“So get those women to step forward and say they weren’t raped,” Fran said, swallowing hard as she took a breath and went on. “I’ll talk to them if you want. Put me in touch with them.”
Now she felt the Sheikh’s massive body shudder as he looked down at her, and she caught him blinking away what she thought might be a tear. She frowned and swallowed as she realized the gravity of what she had just said, a lump forming in her throat when she knew that she would do it in a heartbeat, do it with a smile, do it for him, for her man.
“Ya Allah, you have the strength of a queen, do you not,” he whispered into her, kissing her mussed hair as he pulled her close again. “But that is not a solution for now. They might listen to you, but it could put them in danger if they publicly admit their infidelity. Besides, it would mean little to the CIA. This is not a courtroom of law. It is a courtroom of public opinion, and the CIA is not interested in any sort of publicity.” He sighed as she hugged him tight, the two of them silent in that quiet clinic. Then he looked up at the ceiling and grunted. “But now this caveman talk makes me think there is another way, perhaps. The oldest way, in a sense.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking up at him, the gleam in his eye giving her hope.
“My exile. There is another way an exiled king can return to his homeland, reclaim his throne.” He was smiling now.
“How?”
“He just goes and takes it. He invades his own damned country. Takes back what is his. Claims his goddamn birthright by the law of might, the law of right, the law of the simple fact that he has the biggest balls in the goddamn land!” he roared, much too close to her ear.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered, not sure whether to laugh or panic. “Great. I suggest that a bunch of women sit down and talk it out, and you come stomping in and insist that a bunch of men fight it out on a battlefield. With their big balls, I suppose.”
He grunted against her as she sighed and shook her head again. “Perhaps there is a way we can do both. Yes, my queen. Perhaps that might work. While the king builds his army, his queen can negotiate for peace. You and me together, my queen. There is a way. Ya Allah, there is a way!”
“What army?” she mumbled against his chest as he hugged her so hard she almost passed out as the air got pushed from her lungs.
“I will tell you later, my queen. Right now your king needs to recover his strength.”
She blinked and nodded as she pulled away from his embrace. “God, of course. You need some rest. Here, we can—”
“That is not what I need to recover my strength, dear queen,” he growled down at her as her eyes went wide at the way his crotch was peaked, his erection only growing larger as she backed up towards that little private office of hers, a smile breaking as she held on to that turquoise filing cabinet, now glad she had filled its drawers so it was heavy enough that it might not tip over.
But three minutes later that filing cabinet had tipped over, drawers busted wide, files all over, bra and panties somewhere in there, panting, puffing, pushing, pulling. Sweat and semen, perspiration and pussy-juice, laughter and madness, filth and frolic, man and woman, caveman and his goddamn mate.
37
“Yes, there are indeed photographs from when the schools were operational,” said Yusuf over the phone as Zaal pumped his fist in victory. “Aerial pictures taken by helicopter. Lines of young men marching, saluting, all of it, Cousin. The Regents ordered the photographs.”
“Perfect,” said Zaal, looking around the sparse hotel room where he had been holed up for a day now. “Perfect,” he said again, and indeed it was perfect. Those bearded bastards had set the stage to make him look like the leader of an Islamic nation that was embracing extremism, and now Zaal would turn the tables. The first step in raising his army. “Send all the photographs to the email address I just texted over. And make sure you use your official email address that uses the Kirwaani domain. I am also sending you the message text now.”
Zaal hung up and looked at his computer screen, reading the email he had just carefully crafted:
Dear Mr. John Benson:
I am Sheikh Yusuf of Kirwaan, regent-king, scheduled to ascend to the throne in nine months. Over the past year my kingdom’s Regents Committee has taken steps that are troubling, to say the least. It began with the unprecedented exile of heir-apparent Sheikh Zaal Al-Kirwaan, a man you know, a man I believe you trust—or at least once trusted—as a man of high morals. Rest assured, this letter is not an attempt to ask for your support on the sanctions facing Sheikh Zaal. We both realize you are bound by the practicalities of the situation, the politics of the situation, the delicateness of the subject matter in the fatwa.
No, Mr. Benson, I am not writing to ask that you save my cousin. I am writing to ask that you save my kingdom. Look at the attached photographs. These are extremist military schools set up by the Regents Committee of Kirwaan. Look closely and tell me if this alarms you as much as it alarms me. Already you have seen four “graduates” of this school commit to the dark underbelly of extremist Islam. They were eliminated before they acted upon their beliefs. Will the CIA be so lucky the next time? I think not—and that is a warning, not a threat.
I think you know what I am asking, but if not, I will make it explicit: I am asking that the CIA assist me in engineering a bloodless coup of the Kirwaani government, allowing my father (the outgoing Sheikh, Ishfaq Al-Kirwaan) and myself to order the dissolution of the Regents Committee and the immediate cessation of all activity related to these schools and beyond. You know as well as anyone that the Kirwaani Security Force is small and lacks deep military training. Even the credible threat of U.S. involvement—however unofficial and covert—will be enough to convince them to surrender before any shots are fired, before an American operative even needs to set foot on Kirwaani soil! Once the KSF comes under my father’s and my direct control, we will order them to seize the Regents and detain them, thereby staging a successful and peaceful coup.
I believe you will see things this way once you glance through those photographs of young Kirwaani men lined up like Hitler’s stormtroopers in 1939. Please help me stop this madness before anyone else gets hurt.
I look forward to your reply, either in word or action.
Sincerely,
Prince Yusuf Al-Kirwaan
Regent-King of the Islamic Kingdom of Kirwaan
“Come on, John,” the Sheikh muttered as he sent the email to Yusuf and shut down his laptop as he looked at his watch and sighed. He knew that Benson would immediately put the pieces together and realize that if the Regents Committee was dissolved by a military coup, then the exile order, the fatwa ordinance, all of it would go away alongside. And that would start an entirely new chain of events, because Zaal would immediately be able to return to Kirwaan, and would eventually take his rightful place as Sheikh, king, supreme ruler, the caveman with the biggest goddamn balls!
He tried to smile but could not. Caveman jokes aside, Zaal knew that his own return was the weak link in the plan for the coup. It was the one sticking point, the one thing that would make John hesitate. Because if it ever became public that Zaal was a rapist who had reclaimed his throne thanks to CIA assistance, John’s career would be done. The man would be stationed on the border between Minnesota and Canada for the rest of his days.
Of course, Benson knew Zaal’s history, especially his history with married women. Certainly he would believe that Zaal had not raped those women. And that was the belief that Zaal was counting on. If Benson trusted that Zaal was indeed innocent of rape, he might go ahead with the covert coup with the hope that Zaal would somehow, someway, find a way to publicly clear his name before taking over the throne.
And that somehow, someway lay in her hands. The hands of his queen.
38
She looked at her hands, turning her palms upwards, wondering if the lines on those palms could have predicted where her life journey would lead, that it would lead here, a king’s fate in
her hands, perhaps a country’s fate. Certainly her fate—or at least the fate she was now determined to seize for herself. Her happily ever after.
“OK,” she whispered as she stared at the four telephone numbers with the strange area codes. Zaal had assured her that these women all spoke good English and were smart and gracious. He told her a little about each one, hesitating a bit as if he was unsure if she’d get jealous. But she didn’t give a shit, and she asked him for everything, anything that could help her navigate these phone conversations that were going to be weird as hell!
“God, it would be so much easier if I could be there with these women, just get in a room with all four of them, look them in the eye and say what I have to say, tell them that as much shame as they might feel putting their names out there, putting their infidelity out there, it was in a way their duty to do it. After all, nothing is more disrespectful to the real victims of rape than to allow a man to be falsely accused of rape! It trivializes every real victim who plucks up the courage to say yes, that man raped me! Doesn’t it?”
She nodded now, reaching for the giraffe-telephone and starting to dial, sighing once more as she wished that she could go over there, to that desert kingdom, this land of Kirwaan, a place she knew she was going to end up in, where her happily-ever-after was waiting impatiently for her to arrive.
God, I wish I could just press a button and fly over there, she thought. Snap my fingers and poof, I wake up in Kirwaan!
She giggled now, wondering if she perhaps could actually do that. After all, it was her dream, wasn’t it?! So she swallowed hard and closed her eyes, mumbling something pretty close to abracadabra and then snapping her fingers and shouting, “Poof!”
And as she did it she felt a black hood come down over her face, a needle-prick in her arm, and then the world went black.
Poof, was her last thought as her vision and consciousness swirled around like water going down a drain, the whirlpool getting smaller and smaller and then disappearing into a little dot.
Poof.
39
She awoke tied to a chair, the sun beating down on her head and shoulders, her wrists bound to the armrests by smooth rope. She was still in that blue sundress, the hem halfway up her thighs in a way that made her breath catch when she looked up and saw four bearded Arabs standing before her, all in those flowing white tunics.
“Do not fear, no man has touched you,” said the man with the longest beard.
“Although that will change shortly,” said the man with the reddest beard.
“Do to you what your man did to our women,” whispered the man with the goatee.
“Tit for tat,” growled the man with a bald face and a chin-beard.
“You fucking touch me and your asses are gonna be bombed back to the stone age,” she shouted with an energy that shocked her awake. She shook the grogginess out of her head and looked around, her panic rising when she realized her situation, that she was tied to a chair in the middle of some open courtyard, red sandstone walls enclosing the space, hard-packed desert sand beneath her feet.
Now came the hazy memories of being loaded onto a plane somewhere, strapped down by two dark-skinned women and given another dose of whatever had knocked her out to begin with. More sketchy memories of the plane ride, being force-fed some dates and almonds, taken to the bathroom, cleaned by those dark-skinned women who didn’t speak much, then drugged again until poof, here she was.
Oh, shit, these are the Regents, she realized as she glanced at each of them, swallowing hard when it began to sink in that holy mother of bullshit, she was halfway around the goddamn world, somewhere in the goddamn desert, these goddamn cavemen standing over her with their beards, muttering shit like “Tit for tat” as they stared at the outline of her breasts in that blue sundress.
OK, now’s the time, she said, scanning the horizon, the cloudless blue sky above those red sandstone walls. Where’s that goddamn chopper with the Stars and Stripes painted on its cannons, SEALs and Marines parachuting down, guns blazing as these goddamn pigs get mowed down in a hail of American-made bullets.
She closed her eyes and tried to will it, but when she peeked back at the world it was still just her and the bearded ones. Fuck.
Now she caught sight of more men in the background, and her heart leapt with optimism. The cavalry! Yes?
No. Instead of American camouflage she saw turbans and tunics, rifles that looked weird and very non-American, beards and mustaches that she was pretty sure wasn’t standard issue for U.S. military. These were just the henchmen, she realized. The cronies. The backing band for these bearded front men, the men who were whistling their sick tunes as they circled her like hyenas.
Now things began to spin as she felt the heat on her face, heard them cackle and whisper as they got closer, and she was not sure if she was still drugged and dreaming or if this was real, this scene with men closing in as she struggled in a chair, pulled against her bindings, called for the Sheikh again and again as those men came closer, circling in, reaching with their arms, arms that were up in the air, up in the air. Up in the air?
She blinked herself back into focus, frowning in confusion when she saw those armed men in turbans surrounding her, guns pointed. But wait, those men weren’t really surrounding her—they were surrounding the bearded Regents! And they had their guns pointed at the bearded Regents! And those bearded Regents had their arms up, all of them shouting in Arabic, howling and cursing, arguing and shouting some more as one of the armed men replied coolly to them and then looked over at her with a smile that was tinged with something resembling relief.
“We have received the order from headquarters on radio,” he said in heavily-accented English. “Kirwaani Security Forces in the capital have come under the direct control of Sheikh Ishfaq and Prince Yusuf. It is a coup. The Regents Committee has been dissolved, and all Regents are to be seized and detained immediately. You will be released immediately, of course.” Now he seemed to realize that she was still tied to a goddamn chair, and he barked out an order in Arabic.
One of the guards stepped towards Fran now, pulling out a short knife with a curved blade as she frowned at him and raised an eyebrow at that knife and the nervous manner in which the young soldier carried it, like he had never cut a goddamn thing with it, like never ever. She held her breath and closed her eyes as he reached to cut her bindings, and then she heard his voice. The Sheikh’s voice. Her Sheikh’s voice.
“If you touch my queen I will have you shot in the knees and left for the desert rats,” came his voice from above, like it was coming from the clouds, those same clouds from which he had been spawned. She glanced up and saw the chopper now, the bird painted in the bright green of the Kirwaani flag, the Sheikh’s voice blaring through the loudspeakers mounted on the rail, the Sheikh himself hanging out of the open door in a way that seemed very dangerous, she thought.
The guard dropped the knife and jumped back as the chopper approached. The Sheikh did not wait for the helicopter to touch down, instead jumping from about ten feet off the ground and rolling on the hard sand to break his fall. He ran over to her now, the sea of armed guards parting for him as he called her name and went down on his knees, pushing the hair from her face, looking her deep in those eyes and smiling with concern, smiling with relief, smiling with joy.
“My queen,” he muttered, taking her left hand and slipping a ring onto her finger, doing it so quickly she almost didn’t notice. At least not until she looked down at the ring, which was damned hard not to notice, the diamond so large and shiny she could do her hair and makeup in it.
“Um . . . what?” she said, that grogginess returning as she wondered if heatstroke was taking her now. “What in God’s name are you—”
“Play along,” the Sheikh muttered, green eyes wide. “I have told the head of the KSF and the press that we are already married. It just makes things easier. Makes it simpler to escalate the process of my return, my ascension, get public support. It also helps my case
with the CIA, if they think I am already married to an American woman. The strategy worked like a charm for my friend Rizaak Al-Khawas and his woman Cristy Cartright. In fact Benson himself alerted me to the strategy, saying I needed to do it so he could cover his own ass. So please, my love. If anyone asks, we are already married. Oh, and I have also told everyone that you are pregnant.”
Fran began to open and close her mouth like a fish as she stared up at this strange green-eyed man with the dark mane and the perfect teeth, the sun beating down on the two of them as he grinned and shrugged and said he loved her and whispered again that hey, if anyone asks, tell them we are married and you are pregnant with my caveman babies.
“Pregnant?” she muttered as she felt a wonderful sickness rise, even though her medical training assured her it was way too soon for anything to be certain, way too quick for something like that. “Married.”
“Correct,” said the Sheikh, looking around as the guards slowly backed away, taking the cursing Regents with them as they filed out of the scene. “Married and pregnant. Just fake it until we are actually married and you are actually pregnant. Yes?”
She glanced up at him and frowned, shrugging and nodding now. “Fake it till we make it, yeah?”
He grunted like that caveman, kissing her on the forehead and then looking around and leaning close. “You will not have to fake it very long, woman. Trust me,” he growled now, looking around again. They were alone now, and Fran could hear car engines starting up beyond the walls, cars driving away, gone now, silence taking over, peace settling in. Even the helicopter pilot seemed to be missing, and it really was just the two of them in this theater in the desert, red walls all around them, blue sky above, golden sand beneath.
She looked down at herself in that blue sundress, creamy thighs bare and exposed, arms a bit red but warm and not sunburned. “Um, you can untie me now,” she said, tugging at her bindings again as she looked up at her king, her breath catching when she saw the way his jaw was tightening, the way his eyes were narrowing, the way his pants were peaking . . .
Untouched for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 6) Page 17
