Read the book: «Seducing His Princess»
“So how do you intend to play this in front of my family and yours?”
Mohab took Jala’s hands to his lips. “I intend to show everyone how proud I am to be your intended, that this was a hope I had since I first saw you.”
She withdrew her hands. “No need to go overboard or you’ll only make them suspicious.”
She didn’t believe him. He hadn’t thought of marriage in the years he’d craved her from afar, since he’d never thought marriage was in the cards for him at all.
But now, with the turn his life had taken, everything was different. He’d come here still not clear about what he wanted beyond that he wanted her for as long as he could have her. Now he wanted everything. “So your original agreement stands as is?”
He held his breath. Hoping against hope …
Then she breathed, “Yes.”
* * *
Seducing His Princess is part of the Married By Royal Decree series: When the king commands, they say “I do!”
Seducing His
Princess
Olivia Gates
OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.
She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.
When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.
To my endlessly loving and supportive mother.
Thank you for being there for me always.
Love you, always.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Excerpt
Prologue
Six years ago...
A fist of foreboding squeezed Mohab Aal Ghaanem’s heart.
Najeeb was back. And Jala had gone to see him.
Although he had contrived to keep her from seeing Najeeb for months now as part of his original mission to keep them apart, when Najeeb had returned in spite of all his machinations, there’d been nothing further Mohab could do. Nothing but demand Jala not see Najeeb.
And what reason could he have given for asking her not to see his cousin and crown prince? That he was jealous?
She would have been shocked by the notion. At best, this would have made her think he didn’t trust her, or that he wasn’t the progressive man she thought him to be. Personal freedom and boundaries were very touchy subjects with her, and she had serious issues with the “repressive male dinosaurs” prevalent in their culture.
At worst, she might have suspected that he had other motives for wanting to prevent that meeting with her “best friend,” motives that went beyond simple possessiveness. As he did.
So he’d stood back and watched her leave for that dreaded yet inevitable rendezvous. And she hadn’t returned.
Not that she’d said she would. Having an early business meeting the next day close to her house in Long Beach, it made sense for her to spend the night at her home. He wished he could have waited for her there, but though she’d given him keys, the gesture had been only as a token of trust. She’d been adamant about not making their relationship public knowledge before she was ready to do so. He was probably working himself up for nothing but...
B’Ellahi... What was he thinking? It was for nothing. Jala had agreed to marry him. She was his, body and heart. He’d been her first, and he’d always be her only. He should have stopped worrying about how their relationship had started long ago, shouldn’t have tried to keep Najeeb away once his...purpose had been achieved—even if the way it had been had taken him by surprise. He’d already been attracted to Jala, but he surely hadn’t imagined when he’d first approached her that he’d fall for her that hard, that totally.
Emptying his lungs, he strode away from the window. He could barely make out anything from sixty floors up anyway.
Though he was sure he would have seen her.
Since he’d first laid eyes on her, she’d been the only one he ever truly saw, even when others should have been in his focus. As on the day of the hostage crisis, when he’d been sent to save Najeeb and had saved Jala, too.
Najeeb. Again. Everything always came back to him.
Mohab had kept his cousin away from New York, away from Jala, for as long as possible. Any more contrivances would have made Najeeb suspect he was being manipulated. And since there were only a handful of people who had enough power to keep the crown prince of Saraya jumping—his father, King Hassan, his brothers and Mohab himself—Najeeb would have eventually drawn the proper conclusions.
By elimination, only Mohab, as the kingdom’s top secret-service agent, had the skills and resources to invade Najeeb’s privacy, to rearrange his plans, to nudge him wherever he wanted. The next step would have been finding out why.
So Mohab had been forced to let his cousin come back. To let Jala go to him. At nine o’clock this morning. That had been eleven hours ago.
What could be taking her so long?
Kaffa. Enough. Why not just call her instead of having a full-blown obsessive episode?
So he did. And it went straight to voice mail. Time and again.
When another hour passed and she hadn’t called back, he tore out of his penthouse, numb with dread.
By the time he arrived at her house his nerves had snapped, one at a time. What if she was lying unconscious or unable to reach her phone? What if she’d been mugged...or worse? She was so beautiful, and he’d seen how men looked at her. What if someone had followed her home?
He barged inside and was hit at once with the certainty. She was there. Her presence permeated the place.
He ran upstairs, homing in on her. As he approached her bedroom, he heard sounds. To his distraught ears, they sounded like distress. Coming from the bathroom.
He tore inside. And there she was. In the shower cubicle. Facing the door. She saw him as soon as he saw her.
At his explosive entry, she lurched, her steam-obscured face contorting, her lips parting. He assumed she’d gasped or even cried out. He could hear nothing now above the cacophony of his own turmoil and the spray of water. All he knew was that she was here. She was safe.
And he was tearing off his clothes, his only need to prove to himself both facts.
Then he was inside the cubicle, dragging her into his arms, groaning as he felt her warm resilience slamming against his aching flesh, her cry shuddering through him as he drove trembling hands into her soaked tresses, his feverish gaze roaming her water-streaked face. That face, that body, that essence, had taken control of his fantasies from the instant he’d seen her, from the very moment he’d claimed her. And she’d claimed him right back. Throughout these past five months, with each caress, with each passion-filled encounter, he found himself craving her more and more. His hunger for her knew no bounds.
“Mohab...”
He swallowed her gasp, drove his tongue inside her fragrant, delicious depths and she started squirming, building his fire higher. He needed to be inside her, possessing her, pleasuring her. Reassuring himself she was whole and all his.
His hand glided between her smooth thighs, sought her core. His fingers slid between her slick folds, and his head almost burst with the sledgehammer of arousal. Knowing she would love his urgency, that the edge of discomfort his ferocity would cause would amplify her pleasure, he cupped her perfect buttocks and opened her silky thighs around his hips. Capturing her lips again and again in ravaging kisses, he sought her entrance, flexed then sheathed himself in her molten tightness in one long, forceful thrust.
The sharpness of her cry, a testament to the intensity of her enjoyment, heightened his frenzy, her hot gust of passion expanding in his own lungs. Then he withdrew and pistoned back, needing to merge with her, dissolve in her, knowing it would send her berserk. It was unraveling him, too—acute sensations layering with every plunge, ratcheting with each withdrawal. The carnal groans torn from their depths rode him higher and higher. He felt his climax hurtling from his very essence, felt her shuddering uncontrollably, heard the sound of her tortured squeals telling him she’d explode in ecstasy if he gave her the cadence and force she needed.
Unable to prolong this torment a second more, he gave it to her, his full force behind his jackhammering thrusts, until she convulsed in his arms and her shrieks of pleasure snapped his own tension. He all but felt himself detonate in a violent release, the most intense he’d ever felt, his seed burning through his length, jetting into her depths to mingle with her own gushing climax.
At last, the severity of sensations leveled, leaving him so satiated, so depleted, he could barely stand. She collapsed in his arms as she always did. Taking her down to the floor, he soothed her, and she surrendered to his ministrations, letting him fondle and suckle her, pour wonder and worship all over her.
Then he carried her out of the shower and dried them both off. As he bent to take her to bed, she pushed out of his arms, unsteadily waddling away to fetch her bathrobe.
He winced. How insensitive could he be? He’d scared her witless bursting in here, made her limp with satiation for hours and could only think of continuing their intimacies?
He put on his pants as she turned to him, wrapped in the stark white bathrobe, her golden flesh glowing in contrast. The need to ravish her again almost overpowered him.
“What was that all about?”
He saw the hardness in her eyes before he heard it in her tone. Something he’d never been exposed to before.
Suddenly wary, he shrugged. “Wasn’t it self-evident?”
“Not to me. What brought you here in the first place?”
Disturbed by her coldness, especially after the inferno they’d just shared, he told her what he could. At the tail end of his account, he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “And then I found you in there and all I could think was that you’re safe. And I was, as always, starving for you.” He tried a coaxing smile. “Finding you already unwrapped was most opportune.”
“So you thought it was okay to barge in here and just have your way with me?”
The harsh accusation hit him between the eyes. She’d never been angry with him before. And to be so for the first time today, of all days, jarred him.
He found his own voice hardening. “You loved every second. You came so hard you blew my brains out.”
She shrugged, not contesting that truth, those molten-gold eyes growing harder. “The point is, you disregarded my choice. Your overriding tactics have become a pattern.”
“What ‘overriding tactics’?”
“All your manipulation, ending with trying to keep me from seeing Najeeb. You think I’m so oblivious I didn’t notice? Oh, I noticed, all right...every time you nudged and cajoled. Every time you artfully overruled me. You’re almost undetectable, but I’ve had enough time and proximity to decipher your methods.”
So she’d caught on.
Either he’d underestimated her astuteness...or he couldn’t keep a cool enough head around her to maintain the seamless subterfuge he normally employed in his professional life.
Coming clean wasn’t an option, though. He couldn’t let her know why he’d originally approached her, or how he’d kept Najeeb away, or why. He couldn’t risk that she might suspect the genuineness of his current involvement. They already had too much working against their relationship to introduce internal strife. The feud that had long raged between their families was enough of an obstacle on its own. He had to deny any culpability. There was just too much at stake.
“Why would I want to stop you from seeing Najeeb?”
She glared up at him, then turned and walked out.
Unable to believe she’d turned her back on him, he watched her, that fist of foreboding squeezing his insides again.
Mohab finished dressing, then followed her into her bedroom. His mind churning, he approached her where she stood across the room in jeans and a T-shirt, raven hair starting to dry into a waterfall of gloss, looking heartbreakingly perfect.
“I’m sorry I got carried away in there,” he started. “I didn’t think you’d mind...didn’t think at all. I’ve never been so frightened in my life, and I overreacted....”
“I could have said stop. I didn’t. So let’s drop it.”
“Let’s not. If you’re angry with me, don’t just freeze me out.” He stopped before her, ran a finger down her velvet cheek. “I beg your forgiveness, ya habibati, if you felt I was disregarding your choices. I didn’t mean to, and I—”
“Don’t.” Her interruption was exasperated this time. “It doesn’t matter. I actually think it’s a good opportunity to finally tell you what I’ve been putting off for too long.”
“Tell me what?”
“That I wasn’t in any condition to make a rational decision when I accepted your marriage proposal.”
His heart faltered. “What do you mean?”
“I was experiencing a postsex high for the first time, which was heightened by the fact that I was already indebted to you for saving my life during the hostage crisis. So when you hit me with your proposal, I found myself saying yes. I’ve tried to take it back ever since, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“You did no such thing.” Denial rasped out of him. He shook his head, as if to snap out of the nightmare. “Is this why you kept putting off telling anyone about us? Not because you were afraid our families’ feud would impact our relationship, but because you were having second thoughts?”
“I’m not just having second thoughts. I’m certain I don’t want to get married.”
That was it? A case of commitment phobia? That was something he could deal with.
He drew a breath of relief into his tight chest. “I can understand your wariness. You struggled for your independence. You might think you’d lose it with marriage. But I’ll never encroach on your freedoms....” At her baleful glance, he insisted, “Whatever my transgressions, they were unintended. Guide me in navigating your comfort zones and I’ll always abide by them. If I pushed you into a commitment too soon, I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
“I’ll never be ready to marry you.”
He stared at her, beyond shocked, the ferocity of her rejection an ax cleaving into his heart.
Just yesterday, he’d thought everything was perfect between them. And she’d had all this resentment seething inside her? How had he been so oblivious?
This led him to the only possible explanation. A dreadful one. “Have you received a better offer?”
At his rough whisper, she turned away again. He wanted to pounce on her, to roar that she couldn’t do this to him, to them. He remained paralyzed, sick electricity arcing in his clenched fists, jumbling his heart’s rhythm.
He forced more mutilating deductions from numb lips. “Since this is coming right after you visited Najeeb, I assume he finally popped the question.”
She bent to pick up her laptop, as if she’d already dismissed him from her life. Heartache morphed into fury, all his early, long-forgotten suspicions about the nature of her relationship with Najeeb crashed into his mind.
“That’s why you wheedled into his life, isn’t it? But then he left, and you thought he wouldn’t come through, and you were...what? Keeping me as plan B in case he didn’t propose? And now you got the offer you were after all along, the one where you become a future queen, and I’m suddenly redundant?”
She turned the eyes of a total stranger to him. “I’d hoped we could part on civil terms.”
“Civil?” His growl sounded like a wounded beast’s. “You expect me to stand aside and let you marry my cousin?”
“I expect you to know you have no say in what I do.”
And he went mad with pain and rage. “You can’t just toss me aside and hook up with him. In fact, you can forget it. Najeeb will withdraw his offer as soon as I tell him how I made you...ineligible to be his princess. Regularly, hard and long, for five months. That I even took you after you said yes to him.”
Her eyes filled with something he’d never dreamed he’d see in them. Loathing. “And I expected you to take my decision like a gentleman. But I’m glad you showed me how vicious and dishonorable you can be when you’re thwarted. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right to end this.”
His blood congealed as she turned away. “You really think you can end it...just like that?”
Hearing his butchered growl, she turned at the door. “Yes. And I hope you won’t make it uglier than it has already become.”
His feet dragged under the weight of his heart as he approached her. “B’Ellahi...you loved me.... You said so.... I felt it.”
“Whatever I said, whatever you think you felt, it’s over. I never want to see you again.”
He caught her, the feel of her intensifying his desperation. “You might think you mean it now, but you’re mine, Jala. And no matter how long it takes, I swear to you, I will reclaim you. I will make you beg to be mine again.”
“I was never yours. If you think you have a claim on me, I will repay you for saving my life one day. But not with my life.”
His fingers sank into her shoulders, as if it would stop her from vanishing. “I don’t care who Najeeb is. I’ll destroy him before I let him have you. I’ll destroy anyone who comes near you.”
The disdain in her eyes rose. Everything he said sent her another step beyond retrieval.
“So now I know why you’re called Al Moddammer.” The Destroyer. The label he’d earned when he’d decimated conspiracies and terrorist organizations. “You annihilate anyone who becomes an obstacle to your objectives. Not to mention anyone who comes close to you.”
His heart seized painfully. He’d never thought she’d ever use that knowledge against him. What else had he been wrong about?
Her disgust as she severed his convulsive grip told him this was it. It was over. Worse still, it might never have been real. Everything they’d shared, everything he’d thought they’d meant to each other might have all been in his mind.
Before she receded out of his life, she murmured, “Find yourself someone else who might have a death wish. Because I don’t.”
One
Present day...
“Do you have a death wish?”
Mohab almost laughed out loud. A bitterly amused huff did escape him as he rose to his feet to meet the king of Judar.
What were the odds? That these exact words would be the first thing Kamal Aal Masood said to him when they’d been the last thing the man’s kid sister had flung at Mohab?
Guess it was true what was said about Kamal and Jala. That the two youngest in the Aal Masood sibling quartet could have been identical twins—if they hadn’t been born male and female and twelve years apart. Their resemblance was uncanny.
With the historical enmity between their kingdoms, Mohab had only seen Kamal from afar. He’d last beheld him at the time of his joloos—as he’d sat on the throne, five and a half years ago. Not that Mohab had manipulated his way into Judar that night to see him. Jala had been his only objective. But she hadn’t attended her own brother’s wedding. Yet another thing he’d failed to predict where she was concerned.
Something else he’d failed to predict was how it would feel seeing this guy up close. Kamal looked so much like Jala, it...ached deep in his chest.
It was as if someone had taken Jala and turned her into an older, intimidating male version of herself. They shared the same wealth of raven hair, the same whiskey-colored eyes and the same bone structure. The only differences were those of gender. Kamal’s bronze complexion was shades darker than Jala’s golden flawlessness, and at six foot six, the king of Judar would tower over his sister’s statuesque five-nine, just as he once had. Her big brother was also more than double her size, but they shared the same feline grace and perfect proportions. While all that made her the embodiment of a fairy-tale princess, Kamal was the epitome of a hardened desert raider, exuding limitless power. And exercising it, too.
At forty, Kamal was one of the most influential individuals in the world, and had been so even before his two older brothers had abdicated the throne of Judar to him in a chain reaction of court drama and royal family scandals that still rocked the region and changed its course forever.
Now Kamal’s lupine eyes simmered with the trademark menace famous for intimidating anyone he seared with his gaze. “Anything you find particularly amusing, Aal Ghaanem?”
“Your opening remark revived a memory of another...person mentioning death wishes.” At Kamal’s fierce glower, Mohab’s smile spread. “What? You think I find you, or being escorted here like a prisoner of war, amusing?”
He’d expected worse arriving in Judar, with tensions between Saraya and Judar at a historic high. In fact, just yesterday, his king had all but declared war on Judar during a global broadcast from a UN summit. For Mohab, a prince of Saraya second in rank only to the king and his heirs, to land uninvited on Judarian soil in these fraught times was cause for extreme concern. Especially when said prince also happened to be the former head of Saraya’s secret service. He’d expected to be put on the first flight out of Judar. Or even to be taken into custody.
In a preemptive bluff, he’d asserted he had time-sensitive business with King Kamal and the king would punish whoever detained him. That sent border security officials at the airport scrambling for orders from the royal palace. Mohab had half expected his gamble to fall through, that Kamal would have him kicked out of the kingdom. But within minutes, a dozen of Judar’s finest secret-service men had descended on Mohab, breathing down his neck all the way here.
Apparently they considered him that dangerous. He was flattered, really.
“So you find death wishes a source of amusement? A daredevil by nature, not only by trade, eh? Figures. But aren’t you also supposed to be meticulous and prudent? I thought that’s why you’re still in one piece after all the crazy stunts you’ve pulled. Isn’t it the first thing you’re taught when you’re hatched in Saraya—that Judar doesn’t sustain life for your species?”
His species. The Aal Ghaanems. The Aal Masoods’ mortal enemies. Aih. There was that stumbling block, too.
“So again...do you have a death wish? Don’t you know that, now more than ever, a high-profile Sarayan like you at large in Judar could have been targeted for any level of retribution?”
Mohab flattened a palm over his heart. “I’m touched you’re concerned about keeping me in one piece. But I assure you, I behaved in an exemplary fashion, antagonizing no one.”
“No one but me. Arriving unannounced, terrorizing my subjects, forcing me to drop everything to investigate your incursion. Is this your king’s last hope now that he’s put his foot in his mouth on global feed? Is he afraid I’ll finally knock him off his throne, as I should have long ago? Has he sent his wild card to deal with the crisis...at the root?”
“You think I’m here to...what? Assassinate you?” A huff of incredulity burst from Mohab. “I may be into impossible missions, but I’m not fond of suicidal ones. And I was almost strip-searched for anything that could even make you sneeze.”
Kamal’s laserlike gaze contemplated Mohab’s mocking grin. “From my reports, you can probably take out my royal guard stripped and with both hands tied behind your back.”
“Ah, you flatter me, King Kamal. I’d need one hand to go through them all.”
The other man’s steady gaze told him Kamal believed Mohab was capable of just that—and more—and wasn’t the least bit fooled by his joking tone. “I have records of some true mission-impossible scenarios that you’ve pulled off. If anyone can enter a maximum-security palace with only the clothes on his back and manage to blow it up and walk away without a scratch, it’s you.”
Mohab’s lips twitched. “If you believe I can get away with your murder, why did you agree to see me?”
“Because I’m intrigued.”
“Enough to risk letting such a lethal entity within reach? You must be bored out of your mind being king.”
Kamal exhaled. “You don’t know the half of it—or how good you have it. A prince who is in no danger of finding himself on a throne, a black-ops professional who had the luxury of switching to a freelance career...emphasis on the ‘free’ part.”
“While you’re the king of a minor kingdom you’ve made into a major one, and a revered leader who has limitless power at his fingertips and the most amazing family a man can dream of having.”
“Apart from my incomparable wife and children, I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat.”
Mohab laughed out loud. “The last thing I expected coming here is that I’d be standing with you, in the heart of Aal Masood territory, with us envying each other.”
“In a better world, I would have offered you anything to have your skills at my disposal and you at my side. Too bad we’re on opposite sides with no way to bridge the divide.”
Mohab pounced on the opening. “That’s why I’m here. To offer not only to bridge that divide, but to obliterate it.”
Kamal frowned. “You deal in extractions, containments and cleanups. Why send you to offer political solutions?”
“I’m here on my own initiative because I’m the solution.”
His declaration was met by an empty stare.
Then Kamal drawled, “Strange. You seem quite solid.” Mohab chuckled at Kamal’s unexpected dry-as-tinder wit, drawing a rumble from Kamal. “I have zero tolerance for wastes of time. If you prove to be one, you will spend a few nights as an honored guest in my personal dungeon.”
“Is this a way to talk to the man who can give you Jareer?”
Kamal clamped his arm. “Kaffa monawaraat wa ghomood...enough evasions and ambiguity. Explain, and fast, or...”
“Put down your threats. I am here to mend our kingdoms’ relations, and there’s nothing I want more than to accomplish that as fast as possible.”
“Zain. You have ten minutes.”
“Twenty.” Before Kamal blasted him, Mohab preempted him. “Don’t say fifteen.”
Kamal’s gaze lengthened. “As an only child you missed out on having an older sibling kick your ass in your formative years. I’m close to rectifying your deficiency.”
Mohab grinned. “Think you can take me on, King Kamal?”
“Definitely.”
And Mohab believed it. Kamal wasn’t a pampered royal depending on others’ service and protection. This man was a warrior first and foremost. That he’d chosen to fight in the boardroom and now in the world’s political arenas didn’t mean he wouldn’t be as effective on an actual battlefield.
Before Mohab made a rejoinder, the king turned and crossed his expansive stateroom to the sitting area. Mohab suspected it was to hide a smile so as not to acknowledge this affinity that had sprung up between them.
Kamal resumed speaking as soon as Mohab took a seat across from him. “So why do you think you can give me Jareer...when I already have it, Sheikh Prince Solution?”
A laugh burst out of Mohab’s depths. That clinched it. He didn’t care that other people thought Kamal scary or boorish. To him, the guy was just plain rocking fun.
Kamal’s lips twisted in response, but didn’t lift.
“There is no law prohibiting an Aal Masood from smiling at an Aal Ghaanem, you know.”
Kamal’s lips pursed instead. “I may issue one prohibiting just that. The way you’re going, you might end up making the dispute between Judar and Saraya even more...insoluble.”
Mohab sighed. “So...Jareer, euphemistically referred to as our kingdoms’ contested region...”
“And currently known as our kingdoms’ future war zone,” Kamal finished.
Not if Mohab managed to resolve this.
Jareer used to be under Saraya’s rule. But the past few Sarayan monarchs had had no foresight. They’d centralized everything, neglecting then abandoning outlying regions. Jareer, on the border with Judar, had always been considered useless, because it lacked resources, and traitorous, because its citizens were akin to “enemy sympathizers.” So when Judar had laid claim to Jareer, with its people’s welcome, Mohab’s grandfather, King Othman, had considered it good riddance.
But when Mohab’s uncle, King Hassan, sat on Saraya’s throne, he’d reignited old conflicts with Judar. His favorite crusade had been reclaiming Jareer. Not because he’d suspected its future importance, but to spite the region’s inhabitants—and because he wanted more reasons to fight the Aal Masoods.
Then, two months ago, oil had been discovered in Jareer. Now the situation had evolved from an idle conflict between two monarchs to a struggle over limitless wealth and power. In a war between the two kingdoms, Saraya would be decimated for generations to come.
Only Mohab had the power to stop this catastrophe. Theoretically. There was still the possibility that Kamal would hear his proposition and reward his audacity by throwing him in that personal dungeon before wiping Saraya off the face of the earth.
One thing made Mohab hope this wouldn’t happen. Kamal himself. He was convinced that, though Kamal had every reason to crush Saraya, he would rather not. He hadn’t become one of the greatest kings by being reactionary—or by achieving prosperity for his kingdom at the cost of another kingdom’s destruction.
The free excerpt has ended.
