The Sheikh grinned. “I do not think too many daytime talk shows use the term information imbalance, but all right. Ask me anything you want. You want to know about my history with your CIA? Go ahead and ask. I promise to answer truthfully.”
Kathryn snorted. “The promise of a man with secrets is worthless,” she said. “I need to be sure you’re being honest. That’s the only way we move forward.”
“Move forward with what?” said the Sheikh, glancing down along her strong hourglass figure and then quickly back into her eyes.
“With whatever this is,” Kathryn replied, her gaze steady, her back straight, her breasts beckoning to him. “This weird annual tryst you set up. Ten days with a woman. The only criteria being that she’s never been a whore.”
“What makes you think that is the only criteria?” the Sheikh said softly even as he hardened beneath his silk trousers. By God, he wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to damned well take her. Flip her over his knee and spank her beautiful bottom. Rip off her panties and spread her from behind. Push himself in so deep she’d never forget how he felt inside her . . .
“Oh, I’m sure there are other criteria,” she said with a smile. God, she was lovely when she smiled. “And since I was clearly the oldest and thickest woman in your perverted lineup, I’d say those criteria are early twenties and anorexic.”
The Sheikh grinned and shook his head. “Ah, Miss Kathryn Krane. You underestimate your puppet-masters in the CIA.”
Kathryn frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if John and Mel were able to get you into this room, into that line of ten women, then do you not think they could choose who the other nine women were as well?”
Kathryn blinked, and the Sheikh watched her process what he’d said. He waited a moment and then smiled when he was certain she’d understand what he was telling her: That he very much had a type, and she was it. Those other women were not interesting to him in the least, and John and Mel would know that. They’d set the stage in as many different ways as they could. They’d doubled down on this woman. There was no way the Sheikh was picking anyone else.
Then he saw it again, that flash of color on her face, that hint of a smile as she tried to remain stoic. Ya Allah, it affected her, he thought. The realization that she is very much my type, that I am attracted to her . . . it means something to her.
“So you are ready to move forward with this perverted, twisted tryst then?” the Sheikh said.
“I thought you’d offered to answer my questions truthfully first,” she replied.
“Indeed. Go ahead.”
“I already told you. I trust you about as far as I can throw you,” Kathryn said, shaking her head. “There’s only one way I’m agreeing to any of this.”
“I am listening,” said the Sheikh, a chill coming over him as he thought back to what he’d read about Kathryn Krane in the leaked CIA file.
“Let me bring you under hypnosis,” she said. “That’s the only way I’ll know for sure if you’re speaking the truth.”
Now it was the Sheikh’s turn to mask the emotions surging through him. “Hypnosis,” he said slowly, swallowing hard and blinking twice. “Yes, I have seen mention of it in your file. But hypnosis is no guarantee of anything. If it were, then every crime could be solved by simply bringing in all the suspects and hypnotizing them into telling the truth. Intelligence agencies would not need elaborate methods of torture and interrogation. They would just need a team of hypnotists with pendulums.” He snorted. “Ridiculous.”
“Then why not let me try?” Kathryn said, shrugging her smooth shoulders and looking him right in the eye.
The Sheikh shook his head. “Because while I do not believe in hypnotism’s effectiveness in questioning people, I do believe in its power to plant suggestions in the subject’s mind. To affect behavior.” He paused. “To make people do things.”
“And what do you think I would make you do, great Sheikh?” Kathryn whispered, taking a step toward him, her hips moving in a way that made Hyder’s swollen cock yearn to burst free.
The Sheikh blinked. Ya Allah, was she already in his head? Did he miss something? Had she gotten him into a trance already? Or was it just the sight of her heavy breasts moving beneath that flimsy black tank-top, the outline of her panties beneath those sheer red harem pants, the smell of her perfume mixed with her clean, natural scent? “I do not know what you would make me do,” he said, his voice sounding strange to him, like it was someone else speaking. “Leap to my death from this window. Drink poison.” He shook his head again. “No. It is not that simple. John and Mel arranged this elaborate ruse for a reason. I do not have the complete picture.” He paused and cocked his head, blinking. “But neither do you. And perhaps that is the point,” he muttered, thinking back to some of the discussions he’d had with John and Mel, back when they were all in closer contact.
“What do you mean?” Kathryn asked.
The Sheikh took a step toward her until he was so close he could smell her feminine musk rising up from her secret spaces. Ya Allah, she feels this energy too, he thought as he breathed deep of her scent, allowing it to bring him to a hardness that he knew would not subside until his need was satisfied.
Hyder took a slow breath. “John always believed that events in the world of espionage were too complex to predict, and so making strict plans is a waste of time and energy. He used to say that sometimes you need to set the stage and then see what happens. Put two people in a room and see what happens, see how it plays out,” he whispered, taking another step until the obscene peak at the front of his trousers almost brushed against her soft mound.
He saw her breath catch, the way her eyelids fluttered, the way the outlines of her big, hard nipples were clear and prominent as they pushed against her top.
“And what is happening here?” she whispered, a tremble in her voice as she looked up at him, into his eyes. She began to move her eyes slowly, side to side, left to right, rhythmically, without blinking, and immediately the Sheikh realized what she was doing.
And then he knew what he had to do. Stop her the only way that made sense to him in his current state. Stop her the way he wanted.
“You know what is happening here,” he growled. “But it will happen my way, not yours.”
And he whipped out his black silk handkerchief and grabbed her by the hair and blindfolded her tight, covering those mesmerizing brown eyes as she gasped and sputtered in shock.
Then he pulled her into him, crashing her body into his, and he kissed her.
By God, he kissed her.
10
The blackness closed in so fast Kathryn wasn’t sure if she’d passed out. It took her a moment to realize she’d been blindfolded, but just as the realization came so did his kiss, and then she was lost to the world.
“What’s happening,” she mumbled, clawing at his back as the Sheikh ravaged her neck, bit her earlobes, licked her face like an animal before shutting her up with another savage kiss that sent both panic and ecstasy racing through her shivering body. “Let me go!”
“Too late,” growled the Sheikh. “You are mine for ten days. And no one is coming for you. No Navy Seals, no CIA extraction team, no goddamn cavalry.”
“Get this off me,” she muttered, reaching up to pull the blindfold off. But the Sheikh grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms back down, holding them behind her back as he leaned in so close she could feel his clean, warm breath against her neck.
“It stays on,” he whispered. “Or else I will tie your hands down too. Would you like that, Miss Krane?”
Kathryn took deep, gulping breaths as she tried to control her rising panic. She’d been in some very tight situations before, and she’d always managed to stay calm. But the sudden blindfolding had gotten her turned around. And that kiss . . . that feeling of his hard body pressed up against hers, hi
s chest crushing her breasts, his cock rubbing against her wet mound . . . oh, God, she wanted this, didn’t she. She’d been prepared to sleep with him, of course—that would be part of the game. But she hadn’t been prepared to want it this much. She hadn’t been prepared to need it this much.
And so when he ripped off her top and slapped her breasts until it stung, pinched her nipples until they were hard and peaked, sucked and licked her boobs until they were sticky with his saliva, Kathryn just arched her back and gave in.
And when she realized he’d let go of her wrists so he could rip her harem pants down the seams and yank her panties off, she didn’t reach for the blindfold. Instead she welcomed the darkness, welcomed the unknown, welcomed the Sheikh.
“Ya Allah,” he groaned from between her legs after he lowered her to the soft carpet and licked her long and deep. “You taste sweet like poison.”
The strangeness of what he’d said barely registered as Kathryn felt his tongue slide deep into her open slit. She’d completely lost track of her surroundings as the darkness got blacker, and her panic blended with her arousal to create a mixture so intoxicating she could barely breathe. She raised her hips up off the carpet, gasping when she felt him palm her buttocks and curl his tongue up against the front wall of her vagina. His lips closed over her stiff clit, and he worked her into a hot frenzy, sliding his middle finger into her rear as he brought her to a ferocious orgasm with his mouth.
“Oh, shit,” Kathryn groaned, almost choking as her climax smashed through the darkness of her mask, strangling her with ecstasy, making her thrash and writhe. She pushed her mound into his face as the orgasm rose to its peak and then washed over her like a wave crashing into the shore. “Oh, God, what are you doing to me!”
“It is you who are doing this to me,” came the response, and Kathryn could hear the arousal in the Sheikh’s voice, feel the need in his strong grasp, sense the urgency of what was coming.
She felt herself being flipped onto her stomach with an ease that took her breath away. She’d never been a small woman, and to be manhandled like this was something she’d always fantasized about. Kathryn had had some memorable encounters with men before, but she’d always, always, always been in control. But not here. Not now. Not with him.
And as she allowed herself to let go more than she ever had, to give up control to a degree that terrified her, to let this man whom she’d been sent to marry and then perhaps murder blindfold her and make her come like a whore . . . yes, as she welcomed the madness and depravity of what was happening, she felt him push her face down onto the carpet, spank her upturned bottoms until she screamed, and then spread her from behind and slide his thick, rock-hard cock past her throbbing nether lips and deep into her warm, ready cunt.
He pushed all the way into her, spreading her so wide and penetrating so deep she almost passed out. The blindfold seemed to have heightened all her other senses, and Kathryn could taste his arousal, smell his need, hear what was coming before it got there.
The Sheikh thrust twice, and then with a bellow that made her body shake he came, his orgasm exploding with such force she felt the blast against the farthest, most virgin space in the recesses of her vagina. An overwhelming sensation of being flooded came through her blindness, and she felt her mouth widen into a manic smile as she licked her lips and tightened the walls of her cavern, milking him as he roared and shuddered, his tight hips pounding against her buttocks as he filled her with his load.
He collapsed on her when he was finished, panting like a beast, his weight almost crushing her. They lay there together in silence, and then the Sheikh pushed aside her thick brown hair, kissed her neck, and whispered into her ear:
“The blindfold stays on for the full ten days.”
Kathryn mumbled something even she didn’t understand. Then she nodded, smiling as she felt her head against his, her body beneath his, their legs intertwined, the smell of their sex thick in the air, the sound of their breathing almost deafening. There was something about being shut out like this that both terrified and exhilarated her. The sense of the unknown. Her whole life she’d been the one who always knew more than her adversary. She’d been the one with the plan. She’d been the manipulator, the puppeteer, the one in charge. Then suddenly this man had taken over . . . and he’d done it precisely because he was afraid that she would take control, manipulate him, make him her puppet! Oh, God, what a game!
“What happens in ten days?” Kathryn muttered, moving her buttocks beneath him, smiling as she felt his thick semen slowly flow out of her.
The Sheikh grunted and roughly pulled at a knot in her ravaged hair. “You should be more concerned about what will happen during these ten days.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea, judging by what just happened in the first ten minutes,” she replied, giggling as she tried to turn beneath him so she could face him. She gasped and tried again, but then gave up. He was too damned heavy, and besides, she was still blindfolded so she couldn’t see him anyway.
“Are you mocking my manhood by implying that I only lasted ten minutes?” he growled into her hair, his fingers clawing at her thick brown tresses and getting a firm grip as she winced and smiled at the same time.
“Um, once you were inside me, I think you lasted about thirty seconds, Great Sheikh,” she answered, shifting beneath him, her breath catching when she felt his spent cock move against her naked buttocks.
The Sheikh was quiet for a moment, his fist tightening in her hair, his cock slowly hardening again, growing full along her rear crack, his breath hot against her bare neck. “Before you continue to insult me, I should remind you of the graveness of your situation here, Miss Krane. You are naked, blindfolded, and completely in my control. I know for a fact that you are a CIA agent whose entire career is built on murdering powerful people and making it look like accidents, suicides, or unsolvable disappearances. Your own people revealed your identity to me before I laid eyes upon you, and you had no idea they had done that.” He pulled her hair back again, and this time she winced without smiling. “So regardless of what just happened—which, I should remind you, would have happened with any of those other women—“
“Oh, so you would have lasted only thirty seconds with any of those other women? I guess that makes sense if you only have sex ten days a year. Which, by the way, is about as weird as it gets.”
The Sheikh pulled her hair so hard she squealed, but she felt his massive body shake with stifled laughter even as his cock hardened to the point where it was parting her rear cheeks on its own as she wriggled her bottom against him.
“Weird,” he muttered in her ear, “is a woman who has murdered every man she ever fucked.”
Kathryn stiffened beneath him, her breath seizing, her mind spinning. How could he know? That couldn’t possibly be in her file. She’d been recruited when she was in her twenties, and there was no way the CIA could have known the truth: that Kathryn Krane had stayed a virgin all the way through college and medical school, that she’d never been particularly interested in sex, that she’d always looked at sex from a clinical, scientific standpoint, something of a curiosity. And that coldness had made it so easy for her to use sex as a tool, to use her body as a weapon, to do it all without guilt or shame.
But now suddenly she was ashamed. Suddenly she was alarmed. Suddenly she was terrified. Oh, God, I’m a psychopath, aren’t I, came the thought—a thought that had come to her many times over the years. Indeed, it was a thought that perhaps had driven her entire interest in psychology. The need to understand herself.
And then something the Sheikh had said came back to her. “You will never understand me,” he’d whispered to one of the other women. “You will never understand me.”
Oh, shit, Kathryn thought as she blinked beneath her blindfold, breathed deep of the scent of the man on top of her, felt his semen make its way out of her even as his growing hardness pressed
against her soft rear. Is that what Mel and Benson think they’re doing here? Is that why they leaked my file to Hyder? That’s it, isn’t it. That’s their game. They know Hyder, and they know me. By now Mel must have sensed my yearning to understand myself. Perhaps Hyder has that same need to understand himself. And sometimes it takes another person to help you understand yourself, doesn’t it?
Oh, God, came the final thought before she felt the Sheikh move off her and turn her around.
They haven’t set this up to be a fake marriage.
They’ve set it up to be a real one.
This isn’t just the long game. It’s the longest game.
And as the realization hit her so hard she almost burst into tears, the Sheikh ripped the blindfold off her face, shielding her eyes for a moment so the sunlight wouldn’t blind her. Then he slowly moved his hands away, and she saw in his green eyes something that told her that perhaps he had realized the same thing. That they’d been put together because each was the only person on Earth who might be able to understand the other.
“I . . .” she whispered, shivering even though it was warm and sunny in the room, melting even though she’d been a cold-hearted killer for most of her life. “I don’t . . .”
“Then don’t,” the Sheikh whispered, stopping her from whatever she might have said. “Don’t, Kathryn.”
And then he kissed her. Again. Again. And once again.
11
The second time they made love it was tender yet fierce, smooth yet desperate, passionate yet with a strange hesitance that rippled just below the surface. The Sheikh spread her legs with his hips and pushed himself into her, looking deep into her brown eyes as he did it, barely blinking as he pumped slowly and powerfully. He took in every change in expression, every little movement: The way her lips quivered when he thrust, the way her eyelids fluttered when he drove, the way her tongue curled out of her mouth, almost touching her nose when he made her come, again and again.
Assassin for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 11) Page 5
