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He pulled her in with a quick flex of his arm and pressed Ellie against the lean, dangerous line of his body from chest to toes. His eyes glittered with a dangerous new intensity.

“I want you in my life, Princess—any damned way I can have you,” he said, the words low as a growl. “But I’d be lying to us both if I pretended I didn’t want that to include feeling you come apart in my arms.”

Ellie’s mouth was dry. Desire sparked through her, electrifying her skin. The ache for him came roaring back, dizzying her with the sheer force of her need.

“Adam…” The word was a plea.

He tugged irresistibly at the back of her hair, then softened, a flash of the old hurt and vulnerability mixing with the heat in his look.

“I’m not done yet.” The words sounded like both a warning and a plea. He closed his eyes, drawing deep. When he opened them again, Ellie saw a new kind of naked honesty in his expression. “You’ve told me how marriage is one kind of tyranny. But my father’s voice in my head—George Bates sitting up there, telling me I’m not good enough and never will be… That’s another. Even if it’s personal and not a whole damned institution. He doesn’t deserve to have that kind of power over us.”

“Over you,” Ellie corrected him, touching his face.

The old hurt tightened his expression, and he pulled her to his chest. Ellie let her head fall against his shoulder, holding him in return.

“We came pretty close to dying out there,” Adam said roughly. “More than once. And that’s got a way of putting things into perspective.” He brushed a hand down the side of her face, turning her chin up to meet his eyes again. “I can’t say how easy it’s going to be for me to shake it off. I spent a lot of years hearing those words—reckless and irresponsible. But if I’m going to be the kind of man you deserve, then I need to stop being afraid of who I am.”

“Who you are…” Ellie said, framing his face with her hands, “is everything that I could possibly want.”

The heat in his gaze intensified. His fingers trailed along her spine once more—this time triggering a cascade of shivers across her skin. “Guess that means I have to get used to being a bit of a cad.”

The words carried an air of wicked promise.

“Howmuchof a cad, exactly?” Ellie pushed back hopefully.

Adam raised an eyebrow.

Ellie hurried onward. “It is only that Constance says her father has this very interesting book hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe that might offer certain… er,creative workaroundsto the sort of practical considerations faced by a couple who choose to engage in extramarital activities.”

“You talking about what I think you’re talking about?” Adam returned carefully.

“I believe so?” Ellie hedged in reply.

Adam’s hand rose to thread into her hair again, sparking an electric awareness that coursed through her from her fingertips to her toes. “I think maybe I could manage being that kind of cad.”

“You could?” Ellie brightened.

“Worth a few tries.” Adam dropped his lips to her throat. “But we’re not going to need that book.”

“We won’t?” Ellie echoed a little numbly, her brain mostly subsumed by the exquisite sensation of Adam’s beard-roughed cheek lightly scraping against her jaw.

“Nope,” he confirmed easily as his mouth trailed lower—and his hands traveled up. “Because it turns out…” His lips trailed over her collarbone. “That I am very good…” His hand slid up to her breast, gliding across the curve through the fabric of her corset. “At improvising.”

“Thank God for that!” Ellie said fervently—and let him carry her down to the sand.

??

Forty-Six

Ellie wasn’t surehow much sleep she managed to get after finally returning to the camp of the Ibn Rashid, but it certainly didn’t feel like enough. Her limbs were heavy as they made a warm departure from Sheikh Mohammed and his strikingly good-looking family—whom Ellie was fairly certain had not slept at all themselves, being too busy celebrating the wedding.

They had gained an extra member of their party in the process of their departure. When Adam had taken his leave of the scrawny yellow dog—a ritual which had involved him kneeling down on the ground and then flopping over entirely as the wriggling animal assaulted him with its tongue—the sheikh had made a declaration with a wave of his hand.

“That is your dog now,” his dashing brother, Samir, had succinctly translated for them.

Ellie’s stomach had sunk… but when Adam’s face lit up like a rising sun, she’d found herself incapable of making any protest.

When Adam had asked for the animal’s name—while vigorously rubbing at its ears as the beast gazed up at him in obvious bliss—Samir had told himKalb.