Review: Heart of a Desert Warrior

Heart of a Desert Warrior by Lucy Monroe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2 ⭐⭐ - Meh!
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==>Reread 2019, August 24 (- 1 ⭐)
==>Re-read 2016, March 18
==> Read 2012, September 19

Our hero was obsessed with a perfect virgin princess, but he was cheated by the snobby princess who was already pregnant with another man's child. He discarded our heroine as yesterday's trash and never considered her to be a wife, only mistress, because he already had the perfect princess in mind.
And our heroine has no self-respect in getting involved with a sleazy guy like him again.
I didn't pity him at any time. He kicked our heroine for the curb and he exchanged her for a woman who was not a virgin, had a lover, was already pregnant with another man's child, despised him and his people, and so on. He took what he deserved.
Our heroine deserved better.

She’d never heard from him again after he left, though a mutual friend had told Iris when Asad had married a year after returning to his home. She’d spent the weekend crying off and on, for once Iris’s studies unable to assuage the ache of loneliness and grief.

He’d seduced her anyway, treating Iris like his girlfriend when she was nothing but his mistress.

The level of animosity in Iris’s expression and voice when she wasn’t doing her best to suppress it, surprised him. It had been six years since he’d returned home. Surely she was not still angry at the admittedly abrupt end to their association.

Iris hadn’t been a virgin, but she’d been honest, loyal and surprisingly innocent. He’d believed Badra untouched, but that had been a lie of monumental proportions, as was so much about her.

“You didn’t want to abandon it. You didn’t leave me out of duty—you left because you never wanted me for a lifetime. I was just stupid enough to believe you did. That’s all.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that not coming to the Middle East had been my decision?”

“Marrying the virginal princess did not turn out to be all it was cracked up to be, I guess.”

“Your love for me was true,” he said as if just realizing that. “And you really didn’t love me. Life is peppered with little inconsistencies like that,” she said with a wry twist to her lips.

“Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned.” “The woman who allowed me entrance to her body on our first date? One who had others before me? I think not.”

Asad had found the city-bred and sophisticated young woman fascinating. Besides, she was a princess, and as a future sheikh, he should marry a woman of such standing.

Badra had not been impressed with his pedigree, thereby cementing his interest in her. Then and there, he had determined to win her hand. He would attend university and build his tribe into a people others would envy. And that the Princess Badra would want to belong to.

Far from the innocent virgin he’d expected to bed, Badra was well versed in the art of sexual encounters. She was also pregnant.

He’d been adamant he would marry this woman and no other. She would not reject him, the lion of his people.

“I planned to marry Badra from the time I was eighteen.” And he was the type of man that when he had a plan, he stuck to it. Could it really have been that simple? When she didn’t reply, he added, “There was no lack in you. Nothing missing from us.” She just hadn’t been the Middle Eastern princess he’d wanted.

“When you dumped me, I sure felt lacking.” “No.” He kissed the join between her neck and shoulder, suckling up a love bite, and sent pleasure zinging through her. “You were the perfect lover.” But not the perfect candidate for wife, even if Badra hadn’t been in the wings waiting. That much Iris understood.

Unwilling to dwell on a reality that she had no hope of changing, Iris offered, “You’re a pretty amazing lover, yourself, Asad.” He moved over her body, reminding her of the stalking lion he’d been named for. “I would have you beyond amazed.” “What, you want me passed out from pleasure?” she teased. “It has happened before.” Yes, it had. “Be my guest.” She waved languidly with her hand, as if it didn’t matter one way or another to her. But they both knew it did.

She’d never been indifferent to him. She never would be, but maybe, just maybe she would learn to move on from him.

“Did you think I’d had a string of lovers before you?”

Asad had only known his own hand for sexual release since well before Badra’s death.

This was where he belonged. For now, anyway.

Like the fact that Iris could never be in the running for Asad’s future wife because she’d had a sexual partner before him.

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