Subjugated Read online

  They were almost home. The abrupt awareness that they had five minutes of driving left to them at best caused a painfully stiff arousal to bulge against his denim jeans.

  Hani was more than ready to consummate their marriage. Indeed, he had fantasized about their joining multiple times a day every day since the moment he’d first laid eyes on his wife.

  * * * * *

  Shannon couldn’t help but to be awed by Hani’s palatial home. It had to be in the vicinity of twenty thousand square feet, if not bigger. Sandstone in color, the elaborate dwelling boasted countless archways, three round towers and numerous spiraling minarets that jutted upward toward the heavens. Four courtyards could be counted from the front alone. Coconut palms surrounded the structure, with date, fig and olive trees adding a lushness and fertility to the harsh desert landscape. On the outside, Hani’s home was, as its master, a solid and powerful presence.

  The inside was a surprisingly warm and colorful contrast to the stark, sand-colored outside. Elaborate calligraphy adorned the walls alongside Moroccan-influenced mosaics. Gorgeous silks of every bright color had been used to decorate the furnishings. An extremely intoxicating aroma released from a fusion of spices perfumed the air.

  “Wow,” Shannon whispered, fairly overwhelmed, “This place is breathtaking.”

  “I’m glad you like it, habibti.”

  She stilled, having momentarily forgotten she wasn’t alone. Hani’s murmured words snapped her out of the dreamy haze that had enveloped her. She turned on her heel to face him.

  “I’ve given the servants a week’s holiday,” he announced, walking toward where she stood. His eyes glittered as he closed the space between them. “It will be just the two of us until they return.”

  She frowned. “Does that mean I can take off this tent and headgear?” Shannon hissed. Now that they were alone she didn’t care if she showed him her anger and hurt or not. “I mean, until your servants return, of course.” She swept her hand dramatically, as if performing before a Broadway audience. “We wouldn’t want them to see my ugly face, after all.”

  Hani’s left eyebrow rose. “Ugly face?”

  “It’s the reason you dressed me in this tent, isn’t it? To hide my face?”

  “Well yes, but—”

  “Ha! I knew it!” Shannon didn’t know if it was his admission or her fatigue that finally got to her, but tears started to stream down her face. Deflated and embarrassed, she turned and looked away. “You shouldn’t have brought me here,” she said pathetically, her voice catching. “I prefer to be at home where I’m not considered so ugly that my face needs to be hidden.”

  “Shan—”

  “Forget it,” she interrupted, waving away whatever he’d been about to say. “I don’t care what you think of me,” she lied. “Please just show me where I can get a shower and some sleep. I’ll take care of changing my return ticket in the morning.”

  Hani said nothing as he led Shannon down a series of corridors and into their apartments. He was so shocked by his wife’s outrageous beliefs that it took him the length of the walk to clear his thinking.

  She thought he saw her as ugly? Wallah, never had a more beautiful woman lived.

  He sighed, feeling like an idiot for not considering how an American woman would likely view the shielding of her body and face. He was well versed in the differences between their cultures, but she was not. Shannon knew only one world and that was her former one. It would take time and patience for her to make sense of the Arabic way of life.

  “Thank you for showing me to my room,” Shannon bit out, making him think she wasn’t thankful at all. “You can leave now. I suggest you do it quickly before you’re forced to look at my Elephant Man face!”

  Hani didn’t know whether to be amused by her bluster or angered by her demand that he go away. He wasn’t going away—not now or ever. Anger won out.

  “Enough!” he growled, gaining him her wide-eyed attention. His dark gaze narrowed into menacing slits. “For one, this is our room, not your room.” His hand slashed through the air. “For two, I will go nowhere. And for three, you are not,” he bit out, “ugly!”

  She blinked, which drew his attention to the fact that she’d been crying. Guilt consumed him as something in the vicinity of his heart wrenched. He should have anticipated this. He’d never felt so low.

  Hani instinctively reached out for Shannon and pulled the niqab off her head in a single motion. Golden curls sprang loose, framing her lovely face and cascading down to the middle of her back. Allah have mercy, how he ached to touch her.

  “In your culture,” he murmured, his hand lifting to her face and his thumb gently rubbing away at the last vestige of tears that hadn’t quite dried up, “a husband prefers for his wife to look appealing to other men. Ironically, and stupidly if you ask me, he then becomes surprised and angered when another man takes what belongs to him.” He ran his thumb over her pouty bottom lip. “In my culture, a husband prefers that his wife show her beauty only to him. He never gives her the option to be taken by another.”

  Shannon’s light, turquoise eyes widened a bit. He wasn’t certain what she was thinking, but he’d clearly surprised her.

  “Some husbands are perhaps too possessive,” Hani said thickly, his arousal growing from merely touching her lip. “So he dresses his wife in a tent, as you call it, to keep other males from knowing anything of the treasures beneath it.”

  Her mouth worked up and down, but no words came out. Wallah, he wanted to ravish her lips as ferociously as he wished to ravish her body. If he was going to let her bathe, he had best quit touching her. For now.

  “Go on,” he instructed, nodding toward the door of the bathroom inside their rooms. “Have your bath. It’s been a long journey.”

  * * * * *

  She had thought to take a shower, but her wobbly legs demanded she bathe instead. As with every other extreme emotion she’d experienced today, Shannon could lay the blame of her current shaken state at her husband’s feet.

  She had no doubt that Hani had spoken the truth as he believed it to her. The man never lied. It hadn’t taken almost a year of living together to realize as much for his overpowering strength of character had been recognizable from the start.

  Some husbands are perhaps too possessive. So he dresses his wife in a tent, as you call it, to keep other males from knowing anything of the treasures beneath it…

  She bit her lip as his statement reverberated in her mind. Had he been referring to himself as one of those husbands? Did he view her as a treasure worth safekeeping? She stilled as she recalled another thing he’d said.

  This is our room, not your room…

  She was really getting confused. And nervous. In their tiny, shared carriage house back in New York they had always slept in different bedrooms. Now, here in Hani’s Jeddah home where suites were in decadent abundance, they were going to share a bedroom?

  A shiver coursed down her spine. Shannon drew her knees up against her breasts and hugged them. Something strange was going on. She didn’t like riddles and this vacation—at day one no less!—was turning out to be a hell of a puzzle. A dozen scenarios began racing through her mind, one of them quite horrifying.

  What if she’d been lured here by her husband so that he could keep her in a harem or something after they divorced? Her heart thumped wildly as panic crept in. She wasn’t an idiot or an innocent virgin. She knew when a man was aroused and Hani had definitely been sexually excited after he removed her niqab.

  Oh lord, what had she been thinking when she agreed to this trip? Maybe he’d keep her until he was tired of her then sell her as a sex slave to some fat, old, ugly guy. Holy shit! Why hadn’t she thought of that possibility until it was too late?!

  Calm down, Shannon. Hani isn’t like that. He wouldn’t sell you! You sound like that fucking moron Carl now.

  Forcing herself to relax as much as she possibly could, Shannon took a deep breath and held it to the count of ten—an old tr
ick she’d learned at the local gym that steadied your breathing after a vigorous workout. There had to be another explanation for her present situation. Hani was not a dishonorable man.

  Maybe he wants to stay married…

  Shannon let out a long breath and laid her head back against the posh, Arabesque tub. She closed her eyes and snorted at her whimsical thoughts. Hani had needed her for a student visa—no more, no less. Her usefulness had been expended and their marriage was nearing its end.

  That thought was more depressing than it had the right to be, but it sure as hell beat being sold into a harem.

  Hani took a leisurely shower in an adjacent suite. He wanted to give his wife some time to calm down and rationalize out what he’d said to her. She was a remarkably intelligent woman—a trait that had been as appealing to him as her beauty from the day they’d met.

  Indeed, she was proving to be more perceptive than he was. He hadn’t realized until an hour ago, after all, that his gorgeous wife didn’t have the vaguest comprehension of how attractive she was to him. Hell, he was now fairly certain Shannon hadn’t known of his lust at all.

  He frowned as he turned off the shower, the pellets of water coming to an abrupt halt. No wonder the last year had been exasperating. An Arab woman would have understood his subtle overtures whereas his wife did not. In Manhattan, men behaved with a boldness toward women that was considered rude and demeaning in Jeddah. Shannon was therefore unlikely to recognize desire in a man’s eyes unless lascivious glances and behaviors accompanied it.

  Still, she had to be aware of his desire now. A blind woman half the kingdom away could have seen the erection he’d sported back in their bedroom.

  Stepping out of the shower, Hani reached for an Egyptian-thread towel and dried himself off. He pulled on a pair of sarwal—loose-fitting white pants tied by a drawstring near the navel. He left his feet and chest bare, something a man could do in the presence of his wife but no other.

  Sexual excitement raged through him. His cock stiffened as his pulse raced. He’d been waiting for this moment, for the chance to know what it felt like to be buried deep inside of a woman, since his first erection as a boy. That it was his beloved Shannon’s pussy he was about to possess made Hani’s long anticipated wedding night all the better.

  Their wedding day had lasted for a year. It was time for the sun to set.

  Chapter Seven

  Shannon frowned as it occurred to her that she hadn’t brought a change of clothes into the bathroom. There was no way she was putting back on the black cloak she’d worn throughout the long, exhausting trip. She’d spilt soda on it in the plane and muddied the hem somewhere between Customs and reaching Hani’s SUV.

  She hesitated at the bathroom door, but there was no getting around the inevitable. She would have to ask her enigmatic husband to retrieve her suitcases for her.

  “Hani?” Shannon called out, wrapping a white towel around her. “Hani are you out there?”

  Silence.

  “Hani?” she again inquired. Maybe he hadn’t heard her the first time. She spoke up quite loudly. “I need my suitcases. All my clothes are in them.”

  Silence.

  She pressed her ear against the door and listened for movement, but heard none. Uggh. Now what?

  Shannon worried her bottom lip as she considered her options. She could stay in the bathroom until her husband returned only God knows when and fetched her suitcases for her or she could walk out of here and scurry to find something of his to wear until she retrieved her own clothes.

  “I’ve got on a towel,” she muttered to herself. “It’s not like I’m friggin’ naked.”

  The self-help pep talk brought her nervousness down to an acceptable level. Yeah, Hani was behaving strange and out of character, but then so was she. This virgin-trapped-in-a-maximum-security-prison-and-the-guards-have-been-overpowered bullshit mentality was not who she was.

  Shannon frowned. Her husband was the only person on earth capable of making mincemeat of her brain. Thankfully he’d never put in an appearance at any of the trials she’d litigated, she thought dryly. The opposition would have won and she would have been disbarred for blatant stupidity soon thereafter if not on the spot.

  In the past year, she had allowed Hani’s mere presence to reduce her to a simpleton who all but drooled in a cup. Well no more. From this moment on Shannon was back to being Shannon, she firmly decided. She squared her shoulders, reared her head and sashayed out of the bathroom with the forthrightness everybody but Hani was accustomed to seeing from her.

  “Habibti,” she heard her husband say. She stilled. “This little white towel is much better than the long black tent.”

  Shannon smiled as she turned to face him, the teasing lilt in his voice relaxing her senses. “Thank you,” she chuckled. “Maybe I can wear this on the trip home instead of that awful—”

  Her turquoise eyes widened as she took in the sight of her husband. “…that awful…”

  She swallowed against the hard knot in her throat. “…that uhh…”

  Hani’s left eyebrow rose inquiringly.

  “What the hell were we talking about?” Shannon breathed out.

  Her husband was wearing nothing but loose, white, pajama pants that fell below the navel and contrasted against the golden olive of his skin in a sinfully arousing way. A thin line of black hair trailed down from his navel, disappearing into those pants.

  Shannon’s gaze meandered over the length of him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. She’d never seen so much of him unclothed before and, sweet Lord, was she impressed. From his dark hair and eyes to his powerful jaw he was perfection. From the strength of his neck and the broadness of his shoulders to his six-pack abs and heavily muscled biceps he was flawless.

  Her mesmerized gaze wandered down further, noticing the overly large erection that pressed against the fabric of his pants. She instinctively tried to swallow, but her mouth was drier than kindling.

  “I don’t remember,” Hani murmured, his voice thick.

  Shannon’s head snapped up. “Huh?”

  “You asked what we had been discussing.”

  “Oh.”

  His lazy half-smile denoted just how much he was enjoying her open perusal of him. She couldn’t have pulled her gaze away if her very life depended on it. Nor could she think of any witty replies. If she’d had a mouth capable of producing moisture she would be drooling by now.

  “I’ve waited a long time for our wedding night, Shannon.” He folded his arms across his chest. “How much longer must I wait?”

  She could barely think let alone speak. The Yale-educated, intellectual part of her brain told her to get the hell out of there and be quick about it before he broke her heart. A baser, primitive, female instinct as old as time itself begged to differ. Her skin tingled and her pulse raced as her breathing grew heavy. He hadn’t even touched her, yet she was more aroused than she could ever remember being.

  “I don’t want you to hurt me.” The barely audible words were the only ones she could manage.

  That sexy eyebrow of his came up again. “I’m the only virgin standing here,” Hani murmured. “Surely your body will accustom to my size without crying tears?”

  She had meant her heart, not her body. Of course her flesh would cooperate. She wasn’t, as he’d said, a virg—

  Shannon’s wide, turquoise gaze flew up to meet her husband’s. Her breath hitched. Surely she had heard him wrong. He was twenty-six years old. “You’re a…” She swallowed, recalling how different their cultures were. She was so turned on she felt ready to burst. “You’re a…virgin?”

  His delineated cheeks reddened a little—the first hint of vulnerability she’d ever seen him display. “Naam—yes,” Hani said quietly. He held her stare despite his obvious embarrassment. Her heart wrenched with an unschooled emotion that any woman but her might have called love.

  Her gorgeous husband had never been inside another woman. Hani was six feet fou
r inches and two-hundred-twenty pounds of raw, muscled, masculine virginity. The knowledge was her undoing.

  Shannon’s trembling hands came up to undo the towel shielding her body from his view. He would divorce her, thereby breaking her heart into a million little pieces, but he’d never forget her. She’d make sure of that. The need to create a lasting memory with this man she’d called husband was even more powerful than her arousal, which was saying a lot.

  “I’m glad you’re a virgin,” Shannon whispered, opening the towel and letting it slide to the floor. Her nipples hardened as she watched his eyes grow heavy. “You don’t have to wait for our wedding night another second.”

  Hani watched as Shannon turned on her heel and walked toward the huge bed they would share for the remainder of their lives. His breathing was heavy and everything felt slightly surreal. All of the long, aching nights he’d spent fantasizing about her were about to be fulfilled. He would do everything to her, all that he’d been denied this past year.

  As she glided by him, he couldn’t help but grab the full globes of his wife’s ass and squeeze them. She made a small, whimpering sound of pleasure but kept walking. Shannon climbed up onto the bed and, like a sexy tigress, made her way to its middle on all fours. His cock was so stiff it ached. Pre-cum dripped from the head. Naked, she was even sexier than he’d fantasized her to be. “Don’t move,” Hani commanded. His hoarse voice sounded harsher than he would have liked, but he was nearing the point of no control. “I want to see everything.”

  Shannon stilled at his words, obeying him, then sucked in her breath as he began fondling her ass cheeks. He ran his hands over them with fierce possessiveness, kneading and squeezing while looking his fill. He loved the moan his wife emitted when he bent his head and began kissing and nibbling her round buttocks. He placed a final kiss on each soft globe before using his hands to push her ass cheeks wide apart.

  Another moan. As he stared at her cunt and inhaled the sweet scent of feminine arousal, he wasn’t sure if the sound had come from him, her or both of them.