The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest: The Desert Bride of Al Zayed / Best Man's Conquest. Michelle Celmer

      All thoughts of her family, her sister, her nieces, flew away as Tariq’s mouth plundered hers. His kiss was uncompromising and the flare of heat that started deep in her stomach took her by surprise.

      It had been a long time.

      Too long, since she’d last felt this intensity of emotion.

      As his hand threaded through her hair at the back of her neck, his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her nape and a frisson of delight ran through her. Tariq knew exactly where to touch…to arouse her, to turn her. The fingertips now moving in little circles sent shivers through her and his lips demanded a response.

      Jayne gave a little gasp, taken aback by the pent up passion that Tariq had unleashed. Instantly he pressed closer, his tongue stroking into her mouth, tasting her, slower now, languidly, as if he could never get enough.

      With a groan she reached up, locking her arms around his neck, conscious of her breasts growing taut and tender as her body melted against him. She felt like a flower blooming, unfurling, under the heat of the sun. Tariq’s hands shifted against the back of her head, cradling her, bringing her closer still. She was sharply, disconcertingly aware of the tips of her breasts hardening under the loose fabric of the caftan, of the brush of his chest against the taut mounds.

      Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the kiss was over.

      The chill that followed the wave of heat shocked her. Jayne shivered with regret. Until those drive-me-crazy hands moved again, tilting her head, and his lips landed on the soft, exposed skin of her neck. A guttural sound exploded from her. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, giving herself up to his touch, to the sheer indescribable delight. The fingers spearing through her hair released a fresh wave of shivers. And her body felt soft and pliable, boneless with want.

      His teeth scraped her skin, his tongue followed, and Jayne gasped again. His mouth closed on the sensitive area beneath her ear…a trail of hot kisses, then a long stroke of his tongue set her on edge. Jayne waited…every nerve ending quivering… eager for what would come next.

      In some distant space of her mind, she was half-aware of his hands leaving her hair, sliding over her shoulders, down her back, and she arched like a cat about to be stroked.

      But when she felt his fingers stop, linger, and her bra strap give under the fabric of the caftan, she tensed, jolted by reality.

       What was she doing?

      She should not be allowing Tariq to kiss her like this. Ali’s words echoed hollowly in her head. Tariq needed a wife who would do her duty…and that woman was not her. So what on earth was she doing responding to her soon-to-be-ex like this? She couldn’t jeopardise her newly planned life simply because Tariq still turned her on.

      She’d almost left it too late. Jenna heard the rasp of a zipper, felt the caftan give.

      “No!”

      Tariq’s hands stilled. “What do you mean ‘No’? You are my wife!”

      “No!” She shuddered. She couldn’t survive the half world, the dry wasteland that had been her marriage. “I’ll never be your wife again, Tariq. Our marriage is over.” She wanted a divorce, to put Tariq and her marriage behind her and move on.

      She tore out of his arms, ducked under his arm, and put half the length of the room between them. “I don’t want this.”

      “Liar.” His voice was flat, his face expressionless. The light in the golden eyes had been extinguished. “You responded to me.”

      He was right. She’d been far too…engaged. But she couldn’t afford to let him know that. So she looked away. “Maybe I’d have responded to any attractive man.”

      “Any man?” It was a soft snarl, dangerous. “Not only me? So where does that leave the blond man who waits for you back home in Auckland, my faithless, lying wife?”

      She stared at him blankly.

      “Neil Woodruffe,” he said silkily. “Or had you forgotten all about the poor bastard you are holding on a string?”

      “How do you know about Neil?” Neil had asked her out several times over the past months. Lately he’d taken to visiting her apartment on flimsy excuses. She’d humoured him, inviting him in. But how did Tariq know about Neil? A sick tightness gripped Jayne. One glance at Tariq’s face con firmed her suspicious. “You’re having me watched.”

      He didn’t deny it.

      “That’s disgusting.” The words burst from her. She hated the thought that he was spying on her. “Does it make you feel powerful to follow the details of my life? That’s sick!”

      “I employed a detective when you initiated contact. You should remember that I have always believed information is key to any negotiation.” He gave her a tight smile.

      Jayne’s heart thumped in her chest, so loudly that she feared he might hear. “Your lack of trust is the reason why I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”

      “Do you blame me?” His mouth tightened. “No, don’t answer that, there’s no point in rehashing the past. Our marriage is over. In a month you will have your divorce, maybe sooner.”

      The next day Tariq stormed down the corridor to his father’s apartments, his white thobe billowing behind him, still seething about how Jayne had managed to put him on the back foot the night before. Why was he thinking about her, when he had this whole disaster with Mahood and Ali to worry about…and he’d just been summoned to his father’s side. Had the end come?

      With his father dead, Jayne would get her divorce sooner than she’d hoped.

      There would be no reason to keep her in Zayed.

      The palace guard leapt to attention as he swept past. “His Excellency is awake?” he asked the male nurse who was filling out a clipboard in the antechamber.

      “Not only am I awake—I’m refusing to take the drugs, which is why they have called you.” The voice was thin and thready, but the eyes that met Tariq’s as he rushed into the bedchamber, with the nurse at his heels, held a hint of the old fire.

      “Leave us,” Tariq commanded the nurse. Retreating with a respectful bow, the nurse closed the door.

      “Father.” Tariq sank to one knee beside the bed. “You must take the morphine, it will help the pain.”

      “I am feeling much better. The confusion and dizzy head is less now that I abandon the medicine.” His father’s hand rested on top of Tariq’s head. Gone was the solid weight that had stroked his hair as a child. No longer the hand of a ruler feared and revered by his subjects, but the wavering touch of a dying man. Tariq swallowed the hot thickness in his throat.

      “Hadi al Ebrahim has been to see me.” Tariq’s head rose as his father spoke. “He tells me the sheikhah has returned.”

      Hadi was one of his father’s most trusted aides. Tariq nodded. “She came to see you but you were—” drugged “—sleeping.” He watched his father carefully, unsure of what to say next. A couple of months ago, soon after the terrible diagnosis, Tariq had heard rumours that his father had sent Hadi on a mission to Sheikh Karim—a mission that he was not prepared to confront his father about now that he was dying. Instead he’d obliquely mentioned to his father that in terms of his marriage contract with Jayne he could take only one wife at a time. His father had looked fit to burst, calling Tariq a foolish monkey. Tariq certainly hadn’t expected his father to be overjoyed by Jayne’s return. But, for his father to die in peace, he needed to convince his father that marriage to Jayne was what he, Tariq, wanted more than anything on earth….

      “Good. It is time that your wife resumes her position at your side.”

      Tariq’s mouth fell open. While he was aware that his father wanted him contently married before he died, he’d anticipated a little