The Princess Brides. Jane Porter

And indeed, he did. He was planning on keeping her, making her his wife legally, and in Baraka wives were permanent.

      Oh, if he kept touching her like that, she’d do just about anything. She linked her hands around his shoulders, needing to hang tight and as he strummed her nipple his other hand played on her hip.

      Nic couldn’t stand the tension within her. She dragged herself closer to him. ‘‘I want you.’’ Her voice sounded faint, breathless, and indeed, she was seeing stars, her vision dark and silvery all at the same time.

      ‘‘I know,’’ he said, and he kept playing her body, playing the nerves and she was shivering against him, dancing a helpless dance.

      She felt heat rush through her in a torrential wave. He’d turned her so on, turned her into an inferno. She felt her skin prickle and burn across her cheekbones, along her brow and even her lips felt hot, full, aching.

      ‘‘No, Malik, you don’t know how much I want you. You just think you do…’’ She bent her head, pressed her face to his neck, breathed in his spicy cologne and the warm scent that was him, and he smelled delicious, smelled like everything she wanted in life.

      Keep me, a tiny voice whispered inside her. Keep me forever and never let me go. It’d been since Daniel, she thought, reaching for Malik again, sliding her hands up through his hair, tightening her fingers against his scalp, feeling the crisp cool strands of Malik’s hair bunch in her fist.

      ‘‘I think I know what you need,’’ he whispered against her mouth, pulling her closer so that their two bodies felt almost as one.

      And as close as they were, it still wasn’t enough. Nic needed to be possessed by, filled by him. There’d been years of dates and several lovers since Daniel but no one made her feel like this anymore, no one made her want like this. This was as hot and intense as she’d ever known. ‘‘Can we make love? Is it illegal to be intimate before the wedding?’’

      ‘‘It’s not illegal.’’ His lips brushed the corner of her mouth. ‘‘If it were, I’d change the law.’’ He lifted her long heavy hair from her neck, stroked her sensitive nape.

      She shuddered against him. He held her in his thrall. He was powerful but he never used force. He didn’t need to speak harshly, or use strong language. He didn’t need threats or boasts. He wore his confidence like his silken robe. Comfortably. Naturally. He’d do anything for his people. He’d protect them at all costs. He’d protect her, too.

      Malik lay her down on the settee, and stretched out over her, his weight braced on his elbows. ‘‘You’re trapped,’’ he said, studying her lying beneath him. ‘‘My prisoner.’’

      ‘‘So what are you going to do to me?’’

      His gaze settled on her mouth. ‘‘Make you talk.’’

      ‘‘Talk?’’

      ‘‘I want to know what you think about when you go so quiet on me.’’ He traced her lips with the tip of his finger, lightly following the bow shaped curve of the upper lip and the swollen lower lip. ‘‘I want to know what you don’t talk about.’’

      She felt her lips quiver from his caress. ‘‘Why do we always have to talk?’’

      ‘‘Because I want to make sure you know what you’re doing. I want to make sure I know what you’re thinking. Better to face the facts than run away from them.’’

      He was caressing her ear, lightly running his fingertip along the curve of her outer ear and then gently along the sensitive lobe.

      She couldn’t think when he was doing that, couldn’t concentrate on anything but the way he made her body blister and burn. ‘‘All right. Ask me a question.’’

      ‘‘What does no one know about you?’’

      What did no one know about her?

      She tried to blot out the delicious sensations he was stirring within her, by staring up at the elegant domed ceiling, all gold and cobalt-blue tiles, and the breeze outside the open window rustled the thick date leaves. What did no one know about her? What had she kept hidden from everyone for all these years?

      Daniel, of course.

      She’d fallen for him so hard.

      He’d worked at the palace. A mechanical engineer. Daniel built and restored race cars and she’d wanted it to work between them, had wanted to be with him as much as she could, but their relationship was doomed from the start. Perhaps her father could get away with marrying her mother, but there was no way she could run off with Daniel Thierry. No way she could live with him. No way she could love him. But that didn’t stop her from wanting him with a desperation that nearly drove her mad.

      She might have run off with him too, if it hadn’t been for Chantal’s wedding to Prince Armand. Somehow Nic couldn’t run away with Daniel when Chantal was marrying a man she didn’t love in hopes of protecting Melio’s future.

      Chantal had been such a beautiful bride—not radiant the way magazines liked to say—but poised, ethereal in her loveliness. With her warm brown hair and gray eyes she looked like a Dresden figurine. Perfect. Flawless. Petite. Her full skirts and long veil with the high diamond tiara captured the fairy tale elements of the royal wedding and her picture was on the front of nearly two hundred magazines the week after the wedding.

      Chantal was happy, Nic assured herself, not blissful, but happy enough.

      Yet the fact that Chantal had the strength and conviction to go through with an arranged marriage undermined Nic’s insistence on doing only what she pleased.

      Truth was, she couldn’t run away with her beautiful Daniel.

      Truth was, there couldn’t be a future with Daniel.

      He might kiss her senseless, and he might make her laugh, and she might feel most comfortable with him, but he wasn’t even remotely what Melio needed.

      A month after Chantal’s lavish wedding Nicolette ended it with Daniel.

      It was the hardest thing she’d ever done as an adult. In fact, she changed her mind once, getting back together with him for a stolen night, but later, the next day, she forced herself to call him and make a complete break.

      He was out shopping when he answered his phone. She could hear the voices of other shoppers, could hear him periodically place things in his basket, could hear the mundane sounds of normal life all around him and it cut her, realizing in that moment it was really all over. She’d never be part of his real world again. She’d never do the ordinary things with him that she’d wanted to do. No trips to the movies, no snuggling under the covers late on Sunday morning, no going out on the spur of the moment for sushi or Chinese.

      Don’t take my calls, she’d said. Don’t let me change my mind.

      In the store, in the middle of his shopping, Daniel went quiet. He’d said absolutely nothing.

      She’d felt the tears rise, felt the distance growing by the second. No one had made her feel so good about herself, and losing him—leaving him, was breaking her heart.

      She had to talk quickly to get the rest of the words out, and they came in a rush. ‘‘If you see my number, don’t pick up,’’ she said, holding the tears back. ‘‘If I show up at the garage, don’t talk to me. Don’t let me change my mind.’’

      ‘‘If that’s what you want,’’ he finally said.

      Is that what she wanted? No. Is that what Melio needed? Yes. She held the phone tighter, closed her eyes, and tried to be responsible. Think about Grandmama and Grandfather, she told herself. Think about Joelle. Think about all the people who have worked and sacrificed to get us to this point.

      ‘‘It’s what’s right,’’ she said, emotion strangled inside of her, strangling her. If only he’d give her a good reason to throw respectability and responsibility away.