“Thank you,” she nodded tersely, keeping her face locked in a forward direction.
And though she’d known her sister was not in a good way, Eleanor was still ill-prepared for the sight of Michelle. Lying against the crisp white hospital sheets, she was flatter, and whiter, and oh so slender. So fragile that one fierce gust of wind might break her in two.
“Shelly,” Eleanor said on a sob, moving quickly across the linoleum floor and lifting her sister’s hand.
“Ellie?” She blinked, disoriented and confused. “What are you doing here?”
“Papa told me you were in hospital,” she said gently.
Michelle’s eyes were squinting in the bright light. Aki moved to the bedside table and turned on a lamp, then hit the wall switch so that the room was plunged into a dim glow.
“Thanks.” Michelle’s voice was a husk.
“Would you like me to wait outside?” Aki asked, his gaze resting on Eleanor. She understood the compassion in his face and was grateful for it.
“For a moment,” she said with a nod.
Once he’d pulled the door softly shut behind himself, Eleanor propped herself on the side of the bed, and put a hand lightly on Michelle’s thigh. “What happened?”
Michelle’s eyes skittered across the room. “An… accident.”
“No.” Eleanor’s eyes moistened with tears. “Not now. You cannot protect him after this.”
Michelle bit down on her lower lip, as was her tendency when she was stressed. “I… what do you want me to say, Ellie? He’s my husband. I love him.”
“Do you?” She asked, leaning forward so that Michelle had no choice but to meet her enquiring stare. “Do you love him, or do you fear him?”
“You couldn’t possibly understand,” Michelle said. “No matter what he’s like, I still remember the kind, sweet man I first met.”
Eleanor bit back the temptation to point out that that man had probably never really existed. How easy it would have been for a man like Jak to fool a naïve, trusting teenager as Michelle had been. “Did he hit you?”
“No.” His voice wobbled over the angry denial.
“Did he hit you?”
Michelle and Eleanor had a bond that surpassed all others. Best friends, confidantes and sisters, their understanding of one another was unmistakable. Michelle dropped her gaze now, shying away from that intimate understanding. “He didn’t mean it.”
Eleanor had been prepared for this. Years earlier, when she’d realised how completely dictatorial Jak was, she’d gone to a night course on domestic violence. And all the years since, she’d been subconsciously bracing herself for this moment. Hoping against hope she wouldn’t need to use the information she’d gained, but knowing she probably would. “If I walk out of here now, you will go home to a man who appears repentant, until he loses control the next time. And each beating will be worse and worse, until you are dead. What do you want to do, Shell?”
“Stop it!” She squawked, her face pinched.
“No. Because he won’t stop, and so nor will I. You’re my sister, and I will not let him take you from me.”
The door pushed in at that moment, and Aki strode confidently in, ahead of a white-coated Jak. Beyond them, the security presence of Aki’s forces was reassuringly placed as flanks on either side of the room.
“Eleanor,” Jak said with a curt nod. “The nurse said Michelle had visitors. I didn’t realise it would be you and Aki. It seems like a lot of fuss over a simple concussion.”
Aki’s expression was filled with derision and disrespect. Eleanor shot him a warning look. This was her battle. Or, it was Michelle’s, but Eleanor was going in to bat on her behalf. She stood and unconsciously moved her body between her sister and brother-in-law.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Jak?”
His ice-cold eyes drifted to the pathetic picture of his injured wife. “An accident,” he said. His uncertainty was clear. How much did they know?
“Is that what you call it?” Eleanor spat derisively. “I would have thought a surgeon like you could come up with a better cover story. Isn’t it usually ‘fell down the stairs’? Or ‘walked into a doorknob’?”
Jak took a menacing step closer to Eleanor, and she felt Aki stiffen. To his credit, he didn’t move to protect her, though it was pretty obvious that he was struggling to stay out of the argument.
Eleanor lifted her chin, and the smile on her face was loaded with disdain. “What? You want to hit me, too? Isn’t that how you handle your frustrations, Jak? Pick on women?”
“Ellie,” Michelle’s voice was cracked with grief. “Stop it.”
“You heard your sister. You would be better to listen to her.”
“No. She is listening to me, whether she wants to or not. She will not be coming home to you.”
Jak rolled his eyes. “And how do you propose to arrange that?”
“I don’t care if I have to bind her and gag her, she will never be alone with you again.” Behind her, Michelle reached out and laced her fingers through Eleanor’s. She squeezed them. And because of their unique understanding, Eleanor knew. She knew that the squeeze conveyed gratitude and relief.
“Now get the hell out of here before I start screaming this hospital down. I will have no hesitation telling your superiors just what you’re capable of, you misogynistic, abusive bastard. Do you understand me?”
Jak stared at her for a good minute, weighing up his options. Finally, he turned toward the door. Before leaving though, he stopped and levelled one last cold stare at his sister-in-law. “This was a mistake, Eleanor. A mistake you made on behalf of yourself and your sister. I am sorry that you will live to regret it.”
A shiver ran down Eleanor’s spine. Now that it was over, she felt terrified. She had made it impossible to turn back from this fork in the road. No. She hadn’t, she corrected herself. Jak had done that. Jak and his fists and his hateful arrogance.
Now, Aki moved to his wife’s side. He put an arm around her waist. “Are you okay, azeezi?”
“I’m fine,” she said with a small nod. “But what the heck do we do now?”
He pressed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. “There is a silver lining to ruling a country, Eleanor. I think you will find that even the most difficult obstacles are easily overcome when you have staff and servants to assist you.”
He kissed her lightly on the top of the head, because he felt she needed strength and comfort, and then stepped backwards. In the end, it was not Aki’s staff or servants who overcame the obstacles, though. It was Aki himself. With the deftness of a man who had spent his whole life calling the shots, he arranged for Michelle’s immediate transfer from the hospital. “Go with her,” he said to his wife. “She is afraid. You must make her understand that she is under my protection, and no one will dare hurt her now. Can you do this?”
Eleanor nodded, and felt that odd, gravity-defying lurch in her chest again. “Thank you.” She said, though the words were insufficient for the gratitude she was experiencing.
“Where are we going?” Michelle asked, once in the back of an ambulance.
Eleanor frowned. “I don’t actually know.”
Michelle closed her eyes, but tears leaked out regardless. “It must be nice to trust your husband so completely.”
Such a simple statement. A completely understandable observation to make, given the circumstances, but it came as a revelation to Eleanor. She trusted Aki. With her life, and her sister’s life. How was it possible? Their relationship had been founded on his dislike and enmity, and her lust and naivety. How was it now possible that she was willing to put all her faith in him?
Eleanor didn’t have an answer to that. But some things in life were certain even without proof, and her trust in Aki was one of them.
Chapter Seven
Eleanor tapped her Kindle down quietly, watching Michelle’s sleeping form to be sure the movement didn’t disturb her. The time on the bedside clock showed tha
t it had just gone midnight, and finally, she’d heard a sound downstairs.
For the briefest of moments, it occurred to her to be afraid. After all, what if it was Jak? The fury in his face had been truly terrifying.
But she wasn’t in a normal apartment. Aki’s penthouse was fortified like his palace. Which meant the noise she’d heard was more likely to be Aki.
She padded silently to the top of the stairs and peered down. Despite her certainty that it couldn’t be Jak, an irrational fear made her cautious.
A gasp was pulled from her chest when she saw Aki. His shirt was torn down the front, and had blood splattered over it. His cheek was blackened.
“Oh my… what the hell…?”
Aki looked up, his expression inscrutable.
“Aki?” She ran down the stairs and crossed the vast space quickly. “What happened?”
Eleanor lifted a hand to his cheek and touched it lightly with her fingertips. The bruise was massive.
“It is fine,” he said dismissively. His eyes ran over her face, taking in every detail. “How are you?”
“Me?” She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. You look like you’ve been hit by a bus.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “You fought with Jak?”
He dipped his head in silent confirmation.
“Oh, God. I’ll kill him,” she muttered, lifting her other hand and splaying her fingers over his uninjured cheek. “The doctor just left. I’m sure we can get him back.”
His eyes clung to hers; his tone was droll. “It is simply bruised. I am reasonably confident I will survive.”
Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously drawing his attention to the swell of her cleavage. “You don’t have to be all macho about it,” she said with a shake of her head. “Go and sit on the sofa.”
“Why?” He asked with an amused frown.
It was wrong to feel frustrated at a man who’d just been in a fistfight to defend your sister’s honor. So she tried to keep that annoyance out of her voice. “Just, for once, stop questioning me.”
He quirked his lips and shrugged. “As you wish.”
Eleanor appeared just a minute later, clutching a glass of water, and a tea towel that she’d stuffed with a handful of ice cubes. She knelt before him, her eyes on his bruise, as she lifted the makeshift ice pack to his face and administered it gently to the bruised skin. Aki couldn’t help the way his eyes devoured her. In the soft glow of the moonlight and the electrics from other buildings, she was ethereally beautiful.
“What happened?” She asked, her dark rimmed eyes filled with worry. “Tell me, Aki.”
He lifted a hand and wrapped his fingers around her skin. Gently, he lowered the ice pack from his face, but kept his grip on her slender wrist. “I did not want your sister to have to lodge a complaint with the police.”
“You were worried she wouldn’t.” Eleanor corrected, for she had experienced the same concern.
“Perhaps a little of both. If she recovered and realised she was not prepared to file a complaint, then Jak would be free. Men who beat their wives do not often stop with their wives,” he said with a shake of his head. “Do you not see, Eleanor, that your parents would have been in danger? That you might have been in danger?”
“My parents!” She exclaimed, her expression stricken.
He made a hushing sound. “They’re no longer in the city. I thought it best that they not see Michelle as she is; and that they be as far from Jak’s rage as possible.”
The desperate intensity in his voice made her stomach turn over. “And so?”
“When I explained his situation to him, he attacked me,” Aki said firmly. “Jak is a bully, nothing more. He had become used to the fact that he could behave as he wished and meet no discernible opposition.”
Perhaps she was over-sensitive, but she detected an underlying criticism of her father in his statement. “It’s been so hard, Aki. Michelle has been impossible to crack. She has always defended him.”
He nodded. “Nonetheless, the police took his attack on a visiting Sovereign extremely seriously. It is unlikely that he will be able to bother you, your sister, or your parents, again.”
“You goaded him into attacking you.”
His lips twisted into a scornful grimace. “It was not difficult. He has a loose grip on his oversized temper.”
She looked down at his hands. They were unscathed. “Did you… Did you hurt him?”
He narrowed his gaze. “Unlike your brother-in-law, I do not employ physical violence when I am angered.”
“You didn’t even hit him?”
“No. I had no interest in hurting him. That would make any case against him weaker.”
“Your self-control is admirable.” She said, not sure she would have been able to resist raining punches down on Jak if she’d had the chance.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured, his eyes drawn to the swell of her lips.
Her breathing was suddenly laboured, her chest constricted. “Don’t I?” She whispered into the darkness of the night.
She groaned as his lips pressed against hers, his mouth moving over hers hungrily, and her hands lifted to tangle through his thick dark hair. There was nothing sensible about it. The feelings that overcame her were animalistic and primal. Without so much as a thought for his injuries, she pressed herself forward, between the apex that was formed by his legs. Her hands pushed at his damaged shirt, removing it and dropping it to the floor beside her.
His skin was caramel and a line of dark hair ran down the centre. A bruise radiated from his left side. She winced, lowered her lips and ran them over the purple skin.
Aki didn’t think. He didn’t want to think, he wanted only to feel. He stood and pulled her to her feet in one swift motion. Her pyjamas were soft and white. He raised the shirt as Eleanor lifted her hands above her head, helping him guide it from her body. She pressed her nakedness against his chest, rejoicing as skin met skin. His hands on her back were lighting millions of tiny little flames within her blood.
His fingers slipped inside the waistband of her pants, connecting with the top of her buttocks, and she groaned low in her throat, grinding her hips forward against his erection.
“Come,” he said urgently, lifting his hands and removing them from her body. “This room is not private,” he expanded, by way of explanation.
“Oh.” She nodded groggily and followed him. She knew the apartment had ten bedrooms – an extravagant amount by any standard, let alone in the most expensive neighbourhood in Manhattan. He led her to the room that was closest and shut the door behind them.
“You are beautiful, but too thin,” he said breathlessly, standing back to admire his wife. “I do not like this.”
She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to argue. “I want you to make love to me.”
His chest was rising and falling rapidly, but he did not move. “You are… emotional. You need comfort. Are you sure…”
“I am beyond sure,” she said defiantly. If he wouldn’t move, then she would. “Please, Aki. I want to feel.”
“You said before that my self-control is admirable. Let me tell you, it is hanging by a thread now. Your body has become an obsession of mine. To finally possess you is all that I want. But I cannot bear the idea of you resenting me. Tell me, Eleanor, that you will not. That you will not feel I have taken advantage of you.”
A grin flicked briefly across her features. “Oh, I intend to take advantage of you, your highness.”
He laughed softly into the cold air. “In that case…I intend to let you.”
They came together as one, and it was a promise that this moment was created out of mutual desire and need. He removed her pyjama pants reverently, cupping her bare bottom with his hands, and holding her to him. “Even more beautiful than I dreamed,” he whispered, taking her earlobe between his teeth and teasing the sensitive flesh.
Her whole body seemed to be shaking as new and unknown feeli
ngs ran rampant through her system. She shook her head, his praise lodging awkwardly in her chest. The moment was special; her desire great, and still his words from that night floated into her mind. Like sharp little daggers, they penetrated the fog of pleasure. “Attractive, you suppose?” She repeated his damningly faint appraisal of her beauty back at him, and she was unable to keep the hurt from her voice.
He groaned with frustration. “I was angry.” He kissed her gently, reassuringly, apologetically. “And I was wrong.”
Was this really happening? Was his desire real? Or was he finding this arduous? He sensed her hesitation, and he shook his head. “I was wrong.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And I was dishonest.”
She closed her eyes, wishing she could quiet her brain. But it whispered doubts to her. “Dishonest?” She asked, her fingers digging into the warm flesh of his back.
His smile was derisive. “Any fool could have seen how beautiful you are, Eleanor. Any fool but me. I didn’t want to desire you. I didn’t want to want you.”
“Why?” She let her fingers drift along the muscled plane of his chest, to the coarse hair that surrounded his nipples.
His chest was moving quickly as her touch stirred needs in him that demanded fulfilment. “You are driving me crazy,” he muttered against her silky hair.
“Why?” She repeated, trying desperately to get the answers she needed.
“You know why,” he said, lifting her against his chest and placing her down on the edge of the bed.
She needed answers, but she lay back against the soft white bedding, a small smile on her lips. Her hair fanned behind her like a dark halo, and her eyes looked at him with such innocence that he felt an onerous burden of responsibility. “You are so young,” he said with a shake of his head, as he came to straddle her.
“I’m not,” she denied. “You keep saying that, as though I’ve done something wrong.”
“It is not your age so much as your innocence,” he said darkly, running his lips along her décolletage and down to her full, round breasts.
Sheikhs: Rich, powerful desert kings and the women who bring them to their knees... Page 70
