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

by Clare Connelly

  “We do not want it.”

  Malik shook his head, his temper rising. “Do not lie to me, old man. I saw your fear when your grandson was diagnosed with leukemia. You availed yourself of the best medical care our nation could offer, you did not leave his health to ancient proverbs and herbal treatments.”

  Laith bared his teeth but made a grunt of concession. “Health is different.”

  “This woman wants to study law. She wants to move to the city to take up her degree. You cannot forbid her from doing so; you cannot punish and threaten to exile her parents if she goes. What kind of community do you lead if your people are beholden to you out of fear rather than respect?”

  Laith’s demeanour didn’t shift. “Are you ordering me to allow this?”

  Malik sat back in the chair, casting his eyes about the table. On one side, sat members of his own government and security delegation, liaisons to the Bedouin communities that peppered these deserts. On the other sat members of Laith’s tribe, as well as delegates from other communities, interested in the outcome of these speeches.

  “I am reluctant to interfere in your governance.” He drank his wine. “I have deep respect for you, your people and your way of life.” He turned his head, staring through the flap of the tent, towards the wild, unfettered desert. “There have been many times in my life when I wished to live amongst you.”

  Laith’s voice was crackled by age when he spoke. “And we have always welcomed you.”

  Malik’s eyes swept shut as he remembered that detail – the times when he ran from the palace to this community, living beneath the stars, their simple life appealing to something ancient and strong within his soul. The weeks after Addan’s death had required him to be at the palace, but as soon as life had appeared to return to normal, he’d come to Laith, to the desert, to grieve without the confines of staff, without the expectation that he would know just what to say and how to act to everyone, at all times.

  “I chose to come to you,” he said slowly. “I have always chosen to spend time here, with you, like this, when I could. Despite all that is at my fingertips – the immense wealth of my family, the power of my position, the love of my brother, I have come to the desert tribes and chosen to partake in this way of life.” He turned his head back to Laith. “We are not men of the city, Laith.”

  He felt the men on both sides shift, some nodding, some murmuring under their breath. He spoke quietly, but with the effortless command and strength that were very much a part and parcel of this man’s being. “We are not a people born to live in comfort, with technology making our lives easy and convenient. Give me a modern city and I feel a prisoner,” he muttered. “This,” he swept his hand, encompassing the canvas tent and the rugs at their feet, “is my idea of a home. The stars are the only lights I want at night, a horse the transport I prefer, the sound of ancient songs and spoken histories what I want to dance to and listen to as I fall asleep. This is a part of who we are. Men, women and children of Abu Faya carry the sands of the desert in their skin, in their cells; these are our ways.”

  More noise, some clapping of hands and nodding.

  “You must trust that this woman, and others like her, will feel a pull back to this way of life. You must believe there is strength and passion in us, that draws us to these deserts.”

  Laith’s expression was taut.

  “And still,” Malik continued, “you must let her go.”

  There was silence around the table now, but it was a silence of understanding, of acceptance. All but Laith saw that Malik was right, and even Laith was softening. “I will think on it,” he said finally, lifting his cup and holding it towards Malik in a silent gesture of respect. “And I thank you, Sheikh, for coming to me at this time. Your counsel is, as ever, appreciated.”

  Malik stayed only so long as he felt absolutely necessary and then climbed onto his horse, his gaze set in the distance – beyond which was his palace, and his bride.

  He would ride through the night.

  His security detail wouldn’t like it, but Malik had little care for that.

  Sophia smiled as she watched the children, their frivolity and laughter transcending geography and culture. These children, playing in the courtyard of their school, reminded her so completely of herself and Bella as children. They ran from one side of the space to the other, flicking water from the fountain and laughing when the droplets landed on their uniforms. It was a searingly hot day, quite unbearable. She wished, for a moment, she could forget the fact she was on an official visit, to launch the new technology lab of this government-run school, to forget the fact there were photographers lined up from international newspapers, ready to capture her every move. She wished she could forget for a moment that she was Sheikha Sophia and join in the water fight, splashing herself, cooling herself down.

  Despite the heat of the day, though, it wasn’t that alone which had caused Sophia to feel over-hot.

  Hers was a heat that came from inside, a heat generated in the blood that was pounding through her body, making her heart race and her pulse gush. It was a heat that Malik had set alight, that was ravaging her completely.

  She kept her smile in place, nodding as the headmistress continued to explain the operations of the school.

  The children were adorable.

  Out of nowhere, the image came to her of another little person, a baby born to her and Malik, and for a second, her smile almost dropped. Because, in her mind’s eye, she could see that child so clearly! The smile, the dimples, the dark hair like his, the inquiring eyes, the easy smile.

  Her heart skidded in her chest.

  Was it possible that little baby was already growing inside her?

  Her fingertips tingled and she fought an impulse to run a hand over her flat stomach.

  She was familiar enough with the global media’s intense interest in her life to know that such a gesture would headline international papers and websites if she were to succumb to it.

  And so she stood still, nodding and smiling, picture-perfect and dying with impatience.

  She knew only that Malik had been called away urgently. The minute they’d descended from the tower, real life had absorbed them back into it. For a day, they’d escaped, they’d become intimately acquainted with one another’s bodies, and then one of his ministers had approached him, speaking quietly and in a dialect she didn’t recognize. Malik’s expression had darkened, his skin paled, and then he’d turned to face her.

  He hadn’t smiled. “Urgent business requires my attention.”

  “Oh.” A stupid rejoinder, but she hadn’t known what to say; she hadn’t been prepared for the intense rejection she’d feel at the very idea that he was to go away again. How could her body have become dependent on his in such a short space of time? “Why? Where?”

  She’d kicked herself for giving voice to the needy questions.

  He’d frowned, perhaps feeling her intrusion was unwelcome. “Deep into the desert, to the south.” It was clear he was already mentally there. “I cannot say how long I will be away.”

  And he’d turned and left, without any further goodbye. What had she expected? A passionate kiss or embrace in front of his staff and hers? A long, detailed conversation? An accounting for his time?

  Addan and she had been best friends. When the tribes had flared up and required Addan’s attention, he’d talked to Sophia about it at length. He’d seen her as an asset to him, recognizing that the daughter to a US senator and a woman practically raised to be Sheikha, with a passion for the classics, knew more than a little bit about politics and human nature.

  She wondered which of the tribes was calling Malik away, and for what reason.

  And she reconciled herself to the fact Malik might not see their marriage as Addan had – he might not wish her to be a queen who involved herself on the political side.

  Well, tough.

  She wasn’t just window dressing. Addan had known her, he’d understood. Sophia wanted to make a differ
ence in the world, to be an instrument of change. It was one of the main reasons she’d agreed to sacrifice personal privacy and take up this very visible, high-profile position within the Abu Fayan royal family.

  There was no information forthcoming about Malik’s trip, nor if he was seeing success.

  Frustration gnawed at her gut, but she quelled it. This was still the first week of their marriage. They were yet to find any kind of groove – he had no idea what she wanted and that was her fault. She hadn’t told him.

  The year of their betrothal had seen them together on only a handful of occasions and his coldness to her had made any kind of conversation almost impossible, just as it had for the duration of their acquaintance.

  But now, there was no coldness. Only white hot heat, and she had to get past the feeling that she was an unwanted bride and navigate their relationship – to get what she needed out of this royal life.

  As soon as she arrived back at the palace, as dusk was curdling the sky pink and purple and gold was dipping down towards the distant oceans, Sophia made a beeline for the private residence.

  She hadn’t moved into their bedroom.

  The bedroom she was to share with Malik.

  With him away immediately after the wedding, it hadn’t felt right somehow. Besides, she preferred it here, in her little sanctuary, the bedroom that was next to Addan’s, the suite they’d sat up in and talked about everything and anything until all hours of the morning.

  This felt like home. She wasn’t ready to give it up yet.

  She stripped naked and pulled a pair of bathers from the wardrobe, the white bikini a gift from some designer or other. Sophia donated most of the fashionable gifts she was sent – there were too many for her to ever wear and she knew that they were better being auctioned, the money going towards good causes.

  For some reason, this pair of swimmers had avoided that fate.

  The pool beyond her bedroom could only be accessed by the royal family, and only through their bedrooms. It was a completely private space, and she reveled in that – she reveled in knowing that here, at least, she could be unobserved. She could be herself.

  There was no relief from the heat of the day, nor the fever in her blood.

  She dove into the pool without preamble, smiling as the water enveloped her, as it cooled her flesh and relaxed her mind. She kicked hard underwater, swimming the length, pushing up only when she reached the opposite end.

  Here, she paused a moment before diving back underwater and doing a summersault, and then another.

  As a child, she’d harboured fantasies of joining the American synchronized swimming team and going to the Olympics. She’d outgrown the dream but not the love of playing in the water.

  She laughed when she burst through the surface and then moved to the edge, bracing her arms against the sun-warmed coping, staring out at the sky. This time of day was like magic. As the sun waned to accommodate the moon, the blanket of stars darkening, coming closer, whispering secrets of the evening. She felt as though she was a celestial being, for those few moments where day and night were completely merged.

  She spun around slowly in the water, chasing the sky, but an incongruous shape caught her attention and she jerked her head in that direction.

  Only to feel like her heart had been exploded in her chest. Draped against the wall opposite, his dark eyes watching her with an intensity she couldn’t comprehend, was Malik.

  Broad, big, wild Malik, dragged in from the deserts, his expression impossible to read, his eyes trained on her with an intensity that stole her breath. Even as she turned to face him, he continued to stare at her, and her lips parted of their own accord, breath still almost impossible to find.

  So, he was back.

  He looked… the least regal she’d ever seen him. Wearing the traditional white robes of Abu Faya, they were crinkled and dusted by sand. His hair was loose, around his shoulders, knotted and tangled. Despite this, he was more handsome than ever.

  She stared.

  She stared without realizing it and then when she did, she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

  It had been over a week without him and her body was at a fever pitch of desire.

  He didn’t say a word, but she felt his invitation. She felt his command, and it sent thrills down her spine.

  One slightly arched brow was all it took.

  She swam through the water, her stride confident and easy, and before she could second-guess what she was doing, she stepped out of the pool, her eyes not leaving his face.

  She saw the moment he realised what she was wearing, the way his eyes dragged down her body, taking in every curve and plane, every divot of skin, every single bit of her. He dragged his gaze over her body and she felt… naked. In the best possible way.

  When she was only a step away from him, he closed the distance, pushing up from the wall and striding forwards. Their bodies touched. Electricity sparked.

  “You’re back,” she said needlessly.

  He didn’t respond.

  She swallowed, breathing in deeply, inhaling his intoxicating, musky scent, her insides quivering. Her feline eyes watched him, waiting, every cell in her body stagnant, still, hungry.

  The air around them seemed to be thick, frozen with time. He stared down at her, his dark eyes flecked with gold towards the centre, rimmed with dark, curling lashes.

  He was big and wild, untamable. The word came to her from nowhere but it was so apt.

  She swallowed, her heart racing in her chest.

  His eyes dropped to her lips and they parted on a soft exhalation.

  She didn’t understand the words he spoke next. Deep and guttural, and from a dialect she’d never heard, much less been taught. Was it the same he’d used when they were making love and he’d whispered in her ear, words she didn’t understand but instinctively felt?

  They were magical words, deep and throaty, and they called to something buried far down in her chest.

  She heard the words and stared at him, her pulse ricocheting like crazy through her body.

  And then he kissed her, without preamble, as though he couldn’t resist.

  It was a kiss that was born of fire and flame, a kiss that was born of absolute necessity, as though without it, all the oxygen on earth would drain away.

  His hand curved around her wet head, his fingers splayed across her scalp, pulling her head back a little, angling her to allow his mouth maximum access.

  She groaned, a noise that curled through her throat.

  He was wearing too many clothes. Her hands found his shirt and pulled at it, but he shook his head, his eyes holding warning.

  “I must shower.” There was reluctance in the words. Reluctance and frustration. She felt the proof of his desire, hard against her belly.

  “Shower?” The hint of a delay wasn’t welcome. She refuted it instantly. “Shower later.”

  He groaned and she felt his desperation and yes, fear, because he too was as driven by this desire as she was – as held hostage to it is as anything else in life ever had been.

  “I have been riding for twenty hours,” he said, shaking his head. “I need to shower, and sleep…”

  “But you came to see me,” she said pointedly, her hands reaching inside his shirt despite his protest, curving around his hips. She stroked his flesh there and then dipped them lower, into the waistband of his pants. His eyes swept closed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “I came to shower,” he insisted, “and sleep.”

  He lifted his hands to her breasts, covering them indolently, possessively, lazily, feeling the weight of them in his palms.

  Her breath was tight, burning inside her lungs.

  “Yet you’re here…”

  His eyes narrowed, and his fingers lifted to the straps of her bathers. Watching her, waiting for her to say something, perhaps to demur, he slid the straps lower. She shivered as they ran over her arms, and he dragged them lower still, revealing her breasts compl
etely to his proprietary inspection. “I heard you splashing.”

  She bit down on her lower lip, her body swaying forward slightly in an unspoken invitation. “You should have joined me.”

  His eyes dropped to her breasts now, to where his fingers were curved around her flesh. She let out a whimper as he took one nipple between his forefinger and thumb, rolling it and increasing his pressure until she moaned, tilting her head back, staring at a sky that was growing darker by the minute.

  “Don’t shower,” she pleaded, not even remotely ashamed to beg that of him. “Not yet.”

  His eyes lifted to her face, and there was a battle being waged inside of him. A war of control, a fight for sanity.

  “I must.” He gave her nipple one last squeeze, tight, and her gut kicked in response, her insides slicking with moist heat.

  Her pulse was a livewire.

  “Then why don’t I come and wash you,” she murmured, wondering at this heady sense of power she felt, this certainty that he wouldn’t say ‘no’ to what she was offering.

  Their eyes met once more and desire exploded between them.

  The battle he was waging shifted. “If you wish, Sharafaha.”

  Chapter Five

  HIS BODY WAS SO broad and powerful. She could easily believe he was the kind of man who’d been conjured from the ancient myths of this historic land. Myths that spoke of beasts being cast to human form, that spoke of men being forged from the depths of the ocean or the bowels of the desert, men who could withstand sandstorm and earthquakes and duel with the gods.

  Even though this was her suggestion, she was nervous now, uncertain. She reached for a sponge and layered spiced body wash on it, buying for time. His look showed he understood that, that he was aware of her hesitation.

  He stretched his arms out wide, and unconsciously she bit down on her lower lip, scanning his ridged abdomen and arms that were thick and sculpted. On the underside of his left bicep, he had a scrawling tattoo. She held the sponge in her hand and traced it with her fingertip, reading the words now.