Midnight in the Desert Collection. Оливия Гейтс

like indecent,’ Raja confided huskily, trailing provocative fingertips very gently along the tender skin of her thigh so that she became even more painfully aware of the awesome strength of her own craving. ‘In fact I could live beautifully with indecent.’

      To silence the argument he sensed brimming on her lips he tasted her sultry pink mouth with the lingering eroticism that came so naturally to him, sensually teasing the soft fullness of her lower lip before penetrating her mouth in a smooth, explicit thrust. And while he kissed her he was skimming the ball of his thumb against the most sensitive spot on her entire body with a shocking expertise that made her stifle a scream while she writhed and gasped her response.

      Before she could catch her breath from that onslaught, Raja leant back from her to rip open a foil packet and make use of a condom. Her heart thudded violently up tempo. She would not let herself think about what she was doing. She was rebelling against everything she knew because she had never wanted anything so much as she wanted him in that moment. And without a doubt she was ashamed of it, ashamed of the wild seething longing that controlled her, befuddling her brain and enslaving her body.

      Raja sank into her in a long, slow surge, stroking her tender flesh with his. It felt so indescribably good that she cried out and her inner muscles clenched and convulsed around him. In the throes of extreme pleasure, he shuddered violently, as entrapped in that hunger as she was. ‘It’s never been like this for me before …’ he confided.

      Or for her, her brain echoed but speech was beyond her. Her whole body was attuned to every movement of his. With every subtle shift of that lean, powerful physique of his the dark pleasure rose in a sweet suffocating tide. He withdrew and then delved deep, moving faster and faster and her spine arched and she moaned in frantic excitement, defenceless against the feverish beat of exquisite sensation. Her climax finally rippled through her in an unstoppable force and she flamed into countless burning pieces before she dropped back to planet earth again. Another cry was dragged from her as the violent tremors of his final pleasure rocked her slight body with renewed sensitivity and sensation.

      Raja eased back from her to study her with appreciation. He bent his head to press a kiss to her cheekbone. ‘You’re amazing,’ he told her breathlessly.

      ‘What have we done?’ Ruby lamented out loud, already gritting her teeth, aware that in yielding to her hunger for him she had given way to weakness for the first time in her life. And that acknowledgement hurt her pride, really hurt.

      Laughing, Raja described what they had done in the most graphic terms and she curled a hand into a fist and struck his shoulder in reproach. ‘This is not a joke.’

      ‘You’re my wife. We had sex. Our desire was mutual and natural and the slaking of it rather wonderful. Why the fuss?’ Raja enquired with a slumberous smile of satisfaction while he marvelled at the unfathomable way in which she drew out the lighter side of his nature.

      Ruby was jolted by the reality that he was in a totally different frame of mind and mood. He was celebrating while she was filled with regrets. ‘It’s not that simple—you know it’s not. We made an agreement—’

      ‘A foolish agreement destined to be broken from the outset,’ Raja countered without an ounce of uneasiness. ‘How could we marry and live in such proximity and not surrender to the attraction between us?’

      In rejection of that stance, Ruby twisted free of his arms and rolled away to the far side of the bed. ‘That’s not what you said to me at the time.’

      At that precise reminder, an impatient look skimmed across Raja’s face. ‘Choice didn’t come into it—I had to win your agreement to marry me—’

      ‘Had to?’ Ruby prompted stiffly, her whole attention lodged to him with unwavering force.

      Far from impervious to the threat of the drama waiting in the wings, Raja raked his fingers through the black hair falling into curls at his brow and sent her a look of reproach. ‘You are not that naive, Ruby. With this marriage we brought the end to a war and created a framework for a peaceful future for both our countries. There is nothing more important than that and I never pretended otherwise. We sacrificed personal freedom for the greater good.’

      That grim little speech, voiced without sentiment, froze Ruby to the marrow and felt like an ice spear thrust through her heart. He had torn any possibility of fluffy illusion from their relationship to insist on showing it to her as it truly was. But had she ever been in doubt of what their relationship entailed? A marriage that was part of a peace treaty between warring countries? A royal husband, who had married her because it was his duty to do so? Exactly when had she begun to imagine that finer feelings might be incorporated in that logical and unemotional package?

      Scrambling out of bed because she was hugely uncomfortable with any physical reminder of what had just taken place there, Ruby pulled on her wrap and folded her arms. She would be reasonable, totally reasonable and practical just as he was, she told herself urgently. ‘You said that we made a foolish agreement. On what grounds do you base that charge?’

      ‘When we made that agreement, we were already strongly attracted to each other.’

      ‘But you didn’t argue that at the time,’ Ruby protested.

      ‘Sometimes you can be very naive.’ Raja sighed, expelling his breath in a measured hiss and stretching back against the tumbled pillows, a gloriously uninhibited vision of male magnificence. ‘Why do you think I went to the UK to meet you? My job was to persuade you to marry me as quickly as possible and assume your rightful place as a royal here in Ashur.’

      Ruby lost colour as he made that explanation. ‘Your … job?’

      ‘There is nothing warm and fuzzy about that peace treaty, Ruby, or the stability that rests on the terms being upheld to the letter of the law. Obviously I was prepared to do pretty much whatever it took to win your agreement,’ Raja admitted tautly.

      ‘Obviously,’ Ruby repeated, feeling horribly hollow inside as if she had been gutted with a fish knife. ‘So, are you saying that you deliberately set out to get me into bed in the desert?’

      ‘I desired you greatly.’ Brilliant dark eyes struck challenging sparks off her critical and suspicious scrutiny.

      ‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Ruby declared. ‘I asked you if I was seduced to order, another box to be ticked on your list of duties.’

      His clever brow furrowed, his darkly handsome features still and uninformative. ‘To order?’ he queried huskily.

      ‘Your English is as good as mine, possibly even better!’ Ruby snapped, her temper hanging by a fingernail to a cliff edge as she forced herself to seek a clarification that stung her shrinking self like acid. ‘Stop faking incomprehension to play for time when I ask an awkward question!’

      Unmoved by that indictment, Raja stretched, hard muscle rippling across his broad shoulders and abdomen as he shifted position with the fluidity and grace of a tiger about to spring. ‘Is that what I’m doing?’ he traded with an indolence she suspected to be entirely deceptive.

      Being stonewalled merely aggravated Ruby more and her chin came up, eyes bright with antagonism and resentment now. ‘Let me bring this down to the simplest level. Did you or did you not take off your boxers and lie down with me that night for the sake of your precious country?’

      Raja very nearly laughed out loud at that demand but restrained the urge, aware it would go down like a lead balloon. ‘I am willing to confess that I never had any true intention of allowing our marriage to be a fake. I hoped to make our marriage real from the day of our wedding.’

      The barefaced cool with which he made that shattering admission shook Ruby, whose nature was the direct opposite of calculating, to her very depths. ‘So, you deceived me.’

      ‘You put me in a position where I could do little else. A divorce between us would be a political and economic disaster. Any goodwill gained by our marriage would be destroyed and offence and enmity would take its place. And how could I continue