by Leslie North
When he finally finished his calls, he walked into the bedroom to find Rebecca sleeping on his bed. She’d removed her suit jacket and stretched out on the bed in her white dress shirt with the first two buttons open, showing off the ivory skin that almost matched her shirt, and her dress slacks having already kicked off her shoes. He stared at her remembering kissing that skin. Pinning her petite body beneath him and kissing every delicious inch of it.
He’d been gentle with her initially, taking his time and taking care of her as if she had been a piece of fine china that he didn’t want to break, but he remembered the way she’d asked him to stop being so gentle.
“You won’t break me,” she’d said. “I’m a big girl.”
Every time he got close to her, his mind drifted back to that night. Now, sitting with her on the bed, he felt the magnetic attraction between them. The last night they were together, the night, she’d told him she was his; that he was all she wanted; and he caught himself staring at her now, wondering if she’d managed to keep that absurd promise. He wondered if she’d slept with anyone else since their son had been born, but it wasn’t his place to ask those kinds of questions.
So he just stared and let his imagination have its way with both of them.
Then, there was a knock at the door. They both jumped off the bed as if they were teenagers caught together. Rebecca threw her jacket back on quickly and walked into the living room behind Zaid as he went to open the door.
Zaid cracked the door open to find three people standing there: Hazim, the head of security; a woman who, from her red hair and blue eyes, could only be Rebecca’s younger sister, Amy; and peeking around her was Calum, his son. In that moment, the world stood still.
The photograph didn’t do Calum any justice. The child standing before him was so much more than what that picture had been able to capture, but it was still like looking in a child-sized mirror. His son’s features looked the same as his own.
He saw in Calum’s dark eyes a hint of recognition, as he, too, realized he was looking at someone who bore a striking resemblance to himself.
Rebecca gasped behind him and ran to their son, embracing him in the doorway and throwing an arm around her sister.
“Thank you, Hazim,” Zaid said to the security guard.
Hazim simply nodded and turned to leave.
“Oh my God, what are you doing here?” Rebecca cried out to her sister and their son.
“Zaid had us flown out here,” Amy said. “He insisted.”
Rebecca stood up and turned around behind Calum. She narrowed her eyes in anger at Zaid. “I told you no,” she growled lowly before kneeling down behind her son.
“Calum, honey,” she said slowly, patiently. “I want you to meet someone very special.” As Calum looked at her with interest, she turned him around to face Zaid. “This is your dad, Sheikh Zaid Al-Qasimi.”
Calum looked back up at Zaid with his tiny eyes fixed on his father’s.
“Sheikh?” he asked. “Sheikh dad?”
“How about, just, dad,” Zaid answered, kneeling down in front of him.
Zaid held out his arms for his son to hug him, and as they embraced, he had to fight back tears from all the time he’d missed with his boy. His son hugged him tight, as if he felt the exact same emotions that were surging through Zaid at the moment.
Zaid broke their embrace and sat back to look at his son. He was suddenly extremely proud.
He looked up at Amy and Rebecca, standing in front of him and looking down at him where he’d just been hugging Calum. Neither one of them seemed too pleased with him, but he didn’t care. Meeting his son for the first time trumped anything else that was going on at the moment.
“What’s this?” Zaid asked as Calum pulled his arms back from their embrace to show his father the two action figures he had in his hands. “Are these your toys?” he asked.
Calum nodded solemnly.
“These are neat. Can we play with them?”
Calum nodded again.
“Excellent. Well, let’s come in.” He stood up and gestured for everyone to enter his quarters. The sister followed, letting the door close behind them. Zaid walked with his son over to the couch, where they sat and started playing with the action figures he’d brought with him.
“You brought these guys all the way from home?” Zaid asked.
“Yes, sir,” Calum said politely.
“That’s cool,” he told his son.
“So, you had no idea we were coming?” Amy asked, as the sisters sat at the small table near the kitchen.
“No idea at all,” Rebecca admitted, making no effort to hide how angry she was at Zaid for not telling her he’d had them flown out behind her back. “I told him I didn’t want Calum here.”
“Why not?” Amy asked, looking from one to the other. “It’s long past time that Calum knows about his father.”
Amy had made her opinions known on whether Zaid should have been told of Calum’s existence from the moment Rebecca told her who he was. But now was not the time for her sister to side with Zaid. “There is potential for unrest in some of the poor sections of Sharjah. I don’t want Calum around if anything happens,” Rebecca argued. She closed her eyes and counted to ten when she caught her sister rolling her eyes at her.
“Judging from the amount of security around here, I don’t think there will be any difficulties protecting him,” Amy countered. “Not everything is worst case scenario simply because people live in poverty.”
“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Amy,” she insisted. “If you had, you’d be concerned, too.”
“Maybe,” Amy admitted, “but look at them.” She nodded to Calum and Zaid playing on the couch.
She watched as Zaid and Calum sat with their heads together. Her son lifted his head and smiled at her; as Zaid whispered something in his ear making him laugh that little boy laugh that always made her heart beat harder with love for her little man. The Zaid who sat in front of her now, with their son, was a far cry from the business-minded Zaid she’d come to know. He was gentle and caring. He laughed with their son while they played. He talked in silly voices. He let Calum call the shots while they were playing. It was an amazing transformation, and it happened right before her eyes. She wouldn’t have believed it any other way.
She was still furious with him for bringing both Calum and Amy to Sharjah without her permission but a part of her knew that if the situation were reversed, she would have done the same. Seeing the way he was with their son, she began to have other feelings, feelings deeper and stronger than anger. She realized the dad her son had been missing, the father Calum would have had all along, if she’d reached out to Zaid. She had been too proud to admit that her family upbringing had made it difficult for her to accept that Zaid would be a good father or that Calum could have a normal childhood with both parents involved.
“Hey, mom,” Amy teased, “you should get in there and play with them too. They look like they could use a woman’s touch.”
“I don’t know,” she hesitated. “He needs some time with his father. This is the first time they’ve ever even seen each other in person.”
“And why is that?” Amy asked in an accusing tone. “Why did you keep them apart for so long?”
“You know why I didn’t want them to meet,” she reminded her sister.
“Listen,” Amy insisted in the Sheikh’s private quarters, “regardless of what your reasons were, they are together now, and you owe it to both of them, and to yourself, to be a part of it.” She pushed her sister. “It’s so obvious how much you still care for Zaid. Do you really want to give that up? Now, get over there and act like that’s your family, because it is.”
Rebecca gave in and sat on the couch on the other side of their son. “Do you guys mind if I join in?” she asked.
“Uh-oh,” Zaid said through the action figure in his hand. “Mommy’s onto us, kid. We have to hide.”
The boys laughed and moved their action figur
es to hide them. As soon as the toys were out of the way, Zaid looked at Rebecca and said, “We’re fine now. What’s up?”
She’d never seen that look on his face, the utter happiness he seemed to be feeling with his son there next to him. He was glowing, as he gave her a silly smile.
“I just wanted to know if I could play,” Rebecca said.
Zaid looked at Calum, who was hiding his action figure behind his back, and asked the boy, “What do you think? Should we let your mother in?” he asked.
Calum nodded with a big smile, and the three started playing together.
Rebecca began to realize what she had been missing as well. She saw before her the opportunity to finally have a real family.
11
After Calum and Zaid played together for a while and the excitement of it all began to wear off a bit, Rebecca noticed Calum start rubbing his eyes. When he snatched his action figures back from Zaid and refused to play anymore, Rebecca decided it was time to cut things short.
“Kiddo,” Rebecca said, “it looks like it is somebody’s bedtime. Are you feeling tired?”
“Uh-huh,” Calum said with a little whine to his voice and nodded his head.
Zaid scooped him up in his big arms. “He can sleep in my bed,” Zaid whispered.
“That’ll be fine,” Rebecca agreed.
“I’m feeling pooped, too,” Amy chimed in. “I can stay here with him while you two go grab a bite to eat. I imagine you have a lot to talk about after today.”
Rebecca cocked an eyebrow at Zaid. “We do,” she agreed.
“A lot,” Zaid added. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” he asked Amy.
“Not at all. We have this down, don’t we kiddo” she asked as she reached to rub his back. “We’ll be fine.” She looked around the Sheikh’s quarters. “Besides, this is like an apartment. You’ve got everything I could possibly need in here.”
“And you can call us,” Zaid added, “if you need anything. Please don’t hesitate.”
Rebecca watched as Zaid carried Calum to his bedroom with Amy to help them get situated. When he came back out, he looked at her. “Just to make it easy, you want to go up to the terrace again?” he asked.
She smiled. “I’d love to.”
Once they reached the rooftop terrace, Zaid took out his phone and called the palace chef. They ordered food and wine, and talked while they waited.
“He’s big,” Zaid said.
Rebecca laughed. “What did you expect? He’s four.”
“Yeah, but I always imagined meeting my son while he was an infant. I never imagined meeting a child of mine after he was already that old.”
She felt a pang of regret. “I’m really sorry,” she told Zaid. “I panicked and didn’t know what to do. You know, what we had back then was great, and I would have loved for it to last, but at the end of the day, the simple fact remained that our lifestyles were not compatible. You’re royalty. You’re the Sheikh for crying out loud. And I’m an activist of sorts. I’m out there every day trying to help people fix problems like oppression and poverty. The two don’t exactly go hand in hand, you know?”
“But they can,” Zaid suggested. “We’ve already seen that here, with you helping to point out what’s wrong in Sharjah so that I can fix it.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” she said with a nervous laugh. “And I’m still angry with you for going behind my back and bringing Calum here. He is much too young to be drawn into any of this and Amy…I …” Rebecca couldn’t finish that sentence. “What if something had happened to the plane? Or worse?” She didn’t even want to contemplate what would be worse than a plane crash.
“You’re right. It was thoughtless of me. I apologize.”
The wine arrived just in time to distract them from the conversation.
After the first few sips, Rebecca looked at Zaid, sitting there and staring at his wine as if he were contemplating the meaning of life itself. “You know,” she said, “I did want to visit the resort.”
“Really? That’s surprising,” Zaid commented. “I figured you would have found something wrong with it and why we needed to shut it down.”
Rebecca laughed. “No, in fact, it was the only touristy part of the tour I was looking forward to. I even bought a bikini for it,” she teased.
“Is that so?” he asked. He reached across the table and took her hand. “Well, you can always model it for me later,” he said, playing along.
“Who said I’m not wearing it under my suit?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He squeezed her hand. “Come on,” he said quietly, urgently, as he got up from the table.
“What about dinner?” she asked. “Our food hasn’t arrived and we still haven’t talked.”
“They’ll box it and send it down to my quarters. Let’s go hit the pool. We can eat later.”
She felt a rush as he pulled her by her hand down the stairs from the terrace to the palace pool, which was located in a secluded area, almost fully enclosed with rock walls that screened it from any of the palace windows. The pool’s back deck faced the water behind the palace, and no one was out there.
When they reached the pool, Zaid quickly stripped off his robe and left his headpiece on the deck next to the water. He stood naked before her, the contours of his muscles just as she remembered them. She wanted to touch him, to feel him above her again.
She fumbled with the buttons of her shirt until Zaid grabbed it and pulled it over her head, revealing that she was not in fact wearing her bikini underneath. She’d just been teasing.
“Oops,” she said playfully. “I guess I forgot my bikini after all.” She winked as she slid her pants down her legs, revealing red lace panties and snippets of her bare, clean-shaven skin underneath.
She unclasped her white cotton bra and let it drop from her shoulders to show him her small pale breasts and pink nipples. As if her body immediately recognized him, her nipples throbbed in anticipation of him touching her. He grabbed her panties and slid them down her legs, making her shiver. The instant she was naked before him, he wrapped an arm around her waist. She let out a surprised shriek as he jumped into the pool with her.
Surfacing, she sputtered at him but before she could complain, he put his hands around her waist again and drew her against him. She automatically wrapped her legs around his hips letting his powerful legs tread water for the both of them.
Cupping his face with her hands, she kissed him as he began to propel them backwards toward the side of the pool. As they moved, she could feel his erection bobbing between them as it pressed against her.
Reaching shallow water, he planted his feet on the bottom of the pool, leaning against the pool wall. His hands swept up her back, tangling in her short hair as he deepened the kiss.
Rebecca moaned when his chest and stomach muscles rubbed against her, the sensation of his hair brushing across her had her intentionally rubbing against him, enjoying the friction against sensitive nipples, which had rapidly tightened into stiff peaks.
His cock bobbed against her again and she shifted her hips closer to him, capturing his erection between them. Pressing against it with her pelvis, she moved her body up and down, making him groan against her mouth.
Nipping at his lower lip, she sucked on it, smiling as his eyes darkened with the passion they both felt.
Zaid stroked up her back, before cradling her head in his hands, and then slowly, torturously, he slid one hand down, caressing her, stoking the passion in her. Almost to distract herself from her growing desire, she brought her own hands to his chest, tracing her fingers over the muscles on his chest before finding his nipples and rubbing them with her thumbs. She released a throaty chuckle when she felt them tighten enjoying that she was having as much of an impact on him as he was on her.
Her chuckle turned into a moan when he shifted to a lower stair, settling on it while pulling her onto h
is lap. Gripping her hips, he lifted her and held her just above him before gradually drawing her down onto his shaft, driving himself slowly into her, so she could feel every inch of him filling her.
Her fingers dug into the muscles in his shoulders, as she placed her feet on either side of him and pressed against the back of the step behind him, giving her leverage to push back with each leisurely thrust. He felt so much better than she remembered, making her long for the time lost while they were apart.
He pulled her up and then back down, sliding her effortlessly along his shaft under the water as she continued to meet each of his thrusts with one of her own loving the impact of his head as it pressed against her cervix. His cock filled her completely, stretching her with each stroke. She arched her back and moaned as his hardness found her g-spot causing her to tremble with anticipated pleasure.
“Oh God, Zaid, you feel so good, please don’t stop. I’m yours, my Sheikh.” She buried her head in his shoulder and nipped at him as he moved harder, faster, until she could barely contain herself, the intensity of her pleasure was so great. She was surprised at how quickly he drove her higher and higher as tendrils of pleasure unfurled from deep within her and stretched out to every part of her body.
This was the father of her child. This was the man she had longed for every night since they’d last been together, five years ago.
“Fuck me,” she called out in desperation. “Make me come.” He was driving her mad with desire.
She tightened her legs against him, digging her heels into the step and rocking herself against him, until he was deeper inside of her than she thought possible, his head brushing against her farthest wall. She pressed her pelvis against him, pinning him against the step while she moved her hips in a figure eight pattern rubbing her clit against his shaft.
She bit her lower lip and whimpered as she drove herself so close, so close. It was all she could do to make herself wait for him, but she wanted him to come with her, just like before. Their bodies had been in sync with each other from the beginning and she wanted that again.
