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and willed sleep to come. But the wind shrieked louder, and it sounded at times like the twins. She wept for them.

      Later she could hear a woman screaming—the same sound she had heard the night they were born. The shouts had filled the palace a year ago this night, when the twins were being born. These screams sounded like a woman birthing—screams she would never know—and it was torture. She knew the wind played tricks, but the screams and the cries were more than she could bear.

      Maybe they’d taunted Emir too, for when she opened her eyes he was standing there, still robed, his sword strapped to his hips. His kafeya was off. He stood watching, a dark shadow in the night, but one that did not terrify.

      ‘When you kissed me back, when you said please, what did you think I meant?’ he asked.

      ‘I thought it was sex that was on offer.’ If she sounded coarse she didn’t care. Her hurt was too raw to smother it with lies.

      ‘That is not our way.’ Emir looked at her. ‘In Alzirz they are looser with their morals. There are harems and …’ He shook his head. ‘I did not want that for you.’

      Not for the first time, but for more shameful reasons now, she wished she were there—wished it was there that Emir was King.

      ‘I never for a moment thought you would consider me for your bride. When we kissed—when we …’ She swallowed, because it was brutal to her senses to recall it. ‘When we kissed,’ Amy started again, ‘when we touched …’ Her eyes were brave enough to meet his. ‘I wasn’t thinking about the future or the twins or solutions, I thought it was just me that you wanted …’

      And he looked at her, and the winds were silenced. The screams and the tears seemed to halt. Surely for one night he could think like a man and not a king? Emir was honest in his response and his voice was low with passion. ‘It was,’ Emir said. Yes, at first he had been seducing, but later … ‘When I kissed you I forgot.’

      ‘Forgot?’

      ‘I forgot everything but you.’

      She looked over to him, saw the raw need in his eyes, saw the coffee colour of his skin and the arms that had held her, and she wanted his mouth back.

      ‘I know we can’t go anywhere. I know …’ She just wanted to be a woman again—wanted one time with this astonishingly beautiful man. ‘Just once …’ she whispered, and Emir nodded.

      ‘Just once,’ came his reply, for that was all it must be, and with that he picked her up and carried her to his bed.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      SHE lay on his bed and watched as he undid the leather belt and the sword fell to the floor with a gentle thud. She turned away from him then, for she was filled with terror. All too clearly she could see his braids and royal decorations and she knew what they were doing was wrong—she wanted the man, not the King, and his status was truly terrifying.

      ‘Turn around,’ Emir told her.

      Slowly she did so, and saw him naked, and she feared that too—for he was more beautiful then she had even imagined and, yes, now it was safe to admit to herself that she had imagined. He hardened under her gaze. Her shy eyes took in more of him—the toned planes of his stomach, the long, solid thighs and the arms she now ached to have hold her again.

      ‘This is wrong,’ she said as he walked towards her.

      ‘It doesn’t feel wrong,’ he said, and he climbed in beside her. The fact that the bodies that met were forbidden to each other only heightened their desire.

      She cringed as he took off her nightgown, closed her eyes as he pushed down the bedclothes and fully exposed her. He wanted to know every piece of her skin. He kissed not her mouth but the breast that he had so nearly kissed in the desert, and she was as aroused in that instant as she had been then. She returned to that moment in the desert when he could have taken her. He kissed lower, kissed her stomach as deeply as if it were her mouth, and then he moved lower still, and she lay there writhing as he made her feel like a woman again.

      Her body had craved passion for so long and he had returned it to her. She had denied herself touch, had felt untouchable, empty, and now he filled her with his tongue, touched her so intimately and not with haste.

      With her moans he grew.

      With her screams he lost himself more.

      He had shared not an ounce of emotion since the death of his wife, but he shared it now.

      There was a burden for this King that not the wisest of his council knew about. There was a decision in the making that he could only come to alone—a decision he had wrestled with for more than a year now. It was all forgotten.

      He felt her fingers in his hair and the tightening of her thighs to his head. Her hips attempted to rise but he pushed her down with his mouth till she throbbed into him, and then he could wait no more.

      He kneeled, looked down at all that beckoned, and she felt the roughness of his thighs part her legs further. Her body still quivered from his intimate exploration as he parted her with his thumbs. She looked with decadent, wanton fear at what would soon be deep inside her and, breathless, pleaded for it to be now.

      He pulled back, for he must sheathe, and then he heard her whisper.

      ‘We don’t have to.’

      For the first time, the fact that there could be no baby brought only relief, for neither wanted to halt things.

      Now he lifted her hips, aimed himself towards her. A more deliberate lover he could not be, for he watched and manoeuvred every detail, and she let him—let him position her till he was poised at her entrance, and then he made her wait.

      ‘Emir …’

      His smile was as rare as it was wicked.

      ‘Emir …’

      He hovered closer and was cruel in his timing; that beat of space made her weep, and her mouth opened to beg him again, but her words faded as he filled her, as he drove into her with the ardour of a man ending his deprivation. He forgot his size and to be gentle, and never had she been so grateful to have a man forget.

      He filled her completely, and then filled her again. He was over her, and the kiss he had first denied her was Amy’s reward, for he hushed her moans with his mouth until it was Emir who could not be silent. The pleasure was now his, all pain obliterated, the shackles temporarily released. His mind soared in freedom as her body moved with his. Escape beckoned and he claimed it, groaning to hold on to it, yearning to sustain it. But the pulse of her around him was too much—the rapid tightening and flicker of intimate muscles, her hot wet cheek next to his, her breath, his name in his ear.

      He lost himself to her, gave in to what was and spilled into her, called out her name as they dived into pleasure. The wind was their friend now, for it shrieked louder around them, carried their shouts and their moans and buried their secret in the sands.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      OF COURSE it should never have happened.

      And of course it must never be referred to again.

      But it was a little before morning and they’d made love again after she’d turned and looked at him while she still could. She ran a finger across the scar above his eye about which she had often wondered and was brave enough now to ask.

      ‘What is that from?’

      ‘You don’t ask that sort of thing.’

      ‘Naked beside you I do.’

      Maybe it was better she knew, Emir thought. Maybe then

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