A good man might have pointed out that it seemed likely this was all yet another attempt at self-immolation on her part.
But then, Tarek had no problem being her fire.
“Come,” he said, reaching out his hand as he had at the mouth of the prison cell, his gaze hot enough to burn. “Let us find out.”
CHAPTER SIX
AWISEWOMANwould have questioned her own sanity, Anya thought. Or certainly her motives.
Wise or foolish, Anya hadn’t stopped trembling for some time. Deep inside, where every part of her that shook was connected to the heat that seemed to blaze between her and Tarek, and that aching, slick fire between her legs.
She told herself that what mattered was that it all made sense in her own head.
He wanted a queen. A press release and the performance that would go with it.
And she wanted a different life. With the clarity she’d gotten in the dungeon, Anya knew she could never go back. Not to who she’d been, destroying herself with stress, locking herself away when the panic hit, terrified that she was moments away from being found out for the fraud she truly was. She couldn’t keep moving from one way of administering medicine to another, until she started hoping that mortar fire might take her out and save her from her inability to walk away from the life she’d spent so long—too long—building.
Maybe if she was the Queen of a faraway country she could do more good than she’d ever managed as a doctor riddled with her own guilt and shame.
And somehow, all of that seemed tied together with Tarek himself. Not the King, but the man.
Too beautiful. Too intense.
And unless she was mistaken, feeling all the same fire that she was.
Anya didn’t want to be mistaken. But she also wanted to feelalive.
She didn’t need a primer on all the ways it could go badly for her to marry this man on a whim. All the ways it could turn out to be a far worse prison than the one she’d just left.
She wanted one night. One night, just the two of them, to see.
“No kings, no queens,” she said, looking up at him as he rose to stand there before her, his hand extended. “Just a woman and a man, until dawn.”
“Come,” he said again, with all that power and confidence. Heat and promise.
Anya took her time getting to her feet, not sure her legs would hold her up. But they did. And as she had hours ago, she reached over and slid her hand into his.
Once more, the heat punched through her. She pulled in a swift breath, but that only made it worse. His hand was too hard. His grip was too sure.
And the way he watched her, those dark eyes fixed on her, made her quiver.
She expected him to bear her off again, marching her through the palace with the same courtly formality he’d shown earlier.
Instead, Tarek pulled her closer to him.
With an offhanded display of strength that had her sprawling against the hard wall of his chest, and gasping a bit while she did it.
Because it had been one thing to say she wanted this. And something else to be so close to another person.
To him.
Her pulse skyrocketed as she gazed up at him. If it was possible, Tarek was even more beautiful up close. Even more compelling. He smoothed his hands over her head, sliding that scarf out of his way.
And she watched, transfixed, as he pulled a long, glossy strand of her hair between two fingers. Looking down at it, very seriously, as if it held the mysteries of the universe.
Then he shifted that look to her.
“Tarek—” she began.