More Precious than a Crown Page 5

  ‘Oh.’

  Well, that settled that, then, Trinity thought. There was nothing to stop them other than her fear and that she could not stand being held by a man, except she was being held now and there was no urge to run, there was no urge to do anything other than receive the lips softly descending on hers.

  Would he be able to tell from her kiss, her terror? Trinity wondered.

  No, she fast realised, because to his mouth there was no terror, just the melting of fear and the bliss of his lips and the stroke of his tongue.

  Would he be able to tell from her rigid body that she did not know how to respond, that her body refused to obey?

  No, because she sank into his embrace without thought and the press of his erection against her felt like a reward.

  His mouth did make the pain disappear; his kiss did, on a night she had been dreading, actually allow her to forget, and Trinity found out something new—it was very hard to kiss and smile at the same time but she was trying.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Zahid said, as she paused for a moment and allowed her mouth to stretch into the beam that this moment deserved.

  ‘Smiling,’ Trinity said. ‘That’s better.’ For her lips could better relax against his now.

  He kissed her deeper, and Trinity felt the weight of his mouth and the hastening of his tongue as he pulled her harder into him, she felt again the press of him on her stomach. The ugliest dress in the world fast became her favourite as his hands roamed the silk and located the not-so-stupid concealed zip and expertly slid it down just enough for his thumb to stroke her aching nipple.

  The sirens were back, the sirens she’d heard but once, only they were louder now, closer now, with each and every stroke of his tongue.

  Her hands were in his hair, she was back on tiptoe again but with the guide of his hand this time and the sirens neared dangerously close for both of them. She wanted him to lift her, she wanted her legs coiled around his hips. Visions of just that took over as Zahid struggled to halt her ascent, for he wanted to lift her, he wanted to be inside her but he would never compromise her.

  ‘Not here...’ Zahid pulled his mouth from her lips but they did not leave her face as she spoke. ‘As I said, you deserve better than the woods. Do what you have to and then...’

  She shivered at what Zahid left unsaid.

  He kissed her ear and then peeled his face from hers and turned her a little. Lifting her arm, he dealt with the zip but did not leave things there. Instead, he kissed the sensitive flesh of her upper arm, and how he found her armpit sexy, she would never know, but clearly he did, because he was deep kissing her there now. Her panties were soaking. Trinity wanted to be back in his arms, but he turned her to face him and straightened her dress and then rearranged a few tendrils of her hair. ‘I will be in in a moment,’ Zahid said.

  ‘Come in with me.’

  ‘Trinity, go in.’ Zahid’s smile was wry for there was no way he could go back to the reception just yet. ‘I’ll be there soon.’

  She almost floated in, just on a high from his kiss and the very real promise of tonight. Finally, finally, her body seemed to know how to respond, finally the curse was lifting.

  It was possibly the very worst time to come face to face with her mother, closely followed by Clive.

  ‘Everyone’s waiting for you, Trinity,’ Dianne said.

  She just stood there, praying for Zahid to come up behind her, to take her hand, to just walk her away, but instead she faced this man with only the pathetic barrier of her mother between them.

  ‘It’s time to sing!’ Dianne smiled.

  ‘You want me to sing?’ Trinity said, her voice a challenge.

  ‘You know that I do.’

  One moment she had been the happiest she’d ever been, Trinity realised, but now she was suddenly the angriest.

  Oh, she’d sing!

  Trinity was ready to sing from the treetops now!

  She marched into the hall, muttering, and strode up to the microphone.

  Yes, she’d sing, Trinity decided, wrenching the microphone from its stand. She’d sing as loudly as she knew how if the microphone would just stop screeching feedback.

  Her starting number would be, Trinity decided, ‘I Was Seventeen Going on Eighteen’, and she’d point to Clive as she sang, as she told the whole world about that night.

  The skeletons were coming out to play, the linen basket was going to be emptied too!

  Yay!

  She felt as angry and as uninhibited as Harry had been on the plane, and there was no need to hide anything, none at all.

  Zahid walked into the hall in time to see Trinity stalk to the microphone and start to tap at it, tossing her hair. Her eyes spelt danger and Zahid turned as Dianne came and stood beside him. For once she wasn’t wearing that plastic smile and, as everyone had this wedding day, in crisis Dianne turned to Zahid.

  ‘Stop her!’ Dianne pleaded.

  Zahid wasn’t following Dianne’s orders as he walked to the stage, it was to get to Trinity, because there was a recklessness to her that troubled him and Zahid would not let her look a fool.

  ‘I’d like to dedicate this number to—’ Trinity started, but Zahid pulled the plug and her arm at the same time and hauled her from the stage.

  ‘Put me down.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Put me down,’ Trinity shouted, as he carried her over his shoulder behind the stage and out through the back exit to the elevators. It all became a little blurry then. She remembered him letting her down and Zahid demanding to know what was going on.

  ‘Nothing!’

  Jet-lag, champagne, nerves, fear, want all combined in desperate tears and then she lunged at him, desperate for escape, but Zahid denied her that. She tried to rain kisses on his face but Zahid held her at arm’s length as she pecked away like an angry woodpecker who couldn’t meet its mark. She wanted the sex he had promised, the bliss of escape with the one man who knew where it resided in her.

  She wanted Zahid.

  And so she told him.

  ‘I don’t reward bad behaviour.’

  ‘You’re not training a dolphin!’ Trinity shouted, but then she started to laugh. ‘I tried that, actually.’ She put on an American accent. ‘“Positive reinforcement-based training”...and it didn’t work!’

  ‘If you want sex,’ Zahid said, peeling off her dress and offloading her into the bed, ‘then you can ask politely in the morning when you are sober.’

  ‘Ask?’ Trinity lay on the bed and laughed at his audacity. ‘I have to ask?’

  ‘Politely,’ Zahid said. ‘I want to hear the word “please” when you do,’ but as he looked down at her, astonishingly, to Trinity, he smiled. ‘You need to learn manners—your behaviour tonight has been shocking.’

  ‘Really?’ Trinity said. ‘I thought that I’d behaved rather well.’

  Zahid didn’t have to come up with a suitable answer because less than ten seconds later she was sound asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ZAHID SAT WATCHING as Trinity started to stir.

  Her bridesmaid’s dress was over a chair, her shoes were on the floor, her hair was everywhere and her mascara had escaped her lashes and had moved to the pillow.

  Zahid rang for breakfast and saw Trinity’s eyes frown at the intrusion when a little while later the doorbell chimed.

  ‘Just leave it there,’ Zahid said, as the staff went to set up. ‘Could someone draw a bath...?’

  She sat up to ask everyone if they could please be quiet and get out of her room but Zahid shot her such a look that she ducked back under the covers and willed the sheikh in her bedroom to disappear.

  Actually, Trinity realised, she was in his bedroom, she had to be because this room was massive and the bed seemed even bigger.

  Oh, God.

  As the maid came out and said that the bath had been run and Zahid said he would call soon to have the room tidied but that was all for now, Trinity had vague memories of kissing him.
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  Not outside, though. She remembered that that kiss had been completely lovely. It was the inside attempt to kiss him that had her cringing in recall.

  ‘Does that groaning mean you have a recollection of last night or should I call for a doctor?’

  He didn’t let her hide; instead, he whipped back the bedding.

  ‘The first one.’ Trinity stared up at a very, very beautiful man. His hair was tousled and he was no longer clean-shaven and stood over her in the morning-after version of yesterday’s suit.

  ‘How is your hangover?’

  ‘It’s not a hangover, it’s exhaustion,’ Trinity said. ‘And forty-eight hours of no sleep, mixed with champagne and my toxic family...’ She closed her eyes. ‘Did I make a terrible scene?’

  ‘I brought you up here before you could,’ Zahid said, ‘but, yes, you made quite a scene in the bedroom.’ She could hardly breathe but then, when Zahid smiled down at her, so heart stopping was that face there was no ‘hardly’ about it—her breath was lodged in her lungs and it took a moment for her foggy brain to compute that Zahid wasn’t cross. In fact, from the look he was giving her, any moment he’d be stripping the last of her clothing off.

  Oh, God!

  ‘Here!’ He handed her a large glass of something cold and dark pink. She sat up a touch and when it met her lips, Trinity found out that it was watermelon infused with mint.

  ‘I had no sleep on the flight. There was a baby next to me on the plane...’ Trinity explained between draining her drink. ‘We don’t all have our own private jets to fly us to weddings...’

  ‘You could have put on earphones.’ Zahid remained unmoved by her explanations for last night’s behaviour.

  ‘You’ve never flown economy, have you?’

  ‘Your father paid for business class,’ Zahid said, because he had overheard Gus telling anyone who cared to listen how much his daughter still cost him, but more than that, Zahid simply would not let her lie.

  ‘And I bought an economy ticket with it,’ Trinity whispered conspiratorially. ‘It’s called ten hours of discomfort for three months’ rent.’

  ‘Then you should have taken an earlier flight if you knew that you would be unlikely to get any sleep.’

  She lay back on the pillow and stared at him, sulking that he wouldn’t give her an out.

  Yes, she should have taken an earlier flight, but that would have meant a night in the family home and it had been the last place on earth she’d wanted to be. Economy and a screaming baby had been a far more palatable option.

  ‘Here,’ Zahid said. Taking the empty glass from Trinity, he hauled her back up to a sitting position as if she were a hospital patient, and then he sat on the edge of the bed with a plate loaded with tiny sausages and pancakes. He slathered them in maple syrup and, proceeded to cut it all up and then commenced feeding her.

  ‘I was just tired.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ Zahid said. ‘Eat.’

  ‘You’re not cross?’

  ‘No.’ He smiled at her but there was concern there. ‘What was going on last night?’ Zahid asked. ‘You were very upset when I got you back to the room.’

  Trinity shrugged. ‘I’d just had too much to drink.’

  ‘That’s not what you said two minutes ago.’

  ‘I just...’ Trinity shrugged. She honestly didn’t know what to say.

  ‘You can tell me.’

  Could she?

  He was her brother’s best man, a family friend...and, right now, the very best thing in her life, even if just for a little while.

  She didn’t want to spoil it.

  ‘Things get a bit tense for me when I’m with my family.’

  She waited for him to tell her how wonderful her family was and that she should behave better, but Zahid was actually trying to gauge how much he should say. After all, it was her family that he was about to criticise.

  He popped a forkful of food into her mouth as he chose to let his ingrained diplomacy leave him a touch, for he wanted her to hear the truth.

  ‘I find the Fosters hard work.’ As she opened her mouth to say something he reminded her that it was rude to speak with her mouth full and so Trinity had no choice but to hear him out. ‘After last night, I am severing ties with your family.’ As she frantically chewed so she could get her words out, Zahid beat her to it. ‘When I say the Fosters I don’t mean you.’ Trinity stopped chewing then as Zahid spoke on—she now wanted to hear what he had to say. ‘When I think of you, I do not think of the Fosters, do you understand that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I need you to understand that when I sever ties with you, it shall be for different reasons entirely. Do you know what they are?’

  Trinity gave a tiny shrug.

  ‘If we were to meet in the future, my feelings and thoughts about you would be very disrespectful to my future wife.’ He tried to explain what Trinity could not possibly understand. ‘My wife will be chosen with my country in mind.’ He saw her frown break into a smile.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting her to be me.’

  ‘I know,’ Zahid said, smiling at the very thought of Trinity in Ishla. ‘I’m sure you could think of nothing worse. I just want to make it very clear that when I sever ties with your family, it has nothing at all to do with how I feel about you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  It was very nice to hear.

  ‘And thanks for saving me from making a complete fool of myself last night,’ Trinity said.

  ‘It was no problem.’

  ‘I was just having fun.’

  His eyes said that he doubted, again, that he was hearing the truth but Trinity ploughed on regardless. In the sober light of day she certainly wasn’t going to reveal the painful past and so she tried to turn the conversation to far lighter matters. ‘So what does a sheikh prince do when he lets his hair down?’ She stared at him for a long moment. ‘I can’t imagine you dancing.’

  ‘We danced last night.’

  ‘I mean...’ She put her hands above her head and did a little dance in the bed and actually forgot she was only wearing a bra. He made her forget shame, Trinity realised as she put her arms down.

  More than that, he erased it.

  ‘I don’t dance like that,’ Zahid said.

  ‘And we’ve established that you do sing. You don’t drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because you’re not allowed?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to.’

  ‘Do you gamble?’

  ‘Never.’ He looked at her for a very long moment and then answered her question with one word. ‘Sex.’

  Trinity blinked.

  ‘It is my vice,’ Zahid said. ‘We all have them.’

  ‘Is sex a vice?’

  ‘Apparently so.’ Zahid gave a brief eye-roll. ‘Though that defect will be removed soon.’

  ‘Your wife might be a nymphomaniac,’ Trinity said, and she got the lovely reward of his smile.

  ‘We can always hope,’ Zahid said, ‘though it will not be something that is taken into consideration.’

  ‘Well, it should be.’ Trinity yawned.

  ‘I shan’t be raising the topic with my father.’

  ‘We have to be down to join the family for breakfast at nine...’ Trinity said, glancing at the clock and seeing that it was ten past eight as Zahid dipped the last of the pancake in syrup and offered it to her.

  ‘You make a nice mummy bird,’ Trinity said, and then duly opened her mouth, but the fork wavered there, just hovered where she couldn’t reach it, and he pulled it back when she stretched her neck.

  ‘Birds feed with their mouths,’ Zahid said, and Trinity felt her insides fold in on themselves as he scalded her face with his eyes. Still she did not get that last piece of loaded, sugary pancake and her face turned to fire as he continued to speak. ‘Okay,’ Zahid said, ‘you have two choices—breakfast with your family or we are otherwise engaged.’

  ‘When you say otherwise engaged...’


  Did he mean...?

  Yes, Trinity realised as he took the last lovely bit of pancake and popped it in his own mouth, he did mean that, for his mouth was pushing her down to the pillow and he was feeding her terribly intimately now. Tongue, pancake and maple syrup were being pushed into her by his tongue and he didn’t even let her close her mouth as she struggled to swallow.

  It was moreish!

  Filthy, messy, sticky and so very, very, nice, but as her mouth emptied and his kiss lingered on she moved her face back. ‘I haven’t brushed my teeth,’ Trinity said, shy all of a sudden, but Zahid seemed more than happy to accept that she might need some space.

  ‘I am going to have a quick shower,’ Zahid said, licking the last remnants of maple syrup from her mouth and then releasing her, leaving her more than a bit breathless. ‘Then, if you want, you can have your bath.’

  It was up to Trinity. Whatever her choice, Zahid would not be joining the Fosters at breakfast.

  Duty was done.

  He just hoped now that it was time for pleasure.

  Zahid stood and started to unbutton his shirt. ‘When I come out I will ring for someone to come and sort out the room.’

  Trinity nodded, surprised that he clearly expected her to be able to speak at her first sighting of his torso. His coffee-coloured skin gleamed and his dark nipples drew her eyes, but it was the very flat stomach and the snake of dark hair beckoning downwards that had Trinity suddenly look away and start pleating the sheet with her fingers.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Zahid said, and headed to the shower as she lay back on the pillows and blew out a breath, trying and failing not to think about him sliding off his trousers and naked on the other side as she heard the taps being turned on.

  He was giving her the chance to leave, Trinity realised. The chance to gather her things and go to her own room. To have breakfast with her family safe in the knowledge that this would never be mentioned again.

  If she left now, she would never see him again.

  Trinity lay on the bed and listened as the taps were turned off and a few moments later he came out, carrying his trousers, which he put over the chair. One white towel was around his hips, the other around his neck.