The Sultan's Harem Bride

  WANTED: Desert princess to join harem

  Sultan Asim of Jazeer has hundreds of women at his beck and call. So why does he want the only one who threatens to reveal his family’s shameful secrets?

  Journalist Jacqui Fletcher jumped at the chance to write a history of the harem—not to become a sultan’s plaything! But it’s hard to remember her assignment when the sultan’s sensuous caresses spark a fire she’s never experienced before...

  Asim is looking for a pliable princess for a marriage of duty. Brave, beautiful Jacqui couldn’t be more wrong for him. So why does holding her feel so right?

  “Don’t apologize.” Asim breathed deep, filling the void in his lungs. “I don’t like it when you’re...meek.” The words surprised him as much as her. He felt the shock of that admission reverberate through him, even as he saw it ripple across Jacqui’s face.

  He didn’t approve of the way she argued with him, refusing to be silenced after he’d made a decision. It happened daily when she tried to wheedle access to records or palace staff or ancient pavilions that had been locked up as unsafe generations ago. Yet seeing her hesitant and downcast was like watching a bright light dim.

  For long seconds their eyes locked. Long enough for him to notice that in the syrupy late-afternoon light her eyes flashed with shards of gold.

  Slowly her mouth eased into a crooked smile.

  “In that case, Asim...” Jacqui paused over his name as if savoring it. “I promise not to be meek with you again.”

  She scooped up her towel and wrapped it around herself, hurrying toward her room. But her chin was up and her shoulders back and, despite his body’s howl of protest at her departure, Asim found himself smiling.

  Desert Vows

  Two powerful desert princes...and the only women who can tame them.

  Sultan Asim of Jazeer and Sheikh Tariq of Al-Sarath are both bound by honor, duty and tradition. They’ve always known they must marry, but it would be for the good of their kingdoms—not for love. Yet now two very different women threaten the vows Asim and Tariq have always sworn to uphold.

  As desire burns hotter than the desert sand, can these powerful sheikhs withstand the heat of temptation?

  Find out in:

  The Sultan’s Harem Bride

  February 2015

  The Sheikh’s Princess Bride

  April 2015

  ANNIE WEST

  The Sultan’s Harem Bride

  Growing up near the beach, Annie West spent lots of time observing tall, burnished lifeguards—early research! Now she spends her days fantasizing about gorgeous men and their love lives. Annie has been a reader all her life. She also loves travel, long walks, good company and great food. You can contact her at annie@annie-west.com or PO Box 1041, Warners Bay, NSW 2282 Australia.

  Other titles by Annie West available in ebook:

  DAMASO CLAIMS HIS HEIR

  AN ENTICING DEBT TO PAY (At His Service)

  IMPRISONED BY A VOW

  CAPTIVE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

  DEFYING HER DESERT DUTY

  UNDONE BY HIS TOUCH (Dark-Hearted Tycoons)

  GIRL IN THE BEDOUIN TENT (Sinful Desert Nights)

  PRINCE OF SCANDAL

  PASSION, PURITY AND THE PRINCE (The Weight of the Crown)

  SCANDAL: HIS MAJESTY’S LOVE-CHILD (Dark-Hearted Desert Men)

  FORGOTTEN MISTRESS, SECRET LOVE-CHILD (Regally Wed)

  THE SAVAKIS MISTRESS (Tall, Dark and Dangerously Sexy)

  BLACKMAILED BRIDE, INNOCENT WIFE (Innocent Wives)

  THE DESERT KING’S PREGNANT BRIDE (Unexpected Babies)

  To my dear friend Karen with love and thanks, not just for now, but always.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘GIVE IT UP, JACK. This is a wild goose chase.’ Imran’s voice came over the hubbub of vehicles, people and livestock thronging the pre-election cavalcade.

  ‘No!’ Jacqui shook her head. ‘You’ll see. It will be worth it.’

  It had to be worth it. They had a chance to interview one of the world’s most hard to meet opposition leaders, an inspirational reformer the authorities would do anything to silence. It was an opportunity not to be missed.

  Yet uneasiness stirred. This jammed street was strangely familiar, as if she’d been here before. The pungent aromas of dust, sweat, spices and dung teased her nostrils. A disturbing sense of déjà vu made her pause.

  Jacqui swung round, looking for Imran’s familiar face.

  Anxiety speared her. Her nape prickled. ‘Imran?’

  ‘Right here, Jack.’ She spun round and there he was, large as life, his camera over one shoulder, his laughing eyes narrowed against the sun.

  Relief thudded in her chest. For a moment Jacqui had feared... Feared what? Her train of thought dissolved.

  ‘This is a long shot, despite the tip-off,’ she said. ‘If you’d rather go to the hotel, I’ll try to locate him then call you.’

  Imran’s expression didn’t change.

  Had she spoken aloud or just thought about it? Confused, she lifted a hand to her hot forehead. Everything felt unreal, strangely distant. Even the faces of the people around them seemed blurred.

  All except Imran.

  Jacqui blinked and tried to focus. The job. The lead. This would be their best story yet. Their news editor wouldn’t believe it if they came in with this exclusive.

  It was an opportunity to reveal the truth about this oppressive regime. Then world powers could no longer plead ignorance and turn a blind eye to the violence.

  ‘Come on, Jack. Don’t dawdle.’ Imran strode ahead, forging easily through the packed street.

  Jacqui tried to follow but her feet seemed stuck to the ground, her limbs weighted. With a supreme effort, she struggled forward a pace. Just one. Around her the crowd slowed too, like a film moving frame by frame.

  All except Imran, striding through the barely moving people. Each step took him further away.

  Jacqui opened her mouth to call his name, urge him to stop. The déjà vu was back, stronger this time. Her flesh crawled in horrified premonition. Her throat constricted, silencing her strained vocal cords.

  Helplessly she watched him meld into the crowd.

  Then it came. The nameless thing she’d been expecting without knowing. A soundless judder of vibration on the air. A quake that made the ground beneath her feet shudder and heave.

  Then the cataclysmic roar. A deafening well of sound, spiralling round her. So loud her ears rang and kept on ringing.

  Finally her stasis broke. She ran, lungs pumping, breath tearing in her throat. Still she couldn’t call out.

  She slammed to a stop. Imran’s camera lay on the ground, its shattered lens glinting in dusty sunlight. He held it fast, fingers clamped round it.

  Jacqui knelt, her brain trying to make sense of the picture before her. The ungainly jumble of limbs, the shapes impossible to comprehend. An unholy cocktail of dust and bright-red liquid spread
all round her, soaking the ground, filling her nostrils.

  She put out a hand to touch what had once been the man she knew better than anyone. A man fit, whole...

  Finally she found her voice. It rose, filling the air, an anguished, wordless scream.

  * * *

  Asim stalked the empty corridor and out into a moonlit courtyard. Annoyance lengthened his stride and made the blood steam in his veins.

  What had possessed his ambassador to suggest that woman as a possible bride? Or hint to the old Emir that he should bring his niece? This should have been a simple state visit to finalise an energy venture between their countries. Instead the Emir’s visit to Jazeer was a potential diplomatic disaster.

  Asim strode past the scented garden and into another passage. The sprawling old palace provided plenty of space to be alone with his impatience.

  Not as good as the freedom of a four-wheel drive on the desert dunes but that luxury was denied him. Asim had to remain here to play host to the Emir and his unwanted niece in the morning. He’d need to soothe the Emir’s pride but make it clear his choice of bride lay elsewhere.

  He grimaced. If beauty were all he required, she might have been a contender. She was one of the most flagrantly gorgeous women he’d met.

  That was saying something. In his youth, Asim had acquired a well-deserved reputation as a connoisseur of beautiful women. Blonde, brunette, redhead, slim, curvaceous, tall or petite. He’d enjoyed them all.

  Did they believe he’d be so seduced by her charms he’d ignore her character? She’d been demure tonight. But Asim knew that in the exclusive holiday hideaways of the mega-wealthy she had an unrivalled reputation for pleasure, for multiple lovers and chemical stimulants.

  Only a fool could think he’d turn a blind eye to that!

  The woman Asim married would become wife to the Sultan of Jazeer. She would be intelligent, beautiful and capable; a devoted mother. She would be a woman of dignity and self-control, of impeccable standards. Not the subject of salacious gossip.

  His wife would be everything his mother hadn’t been.

  Oh, she had been beautiful. And loving, in her own way.

  An icy finger tracked down Asim’s spine.

  Fate preserve him from love!

  That curse had destroyed his parents and now his sister. He had no intention of suffering a similar destiny.

  He drew a slow breath. He’d hoped to keep his decision to acquire a wife quiet. Now speculation would be rife and he’d be bombarded with hopeful candidates.

  A sharp cry brought Asim up short. He lifted his head, searching for its source.

  It came again, an unearthly shriek on the still night air, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It wasn’t a peacock, or a wild dog beyond the city outskirts.

  Asim strode down an arched passageway to an even older building, long disused. The cry sounded again as he emerged into a space wilder and less formal than the other gardens.

  He knew this place. As a boy he’d listened to the old stories of tragedy and avidly watched for proof that the garden was, indeed, haunted.

  Now, at thirty-five, Asim didn’t consider the possibility of meeting a ghost. He was more concerned with the flesh and blood source of that scream.

  It came again. High, anguished, wordless. Its tenor of distress catapulted him forward. As he neared the pavilion on the far side of the garden a glow caught his eye and adrenalin pumped hard in his blood.

  Asim sprinted towards the light. Fire in the centuries-old building would be disastrous.

  Yet there was no scent of smoke, no crackle of burning. Perhaps the flames hadn’t taken hold.

  He slammed through a wide entrance, past dark, empty rooms to a doorway spilling light.

  He jerked to a stop, heart pounding. The peace of the scene before him, after the turmoil he’d expected, flummoxed him for a moment and he strove to take it in.

  An old-fashioned hanging lamp sent shafts of multi-hued light across the wall murals and inlaid floor. The place was bare of furniture but for a small table, a carved chest and a bed.

  It was the bed that caught his attention. He stared, disbelieving, at the woman who lay naked upon it.

  Asim sucked in an astonished breath, his fingers curling around the door jamb.

  Lamplight painted her bare flesh in delicate rainbow hues. Gold across her long, slim legs, lithe and restless. Rose at her hips, over her smooth, pale belly and the V of reddish-brown pubic hair. Lavender across the perfect swell of firm, high breasts that shook and trembled with her agitated breathing. Pale azure over her neat jaw, slender throat and contorting mouth.

  Surprise, curiosity and a surge of raw masculine hunger warred within him at the enticing picture she presented.

  With her arms raised high above her head on a satin cushion, she looked like some delectable feast laid out for his enjoyment—an invitation to touch and taste.

  Sexual arousal slammed into him, congealing thought.

  Asim swallowed as his groin tightened and his blood rushed faster. His gaze drifted from the swell of her dainty breasts to her shifting thighs.

  Heaving an unsteady breath, he grappled back to sanity and strode forward.

  Spikes of damp, tawny hair splayed over the pillow as she tossed her head. Her throat worked and a soft mew emerged from her lips. It had to be a sound of distress, yet some primitive part of him wondered if that was how she’d sound in the throes of passion.

  Heat rose from her. Asim felt it as he stood beside her. Deliberately he clasped his hands behind his back, conquering the base instinct that made him want to reach out.

  He should comfort her. But the compulsion to touch sprang as much from the need to know if her creamy skin was as soft as it looked.

  Asim scrubbed an unsteady palm over his face, forcing down impulses that could only be dishonourable.

  Who was this woman?

  What was she doing in the most ancient part of his palace, alone and naked?

  Despite the gravity of his royal position some women had gone to inordinate lengths to offer themselves to him.

  Was she one of them? Was this her idea of a tantalising new twist on the age-old mating ritual?

  His body’s reaction showed she’d succeeded in piquing his interest.

  In his wilder youth he might have been tempted by such a tactic. But it was a wife he sought now, not a one-night stand.

  Inevitably his gaze was drawn back to her body. She was slim almost to the point of thinness. A model? She was tall enough. Yet she was completely unadorned—not even a ring or gold chain.

  He didn’t know a woman who didn’t wear some jewellery, even if just stud earrings.

  She was so...bare.

  Yet there was no mistaking the powerful tide of desire sweeping him. The dragging weight in his lower body. His heartbeat’s thrum of anticipation. His rapid breathing.

  Asim stretched out his arm. He opened his hand a metre above her and imagined he felt the scrape of one pebbled nipple tease his palm. A jolt of electricity rushed from his fingers, up his arm and straight to his groin. He fisted his hand against the urge to reach down and cup her there.

  Abruptly she moved, scrabbling at the sides of the bed. Her head twisted. She drew an enormous breath that hollowed her belly and thrust her tip-tilted breasts towards him as a muffled sob broke from her lips.

  Asim reared back, shame and disbelief scalding him. He’d been acting the voyeur!

  ‘It’s time to wake up,’ he said, his voice assuming a familiar tone of firm command.

  Asim’s mouth twisted. If only he’d had such command over his own cruder impulses.

  He opened his mouth to repeat the order when she gasped, writhed and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  * * *

 
‘It’s time to wake...time to wake.’ The words circled Jacqui’s brain like a half-forgotten mantra. The ground shook again, heaving her up and down, a boneless rag doll. She didn’t run. Where could she escape to? Why should she? She’d led Imran into danger and now he was dead. How could she even think about surviving herself?

  Heat suffused her like an embrace, at odds with the chill in her bones. Still she clung to Imran’s hand, wishing she could rewind time. For nothing, she knew, could bring him back from this.

  But that voice was insistent, ordering her to pay attention, ordering her to...wake.

  The deafening sound stopped abruptly. It took Jacqui a while to realise it was the sound of her own screams. Her throat was raw and her chest heaved. Fear clawed, though the worst panic began to subside.

  She’d done this before. She knew what it meant. She’d had one of her dreams. Even as she told herself this was reality, this quiet, peaceful place, her brain buzzed anxiously.

  ‘That’s better.’ It was the voice again. Low, soothing, so deep it shivered right to the core of her. ‘You’re awake now, aren’t you?’

  For a moment longer she could swear she grasped Imran’s still-warm hand. Then the sensation faded.

  He was gone. Grief scooped a hollow in her belly.

  Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Stupid, helpless tears that came too easily now. She rubbed her hand across her face, smearing wetness, trying to scrub it away. A choking ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she swallowed clumsily, heedless of the pain.

  Something shifted. The heat on her shoulders abated. Belatedly she realised it was the imprint of long fingers, the touch of hard palms.

  The shreds of nightmare faded as realisation hit. Jacqui’s eyes snapped open on a pulse of shock.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Ebony eyes, deep set beneath slashing straight brows, met hers. They were so intent, so piercing, she saw nothing else as she gasped in astonishment.

  A frown puckered his broad forehead and tiny lines clustered at the corners of his eyes, giving him the look of a man who spent time outdoors in the sun.