Page 1 of Claimed By the Sultan

Prologue

934 BC

She knelt in the required position – legs spread wide apart, hands clasped behind her back, upper body bent forward till her forehead rested on the thick carpet. Every secret of her most private parts was exposed – to be viewed, to be fondled, to be violated. Her luxurious mane of dark hair flowed in waves down her back and curled over her shoulders to veil her face.

The air was laden with the heady perfume of frankincense smoldering in an ornate silver bier. All around her, clay oil lamps flickered in the haze of smoke. Somewhere in the distance, a lone drummer began a strange but compelling rhythm. The drumbeats grew louder, as, one by one, the tribesmen joined in.

She could feel raw passion seeping into her soul as the tempo quickened. She was shaking all over, but not from cold, though she was nearly naked.

She dared not move. He would come very soon, she was sure. After all, this was the moment he’d been anticipating – preparing her for ever so patiently, even, at times, ruthlessly, over the long hot days and endless nights.

Kiera’s eyes flew open. The ancient world vanished in an instant.

With a sigh, she blew out the candle scented with her special blend of essential oils and gently placed the fragile clay figurine she’d been holding back in the scarred mahogany box brimming with crystals and stones.

The shocking noise had snapped her connection to the past. A low groan coming from their private sitting area, a sound Reid would never have allowed himself to utter in her presence.

For her sake, he kept up the pretense that the latest experimental treatment was working. She didn’t need her scrying mirror to know it wasn’t. She could see the weariness and pain in his deep-blue eyes as clearly as she saw the lives they’d lived together.

But she couldn’t bear to let him go. Not yet. Not again…

* * *

“My lord.”

Reid’s eyes widened. Keira had outdone herself. She stood before him wearing a bedazzled halter top and a gauzy flowing skirt. An opaque veil hid the lower part of her face more successfully than the nearly transparent skirt hid her feminine charms. Only her eyes were uncovered. Warm brown eyes, heavily lined with kohl, like the eyes of the Egyptian goddess in the framed papyrus fragment on the wall behind her.

She put an inlaid wooden tray on the table beside him then knelt at his feet. Taking up a long-necked copper pot that could have come straight from Aladdin’s cave, she poured thick dark liquid into a pair of tiny enamel cups decorated with a stylized design of colorful flowers and handed him one.

He sniffed then took a sip. “Mint tea. The kind that’s served in Middle Eastern bazaars. Have you been visiting your secret sanctuary again? Communing with the spirits – or whatever it is you do there that turns you into a wickedly seductive wench?”

“I’ve been…reminiscing tonight, my lord. About us.”

“Really? I don’t remember going to a costume party where you dressed like that.”

She batted her long dark lashes. “No, my lord. I wasn’t reminiscing about a costume party. This is what I wore the night I was forced to kneel before you as the newest addition to your harem. The night I refused to be your slave.”

“Refused? How did that go over?”

She gave a low throaty laugh. “About as well as you’d imagine. There you were, a powerful sultan, faced with a defiant female who claimed to be a ruler in her own right. A queen. You threatened to punish me. But I threw down a challenge instead. One that appealed to your fiercely competitive nature.”

He leaned back in his chair, drinking in the sight of her. To Reid, his wife of twenty years was sexier and more desirable now than on the day they met.

For many of those years, she kept dark secrets from him, hungers she’d never dared to confess. Only recently, through the stories she wove, had she begun to expose her most wicked desires. He found this hidden side to the woman he thought he knew so well enthralling. Inside her lived a brazen temptress with hot fantasies – dirty fantasies that got his cock hard when she confessed them to him.

Reid smiled. If there was one thing he did know about his wife, it was that her competitive nature was just as fierce as his. “A challenge? Hmmm…let me think.” He paused then nodded his head. “Of course. You played the Queen’s Gambit.”

Her eyes lit up. “Youdoremember!”

It had been a lucky guess but he didn’t want to put a damper on her excitement by admitting that. Instead he responded with a raised eyebrow and a wicked chuckle.

Reid had no idea if Kiera truly was uncovering memories of past lives they’d spent together or whether weaving naughty tales of love and lust had given her the courage to be honest at last about her sexual needs. For him, it didn’t matter. All he knew was that he loved her more and more every day, loved the freedom her honesty had given both of them. After recounting one of her erotic adventures, she’d find a way to bring it to life, satisfying needs neither of them had ever dared to admit.

Through her stories he discovered Kiera’s most shameful secret. She hungered for the thrill of submitting to a stern alpha male. Reid was determined to give his woman what she desperately craved – for as long as he could.

She’d dropped enough clues tonight for him to come up with the perfect reply.

“How could any man forget the most alluring creature the desert winds ever brought to his tent?”

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