by Sophia Lynn
“That feels like something you should have ordered me to do,” she observed, and Makeen shot her a dry look.
“How much cooking have you done?”
“Some. I can fry eggs and make toast, at least.”
“I took a cooking class for a few months. I like being able to eat things that aren't charred.”
She tilted her head as he plated up an omelet, setting it to join another that was already plated on the counter.
“Cooking—isn't that a slightly strange pastime for a member of the royal family?”
He shrugged, bringing the plates to the kitchen island. “My father and mother both believed that there was nothing to be gained by spoiling me. I should at least know how to do work even if I would never have to do it for a living. I was taught that learning keeps you humble and makes you a better person.”
“They sound very wise,” Olivia said, biting her lip. “I noticed that you used the past tense.”
“They are both dead. They went within a week of each other. My father died in a plane crash, and my mother … sickened after. It was a great tragedy for the country.”
“And for you?”
He paused, and she wondered if she had gone too far. She held her breath, but then he shrugged.
“It is a wound that heals slowly, but I do not think it will ever be entirely gone. I go months without thinking about them, and then suddenly I wonder what my father would have done, or what my mother would have said. It is, as they say, a process.”
Without thinking of what she was doing, she reached out to touch his hand. There was nothing sexual about it, nothing flirtatious. All she wanted to do was to offer him some of the sympathy that she felt. He looked up, surprised at her touch, but the look he flashed her was grateful.
“It is not always at the forefront of my mind. I have grieved, and I have moved on.”
“You do them great credit,” she said, and he sighed.
“I hope so. And you? Do your parents know that you are here?”
She flinched at that. Instead of answering right away, she looked down at the plate of food in front of her.
“Ah … Have I asked something that I should not have asked?”
“No … that is, no. Not really. It is only that my parents … are not the most attentive people. They are very single-minded, and well … Yes, they know I am here, and approval is not something I worry about, because approval has never been a thing that they have given me.”
The look on Makeen's face was stormy, and she rushed to cover. “It's not important, we are just … very different people …”
He looked her right in the eyes, his gaze so dark and intense that she stammered to a stop.
“They have raised a daughter with skill and honor, though from what you have told me, you are simply a miracle rather than the result of any effort of theirs. They should be proud of you, and if they are not, then that is their loss.”
Unaccountably, she felt tears prickle at her eyes. Olivia blinked furiously and dug into her omelet, unwilling to give in to those emotions in front of this man. When she had taken a few bites, she felt better able to speak with him without bursting into tears.
“So you said we'd talk today.”
He sighed, almost comically. She had thought that he was a handsome man when she had first seen him in the street. He certainly was beautiful when he was naked. However, there was something strange about seeing him in the bright morning sunlight, drying hair revealing a slight surprising curl in its length, and barefoot eating his breakfast. He was still handsome, but more than that, there was something strangely touchable about him. There was something about Makeen in this mode that made her want to walk over and plant a kiss on his cheek.
“I did say that, didn't I? Very well, Olivia, … what do you think you are doing here?”
She blinked at him. Of all things, she figured that they had at least covered that one. “I came here to save my brother. I'm meant to be doing whatever you tell me to do.”
He flinched a little at that, making her think of how he had looked the night before. Before she could shrink into herself, however, he reached across the island and squeezed her hand.
“I am here because a beautiful woman made me an offer,” he said softly. “I'll admit, I am just a man. When you offer me anything I want … there is a place that my mind goes. However, no matter what you might say to the contrary, that is not something I can indulge in right now.”
Olivia bit her lip. “Why not?” she asked.
“Because when I agreed, I should have been playing the long game. I … I don't want you to lie in bed, your eyes closed and thinking of anything to remove yourself from the situation. I want you to be there with me. I want you to breathe us in and to truly feel what I feel when we make love.”
His words took her breath away, and in that moment, it was all she could do not to simply take his hand and take him to bed. However, he wasn't done yet.
“And the entire time we have known each other, we have been running. We have been scheming and moving and learning and there has been no time at all to simply stop. To learn each other. That is what we need, and that is what I want this month to be about. Do you think that that is something you could give to me, Olivia?”
She hesitated. He was asking for a great deal more than simply her body in his bed. Somehow, the idea of giving him her body was far less frightening than the idea of giving him what he was asking for now. He wanted something deeply personal, something that wasn't just her body, but her. She had never given that to another person. She wasn't sure she could.
Olivia started to tell him so, but then she met his eyes. She had always thought that they were black, but with the morning sun, she could see that they were actually the deepest velvety brown. There was something frankly pleading there, and it was not within her ability then to deny him.
“All right,” she whispered. “I … I will try. I can't promise you anything …”
He broke into a wide grin. There was something boyish about it that touched her heart. Suddenly it felt as if a great weight had rolled off of her shoulders. Something that had been sitting dark and grim on her for years suddenly disappeared.
“All I ask is that you try,” he said. “That is all I wish, I swear.”
“I'll try,” she repeated, and for the first time, she thought that there might be something between them that was more than just physical.
***
After breakfast, he pulled her outside onto the mountain slopes. It was a shockingly green place, for all that the air was dry and arid, and she looked around herself curiously.
“When most people picture Zahar, this is not what they picture,” she said. “This wouldn't be out of place in the Pacific Northwest.”
He nodded absently. “This is a strange place in many ways. Our scientists have learned that it is fed by underground streams and by rain that falls nowhere else in the country. The ancients considered it a sacred place, one of great holiness and strange things. They said it was the worst of luck to venture into it in the middle of the night, when jinn and other strange beings used it for their meetings.”
She shivered a little. Olivia could see it. This place was beautiful, but there was something terribly lonely and isolated about it. She could well imagine strange figures coming to converse and parley here, and that a pair of simple human eyes would be unwelcome.
“So of course your ancestors decided to build a cabin here?”
Makeen threw his head back and laughed, and when he glanced back at her, his grin was boyish. “And right there, you have placed a finger on what it is that sets my ancestors apart,” he said. “A great deal of ambition, a lack of interest in danger, and a love of grand structures that will last for hundreds of years, all designed to impress the women that they desire most.”
She grinned in return at that. For a few moments, they walked in silence, but then she had another question. “Why do you desire me?”
He glanc
ed back at her, his expression wry. “Are you fishing for compliments?”
She blushed, but shook her head. “Not at all. But I am curious. You are the Sheikh. You could have your pick from women all over the world. I'm even fairly sure that I have seen tabloids that link you with models and actresses. You picked me off of a street corner and gave me your personal number. I'll be honest, I feel like a goldfish that you picked out of a bowlful of a thousand other similar goldfish and then declared special.”
Makeen didn't stop walking. Instead, he only laughed a little. “Truly? You must not look in a mirror very often.”
“Is that a way of saying that I need to brush my hair?”
“Not at all. I'm just saying that you have never seen yourself when you are standing on a street corner, your eyes half-closed, the sun and wind in your hair, and all of your attention on your music. You seem to have no idea how beautiful you are when you are consumed by your passion. The first time I saw you, I had to stop, first to listen, and then simply to watch you. If you were so passionate about your music, I thought, what would it have been like to have you in my bed?”
Olivia nearly choked when she heard his explanation. She stopped dead for a few steps before she hurried after him.
“And you got all of that from simply standing by and watching me play my violin?” she demanded.
“Yes. In a heartbeat.”
She might seriously have to think about what she was doing when she was out busking, but she pushed the thought away. If she followed it up, she would have ended up back on the letter for Johannesburg, and the one that was coming from Berlin. There were things she had lost that she did not regret, but she knew that she could not dwell on them, at least not now.
She followed him in silence until he stopped short, pointing ahead. Following his gesture, she could see a single swing suspended from a tall tree.
“Pretty,” she said, uncertainly, and he grinned at her again.
“Step forward slowly, and look down.”
Confused, she did what he said, and then she gasped. Directly beyond the tree was a steep and sudden drop-off, one that culminated in a rock floor some hundreds of feet below. Her heart pounding and her stomach falling like a brick, she stumbled back, looking at Makeen wide-eyed.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
He laughed at her shock. “I came up here once after my parents died to see this place. There were stories about this swing.”
Curiosity overcame her fear, and she tilted her head curiously at him. “Did you get on it?”
“Then? No. I thought perhaps that I would give it a try today. What about you? Do you want to?”
She bit her lip. Every bit of her common sense was telling her not to do this ridiculously foolish thing. It told her that under no circumstances should she get onto a swing that hung out over a steep drop and a fatal fall. However, there had been something growing in her ever since she laid eyes on Makeen. If he had looked at her and seen passion, she had looked at him and seen a kind of adventure that she had never thought possible.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
“It's not safe,” he warned her, a bright light in his eyes. She knew then and there that he was teasing her, but she couldn't bring herself to care, not when there was an adventure awaiting.
“Do you mean that the chains are rotted through or something?”
He shook his head. “I had them replaced myself, and the tree has stood firm for years. No, I'm just saying that something like this, it is never entirely safe.”
“Nothing is, my sheikh,” she said with a wide grin. “Let me at it.”
“I'll go first,” he said, and for some reason, that made her prickle. He was going to go first? Of course he was the Sheikh. He was likely very used to getting his way. She narrowed her eyes, and came to a decision.
“Of course,” she said, and if her exaggerated courtesy made him raise an eyebrow, he only shrugged and headed for the swing. She followed along, her hands folded in front of her, as demure a lady as ever existed. She watched with maidenly decorum as he checked the chains, and then she stepped back with him as he seated himself on the board seat and walked it backwards.
“Are you ready?” she asked, and he smiled at her.
“Don't look so smug, you're doing this next,” Makeen said warningly.
As he leaned up on his toes to begin his swing, she laughed. “No, I'm not,” she grinned, and she hopped onto his lap.
She heard Makeen's sudden cry, but there was nothing he could do to stop their forward momentum. With Olivia straddling his lap and clinging to his chest, he had no choice but to follow the swing through, letting it carry them out over the drop-off and straight into the sky.
“You little fool!” he shouted, but all she could do was laugh, throwing her head back and opening her eyes to stare at the sky above.
She wasn't sure how she could feel it, but there was something about the swing that let her feel how far the ground was below her, perhaps some trick of gravity or some kind of trick of the light. They sailed over the edge, and for a single moment, it felt as if she were falling. Then the swing caught them, sending them back towards the safety of the ground. When Olivia thought that Makeen would drag them back to earth, she held on to him tighter.
“No,” she said pleadingly. “Please, again?”
He laughed at her bravery, and with a shrug, he pumped his legs and sent them swinging up towards the sky again. This time they sailed even higher, and their laughs mingled together. It was the closest thing that Olivia had ever imagined to flying, and she was doing it wrapped around the body of the most incredible man that she had ever known.
They flew out far over the drop-off, over and over again until they were both dizzy. Olivia could feel Makeen dragging them to a stop, and finally, they simply sat on the swing. When she pulled back to look at him, Makeen tilted his face forward, and they kissed, their bodies buzzing with a kind of pleasure she had never known.
“We should get off the swing,” she whispered. “It … it can't be safe to sit here so close to the edge.”
“You are absolutely the last person who should be saying one thing or another about safety,” he growled, but he stood with care, carrying her back to the safety of flat land.
When they were well away, he abruptly sat down, sitting her on his lap as they rested their shaking limbs.
“You are utterly insane, did you know that?' he demanded, and she threw her arms around him gleefully.
“It's been pointed out,” she said with just a touch of smugness. “Your face when you saw what I had done was amazing!”
“I wanted to tan your hide,” he admitted. “I have never seen such recklessness. You're going to give me gray hairs.”
She started to answer, but then she became abruptly aware of his body, of the way his cock was hardening inside his jeans, and how clearly she could feel it. She gasped a little, and Makeen made a slightly pained face.
“You should get up,” he said with a certain amount of humor. “After all, it really isn't going to get any better if you …”
His words halted with a gasp when she gently pressed her hand to the bulge in his jeans. Her eyes widened a little when she recognized how long he was, and how thick. Her fingers tightened reflexively around him, making him moan slightly. Eyes wide, she repeated the motion, and he thrust up into her hand.
“I …”
“Do you happen to know what you are doing?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Her head shot up, and she frowned at him. “Are you calling me some kind of innocent? Of course I—”
“Because unless your intent is to make me humiliate myself like a fourteen-year-old boy, you need to stop soon.”
She thought for a moment. “Soon?”
Never breaking eye contact with him, she stroked him twice and then nimbly leaped up off of his lap. As he glared at her, she grinned, tucking her hands behind her.
“You are a menace,” he growl
ed, adjusting himself slightly before standing up. “I have no idea what anyone can do with you.”
“Feed me, let me nap, let me practice my violin?” she said pertly, and she was rewarded with a gust of laughter.
“If that will prevent you from jumping off into oblivion, of course.”
They made their way back to the house, but this time, instead of Makeen leading, they held hands, and inside her, Olivia felt something awakening that had never existed before.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Four days after their play on the swing, Makeen was unexpectedly called away. Olivia awoke, in her own bed this time, to find him pacing the front room, talking with someone on the phone with a harried sound to his voice. When he ended the call, he turned to her with a regretful look on his face.
“I'm sorry, but that was my assistant, Rosh. Something came up with the family business concerns, and I need to go attend to it.”
Olivia bit her lip. She didn't know what this meant or how she should react, but Makeen was already moving.
“It shouldn't take more than a day or so, but …”
“Can I stay here?” she blurted out.
Makeen turned to look at her with surprise. “Of course you can, if you wish,” he said. “I'll be busy, and unfortunately, I'll have no time to see you at all while this is going on. But it is isolated here …”
“As long as I can call for help, it shouldn't be a problem. Please?”
He looked at her for a moment, and suddenly she was afraid that he could see what she was thinking. She was afraid to lose the peace that she had found here. She was afraid that if they left this place, he would go back to being a sheikh, and she would return to being a girl trying to hustle on the street with her violin. In the back of her mind, she knew that it was going to happen at some point, but she wasn't ready for it to happen just yet.
Finally, Makeen nodded. “Of course. Whatever you like. But at the first sign of trouble, I want you to call me or one of these numbers that I will give you.”
By the time he was certain that she was prepared in case of an emergency, the plane had arrived for him, and he sighed again. Before he could leave, Olivia threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly.
