The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin (Mills & Boon Modern) (Innocent Stolen Brides, Book 1) by Caitlin Crews

Author:Caitlin Crews [Crews, Caitlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-08-02T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

SOME WEEKS LATER, Cyrus returned to the fortress from a necessary overnight trip down south to tend to the business of running his kingdom. He accepted the cold drink his staff pressed upon him upon his arrival, took his time showering as if he had felt no pressing need to rush back here, and then stood in the windows that overlooked the courtyard of his harem.

His harem with its single occupant.

He told himself that the project was an unqualified success.

Surely the fruit of this particular labor was ripe and sweet, no matter the uncomfortable questions she dared ask him on occasion. He had only to gaze down into the courtyard to assure himself of that.

The women danced below, all of them draped in flowing silks, but he knew precisely which one was Hope. He could see hints of that gleaming gold that drove him to distraction. Her hair. Her eyes.

All the other women danced well, as it was customary in Aminabad to learn these dances at their mothers’ knees. It was a matter of hips and sweet elegance, finding the melody within them as they moved.

His wife—a word he still found sharp and strange, even in his own thoughts—was still learning. That was obvious even from a distance. And there was no denying that she did not possess the natural talents some of the others did.

Yet she was the one who mesmerized him.

Cyrus found himself transfixed. He could not look away.

But as soon as he realized how intently he stood there, how little it seemed possible he might ever drag his attention away, he forced himself to do exactly that. He tossed back the rest of his drink, the sweet cold juice he liked best, and hated that he found himself making pointless comparisons between the sugary hit of a mango and the taste of Hope’s lovely mouth.

Of her kisses, greedy and demanding, that stole his sleep from him on too many nights to count.

The project might have been a success, by Cyrus’s estimation, but Hope herself remained a puzzle. She was not afraid to negotiate with him, about anything and everything. Sometimes he thought she argued with him simply because she enjoyed it—when no one else would dare behave in such a manner. It was how he had agreed to allow her to call her mother each day, though he was not sure he liked it.

It was good that the older woman was doing better than Hope had imagined she would. Cyrus was pleased this was so, as it made Hope visibly happier and he found he was far more interested in her happiness than he should have been.

He had accepted that she hadn’t known that she was promised to him. That her father had not told her directly and she had found no papers in his things—or, as she had confessed one night, perhaps she had but had not known what they were.

I was fourteen, she had said softly. And I had to take on so many things.

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