Sheikhs: Rich, powerful desert kings and the women who bring them to their knees...

by Clare Connelly

  She was examining the delicate items on the dressing table when he joined her. Little vials and copper containers. He watched her from the doorframe, wondering why he’d never seen her in this guise. Why he’d never realized how keen her intellect was? How interested she was in just about anything?

  He had planned this day to show her parts of his kingdom that he knew she would love, and he had relished that prospect. But now, bad humour settled on his shoulders.

  When she looked at him, he tried to hide it, but the darkening of her expression, the visible suppression of her joy showed he hadn’t been successful.

  Inwardly, he cursed every word he knew.

  Was she afraid of him? Did she see his displeasure and worry it was aimed at her? Had he given her any reason not to feel that way?

  “There are several other bedrooms,” he said gently, moving towards her, hoping that he could say with his eyes what he didn’t know how to offer verbally. “This one is most well-preserved.”

  “I feel like I could sleep here,” she said, looking around, the wonderment gone but her interest still obviously in place.

  “I wouldn’t,” he cautioned. “The bed is fragile enough that even someone as petite as you might fall straight through.”

  She arched a brow at him. “Let alone if you were to join me.”

  And the air in the room was sucked out, leaving them in a vacuum. Only the sound of their breathing filled it, harsh and fast, her eyes locked to his in a way that he knew to be challenging.

  She was daring him to act on this rush of awareness, to put his body against hers in this ancient room, in the middle of the desert.

  Raffa’s hungry gaze devoured her, drifting down her body, seeing her naked despite the gown she wore. He knew he could strip her quickly, pulling at the shoulder to lower one side and then the other. She would step out of the skirt and she would be his.

  His arousal jerked against the fabric of his pants. He needed her in a way that was a form of torture. The only thing worse was having faced the realization that he had done this to her – he had made her crave sex in place of anything else. He had made her think it was the only way they could relate to one another.

  This day was supposed to be about redressing that. If they were to be parents together, if they were to live as husband and wife, then they needed more than just this desire that was impossible to satiate.

  He smiled as though he wasn’t contemplating ways in which to rip her dress from her body. He smiled in a way designed to postpone the throb of desire that was weakening them both.

  “There are other buildings you will enjoy seeing. I’ll wait downstairs until you’re ready to move on.”

  And he turned and left, his body taut and his craving unfulfilled, but his self-pride beginning to slowly stitch itself back together.

  Raffa hadn’t been exaggerating. The town was an exquisite window into the country’s past. Each relic had offered something new. Rudimentary knives, made from animal bones, tapestries and carpets of colours that remained bright despite the sun’s assault, and in one house, a woman’s necklace, made of oddly shaped stones that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.

  It was hunger that eventually brought an end to their tour. Her stomach grumbled and when she looked at the sky, she saw the sun was high overhead.

  “There’s food in the bags,” he said with a laugh. “I hadn’t realized the time.”

  “I’m sorry,” she returned his grin. “I got so caught up in this place. It’s unlike anything I’d ever imagined.”

  “You can come back anytime you like,” he heard himself offer. “A helicopter makes the journey in under twenty minutes.”

  “You’re not offering to ride me out any time it takes my fancy?” She asked, the words holding the same challenge that had filled the first bedroom of the first house.

  How to answer it? What to say? Raffa rarely experienced uncertainty, but now, he felt it in spades.

  “Relax, your highness,” she said, her American accent thicker than usual. Or perhaps he was just noticing it more, noticing everything about her as though they’d been hyper charged. “I was joking. I know you’re too busy to pander to my every curiosity and need.”

  He grimaced. Great. He’d just achieved the exact opposite of what he’d set out to. As she walked past, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her to his body, holding her there. Her eyes flew wide and her lips parted. It would have been so easy to drop his lips to hers. To drive his tongue into her mouth and kiss her until she was purring like a kitten. To make love to her here in this city that had seen so much, and meant so much, to his people.

  “Let us have a rule then,” he said, the words softly seductive. “You will not come here without me.” He lifted his hand and padded a thumb across her lower lip.

  “What if I want to come here every day?” She said logically, but the words were throaty and thickened by breath.

  “Then I shall have to join you.”

  She swallowed and turned her head, something like misery fleeting across her beautiful face. “You don’t have to protect me, Raffa. And you don’t have to … pretend … to care for me either.” She took a step away and there was such a dichotomy in her slender body that he ached for her. She was beautiful and strong, fiercely so, but there was a vulnerability underscoring that strength that made him want to wrap her in his arms and hold her to him always. “If I come to the ruins, I’ll be sure to bring a security detail. Okay?”

  No, he wanted to shout. That wasn’t okay! He didn’t want her out tinkering with artefacts and gasping at carpets unless he was there to see her pleasure, to vicariously experience her delight for himself. But wasn’t that exactly the problem? He put his needs above hers – always. He wanted to see her pleasure, and so what? He would deny her experiencing it if he couldn’t witness it?

  “Fine, if you wish,” he agreed with a sinking feeling in his gut. “Shall we eat?”

  “I’m okay. Just thirsty.” Her eyes didn’t meet his and he wanted to shout into the sky, to peel back the blankets of time and reach into their past, to change things from the very beginning.

  “Your stomach was like an orchestra a moment ago.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she murmured softly. “I can eat when we get back to the palace.”

  His gut kicked, and he felt as though he’d been knifed through his chest. She just wanted to go back to the palace? She wanted to be away from him?

  So what if he continued with the outing he had planned? Would that be yet another example of him riding roughshod over her needs?

  “I had intended to show you something else,” he said, reaching into one of the horse’s bags and pulling out a glass bottle of water. He handed it to her, their eyes locked. “But if you would prefer to return to the palace, of course that is your choice.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  HER CHOICE? THAT’S WHAT he’d said, and yet as Chloe stared across at her husband, her heart twisted and her stomach hollowed out.

  Her choice?

  Nothing would ever be her choice again.

  Not because they were married, not because he was a King.

  But because she loved him, and she needed him. Not just sexually – in every way. Whatever time he was willing to spend with her was a breadcrumb she couldn’t ignore.

  It was pathetic. Weak.

  Desperate.

  But she didn’t think she could fight it.

  “You’ve gone to so much trouble,” she said stiffly, turning away from him, both grateful for and hating the way she could seem so unaffected. Would life be easier if she weren’t so naturally cold? Would their relationship have been different if she’d worn her heart on her sleeve more? “It would be rude to ignore that.”

  His guttural noise was one of impatience. “I do not care for good manners. You are my wife. Say what you want!”

  She startled, his outburst totally incongruous with the pleasant time they’d been having. She blinked, staring at him th
oughtfully, completely hiding the way her heart was rabbiting in her chest. “I just did.”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw as he met her gaze, his own laced with steely intent.

  “Fine. Are you ready?”

  She nodded, holding the water bottle out for him to take. He curved his fingers around it and pulled, so that she moved towards him instinctively. His head was angled towards hers and up close, she could see that his breathing was rushed.

  Her own matched it, in and out, but her lungs couldn’t gain sufficient air.

  “Well, Sheikha? Are you ready?”

  Ready? For what? Her brain was mush. He bent down, lower and lower, so his face was only an inch from hers and she could smell him and taste him and she needed him so badly she groaned, swaying her body forward.

  But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, his hands curled around her hips and he lifted her over his shoulder, his hands resting on her bottom as he moved towards the horse. He deposited her onto its back with a lack of ceremony that had her glaring at him – and craving him all at once.

  He lifted up behind her, his strength apparent in every movement he made.

  “Where are we going?” She asked, as he reached around her and took the reins, needing to have some kind of sensible conversation before she said what she was thinking – that she wanted him to take her there, on the sands of the desert, in the shadows cast by the ruins of this great, old town.

  “To see a myth.”

  She frowned, but there was no opportunity to question him further. He kicked the horse’s flank and said something loud and deep in his native language, and they were off once more. The sun was higher than it had been earlier, and the heat was more intense, but the speed with which the horse flew across the desert brought the relief of a breeze so Chloe found herself smiling. Smiling at the sensations, and at the way his hand rested on her thighs when he relaxed the reins, and the way that didn’t even feel weird or wrong.

  It all felt so good and right. If their relationship could be defined purely by sex then she knew they’d be a match made in heaven. The sex stuff they had worked out.

  It was this. The time together, the talking – that was harder.

  And yet, it wasn’t even that, was it?

  She liked spending time with him, she loved talking to him. She even liked sparring with him – as a verbal preemptive to their sensual heat.

  But she didn’t trust him not to hurt her, she didn’t trust him to want her like she wanted him, and she had every reason to feel like that. He didn’t want her. This day notwithstanding, he had made his desires abundantly clear.

  She couldn’t have said how long they rode for. The horse moved easily through the desert and eventually Raffa tacked them in a different direction. There was nothing for miles, just sand and a blisteringly blue sky. But eventually, shapes appeared on the horizon, and as he drew closer, she was once again breathless with surprise – the beauty of what she was seeing was something she could only ever have imagined. As if from picture books or fairy tales.

  A tent had been erected in the middle of the desert. Not a tent, more of a calico home, for it was enormous, and while the tent itself was a pale cream colour, there were colourful tapestries laid on the ground around it, and a series of smaller tents sat on the edge – four in total. Several hundred metres away, there was one other tent, and she could see people moving in and out of it.

  “What is this place?” She asked, not loud enough for him to hear.

  He answered anyway, her curiosity apparent. “From time to time, I like to get away from the palace.” He had to say the words close to her ear to be heard above the galloping of the horse.

  “This is for you?” She asked louder.

  “For us.”

  Chloe was struck dumb. It was perfect – perfect in every way. He brought the horse to a stop on the edge of the settlement and now she saw that the people milling about were servants.

  “There are facilities in here,” he nodded, pulling the fabric curtain aside to reveal a small copper basin, a toilet that looked to have its own independent plumbing, and a table with creams and oils.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, shaking her head.

  He laughed, a short sound of mirth. “This is simply a washroom.”

  “I know, but… it’s charming.”

  “Freshen up, Sheikha. I will have lunch brought to the main tent.”

  Her stomach gave a low rumble, as if on cue, and she caught Raffa’s smile as he stepped outside.

  A carpet was at her feet, bright red and pink, swirled with gold. She dipped her hands in the water bowl, then splashed a little around her face and neck. She was hot, and dusty. The touch of water was sublime. She rubbed some oil into her hands then, grateful for the relief from the drying desert winds, before stepping through the tent flaps. Raffa was at the entrance to the far larger tent, talking to his chief servant. He looked up as soon as she emerged, and her heart clunked inside of her when their eyes met. Without speaking, he dismissed his servant and opened the fabric flap.

  And she understood why he’d laughed when she’d admired the washroom.

  This? This was something else entirely.

  The tent was enormous, with a bed laid out on the floor – beautifully decorated with pink and turquoise fabric and cushions. There was a table, low to the ground, with cushions scattered around it, and the top of the tent was made of a gauze-like material, so she could clearly see the blue sky through it. At night, it would be stunning.

  “Are we… staying here?” She asked, turning to frown him.

  “Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “If that’s acceptable?”

  She hid a smile, his apparent desire to seem like he was consulting her so at odds with his usual behavior that she couldn’t help but be amused by it. “And if it’s not?”

  “The helicopter will be brought anytime you like.”

  He was prepared to call her bluff; he really was trying to respect her wishes.

  She nodded, courage buried deep within her. She called on it, stepping forward. “I don’t want to go anywhere.” She put her hand on his chest, her fingers splayed wide.

  He stared at her and his expression was one of relief. Only for a moment, but that was enough. They’d been dancing around it, but they both wanted this, each other. This moment, together.

  That was enough.

  Whatever happened next, she would deal with it.

  He lifted her around the waist and this time, it wasn’t to put her on a horse, it wasn’t for any purpose except to hold her body to his.

  “I want to be with you,” he groaned, taking her mouth, holding her against him and tangling his tongue with hers, meshing their lips as his hands reached for her hair, pulling at it, releasing it from the confines of its style.

  “Yes,” she nodded, her hands on his shoulders, pushing at his shirt, needing to find his flesh.

  “Men will bring lunch any minute,” he said with a shake of his head. “And I would prefer them not to see you naked.”

  She pulled away from him, her smile teasing.

  “Well, I am wearing a dress,” she pointed out, so that his eyes flared wide and he groaned, reaching a hand under her skirt, finding her bottom, feeling her flesh beneath the elastic of her underpants.

  “So you are, Sheikha.”

  His hands cupped her and held her close to him so she wrapped her hips around his waist and the skirt she wore made a loud noise as it split down one side.

  “Oh, God,” she laughed, pressing her face into his shoulder. “So much for subtlety.”

  He didn’t answer. His hands were pushing the waistband of his pants lower, releasing his arousal. He nudged her underpants aside, just enough for him to slide inside of her, and then she cried out, tilting her head back as he filled her completely. He stood, so strong, so confident, and using his hands, he lifted her body up and down, so that within seconds Chloe was at a fever pitch of sensual heat.

  When she tumbled into the abyss of
pleasure, it was with her eyes lifted heavenwards. He held her to him and exploded seconds behind her, and all she could think as their voices mingled and their bodies quivered with energy, was that she felt… complete.

  “You’re not close to your brother.” It wasn’t a question, yet across a table that was laden with local delicacies, Chloe met Raffa’s eyes and saw the enquiry there.

  “No.” She scooped some berries onto her plate and stabbed one with a fork.

  “Because of the age difference?”

  Her smile was a wry twist of her lips. “There is the same age gap between you and me as there is between him and me. Do you think it makes us incompatible?”

  His frown creased his brow. “So there’s another reason for your estrangement?”

  She shook her head. “We’re not estranged.” She tasted the berry, taking her time.

  “How would you characterize your relationship with him?”

  “Not close,” she answered immediately. “It’s difficult to explain to someone like you. An only child, I mean. You couldn’t imagine the sort of resentments siblings – half-siblings especially – feel. He had every reason to despise me before I was even born. I took his father away.” She pushed another berry into her mouth, her eyes not meeting Raffa’s. “He had a happy family and then Diego met my mother and I was born and everything changed for him.”

  “Not for long though,” Raffa muttered, his disapproval difficult to conceal.

  “No.” The word was wry. “But the damage was done.”

  “He was a grown man when you were still a child.”

  “Not quite,” Chloe smiled.

  Raffa’s eyes lanced hers and she knew he understood, that he was smiling with her. Her heart thumped. He pushed on with the conversation. “And now? You are both adults, yet you are not friends.”

  “We’re not not friends,” she said thoughtfully. “We’re more like strangers. I suppose that must sound strange – we share a father, after all – but biology is only part of the equation, as it turns out.”

  “It doesn’t sound strange to me,” Raffa demurred intently. “On the contrary, I perfectly understand what you’re saying.”