One Night With the Sheik (Friends Forever Book 4)

by Elizabeth Lennox

  He shook his head. “Silly woman. Of course it is true. I fell in love with you the first time I kissed you months ago.” His hands tangled in her hair so his fingers could stroke her head. “And you’ve love me for almost as long.”

  He might be right, because she’d been so hurt when he’d laughed after that amazing kiss. “We’ve only known each other for…”

  “Long enough. You’ve been with me throughout this whole thing. And today, you trusted me to find the culprits, Arianna.”

  She backed up until they were on opposite sides of the bed.

  She pulled the blanket closer, trying to defend herself somehow. “This can’t work between us,” she told him, thinking about all of the obstacles.

  “I love you. And you love me.”

  Sighing, she rested her forehead on her hands, tightening her grip on the blanket. “This is crazy!”

  A moment later, he was there, right behind her. No longer on the opposite side of the bed, his strong hands and warmth were right next to her. He massaged the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension. “I know. My feelings for you hit me harder than I’d ever thought possible.” He pulled her head back. “I was almost prepared to enter into a political marriage so my wife wouldn’t distract me. Then you entered my life and…” he shrugged, not finishing the statement.

  She peered at him over her shoulder. “You aren’t what I expected either.”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with someone who would run away! So I think my surprise trumps yours.”

  She laughed right along with him, appreciating the irony. “Well…”

  “Admit it,” he coaxed, his mouth moving gently over hers, hovering before teasing, kissing, but not deeply enough to satisfy her. “Tell me again.”

  “It won’t matter. It won’t last.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I love you,” she said the words, then waited to see if they sounded as crazy as she felt at the moment. But they felt right. Powerful, but right. “I do love you!”

  “I love you too.”

  “But the guards…”

  He rolled his eyes even as he lowered his head to kiss her. “You know, you’re going to have to get used to my guards. As my wife, they’ll be protecting you as well.”

  Arianna thought about that for a long moment, not sure what to say. “How about if we take it one day at a time?” she offered.

  He smiled as well. “As long as all of those days are here, with me.”

  “Deal,” she replied, then lifted up onto her toes to kiss him.

  Epilogue

  “Are you ready?” Arianna asked, then stopped when she saw the pensive look in her husband’s eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked, coming around to his side of the massive desk in his office.

  Rhys tossed the paper down onto his desk, pushing it under a file folder as he quickly masked his disgust. “Nothing, dear. Are you all packed?”

  “Yes. I’m packed, the kids are packed. You’re not.”

  He leaned back in his leather chair, waving his hand to bring her around his desk. “My assistant is packing for me. I will be ready on time.” Without hesitation, she cuddled her adorable bottom onto his lap.

  Placing her hands on his broad, muscular shoulders, she looked at him carefully. “Fine. You’ll be ready. Now tell me what you’re trying to hide from me.”

  He ran a hand up her thigh but she knew what he was up to. After ten years of marriage, she had his tricks figured out.

  Grabbing his hand, she interlaced her fingers with his. “No, you’re not distracting me. If you won’t tell me what’s going on, then I’m going to read that paper behind me on your desk and find out on my own.”

  He smiled. “You think you can get away with that before I pin you down?” he challenged. He saw the tinge of pink on her cheeks and the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. Perfect, he thought!

  “I think I can make a good go of it,” she whispered, leaning forward ever so slightly. Two could play at his game, she thought, distracting him with the low cut of her blouse. He fell for it, his eyes moving lower to survey the dark shadow between her breasts.

  “You’re cheating.”

  She smiled, a seductive expression that tightened his gut and made his body react. “Of course I am. You taught me well.”

  He laughed, but his hands moved lower, resting heavily on her silk clad bottom, eliciting a gasp of awareness. “Remember before we were married? The oil minister, project manager, engineer, and three of the rig workers?”

  “The ones that kidnapped my father because he’d figured out that they’d embezzled from you?”

  “The exact ones,” he replied evenly.

  She pulled back, angry now. “What about them? Are they threatening you? From prison?”

  He laughed, loving the way she snapped into tigress mode. “No, they aren’t threatening anyone,” he told her and pulled her right back onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him another excellent view of her cleavage. “They are asking for leniency.”

  “You’re not giving it to them, are you?”

  “Absolutely not! They were sentenced to life in prison. No possibility for parole.”

  “Good!” she replied, nodding her approval. “They hurt my father and killed other people who got too close to the truth.”

  “Exactly. So no, they aren’t receiving any leniency from me.”

  She tilted her head slightly in curiosity. “So, why were they contacting you?” she asked.

  “They wanted to apologize.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and shook her head. “They think apologizing will soften our attitudes?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I believe that’s exactly what they were hoping.”

  She stood up and started pacing. She stood in front of his desk, furious with those men for pulling a trick like this. “But it isn’t going to work, right?”

  “Absolutely not,” he replied, still leaning back in his leather chair as he enjoyed the view. Arianna paced furiously. Passionately. Just like she did everything else in life.

  She nodded and stopped, staring at something, but he wasn’t really sure what. Obviously, she was going through something in her mind and, when she nodded again, he knew that she’d come to some sort of conclusion. “Good. Because…well, I’m not going waste my time thinking about them. They didn’t show any concern for my father or the others that they callously beat, threatened, or killed to protect their money, so they don’t deserve any consideration either.”

  “Good. So, we’re agreed.”

  She nodded again. “Yes. I can’t allow them to get away with that.”

  He knew her all too well. Arianna was one of the gentlest women he’d ever met. Sure enough…She was walking away, had taken two steps before she swung around, her mouth open, ready to argue the opposite point. She was such a gentle soul, not wanting anyone to suffer. Even though she’d just been arguing adamantly that the people who had kidnapped and beat her father shouldn’t be shown any leniency, her position was shifting.

  He couldn’t let her do that. “Nope!” he told her firmly. “Even if you might want to give them leniency, the other families don’t.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve already spoken to them?”

  He stood up and came around his desk, pulling her into his arms. “Yes. All of them. They all want the men to remain in prison. They don’t want any of them killed. The families want those men to live out the rest of their lives in prison.”

  She sighed, leaning her head against his broad shoulder. “Fine. But…”

  “You’re not sending them a care package either, Arianna. If you do, I’ll have my guards intercept it and it will be sent somewhere else, someone far more deserving.”

  She groaned but didn’t have a chance to reply since their four children raced up to meet them in the hallway. “When do we leave?” Aranja demanded, bouncing up and down even though h
e was eight and trying hard not to show his excitement. Mijar, their second oldest at six, and Alexandra, their daughter who was four, followed behind, equally excited but not ashamed to show it. “We’re all packed! When do we leave?”

  Katirina, their youngest daughter at two, toddled along, seemingly oblivious to everything, singing a song.

  “Do you think Alejandro will recognize me?” Alexandra asked, happy to be seeing the handsome boy who was about fourteen now.

  Natalie and her brood were already on their way. Hayden and Viktor had phoned this morning, making sure Arianna and her clan were coming for the weekend as well. Katia and Sergei were…well, they were somewhere, but promised to bring their entire family. The four friends who had met in that tiny town in Virginia got together as often as possible, never allowing too much time to pass before they reconnected. They were all meeting in Virginia this time. It was a family reunion, even though they weren’t officially related.

  “We leave in thirty minutes. Go make sure that everyone is ready,” she instructed her children, all of whom raced back to the family suites to inform their nannies, servants, body guards, and personal maids that they would be leaving soon.

  When they were alone again, Arianna leaned her head against Rhys’ shoulder. “Ten years,” she whispered. “When are we going to get bored with each other?”

  Rhys laughed, pulling her off to the side so they were relatively alone. “I doubt I’ll ever get bored with you,” he promised and kissed her neck, feeling her shiver. “Especially when you react like that every time I touch you.”

  Arianna laughed, but then turned serious. “Thank you! Ten years. Ten years of amazing happiness!”

  He kissed her gently, all teasing gone. “An incredible journey. Thank you for trying to slap me.”

  She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “My pleasure!”

  Excerpt from “Tempted”

  The Lotter Winners Series – Coming April 20, 2018

  (Don’t forget to PreOrder “The Lottery Winners, A Free Introduction” too! Coming April 13, 2018)

  What the hell was he doing here? Rocco slammed the door of his pickup closed, looking around. The tiny town of LowPoint, Kentucky wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d heard. There were several houses that looked nice, but the rest…he shook his head, amazed that everything looked so abandoned.

  Years ago, some reporter had done a series of stories about coal mining towns that had died. LowPoint had been one of the featured towns and had appeared to be about to crumble at any moment.

  But as he’d driven through town, he’d seen stores and people walking along sidewalks filled with flowers and trees that had just burst with leaves as the warm spring sun heated the earth. The downtown area definitely was different than the images he’d seen on television so many years ago.

  These houses though? Yeah, they looked ready to be demolished. The whole street looked…abandoned. There were broken windows, lawns filled with weeds, doors missing to some of the houses, and…he looked at the house across the street. Was that a toilet on the lawn?

  Rubbing the back of his neck, he wondered what the hell he was doing here. There were no buildings going up, no construction anywhere to be seen.

  It was just a run-down neighborhood. Yeah, his mind instantly began cataloguing all of the ways that he could improve the houses. A bit of...

  “You showed up!”

  Rocco turned, looking at the woman approaching him with a breathless smile. She wasn’t wearing a business suit and killer heels like she’d worn yesterday, but the loose jeans and cotton top were pretty damn nice! Were those steel toed boots? Damn, she looked hot! Much more intriguing that the Barbie-look-alike he’d seen yesterday.

  And much more enticing!

  Keeping his features neutral, he waited for her to approach him, unwilling to give anything away.

  “I’m here,” he replied, when she was a few feet away, although it was obvious.

  She sauntered up to him and he was startled to realize how short she was. Maybe five feet, five? Not more. Since he was several inches over six feet, that caused him to look down at her more than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t noticed the height difference yesterday because she’d been sitting down. And yeah – because he’d been a bit too focused on her mouth.

  His eyes dropped to take in that particular body part, thinking back to his dreams from the previous night. He’d woken up hard and aching and it was all due to this woman and her full lips that….

  “Why am I here?” he demanded, sounding a bit more gruff than he’d intended, but those damn lips stretched into a grin.

  Hell, he’d thought that she couldn’t get prettier but that smile lit up her features and…

  He was a gonner. Better to get out of here before he got any deeper. One night of hot and heavy dreams was about all his libido could take. It had been too long since he’d had a woman in his bed.

  “Follow me,” Daisy-Barbie said.

  If it had been anyone else, he would have just gotten back into his truck and driven away. But one other feature he hadn’t noticed yesterday, besides her height, was her amazing butt! In jeans, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from that enticing body part. It wasn’t even that the jeans she wore were tight. Just the opposite in fact. But if she was trying to hide her figure in those baggie clothes, it wasn’t working!

  So instead of getting into his truck and driving off as he should, Rocco followed her up the weed-choked lawn and into the dilapidated house. Shaking his head. He was following a woman, ignoring his instincts, just because she had a nice ass.

  Daisy pushed open the door and stepped into the dark interior of the house. “This is the job,” she said, spreading her arms wide.

  He looked around, still thinking about her lips and her ass. “Tearing down the house?” he asked, trying to make sense of everything.

  Daisy laughed, shaking her head and moved deeper into the room. “No, silly! I need a team of people to remodel the houses.”

  He looked at her and it took all of her concentration to keep from squirming. What was it about his blue eyes that unnerved her so completely? She’d thought she’d just been nervous yesterday about confronting him since he was so big but…maybe there was more to it.

  “Houses…plural?”

  She couldn’t hide her eagerness, even in the face of this man’s derision. This was her passion. This…fixing up LowPoint, renovating each of these houses so that people could move in and find a safe place to raise their families. After winning such incredible wealth with her lottery winnings, her life had changed dramatically. This was her way of giving back to the world.

  “Yes. LowPoint’s population dwindled to about two hundred several years back. The town was kept alive only through low paying jobs. But it wasn’t alive,” she explained, seeing the surprise in his eyes and taking that as a positive sign. “I can’t even say that the town was on life support. It was dying. There were no jobs, no true source of employment other than commuting to Louisville, but many people couldn’t even afford that. Most families left the area for cities that offered more jobs. As you can see from driving down any of the streets, most of the houses haven’t been lived in for about ten years, some more. The owners simply abandoned them when they couldn’t sell them and moved on.”

  He was looking around at the interior now instead of staring at her as if she were a crazy lunatic. That was a positive sign.

  She watched in fascination as he moved over to one of the walls and knocked on it. When it didn’t fall down, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And your company is renovating these…why? There still aren’t jobs in LowPoint. Everyone I know lives in Louisville.”

  She laughed, relief surging through her since he hadn’t outright rejected the job or laughed at her dream of revitalizing the town. “LowPoint has two things going for it and the company I work for is banking on that to bring this town back on the map.”

  “What’s that?” he asked. He moved
into the kitchen now, opening and closing the cabinets. One of the cabinet doors fell off in his hand and Rocco jumped back so that the heavy wood didn’t smash his foot, causing a loud clatter to break the tense silence in the house.

  Daisy tried to ignore the tug of something deep inside of her as she took in those muscles flexing underneath the plaid flannel of his shirt as it pulled across his broad shoulders. Every time he moved, her eyes were drawn to those shoulders or his trim waist, the tight but revealed by his soft, well-worn jeans that hugged his butt and strong thighs. Yummy!

  She jerked slightly when he turned to look at her over his shoulder, obviously waiting for an answer to his question. Daisy stepped back slightly, as if that could somehow keep her eyes from roaming all over him. Focus, she admonished herself firmly.

  Blinking, she pulled her eyes away from his butt and focused on his eyes. Okay, actually, she was now looking at the scruff of his jawline. The man hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. It was probably a sign of disrespect towards her, but she loved the rough look.

  Question! His dark eyebrows lifted when she forgot to answer him. Daisy turned away and walked towards a sliding glass door that used to be clear, but was now covered in so much dust, it was just a filmy, cracked piece of glass. “First of all, Ivy Taylor’s studio is here. Ever seen her photos?”

  His expression didn’t change in any way. “Everyone knows of Ivy Taylor’s photos. She comes back from one of her trips and everyone is talking about it.” He shrugged. “I saw her gallery when I drove through town.”

  Daisy laughed. “Yep. That’s the one. You can only buy her prints from her gallery on Main Street.”

  He watched her for a moment before one of those massive shoulders shrugged. “Okay, so you got that going for you. What else?”

  “Ever eaten at one of Tony Itola’s restaurants?” she asked.

  Another delicious shrug. She wondered what his shoulders would look like without the flannel covering them.

  “Can’t afford to.”

  She brought her eyes back to his and clapped her hands together. “Well, Tony’s gourmet restaurant is on Main Street, about a block from Ivy’s gallery. In addition to his flagship restaurant, he has a sandwich shop located right next door to Ivy Taylor’s studio. Most people don’t know that the shop is owned by Tony, but it’s true and people love it.”