LITMIR.BIZ

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for Tahar.

      And she, as the new sheikha, had to accompany him and stand just behind him, staring at him adoringly while she really wanted to eviscerate him. Possibly with her teeth. All right, she was being both dramatic and bloodthirsty.

      She walked through the throne room of the palace to the antechamber that led outside. She paused, adjusting the scarf she had wound over her hair and loosely around her neck. Then she walked outside, putting on a pair of large sunglasses to protect her from the glare, and from Tarek’s gaze.

      He was already standing there, in front of the limousine. He was wearing a dark suit jacket and perfectly cut trousers, his hands stuffed into the pockets. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and not even the superbly cut pants could disguise the perfection that was the musculature of his thighs. She thought it was funny how quickly he had taken to wearing European-style suits. He seemed to like them. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to bother to have anything else tailored. That could be it. Nothing off the rack was going to fit him. He was too tall, too broad.

      She was obsessed with his body. Which wouldn’t be so much of an issue if she wasn’t also obsessed with the man. A man who was nearly impossible to reach.

      “Good morning,” she said, opting for the first thrust so that it was his job to parry.

      He turned and her stomach lurched. She chose to imagine him still as the great hairy beast-man she had initially encountered in the throne room. But considering that, she sometimes forgot just how beautiful he was. It was easy to focus only on the raw magnetism and forget that he was objectively the most handsome man she had ever seen.

      “You are speaking to me, Olivia,” he said, his eyes flicking over her.

      She wondered if she should have worn a dress. Or perhaps something more traditionally Tahari. She thought perhaps her cream-colored harem pants, gold blouse tucked into the high waist and long, loose linen jacket might not be the appropriate attire. If he noticed, he didn’t say.

      “You do not have to cover your hair,” he said, jerking open the door to the limousine.

      “I know. Wind.” She breezed past him and got into the car, sliding to the other side and buckling herself with a resolute click.

      And Tarek insulation, but he didn’t need to know that. For that same reason, she kept her sunglasses in place.

      “We will be staying in the city tonight,” he said, joining her in the limo, closing the door behind him.

      The car began to move away from the palace as she processed this piece of information.

      “I didn’t bring anything.”

      “It was taken care of for you.”

       Of course it was.

      “You are angry with me,” he continued. “You haven’t spoken to me in two days.”

      “Very good, Tarek. Next we’ll move on to the more advanced human emotions.”

      “I explained to you why I didn’t want you in my room.”

      “I don’t believe you,” she bit out. Her words lingered in the air, bitter, desperate to her ears.

      “You want to stay with me?”

      “Yes. I do.”

      The admission was difficult, which she despised. Exposing all of her neediness, all of the desire in her that had gone unmet for so many years. Because of herself. Because she had never asked for more. Because she had been terrified of more. She still was. But she also felt as if she had been breathing stale air for too long, and Tarek was like the very wind she’d claimed to be trying to protect her hair from. A rush of something fresh, necessary, that she could not control or harness. But it wasn’t her hair she was concerned for.

      It was her heart. That caged, protected creature that she had locked behind golden bars years ago. Because she had been so tired of feeling the hurt every time her parents missed something special of hers because they needed to be with Emily. Because what kind of monster did it make her if she wanted the attention stolen from her sick sister and directed at her? It was why she had been able to accept Marcus’s love for what it was. Why she had been able to love him in return while knowing almost nothing about him, and sharing almost nothing about herself.

      She didn’t like any of these revelations. Not in the least. Any more than she liked the revelation that Tarek had disrespected the cage. Had stuck his hands right between the bars and grabbed hold of the thing she’d been coddling the most.

      Bastard.

      He didn’t even know. Hadn’t even been aiming for her affected organ, she knew. She supposed that was the danger of sleeping with virgins. They were so honest. And everything they gave was all for you.

      As a woman who had never had anything that was just for her, she’d been unprepared for what it would do to her.

      Marrying a stranger, a feral stranger, who lived across the world, who had completely different customs and practices than she did, surely should have been a recipe for continuing on in the manner she had become accustomed to. Surely he was the last person on earth who should have ever been able to reach her.

      She was wretched indeed. And irritated that she was having these realizations while sitting next to him in a car. It wasn’t as if she could jump out of the moving vehicle to escape him.

      On second thought, at the moment it sounded preferable to continuing to be enclosed in this tiny space with him.

      Alas, she wasn’t going to take a chance on a tuck and roll at this moment.

      Which meant she simply had to endure.

      The limousine wound down a narrow street that widened into a highway, leading them from the outskirts of the city down into its heart. It was much more urban than Alansund, and while she had known that, seeing it was an entirely different matter. Living with Tarek as she did, in a palace that was a relic from another time, it was easy to forget that the country itself was a major world power. A capital of finance and technology.

      They moved down deeper into the central business district, the buildings rising around them like sharp, slate-gray waves, threatening to close in on them. She had been raised in New York, upstate, but also partly in Manhattan. She was accustomed to cities. And yet, right now this felt a more foreign landscape than the barren desert that provided her view out her bedchamber at the palace.

      It was strange how quickly that place had become her home. Her world.

      Strange how quickly Tarek had managed to weave himself around her existence.

      The entire car ride was silent. Filled with tension, her head filling with things she would never speak. Finally, they arrived at the memorial statue of a man riding a horse, symbolizing the nation’s strength. This was where his speech would be held. Already a crowd had assembled, and security detail was on hand.

      The bodyguards approached the car, opening the doors for them and flanking them both as they made their way to the podium that was prepared for Tarek’s speech. She removed her sunglasses as they walked to the front, taking her position at his right shoulder, a pace behind him. She knew this pose. The pose of any royal spouse or politician’s wife. She had assumed it many times for Marcus.

      But it had felt different.

      Because now, watching Tarek speak, words she didn’t readily understand due to her poor command of the language, she felt a burst of pride unlike anything she ever experienced before. This wasn’t easy for him. This was not his forte. He was a man who had barely spoken to people for the past fifteen years, much less spoken in front of a crowd of them. And yet he was doing it. Because he loved this country, because he cared for it.

      He was changing everything about his life, everything about himself, to become the leader that Tahar needed.

      Life was always a challenge, even when you were doing all that you had been created for. All that you had been made for.

      But

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