LITMIR.BIZ

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round, his jaw held rigid, Zahir’s looked ready to take a bite out of her. ‘If you think there has been anything remotely easy about reforming a nation like Nabatean then I would urge you to hastily reconsider. Nabatean has not been built on oil but on the spilt blood of its young men. Not on the value of its exports of but on the courage and strength of its people. You would do well to remember that.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Suitably chastened, Anna took another sip of brandy. Perhaps that had been a stupid thing to say. He had turned back towards the fire now, his whole body radiating his disapproval. ‘I didn’t mean any disrespect. I still know so little of the ways of your country.’

      ‘You will have ample opportunity to learn our ways, our language and our ethos once you are living there. And may I remind you that Nabatean will shortly be your country too?’

      ‘Yes, I know that.’ Anna swallowed. ‘And I will do my best to embrace the culture and learn all I can. But it would help me if you told me more about it now.’

      Zahir shrugged broad shoulders.

      ‘You say the war that brought about the independence of Nabatean cost many lives?’

      ‘Indeed.’ He shifted his weight beside her.

      ‘And you yourself were in the army, fighting alongside your fellow countrymen?’

      ‘Yes. As the second son, I always knew that the army would be my calling. It was an honour to serve my country.’

      ‘But you must have seen some terrible atrocities.’

      ‘War is one long atrocity. But sometimes it is the only answer.’

      ‘And your parents…’ Anna knew she was straying into dangerous territory here. ‘I understand that they…died?’

      ‘They were murdered, Annalina, as I am sure you well know. Their throats cut as they slept.’ He stared into the flames as if transfixed. ‘Less than twenty-four hours after Uristan had capitulated and the end of the war declared, they were dead. I was celebrating our victory with the people of Nabatean when a rebel insurgent took advantage of the lapse in security and crept into my parents’ bedchamber to slaughter them as a final act of barbarity.’

      ‘Oh, Zahir.’ Anna’s hands fluttered to her throat. ‘How terrible. I’m so sorry.’

      ‘It is I who should be sorry. It was my job to protect them and I failed. I will carry that responsibility with me to my grave.’

      ‘But you can’t torture yourself with that for ever, Zahir. You can’t carry all that burden on your shoulders.’

      ‘Oh, but I can. And I will.’ His jaw tightened. ‘It was supposed to have been a safe house. I had only moved them out of exile a week before, along with my brother. I was convinced no one knew of their whereabouts. But I was betrayed by a guard I thought I could trust.’

      ‘And your brother, Rashid? He obviously escaped the assassin?’

      ‘He awoke to hear my mother screaming his name. Even with a knife at her throat, seconds from death and with her husband already slaughtered beside her, my mother managed to find enough strength to warn her son. To save him. But, had I been there, I could have saved them all. I would have saved them all.’

      Anna didn’t doubt it for one moment. There wasn’t an armed assassin in the world that would stand a chance against someone like Zahir.

      ‘Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.’

      ‘She was.’

      ‘And I’m sure she and your father would be very proud of what you have achieved. You and Rashid.’

      ‘Rashid, as I am sure you are aware, has not yet fully recovered from his ordeal.’ His held his profile steady, stark and uncompromising.

      Anna hesitated, choosing her words with care. She had no desire to get her head bitten off again. ‘And that’s the reason you’re governing the kingdom, rather than him?’

      ‘My brother is happy to let me run the country as I see fit. His role is more that of a figurehead. He is temporarily unsuited to the rigours of leadership.’

      So it was just as she thought. Zahir Zahani was the power and brains behind the success of Nabatean. She sat up a little straighter. ‘I hope that you will allow me to assist you?’ Determined that he should see some worth in her, she almost implored him. ‘I’m a hard worker and a quick learner. I’m sure I have skills that you can utilise.’

      ‘I’m sure you have.’ Zahir turned towards her, his eyelids heavy, thick, dark lashes lowered. ‘And I look forward to utilising them.’

      The rasp of his words sent a tremor of anticipation through her. With the flames licking the shadows of his face, shining blue-black on his hair and gleaming in his eyes, she felt her heart pound, her body melt with the power of his raw sexual energy. There had been no mistaking the meaning behind his words. It pulsed from him, throbbed in the air between them, weakening her limbs with its promise.

      Impulse made her reach for his cheek and gently run the back of her hand against it, feel the scratch of his stubble, the burn of the heat from the fire. Immediately he grasped her wrist, twisting her hand so that her fingers brushed his mouth and then, taking her index finger between his lips, holding it between his teeth, clenching down so that it was trapped, warm and damp from his breath, his bite hard but controlled. It was an action so unexpected, so intimate, and so deeply sexy that for a moment Anna could do nothing but stare at him, her whole body going into heart-stopping free fall.

      She wanted more. She knew that with a certainty that thundered in her head, roared the blood in her ears and pulsed down low in her abdomen. She wanted him the way she had never wanted any other man in her life. She had no idea what would happen when it came to it, to the point where she had failed so pitifully before, but she knew she wanted to try. Right now.

       Chapter Eight

      THEIR GAZES CLASHED and Anna watched, spellbound, as the firelight danced across the surface of Zahir’s black eyes. Slowly, seductively, his tongue licked the tip of her finger, sending a wave of pure lust crashing over her. She waited, desperate for him to suck it into his mouth, and when he released his teeth and did just that she closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure, revelling in the rasp of his tongue, the powerful suck of his mouth, the graze of his teeth against her knuckles.

      She craved more, the thought of the suck of that mouth against other parts of her body…against her nipples, her inner thighs, her most intimate place…building inside her like a fleeting promise that she had to grab on to before it was taken away from her, before it vanished into thin air. Opening her eyes, she saw him staring at her, solemn and unsmiling, but exuding enough sexual chemistry to decimate an entire country.

      ‘You leave tomorrow, Zahir.’ Leaning towards him, she placed her hands on his shoulders, running them over the rough wool of the thick army jumper he was wearing. She loved the feel of him, the strength of the muscles, the way the thick column of his corded neck carried the pulse of his veins. ‘I won’t see you again before the wedding.’

      ‘No.’ His voice rumbled, deep and low, between them.

      ‘If you wanted to make love to me…’ she hesitated, trying very hard to control herself ‘…beforehand—now, even, I mean—I wouldn’t object.’

      ‘Of course you wouldn’t.

      Anna gasped at his chauvinistic attitude. But challenging it was going to be difficult when her body was still leaning in to him, inviting him, betraying her in the most obvious way.

      ‘Are you so sure of yourself that you think you can have any woman of your choosing?’

      ‘We are not talking about any woman. We are talking about my fiancée. You.’

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