In Defiance of Duty Read Free

like a thrill, twisting through her, but she did.
    “Then I suppose I should count myself lucky that we are not in your country,” she said after a moment, not sure until she spoke that she would be able to at all.
    She was surprised that her voice sounded so steady. Almost tart. “This is Australia. I’m afraid we’re quite civilized.”
    “All of you in your new, young countries are the same,” he said in that low tone, his voice its own dark spell, weaving its way over her, inside of her, as inexorable as the setting sun. “So brash, forever carrying on about your purported civility. But you are all so close, still, to your disreputable pasts, aren’t you? All of it welling up from beneath, making a lie of these carefully cultivated facades.”
    Kiara realized two things simultaneously. One, that she could listen to him talk forever—about countries, about pasts, about whatever he liked. That voice of his triggered something deep inside her, something helpless and wanton, that made her breathless and so wrapped up in him that the world could fall to pieces around her and she wouldn’t notice. Or, as now, the sun could disappear entirely beneath the horizon without her registering it, ushering in the inky sweetness of the Sydney night, and she would still see nothing but him.
    And two, and more important, that she would die if she didn’t touch him. Now.
    “As fascinating as your thoughts on young countries and disreputable pasts may be,” she said then, keeping her voice a low murmur, her eyes hot on his, “I think that I’d rather dispense with all this meaningless chatter and just get naked. What do you think?” He smiled again, and she felt it shiver through her and curl her toes. He reached over and took her hand in his, carrying it to his mouth. It was the faintest hint of a kiss, a timeless gesture of chivalry for the benefit of the people all around them, but she felt it like a hard kick. Like a promise.

    kiss, a timeless gesture of chivalry for the benefit of the people all around them, but she felt it like a hard kick. Like a promise.
    “There is nothing I would rather do,” he said, that gleam of amusement in his eyes turning them something near silver. “But I’m afraid I’m meeting my wife for dinner. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
    “I’m sure she’ll understand.” Kiara played with his strong fingers in hers. “Who would want to stand in the way of acrobatic, inventive sex, after all?”
    “She’s terribly jealous.” He shook his head almost sadly. “It’s like a sickness—ouch.” His gaze turned baleful, and a silver heat gleamed there, while something almost too warm to bear echoed in a kind of sizzle low in Kiara’s belly. “Did you just bite me?”
    “Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it.” It was a dare.
    He let go of her hand, but shifted closer, reaching over to pull gently on the end of her ponytail, tilting her head up slightly to meet his searing gaze.
    “Perhaps I can risk my wife’s jealous rages after all,” he said musingly. He moved still closer, until their faces were a mere breath apart, his delectable mouth just there, just out of reach.
    Her breath came out ragged, then, as if she’d broken into a run. She felt as if she had. His smile licked over her, into her.
    “You look as if you can take it,” Kiara agreed, and then she closed the distance between them and kissed him.
    His wife, Sheikh Azrin bin Zayed Al Din, Crown Prince of Khatan, reflected with no little amusement, was endlessly delightful to him.
    Her lips were soft and sweet against his, hinting at the passion that neither of them could succumb to out in the public eye like this. It was as frustrating as it was delicious. He wanted more than this hint of her, after two weeks apart. He wanted to taste her—take her—with a ferocity that might have surprised him, five years after marrying her, had he not been well used to this relentless thirst for her.
    A thirst he could not