by Sophia Lynn
The assessment group of historians and cultural investigators had arrived the night before, and unfortunately business in the capital had prevented him from meeting them. From what the hotel where he had had them installed had said, they had checked in without a problem, and this morning, they had set off to perform their separate investigations into the history of Ikkar and its importance.
“You understand,” a rather stuffy British woman had told him weeks ago, “this is not a simple yes or no. This is something that takes time and thought, consideration. Of course it requires a great deal of study.”
“Of course,” Adnan had echoed, and from the slightly disgruntled look on her face, he realized that he had sounded more than a little mocking.
Please, he wanted to say. Speak to the local historians. Speak to the universities. They will tell you about how Ikkar's beauty was such that it caused our nomadic ancestors to quit their travels. They will tell you how long the history of this place is, and how important.
Instead, he arrived in Ikkar twenty-four hours late, and now felt as if everyone was playing least in sight. There was something peculiarly empty about the town at the moment, and as the afternoon drifted towards evening, he ended up at his favorite restaurant. Before he went in, his phone chirped, and he frowned, glancing down at the message from the British woman who was nominally the head of the investigation.
Can you give us further directions towards the musicians we are meant to be interviewing? You mentioned oud and daf players as well as craftsmen of the same.
Adnan snorted, because the entertainers were never difficult to find. He would bring them to her tomorrow if he had to drag the two groups together. Then they would see.
Then he opened the door to a bright shiver of lively music, and blinked as a young man he didn't recognize came up to meet him.
“I'm sorry, sir, but this is a private event.”
Adnan stared at the young man, and somehow when he spoke, his voice was level.
“I think you do not know who I am, and I think you very much want to let me in.”
The young man scowled, and then the owner of the place hurried over.
“Sheikh Adnan, forget my cousin's son, he is new—”
“What is this about a private event? Since when do you do private events?”
The owner of the restaurant grinned widely.
“It is new,” he said. “Miss Andress—”
“Ah,” Adnan said. “That's who is behind this. She's here?”
“She is, shall I tell her you want to speak with her?”
“No need,” Adnan said, taking shameless advantage of his rank and the fact that his family had been patronizing this restaurant for something like four generations. “I'll just go find her.”
It took a moment to find Bailey because her hair was covered. She was dressed formally in a black caftan and trousers with a hint of gold trim at the hems, and she was just rising from a table full of foreigners when he found her.
Their eyes locked across the room, and Adnan gave her a meaningful look. He wasn't above simply grabbing her and hauling her away for a word, and she sighed, turning back to the group to make her excuses.
The men, Adnan noticed dourly, were well-fed and overly-satisfied; Americans or perhaps Englishmen at a guess. They waved Bailey away as if she were only a girl who had come to check on their drinks, talking among themselves in loud and jovial tones.
Adnan's irritation turned to a simmering rage when he saw how one of the men obviously turned to watch Bailey walk away. Adnan knew there was precious little to see when a woman was fully outfitted in a traditional flowing caftan and trouser set, but you wouldn't know from the way the man was staring after her. One of the men sitting next to him scowled, muttering something that at least made him look a little abashed, and that was the reason – the only reason – Adnan did not simply walk over to teach them a sorely needed lesson.
Bailey followed Adnan into one of the sheltered alcoves set back in the restaurant, a place shielded from the rest of the space by a fluttering light curtain.
"Well, Sheikh Adnan. I had not expected to find you here this evening," she said brightly.
"Who are those men?" Adnan demanded, and she tilted her head, giving him a look of studied innocence.
"Friends of my father, men who are looking to make an investment," she said as if it should have been obvious. "Though I'm surprised you didn't recognize the man in the light gray suit."
"No, I was too occupied with the one who was watching you as if you were something good to eat," he bit out.
If he expected Bailey to be embarrassed or shocked by his words, however, he was disappointed. She only made a face, shaking her head, a weary look coming over her. For some reason, that was worse than the rest; how tired and unsurprised she looked by it all.
"Oh that would be Marshall Landing," she said. "He's been like that this entire trip. I think he's having trouble at home, and that's really the only reason he came on this trip in the first place. I shouldn't have been surprised. From everything I have been told about him, this isn't his kind of scene or his kind of deal..."
Adnan made a noise that was close enough to a growl that she blinked, looking at him in surprise.
"Adnan?"
"That is your problem with what he was doing?" Adnan demanded. "You are only angry that he is not going to make the deal that you want him to make, regardless of how he hangs off you like a dog in heat?"
The look Bailey gave him was stormy, and if he hadn't already been angry, he would have been stricken at how unsurprised she was.
"Do you think I like it?" she said, keeping her voice deadly and dull. "Do you think I like knowing what he's thinking every time he watches me too closely? Do you think I like how none of the others are willing to call him out on it? This is how the game is played from my end of things, Adnan, this is just how it is."
"You don't have to play at all," Adnan pointed out frostily, and a grim smile quirked her lips. Something about the beauty of her lips, skimmed with just a slight shimmer of pink gloss tugged at his heart, and suddenly it was a little less easy to think straight. Adnan shook off the sudden need to change things, to do something else with her in this alcove that had nothing to do with the men outside at all.
"I fought too damn hard for my father's trust to bow out just because some of his friends are awful."
"Then perhaps you should go a little further and simply convince Landing like he so obviously wants to be convinced," Adnan snapped.
There was a split second where Adnan realized what he said, and a surge of shame and horror flooded through him. He had spoken in the heat of the moment, fighting against what might have been the least wise attraction of his life but it was absolutely no excuse at all.
They were both frozen, but Bailey was the one who loosened first, taking a tiny step back from Adnan that felt as if it were miles wide.
"So that's what you think, Sheikh Adnan," she said, her voice soft and stiff and hurt. "Thank you for making your understanding of what I am and what I do so painfully clear."
"Hit me," Adnan said. "Slap me, or if you know how, punch me. I deserve it for that."
The look she gave him was withering, somehow worse than being hit or slapped.
"Please," she said. "Do you think I'm so stupid as to actually lay hands on the Sheikh of Amil? I'm not giving you such an easy reason to throw me out of the country or to slap me with the threat of a fine or jail time."
"Bailey—"
"You've made your point of view on me disgustingly clear," she said, turning towards the curtain. "With that in mind, I'm going to return to the investors who at least keep their thoughts about my sex life to themselves."
She reached for the curtain just as there was a loud pounding of feet right beyond it, followed by the first tremulous notes of the oud played very close by.
As Bailey's hand fell from the curtain, Adnan realized that the performers he had been hoping the investigators
would see were getting ready to perform for Bailey's investors, and that they would be performing right beyond the curtain. If either of them left now, they would have to cut straight through the musical performance. Bailey's hand dropped to her side.
"Well," she said softly. "This is certainly a thing."
Adnan felt a brief stab of relief that she could not flee him just yet, and he took her hand in his. There was a moment where she was stiff against him, and he was certain that she was going to pull away, but then she relaxed, lifting her chin defiantly.
"What? You've made your views very plain, Sheikh Adnan."
"I'm afraid I haven't," he said, keeping his own voice low and calm.
"Oh?"
"I spoke rashly and without regard. I insulted you, and I couldn't in any way have expected you to respond well to it. I was heedless, and I apologize. Bailey, I did not mean that, and I'm sorry."
He watched, tense, as Bailey went utterly still, the drumbeats and bright music from beyond the curtain a strange counterpoint to what they were speaking of in the relative privacy of the alcove.
She would, Adnan thought with an inward wince, be entirely within her rights to wait out the musical performance and simply storm out. He hardly deserved better after what he had implied.
Instead, Bailey took a deep breath, and then another, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before she met his gaze with a piercing regard. In that moment, it was as if she could see to the very core of him, that she could take in everything that made him what he was and that she could weigh it against the person he should be.
"And you didn't mean it? That's not what you really think?"
"No. Never."
She examined him for another moment, looking for the truth of his statement in his face, and then she nodded, looking down.
"It's no more than what others have outright said," Bailey said wearily. "But no, I don't think you mean it. Just never say it again."
Adnan nodded, and then frowned.
"Who has said it outright? Was it Landing?"
She shook her head, making a face, and it was as if something between them had relaxed a little.
"Maybe made a few suggestions, but no. He's at least not that kind of jerk."
"Good. I would not like to end the night beating a man half to death before having him banned from my country."
Adnan spoke without thinking about it, and then winced at how insane that made him sound. Instead of taking offense at his words, however, Bailey laughed softly.
"You wouldn't have to do that. And ... Adnan, you're still holding my hand."
Adnan looked down to realize that he was, and there was no instinct in his body that told him to stop. Now that he was aware of their contact, he could feel how soft her skin was and the pleasant tingle of electricity that traveled between them as if their joined hands were a current.
"You're not telling me to let you go."
"Why would I ever tell you that?" Bailey said, and then her eyes widened. In that moment, he knew on some deep and instinctual level that she had said more than she had intended to, but there was no scramble to take it back, no disavowal. Her hand squeezed his, and in that moment, he would have sworn that he had never seen anything as captivating as her eyes.
Never taking his gaze from hers, Adnan lifted her hand to his mouth. He had once kissed her gently in the civil fashion as he had been taught, nothing lingering, nothing more than a gentle brush of his lips against her skin.
Now though, all of that civility was gone as Adnan turned her hand over in his, baring her palm. He dipped his head down, nuzzling the cup of her hand, and from the way she shivered and stifled a soft cry, he could tell that she could feel the fire racing between them too.
Encouraged, Adnan ran just the tip of his tongue along her life line and her heart line, kissing the base of her fingers and planting a gentle tender kiss on each fingertip. By the time he was done, she was trembling like a leaf, and he looked at her.
"Does that feel good, little darling?" he asked, his voice husky. "Do you like the way that feels?"
She uttered a soft, shaky laugh, and something in him thrilled at how open she sounded just then; how wondering.
"Can't you tell?"
"Tell me."
"You feel like touching a live wire."
"But hopefully in a good way?"
"Very."
She turned her hand, and now she ran just the very tips of her fingers over his mouth. He had always known that his lips were sensitive, but they had never felt more so than when she was tracing them with such care and enthralled curiosity.
Adnan stood it for as long as he could, and then he pulled her hand away, dragging her against his body for what he had been craving since he had laid eyes on her that evening.
Since before then, whispered an insidious little voice in his mind that insisted on being honest. Since the moment you saw her.
Then they were kissing, Adnan leaned against the brick wall at the back of the alcove, Bailey's body pulled hard up against his. Suddenly he was surrounded by the scent of her light amber perfume, by the thin silk of her caftan, by the sheer sweetness and softness of her body. It was as if he was a man who had been surviving in the desert on nothing but mouthfuls of morning dew, and now he had come to a brook of fresh clean water. He couldn't resist leaning in, taking her mouth with a need that might have shocked him if she hadn't seemed just as hungry.
"Oh Adnan," she murmured, and his name was like music on her lips. "Oh, Adnan, I have missed you."
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that there was no need for her to do so, that she only had to say the word, and she could leave her life behind and stay with him for always, but then the passion of their kiss took it all away.
Chapter 8
When she was kissing Adnan, there was absolutely nothing else in the world. There was only the hard heat of his body, larger than hers, thick with muscle and powerful, pressed against her; there was only the imperious demand of his mouth and the way something about him seemed to pull her in farther and deeper.
When she was kissing Adnan, Bailey could forget everything about the world, from her job to her problems. There was nothing she cared about but how good she could make him feel and how good he made her feel. She could leave everything else behind.
Right now, in the curtained alcove at the back of one the best restaurants she had ever eaten at, the only thing that mattered was how good Adnan's mouth felt on hers and how his large hand curled first around her hip and then moved up under her caftan to sit higher, his thumb tracing maddening circles on her bare waist just above the line of her trousers.
She could feel the reality of his arousal against her body, and in her own, she could feel a rising response as well; something close to madness, something that made her want nothing more than to give herself to him utterly.
Bailey gasped softly when his mouth slanted aggressively over hers, his tongue pressing between her lips and taking what he wanted, leaving nothing but pure pleasure in its wake.
It wasn't until Adnan pushed her caftan up, baring her belly and her breasts to his touch that she gasped, and he went still.
"Stop?" he asked softly. "Do you want me to stop?"
"N-no," she said, and she pressed her forehead against his shoulder as he stroked her bare skin with a care that took her breath away.
It should have been ridiculous, hiding in the back of a restaurant and making out as if they were teenagers, but instead, the illicit thrill felt much more adult, more like it was something they should have been doing this entire time. Why did they bother fighting or sniping at each other when they could have been doing this? This was what they were meant for, this was what they had needed this entire time.
Adnan was tracing maddening patterns all over her skin, and through the thin fabric of her bra. He passed his thumb over her nipples until they stood erect, aching for more just like she ached for more.
"Beautiful, beautiful girl," he wh
ispered against her mouth. "I want to take you away. I want to take off these clothes and lay you down on a bed of silk, and I want to see how you glow against it. I want to see you grow flushed with pleasure and I won't satisfy you until you tell me over and over again how much you want me, how much you need me..."
She groaned at his words because she could imagine them just as he said them, and there was a moment, one wild moment, where she teetered on the edge. She might have given over everything she was, everything she could accomplish, just to have him make good on that offer of pleasure.
Then there was a shout of laughter from beyond the curtain, and for one terrible, heart-stopping moment, Bailey was certain they had been found out. Her stomach dropped somewhere to the vicinity of her knees and her heart tried to jump into her throat as she thrust herself back from Adnan.
To her relief, there was no one peering through the curtain at them, and she turned a puzzled looked to Adnan, who was frowning thoughtfully.
"I think I know that voice," he murmured, and as the music started up again, they both carefully peered beyond the curtain.
Bailey had learned that traditionally, musical performances in Ikkar of the kind that she had arranged for the investors usually started with just the instruments and then moved on to a dance. She had assumed that given the fact the investors were middle-aged men from the United States, they would leave it at the instrumentals, but she was wrong.
The entire table full of investors were on the floor trying out the dance steps and being encouraged by the restaurant owner's family, but after a moment, she realized that the crowd was far too large to only be her investors and the staff.
"Wait, who are..."
"Well," Adnan said blankly. "I didn't expect that."
"Do you know who all those other people are? They're not with us, and this was meant to be a private event."
Adnan shook his head, a slight smile on his face. Despite what had passed between them, her heart still skipped a beat at how very handsome he was, how despite having so recently kissed him, she wanted to do nothing else right now. She had to pull herself back from doing so.
