yet each time she stirred, she felt him come alive between her legs. Nikki had not felt so content, so right, in a long, long time. It was as if sex with Zakir had brought the past into the present in a way that had made her whole again, and Nikki never wanted to let him go.

  He murmured words of Arabic against her skin, in her hair, kissing her. “You are so beautiful, Nikki,” he said as he stroked her body, tracing each line, each curve. “I want to remember this, how you look.”

  But then his fingertips touched the scar along her pubic bone again, and his hand lingered. Nikki felt blood drain from her face.

  Their conversation in the Rahm Hills sifted into her mind.

  I’ve never had children, Zakir.

  Would he see the scar for what it was—evidence of a lie?

  When the denial had come out of her mouth up in those hills, not in her wildest dreams had Nikki ever imagined she’d end up naked in front of the sheik. The scar hadn’t even entered her mind. Conflict twisted painfully in her chest. She and Zakir had just shared so much. He had confessed his deepest secret and given her his complete
trust. And now Nikki so badly wanted to go all the way and give him hers.

  Her stomach clenched.

  The more she began to care for him, the more urgently she needed to get away from him. Because each minute was braiding her past more insidiously into his future.

  She needed to leave Al Na’Jar—there was no other way out. As much as she suddenly wanted to be with this incredible man, to be loved by him, she had to give him reason to stop this pretense at an engagement. He was only doing it to help her, so she and her children could be here at the Summer Palace with him.

  If she told him that Samira’s contractions had gone and that they were ready to leave, Zakir could end this betrothal sham before the King’s Council investigators got something on her.

  And then once she was safely out of the country with her kids she could tell him about the traitor in his inner circle. The sooner he knew about Gelu, the better, too.

  He moved his hand around her hip and began to trace his fingers over the ugly scar down the side of her thigh. Nikki’s mouth went dry. She could literally feel the questions welling inside him as he explored her body, exposing dark memories with each touch, those chilling images warring with the sensuous warmth of his hands.

  As he fingered the outside of her knee, where surgeons had operated and put in a pin, she felt herself closing off. Spiraling away. Her mind already escaping on that boat to Tenerife, thinking how she could be gone by morning.

  “How did you get these scars, Nikki?” he said softly.

  “It…was a car accident. Nothing serious.”

  “It feels very serious.”

  But before he could ask any more questions she got up quickly and went into the bathroom.

  Nikki exhaled deeply, splashing cool water over her face. She raked damp fingers through her hair and stood naked in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors.

  She studied herself dispassionately, tentatively touching the C-section scar across her pubic area. The scar that had given birth to Hailey and Chase. Tears threatened, and she angrily blinked them back.