Free Scandal: His Majesty's Love-Child by Annie West Page B

controlled himself. He should have known.
    Hell! What did he know about virgins?
    And, frankly, what did he care? Once he’d had Annalisa under him he hadn’t been able to wait to have her again.
    She turned and sunlight fell across her face.
    What he saw there made his pulse thump out of kilter.
    The cold feeling at his spine crept through his body, turning his organs to leaden lumps of ice.
    Her once flawless skin was marred by angry reddened rashes. Around her mouth, on her cheeks and neck.
    Whisker-burn.
    More, there was a purpling mark on her throat. Another just visible at her neckline.
    Where his teeth had grazed her.
    Tahir’s stomach swooped as it had the day his chopper crashed. But this time it didn’t stop falling.
    He shut his eyes against nausea as a vision from the past rose. His father staggering from a banquet with his closest, must corrupt cronies, his newest mistress tucked close beside him. Except his mistress had been a scared teenager who’d cringed at Yazan Al’Ramiz’s touch.
    His father had swatted him away like a fly when he’d tried to intervene, a skinny thirteen-year-old without the skill to tackle a full-grown man who knew every dirty trick. Tahir had gone down hard, cracking his head and coming to far too late to intervene again.
    But he’d seen her the next day. Pale, with a livid bruise along her cheek. She hadn’t seen him. She’d been too absorbed in misery to notice anyone.
    The sound of Annalisa’s off-key humming broke across the memory.
    Last night hadn’t been the same.
    Annalisa had wanted him. Pleaded with him.
    Except he’d used his sexual expertise to make her beg for something she didn’t fully understand. He’d wanted her and set out to get her, even to the extent of having her admit it was she who wanted him.
    As if that exonerated him.
    Nothing changed the fact that he’d stolen her innocence.
    Now she looked at him with stars in her eyes. Even through barely opened lids he saw her innocent wonder.
    As if he was some fairytale hero.
    As if he was the answer to a maiden’s prayers.
    The knot of glacial ice in his belly had sharp edges. It ripped his guts when he tried to breathe. It cut through his self-satisfaction and his excuses about last night.
    It reminded him he was his father’s son. Decadent. Self-interested. A man obsessed with pleasure.
    The fact that Tahir found pleasure almost nowhere these days didn’t alter the truth that he was as flawed as Yazan Al’Ramiz. He was the last man on earth she should be building castles in the air over.
    For that was what she was doing. He could see it in her eyes. Annalisa was so refreshingly transparent.
    Regret lanced him, so powerful it was a physical pain even stronger than what he already suffered.
    He ignored it.
    Annalisa would not be a casualty of his vices. She’d forget about him and get on with her life with never a backward glance.
    He’d cure her of her romantic daydreams.
    He owed her that much.

CHAPTER SIX
    H E WAS awake. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, glinting like sunlight on the ocean. Her heart gave an awkward thump then settled into something like a steady beat, albeit far too rapid.
    ‘I’ve made you breakfast.’ She knelt beside him, eyes lowered, wishing she had the nerve to reach out and touch him as she had last night. But in the bright morning light she felt shy. It would be easier soon, when he smiled, caressed her. Maybe even tugged her down to him.
    Heat sizzled in her stomach.
    She wasn’t sorry it had happened. Stunned, yes. Amazed at how beautiful it had been. But not regretful. It had been the single most wonderful experience of her life.
    Tahir had been exquisitely tender and generous. She’d heard enough matrons gossiping about wedding nights to know not all women enjoyed their first time with a man.
    Annalisa had done more than enjoy. Tahir had given her ecstasy. Warmth and connection and unbelievable pleasure. More, he’d bestowed something she couldn’t name.