He had done everything an orphan who had been thrust into power could have done.
And his prize was in that huge tent set just a little apart from the rest of the encampment, the path to the entrance flanked by a row of lanterns.
Tonight, he belonged in that tent, truly, with his wife. Even his father’s wife, banished to the fortress in the old city could not contest his place here.
The wind whistling through the sands, the dark desert sky, and the harsh, unforgiving desert, he was a part of this land finally. And it filled every inch of him with a profound joy, an unquenchable fire.
* * *
He acknowledged Ahmed and another guard with a nod. She wouldn’t like that they were so close by, the errant thought dropped into his head. Not for what he had on his mind, he thought with a smile.
But he wouldn’t dismiss them. Not when her safety was paramount, not when he was hovering on the knife-edge of desire, his rationality and the civilized veneer like the slippery sand under his feet.
Before his next breath, he was standing inside the tent, at the foot of the vast bed. Numerous lanterns were lit all around the room and he wondered if she had been afraid of the pitch-darkness that was a desert night.
There she lay, his wife.
Still in the turquoise dress that had so lovingly hinted at those lithe curves. She slept on her side, the silk scrunched up to her knees, displaying toned calves.
Deep red henna swirled over her feet and hands. She was marked like that for him, he thought with a primal possessive urge like he had never known before.
His breath coming in short bursts, he devoured the sight of her. Her hair haphazardly framed her face, a mirror of the spirited, independent woman. The bodice of the dress dipped at her chest, her folded arms pushing up the globes of her breasts.
Need ripped through him, for the first time in his life, leaving him absolutely unraveled on a level he didn’t understand.
Shedding his long tunic, he left his cotton trousers on. Much as he couldn’t wait to feel her silken flesh against all of him, he didn’t want to spook her when she was in such a deep sleep.
Slowly, he lowered his body onto the bed, shifted to his side and gathered her to him.
Mumbling something, she came to him, pliant and soft in a way she never was when she was awake, her dainty fingers drifting over his abdomen. His shaft tightened painfully and a groan burst deep from inside him.
Purring like a cat, she tucked herself against him, the scent of roses and her skin a sensory heaven. He hissed out a breath, the brush of her thigh against his sending shafts of heat through him.
Ya Allah, he had forgotten how fragile she had always been. Constantly pitted against that tough, self-sufficient exterior she presented, the delicate bones of her body and lithe curves made him feel like a hulking brute.
The remembered feel of her tight heat the first time he had gone to her apartment...desire was a roaring beast within him.
Yet, she had always stood toe-to-toe with him.
And now she was even more delicate, he thought, his gaze drifting over her curves, and going to the small, just-visible swell of her belly.
She was finally, irrevocably his. She carried his child in her womb, wore his ring on her finger.
His child and his wife, his in every way there was.
His, in a way no one had ever been.
His, in a way no one could ever take away from him.
* * *
The whisper of rustling clothes brought Lauren awake from the deep slumber she had fallen into. She blinked and sat up, the flickering light of lanterns illuminating her surroundings for her.
It took her a few seconds to realize she was at the desert hideaway, and that it was...her wedding night. Pushing her hair away from her face, she grimaced at the tangles. She had fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and had neglected to take her pins out. Wondering what time it was, she looked up.
Standing at the edge of the bed, his sparsely haired, lean chest bare, a white towel slung low around his hips, there was Zafir.
Her husband, hers to hold and obey and...love.
Her vows came back to her word by word, but panic was only a mild flutter in her chest now.
Faced with such potent masculinity, knowing that this powerful man had pledged his fidelity and respect and his body to her, everything else paled in significance.
This time, she was prepared for the burning flame of her own need, of the blast of heat that punched low in her belly.
Golden light bathed the musculature of his chest, delineating every ridge of tightly roped muscle and sinew. Droplets of water clung to his skin, skin that she knew would feel like rough velvet. Muscle and sinew, he was breathtakingly gorgeous and he had never been bared to her like this.
She must have made a sound—a needy whimper, because he turned around then.
Tawny eyes met hers and she gasped aloud.