Sliding between her thighs, he kissed his way down her throat to her sensitive breasts. Despite the tension whipping through him, he took his time, moulding and caressing her, until she begged him to stop torturing her. But he merely transferred his attention lower, stopping to plant reverent kisses on her belly before he parted her thighs with a firm demand.
Rahim showed her just how potent a lover he was. By the time he reared up over her, Allegra was near-delirious with ecstasy. But she knew she wasn’t complete.
Not until he truly made her his.
Finally, he surged inside her. His name spilled from her lips in a stifled scream. He exhaled harshly, his mouth searing across hers before he thrust home again.
‘Allegra, my beauty,’ he groaned against her ear as he sent them both higher.
‘Rahim...’
‘Your husband,’ he croaked, the command clear.
‘My husband,’ she obeyed, laying herself wide open to the spiritual sealing of their commitment.
Then she was soaring, her heart already halfway to delivering itself to the man who owned her. That she wanted nothing more than to place it at his feet right then should’ve been the first sign that she was falling in love with Rahim.
But Allegra was too wrapped up in bliss to care. After they fell back to earth, she opened her eyes to a renewed brightness in the tent.
‘I thought you turned the lights down?’ Her voice was a husky slur.
Rahim reached out and turned the glare back down. ‘I had to turn it back up for a moment?’
She stared back at him. ‘Had to?’
He smiled. ‘A short evidence of the marriage’s consummation.’
Allegra felt her face flame as she recalled that part of the traditional ceremony. ‘Oh, God! Our silhouettes against the tent?’
He nodded, laughing at her horror.
‘How many people will be watching?’
He shrugged. ‘No one will confirm it but at least one or two of the elders will be on the mountain to witness our joining. Maybe more.’
As if on cue, another boom sounded, this time much closer to the tent. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Our union has been approved.’
Minutes later, Rahim was still chuckling at her embarrassment. Rising, he filled a platter with the food that had been laid on a low table in the sitting area. After feeding her dates, sun-ripened tomatoes and stuffed vine leaves, he disposed of the dishes, came back to bed and pulled her into his arms.
Settling deeper into the bliss that flowed from her soul, Allegra combed her fingers through his hair, more content than she’d ever been in her life.
‘Your beautiful eyes have lost focus. What’s on your mind, habibi?’ he enquired after a few minutes of peaceful silence.
‘I’ve never believed in fate and destiny. But after everything that’s happened to us...’ Her voice drifted off, her fear that she would reveal too much and drive him away a living thing inside her.
‘And you believe it now?’
‘My grandfather believed in hard work and ambition...or so I thought until recently.’
Rahim leaned back and stared down at her. ‘What are you saying?’
She cupped his jaw, revelling in the rough maleness of his skin. ‘Today, it occurred to me that everything I’ve done has led me here. It may sound absurd, but I can’t help but think I’m right where I need to be.’
Leaning down, he kissed her long and deep. Then he caught her closer to him, his strong arms wrapping her tight...tighter, until their hearts echoed one another’s, then beat as one.
‘It’s not absurd, ya galbi. Not absurd at all.’
At dawn, Allegra rose to use the bathroom. Smiling at Rahim’s disgruntled protest to her leaving the bed, she entered the luxurious bathroom and crossed to the stall. She wasn’t certain what made her look down.
The blood on her thighs didn’t make sense at first. She was carrying the child of her heart. Fate itself had handed her this precious gift.
But then she remembered that until today she’d never truly believed in fate. Fate had only ever taken from her, not given. It’d taken her parents. It was stealing her grandfather right from under her helpless nose.
And now it was about to take her very soul.
‘Rahim!’
RAHIM JERKED AWAKE, his blood curdling as it always did each time he dreamed of her screaming his name. Sweat dripping from his brow, he rose from his narrow cot and stumbled to the window. The view over the racetrack was the same as it had been yesterday and the day before that. Last week, it’d been views over the cratered land mass that constituted the rejuvenated oil fields in the northernmost point of Dar-Aman. In the three weeks before it’d been over different sites just like these.
The work involved with rebuilding his kingdom was unrelenting and punishing. And he welcomed every second of it. He needed the punishment. Because with each tunnel dug or brick laid with his bare hands, Rahim could reward himself with taking another breath, knowing he was atoning in some small way for his hubris.
How many times had he condemned his father for the same mistakes he’d ended up making?
He’d arrogantly believed he could have it all. Allegra. His child. His kingdom.
His wedding night had showed him just how wrong he could be.
Rahim had believed he’d found a way to taste happiness without losing his heart or his head. When Allegra had spoken of fate and paths taken, he’d even begun to let go of the anger he’d felt for his father, while patting himself on the back for getting it right this time. He’d taken every precaution he could. Allegra’s doctors had assured him his new wife and the baby were both fine. That he could enjoy his wedding night like any newlywed. Heaven had beckoned and he’d lost his mind.
Just like his father had believed he could have it all, once upon a time, Rahim had started dreaming of forever, forgetting that in one single night Khalid Al-Hadi had lost everything. Including the son whose face he hadn’t been able to stomach looking at because he reminded him of his loss.
Rahim knew all this, and yet he’d put himself at the same risk, and placed Allegra and their baby’s well-being on the line through his greedy yearning for what he shouldn’t have craved in the first place.
Laying his head against the cool glass of the nearly completed paddock VIP suite’s window, he tried to stem the other conversations running through his head.
Striding to the phone next to his sleeping place, he punched the numbers.
The voice that answered was groggy and disgruntled.
‘I need an update on how the latest ultrasound went.’
Frantic scrambling in the background proceeded a halting, ‘Your Highness? A thousand pardons but it is the middle of the night.’ At Rahim’s terse silence, more scrambling ensued. ‘Please hold on, Your Highness... I’ll just grab the notes.’
Irrational rage flared up his spine. ‘You mean you can’t remember results of a test you conducted just this afternoon?’
‘Please, Your Highness, I have it.’ The doctor cleared his throat. ‘Both child and mother are in excellent health. The pregnancy is thriving.’
Rahim allowed the veiled implication that others were not thriving sail over his head. ‘And?’