Sabrina Philips – The Desert King's Bejewelled Bride (страница 1)



‘The sooner this is over, the better,’ she muttered under her breath, seeing no point in making herself heard.

His fingers were on the handle when she said it, but hear it he did—for in a flash he had turned, his jacket flailing out behind him like some outlaw provoked, and suddenly his face was level with her own and far, far too close.

She could feel his warm breath with startling awareness on her lips. It sent a prickle of excitement down her neck, across her skin and to the straining tips of her breasts. He reached out one finger to touch her jaw, the softness of the gesture mocking as he tilted her chin upwards, his eyes dropping to her mouth.

‘Oh, I will make it better, Tamara,’ he drawled, as if he could sense the sexual frustration teeming beneath her skin. ‘Better than anything you’ve ever experienced before. And it will be soon.’

Sabrina Philips first discovered Mills & Boon^® one Saturday afternoon in her early teens at her first job in a charity shop. Sorting through a stack of preloved books, she came across a cover which featured a glamorous heroine and a tall, dark, handsome hero. She started reading under the counter that instant—and has never looked back!

A lover of both reading and writing since childhood, Sabrina went on to study English with Classics at Reading University. She adores all literature, but finds there’s nothing else quite like the indulgent thrill of a Modern™ Romance—preferably whilst lying in a hot bath with no distractions!

She grew up in Guildford, Surrey, where she now lives with her husband—who swept her off her feet when they were both just sixteen. When Sabrina isn’t spending time with her family or writing, she works as a co-ordinator of civil marriages, which she describes as a fantastic source of romantic inspiration and a great deal of fun.

A decade after reading her very first Mills & Boon®, Sabrina is delighted to join as an author herself, and to have the opportunity to create infuriatingly sexy heroes of her own—which she defies both her heroines and her readers to resist! Visit Sabrina’s website: www.sabrinaphilips.com

THE DESERT KING’S BEJEWELLED BRIDE

BY

SABRINA PHILIPS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Sharon Kendrick, to whom I owe so much.

And to Phil, for the perfect ‘I do’.

CHAPTER ONE

‘JUST lean slightly further forward—oh, yes, that’s it.’

Kaliq clenched his teeth and resisted the urge to topple the balding excuse for a man who was leering behind the camera with such gusto that he was almost horizontal. The self-control it took not to step forward and silence him with a single flick of one long, lean finger required more resolve than he might have anticipated, for the scene was, after all, exactly as he had expected.

Unobserved in the shadows, Kaliq followed the man’s lecherous gaze and bit down hard upon his lower lip as he slowly drank her in, the initial stab of recognition at seeing her again quite literally in the flesh mounting to a low insistent thud of desire in his groin. Hell, she was the very devil incarnate.

Splayed before a backdrop of fire, she was pouting provocatively, every inch of her offered up for his delectation—his, and every man’s. Even if technically she wasn’t naked, the shimmering slip of golden fabric—which back in Qwasir would be hard pushed to qualify as a mosquito net—barely skimmed her lush breasts before disappearing into nothing mid-thigh, and only served to enhance more of her slender figure than it covered. Never had he seen anything so close to, nor so far from his deepest fantasies both at the same time.

As the hot studio lights beat down upon her bronzed skin and those loose auburn curls, the irony forced him to suppress a sardonic laugh. Now, what was it she had said? That she wanted the freedom to live her life out of the spotlight that his attracted? Jezebel indeed, he thought, eyeing the logo on the oversized perfume bottle that was supposedly the central prop of the photo shoot but which one might be forgiven for overlooking completely.

It had been on his trip to the Qwasirian embassy in Paris last month that he had first caught a split-second glimpse of a billboard plastered with the inviting image of a woman all at once too familiar and yet not familiar enough. Then suddenly those deceptively wide eyes and rosebud lips had been everywhere, and even the swift investigation of his closest aide was unable to prove that he was mistaken. It was Tamara Weston. Never before had anything made him so furious.

He should have suspected as much. After all, even when she had been a guest in his land—not yet a woman and yet hardly a girl—she had been too spirited, both for her age and her sex, however prim she had looked. But seven years ago, accompanying her irrefutable allure had been an innocence he had foolishly believed was as much a part of her as her beauty. Kaliq’s nostrils flared. What was it then, which had made her turn down the honour he had offered her in favour of this? Had the idea of sharing her body with only one man failed to excite her? Or was it her own limelight she had sought all along?

No matter, he thought, leaning back languorously against the doorframe. He might not be able to turn back the clock, take back the misplaced respect he had once bestowed upon her, but the future was a different story. This time, her choice didn’t come into it. There was no question of his being mistaken about that.

As another lewd stage-direction passed Henry’s lips, Tamara allowed her mind to wander. Just what expression would cross his oily features if she leaned far enough forward to swipe the smutty look off his face?

Ignore him, she told herself, unsure why she was letting him get to her today. Every job has its downside. Heavens, she should know. In the last few years she’d had more jobs than she could count on her fingers, and probably her toes as well. But take the odd walking slime-ball like Henry out of the equation—and thankfully his presence at these photo shoots was rare—and she had to admit that modelling had a lot more upsides than she would ever have imagined. If she had stopped to consider it as a potential career before now, which she hadn’t. For, though she was tall at five foot nine and had inherited her mother’s striking colouring and good bone structure, she would never have described her appearance as anything other than average. And after witnessing her parents’ divorce splashed across the papers, she had never had the desire to forge any kind of career which would involve being in the public eye. However, when her college friend Lisa—who in Tamara’s mind had that enviable fortune of knowing what she wanted to do with her life since the age of six—had asked her to pose wearing her first collection of fashion designs, she had agreed as a favour. To Tamara’s amazement, when Lisa hit the big time, retail giant Jezebel Cosmetics had approached her with an offer to become the new face of their brand.

At first Tamara had been reluctant to accept, but when she saw the salary they were offering, she knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least try a job which would allow her to give more than just her spare time to Mike. What she hadn’t expected was to discover that there was much more to the job than simply looking sultry for a few hours a day; because aside from being mentally and physically exhausting, she had to work out the best way to convey whatever emotion the piece required. She found that satisfyingly challenging—even if, when she stopped to think about it, that might have been because portraying whatever image she was asked prevented her having to contemplate who she really was. As for the pace of it all; yes, she would gladly lose the press intrusion, but travelling to new destinations and meeting new people outweighed all of that. The point was, after flitting from one job to another, she actually felt as if she might be on the cusp of finding her place in the world, a sensation she hadn’t had in years, not since…she had been in a very different place, a long time ago.

And, since becoming the new face of Jezebel Fragrance, fashion houses and magazine critics alike were hailing her the hottest new property in the modelling world. In the space of a few months she had gone from being just another girl in the sea of faces, to being recognised wherever she went, with photo shoots the world over. In fact, only yesterday Henry’s assistant had informed her that next week she was expected in the Middle East and she couldn’t wait.

But today, the moment she had walked out into the studio, she had felt ill at ease, as if there had been some kind of chemical reaction in the room and all the good had evaporated. Suddenly it seemed as if it was not just her appearance that was on display to the world, but her soul too. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Henry’s comments were no worse than usual. Her dress, the evocative backdrop was no different from countless other shoots. Was it perhaps down to the extra cameras that Henry’s assistant had mentioned they would be using? She moved her legs beneath her uncomfortably, focusing on the multitude of people and equipment she usually pretended were not there at all. The forest of lenses and cables all angled towards her looked no denser than normal, and certainly no more alarming. Yet still the incongruous sense that she was being watched somehow differently, her instinct screaming at her to run, escape now before it was too late.