Sheikh's Revenge

by Jessica Brooke

  Confused, she opened her eyes and saw that Zahir, of all people, was in the office and that he’d wrestled Mr. McDermott into a headlock. She looked up and saw those familiar gold eyes, brimming with concern for her, and she had never been more relieved in her life. She had no idea how he’d gotten here or how he’d known where she was, but he was here, and he was trying to save her.

  He had saved her from something unspeakable.

  As the two men struggled, they bumped into the desk, causing the Vodka bottle to fall to the ground and shatter into a dozen tiny pieces. Both were grunting, especially Mr. McDermott as he tried to fight the hold. He managed to twist free by elbowing Zahir in the solar plexus, and Addison screamed, worried for her sheikh. Then Zahir moved quickly and slugged Mr. McDermott so hard that the other man spit blood and teeth to the floor. The other man seemed to stop then, wobbling unsteadily on his feet, and she worried he was going to lunge again before he finally fell to the floor in one unconscious heap.

  Zahir rushed over to her and gathered her in his arms. Stroking her hair, he shushed her, and she took comfort in the strength of his biceps and the familiarity of his spicy scent. It felt like coming home, even if he’d betrayed her. She’d loved both that night on the Club Rouge rooftop and her life in Dubai. She could tell herself she hated him all she wanted, and she did despise being used, but she couldn’t escape her deepest feelings for Zahir. He would always be her sheikh.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, breaking away enough to stroke her cheek. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Nothing permanent, but we need to call the cops.”

  “Agreed,” he said, pulling his cell from his pocket.

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. I was coming to check one final thing on our contracts and found you here struggling with him. I’m so glad for the timing that I can’t even tell you. I knew he was a bastard, but even I never imagined what a monster he was.”

  In the center of the room, Mr. McDermott started to stir and she stomped over there, kicking him hard in the stomach once, letting her fury and frustration out on him in one swift blow. Glancing back over her shoulder at Zahir, Addison said, “Not anymore.”

  ***

  It was the next day, and everything felt like such a flurry of impossible activity. They’d spent the day at the police station, and Zahir had already contacted his lawyers to start on the civil proceedings against Clayton on Addy’s behalf. He was going to ruin every aspect of the man’s life. Even if he somehow still had friends in the justice system, Clayton wasn’t going to skate on the pain he caused. Not this time.

  But so far, it had been a parade of police interviews, lawyer discussions, and then letting Addison nap in his penthouse. Her brother would be coming over soon as well, but Zahir had requested that he give Addison more time to sleep. It had taken her till five in the morning to pass out at all, and it had been a fitful sleep, at best. Zahir assumed she might have many more sleepless nights to come, and she’d need what rest she could get. If only he weren’t an honorable man. A pig like Clayton didn’t deserve to breathe after what he’d tried on Addison, but whatever his punishment was, it was up for American courts to decide.

  It surprised him when she crossed from the guest room of the penthouse and over to his main quarters, all while blinking those heavenly sapphire eyes back at him. They were beseeching him already, but he wasn’t sure what it was Addy wanted from him anymore, outside of helping her like a friend through the legal battles to come.

  “I think we need to talk,” she said, rubbing at her arms.

  He nodded. “I know we do. Part of coming back to Boston was that I knew you were screening me and I knew you couldn’t understand everything over the phone or with an e-mail.”

  “I don’t know if I understand it now. I just…please explain it to me. Was I always just some pawn in a game between you and Mr. McDermott? Everything in Dubai felt real, but I can’t keep from running it over in my mind, from feeling that I was played completely. It isn’t that way, is it?”

  Her voice was plaintive and sad. All he wanted to do was sweep her up in his arms and hold her forever, but he hadn’t earned that right back. If he didn’t choose his words carefully and make her see everything, then he never would.

  “I wanted to find someone I could get information from about Clayton McDermott. That much is true, and that’s why you were hired. It’s also why I took you out that first night. I only planned to make you more comfortable in a relaxed setting so you’d say more. I never intended for everything else to happen, but it felt so right—so familiar—in the limo, like we were meant to be together, and I couldn’t let you go. But…”

  “You still needed the information,” she said.

  “Yes, because I wanted to put him out of business, to make him suffer. He’s hurt so many people over the years, from the secretaries he’s bullied to the ruthless takeovers he’s led that have left thousands jobless. I wanted to make him pay for that, and when I got to know you and saw how badly his bullying had beat you down, I especially wanted to do it for you. I had no idea how deep his depravity went, but I just wanted him to pay,” Zahir confessed, balling his right hand into a fist at his side.

  They’d called the police, played by rules, but a huge part of him wished that he’d just wailed on the other man and beat him to a pulp before the officers arrived.

  “You could have asked,” she said, her voice so small and weak, so unlike his Addy, and he’d had a hand in that too. It wasn’t just the trauma she’d just faced that had left her this bereft.

  “I should have, but we were already in too deep, and I didn’t know how to ask for your help without making you hate me. I guess I didn’t do a good job of that on any front,” he said, raking fingers through his hair.

  “No, I think we both fucked up,” she said, her language blunt. “You keep saying that you feel like we’re connected, but that you have no idea how we’re connected.”

  “I assumed it was just one of those amazing chemistry things.”

  She shook her head. “Well, I think it was that too, but we had met before the job interview. I don’t know why you didn’t recognize me. Honestly, I know I love costumes, but I don’t think that my masks are that good. I figured you’d know that I’d been that cat on the not-so-hot-tin roof.”

  His eyes widened, and Zahir could no longer help himself. He was across the room and caressing her cheek then. “You’re the kitten?”

  She nodded. “You’re not very creative when you go to a costume party,” she admitted. “But, my sheikh, I was definitely your kitten. Part of why I took the job in the first place was that I wanted to be closer to you, wanted to see if you really had forgotten me.”

  He ran his hands through her red hair, so like flames in the morning light. “I could never do that, but I just didn’t know you were the same person. No wonder I felt such sparks. I’ve never in my life loved a woman the way I love you.”

  “You love me?”

  “I did it wrong, and I should have explained why I really wanted Clayton taken down. Damn it, Addison, I should have treated you like an equal, and if I could do it over again I would and—”

  “I think rambling is my style,” she said, kissing him, her tongue hesitant but soft against his own.

  He blinked, completely surprised that she was offering him this, especially after he’d fucked up so badly. “I don’t understand.”

  “We both lied and it made a mess, but you saved me when it mattered. I missed you so very much, Zahir, and I want to fix this…fix us.”

  He grinned back at her, hardly believing that this was happening. “Then how can I fix this for you?”

  “Can you make love to me?” she asked. “Please, that’s all I need.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “Definitely. I don’t want anyone else’s touch on me, not even the memory of it. I only want you.”

  That was all he needed. Zahir pi
cked her up in a bridal carry and walked her over to the bed. She was only in a spare T-shirt of his and her own panties, something so simple. But somehow all that plain cotton was driving him wild.

  He started by kissing her throat, grazing his teeth lightly over the skin on the side of her neck so that he could hear her moan, make her writhe beneath him. Then he coaxed her to sit up long enough for her to slip the shirt off, revealing the dusky pink of her perfect nipples. Leaning down, he wrapped his mouth around her right areola, suckling at her nipple, feeling his own erection harden even as her nipple did, as it responded so readily to his ministrations.

  She mewled beneath him. She was his kitten once more as he moved his mouth lower, let his tongue trace secret patterns of want over the flesh of her stomach. Zahir stopped at her belly button and dipped his tongue into that as well, swirling inside of the hole there, teasing her.

  “Please, Zahir, I don’t want to wait anymore. These weeks have been agony.”

  He nodded and, for once, forewent the familiar foil package in his nightstand. He wanted to be connected to her, to feel her fully with nothing between them. Reaching down, he slipped off her panties and ran his hands over the soft curls at the apex of her thighs. So red and appealing, just like her longer locks.

  “Are you ready?” he said, pressing his manhood against her hidden lips.

  She nodded and bit her lip. “You know that I am.”

  “Well, kitten, I can’t disappoint you, can I?” he said, slipping inside of her, hissing at the heat of her surrounding him.

  Rocking his hips against hers, he thrust deeply into her core, even as his nerves were alight. He felt every bit of frustration and anger and extreme emotion convert to passion in his body, in his blood. All the horrible agony of the last few weeks faded away as he found his pleasure in her.

  Addison was responding too, her fingernails digging deeply into the skin of his back and her mouth offering him kisses against his neck and the line of his jaw. She moaned beneath him, egging him on, until he found her most sensitive spot. Then he was lost to the ecstasy, to moving against her, and to a world where the only things that existed were their joined bodies, their synchronized breathing, and the warmth of her channel around him. He came first, shooting his seed deeply inside of her, hoping selfishly that one day soon she’d be heavy with his child. It didn’t take long for her to shatter against him and to follow him down into the euphoria that was drowning them both.

  After they were done, he gathered her to his chest and kissed her forehead and then her lips, promising her everything with his mouth before he spoke again.

  “I’ll protect you always, kitten. Never forget that.”

  “I don’t think I could,” she said honestly. “I love you, my sheikh.”

  “I love you too, kitten, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  She looked up at him, blue eyes wet with unshed tears. “Do you mean that?”

  “I didn’t mean to be so informal about it, but yes, I do. I’ll take you out and do everything the right way.”

  She chuckled. “We never do anything the right way, just the backassward way.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough, but, Miss Morgan, will you marry me?” Her kiss wasn’t exactly a yes, so even after their tongues tangled and dueled for what felt like hours, Zahir was still waiting for her response. “So is that a ‘yes?’”

  “It’s an ‘always and forever,’” she replied, kissing him again.

  Forever.

  He liked that.

  The End!

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  All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015-2016 Sophia Lynn

  Chapter One

  Amanda Sinclair kept her head held high, ignoring her fellow reporters’ wolf whistles. Several of the guys from Metro snickered as she walked by, and Amanda thought she heard Simmons call her Dead Meat Walking. She’d heard worse. Some of the staff had been saying terrible things loud enough for her to hear all week. However, it chafed. It was clear that most of the other journalists at the Washington Sentinel were jealous. She’d been working nonstop for six months on her expose of Senator Jackson. He was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations and a secret arms dealer. Amanda might have jumped the gun publishing the first in her series, but she had multiple corroborating sources. She was definitely going to nail his ass. Jackson was as dirty as they came, and she was about to prove it.

  If the rest of Metro thought she’d been foolish to jump to publishing before her editor had given the final go-ahead, then they could keep their unsolicited advice and opinions strictly to themselves.

  Or, better yet, they could shove it up certain orifices that shall remain nameless.

  Her best friend, Margery, offered her a small smile and a thumbs-up, even as the rest of the office seemed to part for her like the Red Sea. Her best friend was also on Metro, but she’d been content to cover the ins and outs of DC infrastructure. Margery covered which public school was getting an overhaul or a new construction deal, but Amanda was trying to work her way up to the top beat. Those were the reporters that permanently covered Capitol Hill, and if she made it there, it could hopefully net her a Pulitzer nomination. Her masterwork on Senator Jackson was supposed to get her there. But now…

  When Donald Harris, her grizzled editor, had screamed across the office that he wanted to see her butt and now, even Amanda couldn’t ignore the signs. She just wasn’t going to let anyone else know she felt like she was approaching the gallows.

  Never let them see you sweat.

  Her mom, who’d been a decorated reporter for the Post, had always said that. Even now, Amanda clung to that advice. A real reporter couldn’t be vulnerable, and she refused to ever show weakness. Not after all she’d been through in her life. While she couldn’t tell Harris to shove it, she could still go in there with dignity. She’d tell him that he was overreacting and that her piece was important—it would put the struggling Sentinel back on the map.

  At least that was the plan.

  But nothing ever went to plan, did it?

  ***

  “You know why I’ve called you in here, don’t you?” Harris asked. There was a no-smoking policy in the office, but that didn’t stop him from nursing a thick cigar between his lips. She coughed a bit as the smoke unfurled from its tip. “Seriously, Sinclair, do you have any idea how badly you’ve fucked up?”

  She stilled in her chair. It wasn’t the curse word, itself, that worried her. It was just that despite his old newsman persona, Harris wasn’t one to cuss. He’d often said that it didn’t serve any point to revert to swear words, and he was too old and established to use shock value to get his reporters to comply with his needs. No, if Donald Harris was cursing, then things truly had gotten fubar.

  “What?”

  Shaking his head, he began to pace before the large window in the corner of his room. “For the last two days, I’ve been on the phone with Senator Jackson’s press secretary. But it didn’t stop there. The senator called at least twice to personally yell at me, followed by a call from his pricey lawyers over on K Street. They sent the owner a cease-and-desist letter. They want a retraction on your first piece and then they want you gone.”

  “Of course he wants me gone! Senator Jackson is a damn arms dealer—he’s in cahoots with the biggest cartels in El Salvador and Guatemala! He needs me gone. I mean, let them sue us. I have the proof.”

  “And you published before I cleared it. Look, Sinclair, I’ve always liked you. You’re a hothead, but your work is great and it’s honest. Personally?” h
e said, gesturing vaguely to his chest. “I think that Senator Jackson is as crooked as they come.”

  “See? We can fight this. It’s not like we don’t have our own lawyers.”

  “We can’t afford this fight. Circulation’s down twenty-five percent this year alone, and we already lost a suit because of that drunken fistfight our sports reporter started on opening day. The truth is that the Sentinel is tapped out. I’m sorry.”

  Her heart started hammering. The old pit-bull mentor of hers was tough, but Harris had always had a soft spot for her. There was no way he was firing her. That wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be. She’d had to work her way up here from a nowhere paper in Northern Virginia. If she lost her job she’d be stuck back there or worse. Considering the state of journalism today, there was a good chance her only option would be blogging from her breakfast nook.

  As if that was journalism.

  “Are you firing me? You can’t! Not after five years! You know what I bring to this paper—you’ve seen the awards I’ve won for the Sentinel. I mean, are we about truth and justice or are we about avoiding suits?”

  “Usually we’re about both,” he said. “And I didn’t say I was firing you, Sinclair. Jesus, jump to less conclusions.”

  She frowned, pushing her long blond hair back out of her face. It tended to fall out of her tight buns at the worst times. “Okay, so I have to drop the story. What’s the real catch?”

  “Why do you think there’s a catch?”

  “Because it’s life and there’s always a catch,” she continued. “So I’m not fired, but what else aren’t you telling me, Donald?”

  He sighed and sat down on the corner of his desk. She watched him stamp out the butt of the cigar into his old, yellow-glass ashtray. “Have you ever wanted a long vacation?”

  ***

  “Son of a bitch!” she shouted again. She drained her mojito but wasn’t feeling enough of the rum yet. Intellectually, Amanda understood that Harris had stuck his neck out for her, and that any other editor would have thrown her to the wolves to be fired or sued into oblivion. Still, the alternative wasn’t any better. She was being exiled, and the bitch of all of it was that Senator Jackson was just going to walk. “I can’t believe it.”