Free The Sheikh's Jewel by Melissa James

to sleep.
    * * *
    Amber couldn’t remember waking so peacefully since she was a child. In fact, had she ever woken feeling this warm and snuggly, secure and happy?
    There was a sound beside her, a slow, rhythmic cadence she couldn’t recognise. There was a scent she couldn’t define, filling every breath she took. Where was she?
    Opening her eyes, she saw the light sprinkling of dark hair scattered across an unclad male chest lying right before her eyes. She took in a slow, deep breath, and it came again, the scent of belonging, as if she’d come home at last.
    She barely dared lift her gaze—but she knew the scent, the feeling it gave her. She’d known it for so long from so far away. It was him. The perfectly sculpted statue of ice had become all warm, solid male. Her untouchable husband was within her reach at last.
    They had so many problems to overcome. Their hopes and fears and most of their lives were unknown to each other—but at this moment, she didn’t care. He was here. She was gripped by a long-familiar urge.
    Could she do it?
    It had started on their wedding night when he’d come to her, dressed as a groom ready to love his bride. It had persisted even after she’d emerged from the bathroom that night, clad only in a towel. With a glance, he’d gathered his blasted paperwork and bowed to her, the movement fairly dripping with irony, and, with a twist to his lips, he’d left the room without a word. She hadn’t slept in weeks after that—and she’d endured three hundred and forty-four restless, hungry, angry nights after he’d refused her bed last year. Sometimes she thought she’d give anything to have this farce come to an end, and she could find a man who would actually desire her. But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t let her go, either.
    The thunk came again, a sickening hit in the stomach at the remembered rejection. So why did the aching need to taste him with her lips and tongue still fill every pore of her? Why did she want him so badly when he was so cold and uncaring? She could never seem to break this stupid desire for the husband who despised her. The need to touch him was like the heat of a gold-refiner’s furnace. There was no point in ignoring facts when just by her looking at him now, by her lying so close to him, her pulse was pounding so hard she wondered if it would wake him. Wondered and hungered, as she danced on a fine blade-point of need and pride and the soul-destroying fear of another rejection.
    Do it. Just kiss him once, a little voice in her head whispered, soft and insistent. Maybe it will cure you of all this wondering. Maybe it won’t be as good as you think.
    Was she leaning into him, or was she dreaming again? His lips, parted in dreams were so close, closer than they’d ever been—
    His eyes opened, looking right into hers.
    Her breath caught, and she danced that razor-fine point again, aching and fearful as she scrambled to find her pride, the coldness that had been her salvation in all her dealings with him. Was the returning hunger she saw in his eyes merely a product of her overwrought imagination? If only she knew him well enough to find the courage, to ask.
    If only every chance she’d ever taken hadn’t left her alone with her humiliation.
    Harun’s gaze drifted lower. Torn between slight indignation and the spark heating her blood at the slow flame in his eyes, familiar pride rushed back to save her, won over the need for the unknown. She lifted a hand to tug at the neckline of her negligée, but the other hand jerked up with it. Looking down, she saw she was tied in silken bonds, as soft as the silken negligee that barely covered her nudity beneath.
    As if she had never seen him before, Amber turned back to Harun. She let her gaze take him all in. He was almost naked…and he was fully aroused.
    Blushing so hard it felt like fire on her cheeks, she saw his knowing, gentle smile. He knew she wanted him, and still he didn’t say a word, didn’t touch