LITMIR.BIZ

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controlled her temper until they were alone. Then she tore her hand from Tariq’s and shot to her feet.

      “You can tell all the ridiculous lies you like—”

      “It was no lie,” he said calmly. “Or have you already forgotten what I said about an old custom of my people?”

      “It is not a custom of my people! It is not a custom anywhere in the civilized world!”

      “Watch what you say to me, wife.”

      “Do not call me that! Just because you have some—some barbaric bit of folklore that must make anthropologists shriek with joy doesn’t mean that I—”

      Tariq was on his feet, his hands cupping her shoulders before she could finish the sentence.

      “You will not take that tone with me!”

      “You tell your—your slave that I’m married to you and all you’re worried about is how I sound when I talk to you? I don’t know if you’re just thickheaded or so out of touch with reality that you—”

      He kissed her. It was either that or silence her some other way and he had never been a man to use violence on a woman …

      Besides, he loved her taste.

      She struggled. He cupped her face, held her captive to his kiss, felt a rush of fierce joy when her lips softened and he felt the first sign of her sweet, eager response.

      “Hate me all you like,” he said hoarsely, “but you will obey me. You will respect me.” His eyes darkened. “And when I take you to bed, you will answer my passion with your own because it is what you want, habiba, it is what you shall always want, even as you hate me with all your heart.”

      He kissed her again and as she melted against him, the stirring of an emotion far more dangerous than desire coursed through his blood.

      It stopped him for an instant, but Madison moved against him and he forgot everything but wanting her.

      He swept her into his arms, carried her through the cabin and into the bedroom, shouldered the door closed and came down on the bed with his wife in his arms.

      “I do hate you,” she whispered, but her arms held him tight as she brought his head down to hers for another kiss.

      His blood thundered, but he forced himself to go slowly, to undo the buttons of her shirt, the zipper of her jeans.

      His shirt.

      His jeans.

      Could she possibly know how sexy she’d looked, wearing them?

      He spread the shirt open, kissed her breasts, loving their silken texture, the sweet taste of her nipples. He slid his hand down the back of her jeans, slipped his fingers between her thighs and stroked the tender, weeping flower he found there.

      Madison cried out.

      He caught the cry with his mouth and fought to hang on to his sanity.

      “Please,” she whispered, tugging at his shirt, and he pulled back, stripped it off, groaned as he felt her hands on him, exploring him, stroking over his chest, his shoulders, moving down his ridged abdomen. And when she found him, cupped her hand over the taut denim, Tariq gritted his teeth, gave in to the exquisite pleasure for a heartbeat and then caught her wrists and brought them to her sides before it was too late.

      Carefully he gathered his wife to him. She was trembling and he was aroused beyond anything he had ever experienced, but he knew that to take her again would be wrong.

      She was pregnant. She was exhausted. She was torn between hating him and wanting him.

      And he—he needed something more from her than sex, something that had no name.

      The room was dark. The air was cool. He drew up the duvet, eased Madison’s head to his shoulder. Her breath sighed against his skin as he lay his hand gently over the place in her body where the child—where their child—lay dreaming. “Go to sleep, habiba,” he said softly. She bristled, as he should have known she would. “Do not tell me what to do, Tariq! I am not the least bit—” She yawned. He smiled. A second later, she was asleep.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      MADISON awoke with a start.

      She lay in a canopied bed the size of a football field in a vast, high-ceilinged room. Sheer curtains that diffused the sunlight pouring through a wall of glass.

      The bed linens were soft and cool against her skin.

      Her naked skin.

      She shot up against the pillows, clutching the bedcovers to her breasts. Where am I? she thought and even in that moment of terrifying disorientation, she wanted to laugh at the pathetic cliché.

      Except, it wasn’t a cliché, it was the truth.

      Her memories of the night were fragments of a dream. The last thing she recalled with any clarity was Tariq carrying her to bed on his plane, undressing her, caressing her, holding her in his arms.

      Madison closed her eyes.

      Had she really fallen asleep that way? In his arms? Her head on his bare shoulder, his breath warm against her temple?

      And after that, what? Everything was murky. The plane, landing. Tariq, wrapping her in a quilt, carrying her to an SUV that sped along a road under a sky shot through with silver.

      “Madame?”

      Madison’s eyes flew open. A woman stood in the open doorway, a tentative smile on her lips.

      “Forgive me, my lady. I knocked, but there was no answer.”

      “No.” Madison forced an answering smile. “No, that’s all right. Who are you?”

      “I am Sahar. Your servant.”

      Her servant? What did you say to that?

      “I have brought you mint tea.”

      “Mint tea,” Madison said brightly. “That’s—that’s excellent.”

      “Do you wish it in bed, or shall I put it near the windows?”

      “Oh. Ah, by the windows will be.” Madison took a deep breath. “Sahar?”

      “My lady?”

      “Where—exactly where am I?” The woman’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “I mean,” Madison said quickly, “what is the name of this place?”

      Sahar looked at her. Madison figured the expression on her face was pretty much the same expression that had been on her face the time a befuddled tourist had asked her where the Empire State building was while standing directly in front of it.

      “It is the Golden Palace, of course.”

      The Golden Palace. “Of course,” Madison said. “And, ah, and the city is …?”

      Sahar’s expression went from bemused to alarmed.

      “We are in the city of Dubaac, my lady.”

      “Right. Dubaac. The city. In the country of—”

      “The city, the country are one,” a male voice said. Tariq strolled into the room and waved his hand in dismissal. “That will be all, Sahar.”

      The servant bowed and scuttled out the door. Tariq closed it, then leaned back against it, arms folded. Madison’s heart banged against her ribs. He looked different. Taller, somehow. More imposing, if that were possible. And—and, yes, beautiful in a cream-colored shirt, faded jeans and riding boots.

      “Good morning, habiba. Did you sleep well?”

      “Do you care?”

      He grinned. “I can see we’re off to a fine start.”

      “We

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