His Pregnant Prisoner

Part 17

His obsession with her was becoming dangerous, Karim realized as he panted hard. The scent of her swirled around him like a net, ensnaring his senses, obliterating rationality.

Swollen and pink, her mouth was tempting enough to give his soul over. Her breasts fell and rose fast, her lithe body bristling with emotion.

She looked like a wild deer, cornered but defiant.

All he'd wanted was to bury himself in her willing body, escape the relentless fury, the powerless grief that continued to ravage him as he sat by his father.

All he'd wanted while the politics and power plays continued around him was her. Only this sensuous creature that pierced the loneliness, the only one who had seen the real him. And wanted him.

"Come back here, Nakayla," he said smoothly. "I want to confirm you're not hurt," he said, gritting his jaw when she stepped back again.

Something chased across her angular face. Not need, not fear, but challenge.

He felt like the wild thing in her eyes had electrocuted him.

"You don't have to chase me, Your Highness," she said while she grabbed the small opening of her blouse with both hands. The rip of the thin cotton was like a tribal drum in the silence. "I surrender," she said so softly and yet in a voice that carved through him.

The edges of her blouse fell away, exposing the curves of her plump breasts cupped in white silk, the dainty dip of her waist, flaring into hips he had anchored himself on so many times. The shadow of her dark nipples was barely hidden by the silk. Color streaked her cheeks, and her neck.

Slowly, he brought his gaze to her face, something in her stance dousing cold water on his need.

"You win," she declared, and his ire rose slowly.

He didn't want her like this, like spoils of a war he'd won. "What the hell are you talking about?" he said cornering her.

But this time, she didn't step back. Stubborn chin held high, she stood her ground.

She pushed the blouse off her shoulders and reached for the hem of her skirt. "Should I shower and ready myself for you or do you need instant gratification? You want to have me here or on the bed?"

The breath knocked out of him as if someone had jammed a fist in his throat.

"Enough, Nakayla."

"No. This is what you are turning me into. Tucked away in this palace, cut off from the world, waiting on tenterhooks, wondering if you'll see me again...wondering what my child's place is going to be in your world..."

"I would love her or him more than anything in the world." He heard the words after he spoke them, realizing the truth.Something flashed in her gaze before she drove it away. "But you will treat his mother as if she were disposable?

"It was wrong to hide the truth from you, I admit it.

"But you...you decided, from the beginning, that this is all I'm good for. So let's do it the proper way."

She moved toward the chaise longue and pushed away the myriad of colorful pillows from it. "Do you want me to face you or the other way around? Or would you prefer me on my knees?"

He flinched. "Cover yourself."

When she stood like that brazenly, he picked up a velvet throw.

She trembled at his touch, so stiff and tensed like a stretched bow, teetering on the edge, and yet determined to fight this. Determined to fight him and herself.

Dirty, was that what this was? Was that what he had made of them?

In that moment, he fought that loneliness, that craving for her body, that yearning to lose himself in her arms, this struggle his father must have fought with himself and lost, turning his mother into a whore in the eyes of her family, her tribe and the world, turning Karim into an orphan.

And Karim won.

He would never become a slave to his body's needs. He would not ruin Nakayla's life, the mother of his child's life, simply because he wanted something he couldn't have.

Without another glance at her, he walked away.