“Perhaps I did, Maddy. Maybe that’s why I shut down, locked away all the memories of that time. Maybe it had nothing to do with what happened between your mother and me. Maybe the guilt and self-hatred that’s driven me all these years had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you, the girl I couldn’t protect.”
She searched his face, a face familiar but yet that of a stranger. They weren’t related by blood, but in a way it was flesh and blood that bound them together, that created them, twisted them into what they’d become.
“I don’t need your protection,” she said, smiling up at him.
“Really?” he said. “Your men were shot dead as they stood beside you. You were kidnapped, and then sold by your own father.”
“He sold me to you!” she said, almost laughing as she looked into his eyes that were full of mischief. “And he did it to protect me.”
“So then you do need protection. And how is it you are defending your father suddenly? The man is a monster, Maddy. Any man who would—”
“My father never touched me,” she said suddenly. “Not like that, at least.” She took a breath, her eyes closing as her lips trembled. When she opened her eyes again, she could feel the change come across her. Her guard was up, her mind retreating back to her fortress, her gates closed off as quickly as they had opened for the Sheikh. “Not like your father did.”
“But your father allowed it. He knew, did he not? How could he not have known?”
Maddy took a breath, her eyes getting back that cold, dead focus that had gotten her through hell, allowed her to survive the unthinkable, the deepest of betrayals. “They must have known. All of them. All four of them. I was still young, but you were older. Don’t you remember? How can you not remember? You were there, Imraan. You were there, and . . . and . . .”
She swallowed as she felt a lump in her throat, and the anger rose as she told herself she wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t going to break. Big girls didn’t cry. Tough girls didn’t break.
She watched as a shadow passed across like the Sheikh’s handsome face like the sun going behind a cloud, and she could see his green eyes lose focus as if he was trying to remember. Or perhaps he was trying to forget. It didn’t make sense. How could he not remember?!
“I don’t remember, but I must have known. And I didn’t protect you,” he whispered, closing those green eyes as he bowed his head, his forehead touching hers. “Instead I gave in to her, to your mother. I indulged myself while you were . . . while they . . . ya Allah, I wish they were alive. By God, I wish they were alive so I could tear them all apart, rip their cold hearts out with my goddamn hands! How could they, Maddy? How could they?!”
She just shook her head and smiled. She paused for a moment, the next sentence coming out in a low whisper. “I’m asking myself that as well. And also the question I know you’re asking yourself: If these are our parents, then what hope do we have?”
“Genetics is not destiny,” the Sheikh said fiercely, his eyes focusing on hers, their gaze locked. “You are not your mother, and I am not my father.”
Maddy laughed, the sound coming out hollow as she looked up into his green eyes. “Who was my mother? Who was your father? Our memories are disjointed and chaotic, bits and pieces of events and emotions. The only thing clear is that I hated them. And you say you don’t remember much more than what you’ve told me!”
The Sheikh frowned, and Maddy swore she saw that shadow cross his face again. Did he remember and was he lying? Was it just repression? Was it the guilt of knowing that his stepsister was being abused while he fucked his stepmother? Or was there something else that had made him forget? It did seem strange that he would forget so much, didn’t it? That both of them would forget so much, only to have it come back in sudden spurts after they were reunited?
“Maddy, I barely even remembered your mother until you came back into my life,” he whispered. “It does not make sense. I do not drink. I have never done drugs. For the most part my mind is clear, focused, sharp. But when I try to go back there, back to that time, it is like a black hole, a wall, a door with a lock on it.”
Maddy nodded. “That's how it's been for me too. I remember all the pain, all the emotion, all the horror. But I can't get to the details. I don’t understand why. I can’t remember why!”
“So then we will have to ask the only person still alive who might have the answers,” the Sheikh said. “Your father.”
Maddy snorted. “OK. You want his number?”
The Sheikh smiled. Then he rose up off her and reached for his phone, punching in a number and stretching his naked body as he spoke. “Jalb aleisabat alqadimata,” he said quietly. “Afealha alan.”
Maddy frowned as she watched him toss the phone aside and return to her. “What the hell was that?” she asked.
“Your father will be brought here within twenty-four hours. He will answer every question, and he will answer truthfully. I guarantee it.”
Maddy’s eyes widened as she processed what he was saying. “Wait, you’re having my father kidnapped? You’re going to bring him here and threaten to torture him if he doesn’t answer all our questions?”
Imraan shrugged, that darkness glowing in his green eyes in a way that reminded Maddy of the twisted blood that flowed through his veins. His and hers. Genetics might not be destiny, but it was certainly something. Something dark. Something . . . exciting?
“Perhaps I will torture him anyway,” the Sheikh said. “Even if he does answer all our questions. How do you feel about that, little stepsister?” he whispered to her, pressing his body against hers as she felt her arousal ratchet up so fast she almost passed out. What kind of people were they? Were they any better than the monsters who’d spawned them?
She looked up at him as she spread her legs and pushed her mound up against his hardness. Then she leaned up and kissed him full on the lips. “I feel like . . . like that’s so . . . romantic. So fucking romantic.”
17
This kiss was different. Deeper. Darker. It meant something, just like the last kiss had, but the meaning scared her. If genetics wasn’t destiny, what was destiny? What had brought them together after twenty years? Two abused step-siblings, joined not by their own blood but by blood nonetheless?
Maddy could feel the blood on his back as she ran her fingers along his muscled shoulder-blades, the ripples on his back feeling like a pit of snakes, all intertwined, no telling where one began and the other ended. She kissed the wound on his front pectoral, where she’d stabbed him with a goddamn cheese-knife, licking the blood and smiling as he smothered her lips with a ferocious kiss that was as hot as it was cold. She could feel the soreness from the way he’d fucked her less than an hour ago, tasted her own blood from her broken lip mix with his even as their saliva mixed while he rubbed the head of his cock against her wet mound. They were sick, she knew. They were wrong, she was certain. They were in love, she decided.
They were in love, she told herself as she licked her lips and stretched her arms wide as he pulled off the remnants of her white gown, pressed her heavy breasts so hard she could see the marks left by his fingers, took her peaked red nipples into his mouth and sucked so hard she screamed.
Yes, they were in love, she thought again as she watched him kiss her naked stomach, lick her belly-button until she giggled, then bury his face in her dark triangle of brown curls, pushing his nose through her forest and breathing deep of her scent in a way that made her shudder as she spread for him.
Of course they were in love. They had to be: There was no one else either of them could love, and nobody else that could love either of them. After all, if you’re spawned by monsters, then where else are you going to find love except with your own kind?
18
He felt her come all over his face as he inhaled deep of her feminine musk, opening his mouth wide and drinking her nectar as he fl
icked her clit with his tongue, spread the dark lips of her cunt with his fingers and pushed his nose and mouth as deep into her as he could. He held her down by her thighs as she came, watching her wetness flow like a river as he kissed her perineum, fingered her rear hole, kneaded her buttocks until her shuddering slowed to a steady, calm shiver.
“I love you, Maddy,” he whispered as he felt the pain from the stab-wound rip through him as she touched him there. He knew she’d ripped open the skin on his back with her claws, and he smiled as she caressed his torn shoulder-blades, spreading his own blood over him like an ointment. Of course he loved her. He’d always loved her. Just like he’d always loved her mother.
The thought came to him so casually it almost made him choke, and even though the Sheikh knew he was aroused beyond belief, bleeding and in pain, obviously not thinking clearly, it made sense in a way. How could he not love a woman who’d made a teenage boy’s every fantasy come true? It was rape. It was wrong. It was twisted. But it was . . . family.
He moved up from between her legs, lining up his massive, throbbing cockhead with his stepsister’s warm slit, kissing her full on the mouth.
“Taste yourself,” he muttered as he licked her lips and watched her smile. “How do you taste?”
“Kinda salty,” she muttered, half-smiling as her eyelids fluttered open. “I should probably take a bath.”
The Sheikh raised an eyebrow and nodded. “That is an excellent idea.”
Maddy opened her mouth wide. “Excuse me?! I’ve never been so insulted in my entire life!”
The Sheikh grunted. “Well, you are still young. Come on. Up we go.”
She squealed like a girl as he lifted her off the carpet, gathering her in his arms, his erection bouncing as he strode out past the open verandah and toward that bubbling desert spring beneath the open skies of the kingdom of Wahaad. It was just the two of them, and although the Sheikh tried to think of memories of just the two of them as children, playing together like children should, there were no such memories to be found.
We will make those memories, he decided as he grinned at her pretty round face, laughed at the way she grabbed his hair and threatened to kill him if he threw her in. Ya Allah, we will make those memories! We might be the children of monsters, and perhaps there is no escape from that. But we can also be the children we never really got a chance to be. The friends that we perhaps were but the memories of which were corrupted and twisted by those that we trusted and loved. The lovers that perhaps we were destined to be, always and forever.
And so he kissed his little Maddy one last time on the mouth, and as she squealed in delight like a child at a water-park, he tossed her head-first into the warm pool created by the clean waters that bubbled up from the mysterious depths of the Wahaadi desert.
Then, just as she came up the first time for air, gasping and threatening bloody murder, the beads of water rolling off her body like pearls, her breasts looking like golden dunes in a summer rainstorm, he jumped in alongside her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her beneath the surface.
He held her there for a few seconds, looking at her through the clear water. She was calm, smiling, staring back at him as if she understood what was happening, as if she realized that in this moment they were taking control of their lives, choosing to be born again, baptized by their own choices, one choice in particular:
The choice to be together.
19
The warm waters flooded her senses as she went under, but he was there beside her the moment she sank. Perhaps he’d always been there beside her—or at least wanted to be there, even when he was too young to stop what was happening. She gasped as she felt the Sheikh’s strong arms slide around her waist, holding her upright against his body in the shallow pool.
He pushed two fingers up inside her as she pressed her ass against him, and she moaned as he drove them in and out, his hardness expanding against her rear crack as he leaned in and whispered, “Do you feel clean now, Maddy?”
She shook her head, arching her neck back as the Sheikh fingered her hard, his thumb rubbing her clit roughly. “Not yet,” she groaned. “I think you missed a spot. A little to the left. There we go. Oh, shit, Imraan. Oh, fuck, that feels so good.”
She could feel him flex his cock against her rear entrance as he fucked her with his finger, and she moved her ass left to right as she let him line his cockhead against her rear pucker. She did feel clean, she realized as the warm, waist-high waters lapped against her stomach. The sun was hot on her shoulders, the breeze lazy and slow. There were no witnesses but the distant sand dunes, the silent minarets of the empty palace. It was just the two of them, and in that moment Maddy understood that here they could be anyone they wanted to be, that they weren’t bound by what had happened to them, by the choices made by others. They could make their own choices, forget the past, cleanse themselves of everything that had happened. Perhaps it could be as simple as that!
But then she heard the Sheikh grunt against her, slide a third finger inside her as he massaged her rear entrance wide open with his masthead, muttering in Arabic, his breath warm against her cheek. Her arousal was spiraling upwards, and she was about to come again when suddenly she thought the sun was blinding her, the waters burning her flesh, the sand dunes closing in and smothering her.
“No,” she groaned as she felt her climax start to roll in like distant thunder, those dark memories rolling in alongside. “Please, Sheikh. No. No. No!”
But still he pushed his cock against her, his fingers driving into her cunt with fury. He was two inches deep, the head of his cock inside her anus, her climax thundering in like a stampede of Arabian wildhorses when her vision narrowed to a single point, her eyes rolled up in her head, and all she could see were the faces of the two queens, one holding her down, the other watching from the shadows, both of them smiling, both of them laughing, both of them nodding.
“Take her like the little whore she is,” said Begum Khalifa.
“Show her who is Sheikh of the land,” said Begum Gaurina.
“Open her wide with your royal manhood,” said Begum Khalifa.
“Ruin her for every other man, your Highness,” said Begum Gaurina.
“No!” she howled, pulling away from him, feeling the suction as his cock popped out of her asshole like a cork. She whipped around, the water flying all around them as she brought her arm around, hand balled in a fist, eyes closed. “I’ll kill you!”
She felt him grab her by the wrist, and she howled in despair as he spun her back around and pushed her forward. Then suddenly her head was underwater, and she gurgled as her eyes opened wide, her mouth taking in water as she felt the Sheikh’s tremendous strength overpower her. Now she was that little girl again, alone and powerless, betrayed by those who were supposed to protect her, and for a moment she wanted to just breathe deep and let the warm water end it all, finish this story for her. There wasn’t going to be a happy ending, was there? She’d been betrayed by her mothers, raped by her stepfather, sold by her real father. Now her stepbrother owned her, and he had her face-down and underwater, about to remind her whose son he was, about to remind her who the Sheikh of the land was, about to prove to both of them that perhaps genetics was indeed destiny, that there was no escaping who they were.
She took another gulp of the sweet water, feeling herself begin to lose consciousness, a sickening calmness entering her as she felt the Sheikh spread her rear cheeks beneath the surface of the tranquil pool. It would be so easy to give up, to give in, to let go. So fucking easy.
But then she lifted her head out of the water with a gasp, spitting and screaming at the same time. She wasn’t going to give up, and she was never going to give in. No one could do anything to her that hadn’t been done. Either she was broken beyond repair, or she could never, ever be broken. Which meant it didn’t fucking matter. She was in charge, not he—no matter what he
did.
“Do it,” she snarled, spreading her ass and pushing back against him. “Do it, you sick fuck. Prove to me whose son you are, great Sheikh. Prove to me that we’re part of the same fucked-up family. Remind me that I’m your little whore and you’re the big man who controls the realm and everyone in it.”
20
Once upon a time I controlled a realm and everyone in it, thought the old Sheikh as he watched his two queens bow their heads and slowly exit the room. I was master, lord, king. A God upon this Earth. And now I am an exile, a man with no name, a king with no kingdom. Ya Allah, I want that feeling one more time before I die. That feeling of being in total control, that sense of absolute power, of being above the laws of common morality.
And there is only one way to regain that feeling, to experience that unbridled high, to remind myself that I am a God who walks on Earth. Just one way to taste the sweetness of what I had twenty years ago. I am too old and tired to attempt to rule again, and politics was never that interesting to me anyway. The real taste of power came to me in other ways, and I want to feel that sweetness again. There is only one way. One person. The girl.
The girl. That little innocent I turned into a whore to show them all who was in charge. The girl who is ultimately responsible for my situation today, even though she does not know it.
The girl.
One last taste, and I will leave this world behind. Yes, I will leave this world behind, the old Sheikh thought as he traced his fingers along the jeweled hilt of the old dagger he always carried, but I will not exit alone. The girl will come with me to the next world. We are bound together, our fates intertwined just like our bodies were twenty years ago.
His thoughts drifted back to the present as he dropped his dark robes over the dagger. The girl was with his son now, the new Sheikh of the land, the new lord of the old realm. Imraan, that little dog. What did he remember? What did he know? And what would he do?
Ransomed for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 13) Page 8
