Royal Weddings. Annie West

voice of temptation.

      She’d told herself she was immune to such temptation. Yet her body betrayed her. Even here, now, when Tariq wasn’t aware of her presence.

      Fire trawled her veins, stirred the feminine pulse point between her legs, scorched her breasts. She just had to look at Tariq’s powerful frame, hear his rich coffee voice, and she went weak at the knees.

      Despair gripped her. Maybe her critics were right. Perhaps she was tainted for ever since she’d once given in to a man’s blandishments. Perhaps desire had become an intrinsic weakness, no matter how hard she battled for a cool head.

      Her eyes ate him up. He wore a collarless shirt that stuck to broad, muscled shoulders in the heat and pale trousers tucked into boots. Tall, confident and erect as a soldier, he was magnetic. His total lack of fear as the stallion sidestepped wickedly close made her gasp.

      Heart in mouth, Samira moved nearer, watching the horse try to intimidate. A rider herself, she understood the stallion’s magnificence and the danger. One strike of his powerful hoof could seriously wound.

      Yet, as she watched, something changed. That sharply nodding head lowered. Wide nostrils flared as it scented the man who stood, murmuring, keeping eye contact with the big beast.

      Seconds strung out to minutes and, apart from quick checks to see Risay was happy, Samira’s gaze remained glued on the figure of her husband as he, by some magic, quieted the untamed horse. He didn’t even lift his hand, just communed with it in a way she didn’t understand.

      Finally the horse stepped forward, its gait almost delicate, and blew gustily on his face.

      A chuckle sounded in the still air, causing a ripple of sensation deep in Samira’s belly. She pressed her hand to the spot, trying to prevent that warm, melting sensation from spreading.

      Tariq lifted his hand and the stallion snuffled it. When Tariq turned and moved away, to Samira’s amazement, the horse followed like a pet. It nudged his shoulder blade and he laughed, the sound carefree rather than triumphant.

      Samira couldn’t drag her eyes away. Something inside squeezed tight and hard at the power and pleasure radiating from him. It made her want to reach out and—

      ‘Samira.’ He’d seen her. Sensation jolted her as their eyes met.

      In swift strides Tariq crossed the arena to stand before her, only a fence separating them.

      Despite the breathless clutch of attraction, Samira found herself smiling. ‘You have a shadow.’

      He turned his head just as the stallion lipped at his shoulder. Tariq murmured something she couldn’t hear to the big animal, then, swift as quicksilver, he was through the fence to stand before her, his eyes keen beneath lazy lids.

      Samira breathed him in hungrily, clean sweat and warm spice. Moisture sheened his forehead and the burnished skin of his collarbone. Her eyelids flickered as the pulse between her legs quickened.

      ‘How did you do that?’ she asked, needing words to fill the expectant silence.

      ‘Do what?’ His eyes were on her mouth and her nipples pebbled in anticipation. She shuffled back a step.

      ‘That.’ She nodded to the stallion. ‘The way you break in a horse.’

      ‘Ah.’ He drew the sound out as he followed her a pace. Heat beaded Samira’s brow. He was too close. ‘That’s the secret.’ He bent his head and his words feathered warm breath across her face. ‘I don’t break them. I gentle them.’

      His eyes caressed her and she felt it like the graze of hard fingers along her throat and over her cheek.

      She blinked. ‘Gentle?’ Was he some sort of horse whisperer?

      ‘It’s a matter of trust,’ he murmured in that low voice with just a hint of gravel. It trawled through her insides, furrowing pleasure in its wake. ‘Once they know I’m not going to hurt them, they learn to trust.’

      The liquid heat in his eyes told her he was talking about more than horses.

      She stiffened. ‘You won’t hurt them while they abide by your rules, you mean. You want to be master.’ Just as he wanted to be hers. Disillusionment was still fresh in her memory. Of how he’d duped her into believing he was safe.

      No man had ever looked less safe.

      Or more appealing. That was the problem. Her heart hammered her ribcage as if yearning for her submission.

      ‘You think it’s about power?’ Slowly he shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. ‘You had the wrong teacher, Samira.’ Heat scorched her skin at his words. They both knew he was referring to her ex-lover. ‘It’s all about partnership, mutual understanding and enjoyment.’

      ‘Enjoyment?’ Instead of disbelief, the single word sounded...needy. She swallowed hard, unable to break away from the enchantment Tariq wove around her with his rich voice and those slumberous eyes that yet danced with anticipation.

      ‘Of course.’ He smiled and something hitched in her chest. ‘If we don’t both enjoy the partnership it won’t work.’

      Tariq’s words hung in the air like a promise. Partnership, enjoyment...was that what he offered where she saw only capitulation and danger?

      Samira looked over his shoulder to the dark, glistening eye of the big stallion. Far from being cowed, mischief glinted there. And delight.

      Or perhaps her imagination ran away with her. She shook her head, stepping back abruptly to break the spell Tariq wove around her.

      Long fingers closed around her hand. His grip was firm but not unbreakable, yet she found herself stilling.

      ‘We’re not enemies, Samira.’ His tone coaxed. ‘We want the same thing.’

      She swallowed the words all but bursting on her tongue. Emotionally charged accusations that stemmed from fear, not of Tariq as much as of herself, of this weakness she couldn’t eradicate but dared not give in to again.

      ‘Risay is here,’ she said stiffly. ‘Unlike his brother, he refused to settle for a nap without seeing you.’

      Tariq’s hand loosened around hers as she pulled away, yet even with four whole paces between them the imprint of heat still shackled her.

      Then he moved past her in long, easy strides. He hunkered down to Risay’s level and weathered his son’s enthusiastic embrace with a smile that confirmed what she already knew: that his boys were the light of his life.

      He didn’t look back over his shoulder at her. His whole attention was focused on his son.

      To her dismay, Samira felt excluded. She wanted some of what he gave Risay: his attention, his loyalty. She wanted to bask in his smiles, share his laughter.

      And more...so much more.

      * * *

      Laughter rang out, the sound curling around Samira’s heart, making her smile. Adil shrieked with joy as his father threw him up and deftly caught him in strong arms. Water droplets caught the dying light as Tariq shook his head. Samira made herself look away. She’d spent too long furtively ogling his powerful body.

      This time at the oasis had been far more confronting than the night of their wedding, when Tariq had come to her bedroom and insisted she kiss him. A week had passed and with each day the tension in her had twisted harder.

      Her husband stood thigh-deep in the shallows, his swim shorts clinging to powerfully hewn thighs. The sight of him sent Samira’s blood pressure hurtling into the danger zone.

      She’d never been one to gawk at men. But she’d never spent time with a man like Tariq.

      Her one and only lover had been handsome and oh-so-charming, wiry rather than muscular. He’d looked better modelling chic designer clothes than out of them. And she’d discovered that his charm was more often for