Desert Orchid: The Desert Princes: Book 1 by CC MacKenzie Read Free Book Online Page A

unskilled.
    The truth hit him hard.
    What the hell was he doing?
    This time when he thrust her away he took a careful step back.
    She was too pale and her eyes appeared dazed with what looked like shock.
    And, by the physical signals her body was sending, that she was aroused.
    He could also see that she was frightened.
    Well, that made two of them.
    "Do you have any idea what you are doing? How dare you respond to me like that."
    Unfair.
    That comment hit well below the belt and he knew it.
    He was being terribly unfair to her.
    But the fear tickling his gut made him lash out. "If I wanted to I could take you now. Right here, on the floor."
    He realised Charisse was breathing as if she couldn’t pull enough oxygen into her lungs, her small breasts rising and falling under her T-shirt.
    The look in her eyes was fear warring with a vicious fury.
    Fury won.
    She looked magnificent.
    Well, well, what a turn up for the books this was.
    Who’d have thought his uncle Asim would have had the exquisite taste to take such a woman to wife? He took another step back even as his hand itched to smooth her hair. The heavenly scent of it spun around him. He wanted to feel that hair again, so soft and so silky, as it slid between his fingers. And the crazy need to bury his face in her hair had him take another very careful step back.
    Now those blue eyes filled to the brim with absolute loathing mixed with utter contempt. A look that told him more than words ever could that she’d summed him up and found him wanting.
    For an unremitting moment their eyes clashed in a silent battle of wills.
    "You," she said. "Are a lower form of life."
    Khalid never disputed a stated fact.
    "Too true, baby."
     
     
     

Chapter Five
    "Why are there no children?"
    Heart thundering in her ears Charisse stared up into that flushed but harsh face and wondered what had just happened? Her mouth felt swollen, throbbing with a pulse that matched her frantic heart beat as she licked her lips. She could still taste him.
    Why wouldn’t her brain function?
    Why were there black spots in front of her eyes?
    The room spun.
    Khalid pushed her down onto the couch and sat next to her as she blinked up into that incredible face.
    His eyes went dark as they dropped to her mouth.
    Then he drawled in that incredible voice, "Stop licking your lips, Charisse, or we will end up naked on the floor."
    She pressed her burning lips together and found that her hands were shaking.
    "I’m sorry," she said and clasped her hands tightly. "Did you just ask me a question? I can’t think."
    "I know the feeling," he muttered. Then he shook his head as if to clear it and she caught the flash of a twisted smile. "I asked you why there are no children."
    She had nothing to hide, so why was the truth so painful?
    How could she tell him that her relationship with his uncle was one of a father and daughter rather than as husband and wife?
    How could she tell him she’d never known a man?
    That until a moment ago, she’d never even been kissed?
    How could she have agreed to marry this man?
    She couldn’t do it.
    Then something like despair burned in her heart, her mind.
    But where would she go?
    Onuur was the only home she’d ever known and she loved the country and its people with her whole heart. But she couldn't think of all that now, he was waiting for an answer.
    She took a shaky breath.
    "Asim had a congenital heart condition. He was unable to father children. Or even..."
    Her voice broke as the scorch of utter mortification burned her cheeks.
    She stared down at her hands.
    Khalid hissed out a breath. "Poor bastard. So he was married to you and couldn’t touch you?"
    She shook her head, and risked a peek at his gorgeous face.
    He was frowning now and that face appeared tougher, even more forbidding.
    "We loved each other very much," she said. "He’d come to terms with his physical limitations many years before he met me."
    As if he couldn’t help himself, Khalid's hand reached out