What had she gotten herself into?
The thought that she was actually willing to share a cabin with a man she didn’t know was plain ludicrous. The only thing to her credit was the fact that while he had been outside getting the boxes out of the car, she had used her cell phone to call Reggie.
Born the same year, she and Reggie had forged a closeness from the time they had been babies, and over the years he had become more than just a cousin. He was sort of like her best buddy.
He had always kept her secrets, and she had always kept his. Since his interest had been in working with numbers, no one was surprised when he had established an accounting firm a few years ago after earning a graduate degree in Business Administration from Morehouse College.
After apologizing for the mix-up, Reggie had assured her that Jamal was legit. He had met him through Philip a few years ago. Reggie further verified Jamal’s claim that he was a prince and had gone on to warn her that according to Philip, Jamal had very little tolerance for Western women.
She had ended the conversation with Reggie, thinking that she couldn’t care less about the man’s tolerance level, and had no intention of letting him dictate whether or not she would stay. She deserved thirty days to rest and do nothing, and by golly, come hell or high water, she planned to enjoy her vacation.
Crossing the room, she plopped down onto a reclining chair. She glanced at the luggage on her bed, too tired to unpack just yet. Putting up the groceries had taken everything out of her. Jamal had stood there the entire time watching her.
Although he hadn’t said anything, she had felt his gaze as if it had been a personal caress. And a few times she had actually looked across the room and caught him staring. No, glaring was more like it.
She knew his intent had been to try to unnerve her. But as far as she was concerned, he had a long way to go to ruffle her feathers. The Westmoreland brothers—Dare, Thorn, Stone, Chase, and Storm—made dealing with someone like Jamal a piece of cake.
Her cheeks grew warm when she imagined that he was probably just as tasty as a piece of cake. Utterly delicious. A mouthwatering delight. Even now her body felt the heat. He had evoked within her the most intense physical reaction and attraction to a man she had ever experienced.
She shook her head, deciding she definitely needed to take a cool shower and not get tempted.
No matter how crazy her body was acting, she didn’t need a man. What she needed was sleep.
Two
Delaney stood in the kitchen doorway and stared for a long moment at the masculine legs sticking out from underneath the kitchen table. Nice, she thought, studying the firmness of male thighs clad in a pair of immaculately pressed jeans.
Since arriving four days ago, this was only her third time seeing Jamal. Just as she’d told him that first day, she intended to get the sleep she deserved. Other than waking up occasionally to grab something to eat, she had remained in her bedroom sleeping like a baby.
Except for that one time he had awakened her, making a racket outside her bedroom window while practicing some type of martial art. She had forced her body from the bed and gone to the window to see what the heck was going on.
Through the clear pane she’d watched him. He’d been wearing a sweat top and a pair of satin boxing trunks that were expertly tailored for a snug fit.
She’d watched, mesmerized, as he put his body through a series of strenuous standing-jump kicks and punches. She admired such tremendous vitality, discipline and power. She had also admired his body, which showed an abundance of masculine strength. For the longest time she had stood at the window rooted in place, undetected, while she ogled him. A woman could only take a man like Jamal in slow degrees.
Deciding that if she didn’t move away from the window she would surely die a slow and painful death from lust overload, she had made her way back to the bed and nearly collapsed.
“Dammit!”
Jamal’s outburst got her attention and brought her thoughts back to the present. She couldn’t help but smile. No matter how well he mastered the English language, a curse word coming from him didn’t sound quite the same as it did coming from an American. Her brothers had a tendency to use that particular word with a lot more flair.
She walked over to the table and glanced down. “Need help?”
At first he froze in place, evidently surprised by her presence. “No, I can manage,” was his tart reply.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive,” he all but snapped.
“Suit yourself,” she snapped back. She turned and walked over to the kitchen cabinet to get a bowl for the cereal she had brought with her, ignoring the fact that he had slid from underneath the table and was standing up.
“So, what got you up this morning?” he asked, tossing the tools he’d been using in a box.
“Hunger.” She put cereal into her bowl, then poured on the milk. Seeing the kitchen table was not available for her to use, she grabbed the cereal box and a spoon and went outside onto the porch.
Already the morning was hot and she knew it would get hotter, typical for a North Carolina summer. She was glad the inside of the cabin had air-conditioning. This was sweaty, sticky heat, the kind that made you want to walk around naked.
Her brothers would be scandalized if they knew she’d done that on occasion when it got hot enough at her home, which was one of the advantages of living alone. She released a deep sigh as she sat down on the steps thinking that with Jamal sharing the cabin walking around naked wasn’t an option.
She had taken a mouthful of her cereal when she heard the screen door opening behind her. The knowledge that Jamal was out on the porch and standing just a few feet behind her sent every instinct and conscious thought she had into overdrive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him lean against the porch rail with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“You’ve given up moonlighting as a repairman already, Your Highness?” she asked in a snippy voice, dripping with sarcasm.
He evidently decided to take her taunt in stride and replied, “For now, yes, but I intend to find out what’s wrong with that table and fix it before I leave here. I would hate to leave behind anything broken.”
Delaney glanced over at him then wished she hadn’t. It seemed his entire face, dark and stunning, shone in the morning sunlight. If she thought he’d been classically beautiful and had dressed out of sync four days ago, then today he had done a complete turnaround. Shirtless, unshaven and wearing jeans, he looked untamed and rugged and no longer like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He looked every bit a wolf, wild and rapacious and on the prowl. If given the chance he would probably eat her alive and lick his chops afterward.
There was nothing in the way he looked to denote he was connected to royalty, a prince, a sheikh. Instead what she saw was an extremely handsome man with solid muscles and a body that exuded sheer masculinity.
He lowered his head to take a sip of his coffee, and she used that time to continue to study him undetected. Now that he was standing, she could see the full frontal view. His jeans were a tight fit and seemed to have been made just for his body. Probably had since he could afford a private tailor. And even if she hadn’t seen him doing kick-boxing, it would be quite obvious that he kept in shape with his wide, muscular shoulders, trim waistline and narrow hips.
She imagined having the opportunity to peel those jeans off him just long enough to wrap her legs tight around his waist. And then there was his naked chest. A chest her hand was just itching to touch. She was dying to feel whether his muscles were as hard as they looked.
Delaney’s heart began pounding. She couldn’t believe she was thinking such things. She was really beginning to lose it. Incredible. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She couldn’t think of one single man in all her twenty-five years who had made her feel so wanton, so greedy, so…needy.
The only need she had experienced with the guys she had taken the time to date in college and medical school had
been the need to bring the date to a quick end. And her only greed had been for food, especially her mother’s mouthwatering strawberry pie.
No longer wanting to dwell on her sex life—or lack of—she racked her brain, trying to remember the question she had intended to ask Jamal a few minutes earlier. The same brain that had helped her to graduate at the top of her class just last week had turned to mush. She collected her scattered thoughts and remembered the question. “What’s wrong with the table?”
He raised his head and looked at her as if she was dense. “It’s broken.”
She glared at him. “That much is obvious. How is it broken?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. It wobbles.”
Delaney raised her eyes heavenward. “Is that all?”
“A table is not supposed to wobble, Delaney.”
And I shouldn’t be getting turned on from the way you just said my name, she thought, turning her attention away from him and back to her food. That was the first time he had called her by name, and her body was experiencing an intense reaction to it. His tone of voice had been low and husky.
Her eyes stayed glued to her cereal box as she ate, thinking that her fixation with Tony the Tiger was a lot safer than her fascination with Jamal the Wolf. The last thing she needed was a complication in her life, and she had a feeling that getting involved with Jamal would definitely rank high on the Don’t Do list. She had no doubt he was a master at seduction. He looked the part and she was smart enough to know he was way out of her league.
Satisfied that she was still in control of her tumultuous emotions, at least for the time being, Delaney smiled to herself as she continued to eat her cereal.
Releasing a deep sigh, Jamal commanded his body to take control of the desire racing through it. Ever since he had begun business negotiations with the country surrounding Tahran for a vital piece of land lying between them, he had been celibate, denying his body and freeing his mind to totally concentrate on doing what was in the best interest of his country. But now that the negotiations were over, his body was reminding him it had a need that was long overdue.
He scolded himself for his weakness and tried to ignore the sexual urges gripping him. If he had returned home after Philip’s wedding instead of taking his friend up on his offer to spend an entire month at this cabin, he would not be going through this torment.
In Tahran there were women readily available for him—women who thought it a privilege as well as an honor to take care of their prince’s needs. They would come to his apartment, which was located in his own private section of the palace, and pleasure him any way he wanted. It had always been that way since his eighteenth birthday.
There was also Najeen, the woman who had been his mistress for the past three years. She was trained in the art of pleasing only him and did an excellent job of it. He had provided her with her own lavish cottage on the grounds not far from the palace, as well as personal servants to see to her every need. At no time had he ever craved a woman.
Until now.
“Tell me about your homeland, Jamal.”
Jamal arched a brow, surprised at Delaney’s request. He shifted his gaze from his cup of coffee and back to her. Her honey-brown face glowed in the sunlight, making her appear radiant, golden. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, so her beauty was natural, awe-inspiring. He swallowed hard and tried once again to ignore the urgent need pounding inside him, signals of desire racing through his body.
“What do you want to know?” he asked with a huskiness he almost didn’t recognize.
Delaney placed her empty bowl aside and leaned back on both hands as she looked at him. “Anything you want to tell me. It must be an interesting place to live.”
He chuckled at the curiosity in her voice, then stared down at her for several moments before he began speaking. “Yes, interesting,” he said slowly, “and quite beautiful.” She couldn’t know that he had just referred to his country…as well as to her.
Fighting for total control, he continued. “Tahran is located not far from Saudi Arabia, close to the Persian Gulf. It’s a relatively small country compared to others close to it like Kuwait and Oman. Our summers are intensely hot and our winters are cool and short. And unlike most places in the Middle East, we get our share of rain. Our natural resources in addition to oil are fish, shrimp and natural gas. For the past few years my people have lived in peace and harmony with our neighbors. Once in a while disagreements flare up, but when that happens a special regional coalition resolves any disputed issues. I am one of the youngest members of that coalition.”
“Are both your parents still living?”
Jamal took another sip of his coffee before answering. “My mother died when I was born and for many years my father and I lived alone with just the servants. Then Fatimah entered our lives.”
“Fatimah?”
“Yes, my stepmother. She married my father when I was twelve.” Jamal decided not to mention that his parents’ marriage had been prearranged by their families to bring peace to two warring nations. His mother had been an African princess of Berber descent, and his father, an Arab prince. There had been no love between them, just duty, and he had been the only child born from that union. Then one day his father brought Fatimah home and their lives hadn’t been the same.
His father’s marriage to Fatimah was supposed to have been like his first marriage, one of duty and not love. But it had been evident with everyone from the start that the twenty-two-year-old Egyptian beauty had other plans for her forty-six-year-old husband. And it also became apparent to everyone in the palace that Fatimah was doing more for King Yasir than satisfying his loneliness and his physical needs in the bedroom. Their king was smiling. He was happy and he didn’t travel outside his sheikhdom as often.
King Yasir no longer sent for other women to pleasure him, bestowing that task solely upon his wife. Then, within a year of their marriage, they had a child, a daughter they named Arielle. Three years later another daughter was born. They named her Johari.
Arielle, at nineteen, was now married to Prince Shudoya, a man she had been promised to since birth. Johari, at sixteen, was a handful after having been spoiled and pampered by their father. Jamal smiled, inwardly admitting that he’d had a hand in spoiling and pampering her as well.
He simply adored his stepmother. More than once during his teen years, she had gone to his father on his behalf about issues that had been important to him.
“Do the two of you get along? You and your stepmother?”
Delaney’s question invaded his thoughts. “Yes, Fatimah and I are very close.”
Delaney stared at him. For some reason she found it hard to imagine him having a “very close” relationship with anyone. “Any siblings?” she decided to ask.
He nodded. “Yes, I have two sisters, Arielle and Johari. Arielle is nineteen and is married to a sheikh in a neighboring sheikhdom, and Johari is sixteen and has just completed her schooling in my country. She wants to come to America to further her studies.”
“Will she?”
He looked at her like she had gone stone mad. “Of course not!”
Delaney stared at him dumbfounded, wondering what he had against his sister being educated in the United States. “Why? You did.”
Jamal clenched his jaw. “Yes, but my situation was different.”
Delaney lifted her brow. “Different in what way?”
“I’m a man.”
“So? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Evidently it means nothing in this country. I have observed more times than I care to count how the men let the women have control.”
Delaney narrowed her eyes. “You consider having equal rights as having control?”
“Yes, in a way. Men are supposed to take care of the women. In your country more and more women are being educated to take care of themselves.”
“And you see that as a bad thing?”
He gazed at her and remembered her sassiness from the f
irst day and decided the last thing he wanted was to get embroiled in a bitter confrontation with her. He had his beliefs and she had hers. But since she had asked his opinion he would give it to her. “I see it as something that would not be tolerated in my country.”
What he didn’t add was that the alternative—the one his stepmother used so often and had perfected to an art—was for a woman to wrap herself around her husband’s heart so tightly that he would give her the moon if she asked for it.
Taking another sip of coffee, Jamal decided to change the subject and shift the conversation to her. “Tell me about your family,” he said, thinking that was a safer topic.
Evidently it’s not, he thought when she glared at him.
“My family lives in Atlanta, and I’m the only girl as well as the youngest in the third generation of Westmorelands. And for the longest time my five brothers thought I needed protecting. They gave any guy who came within two feet of me pure hell. By my eighteenth birthday I had yet to have a date, so I finally put a stop to their foolishness.”
He smiled. “And how did you do that?”
A wicked grin crossed her face. “Since I never had a social life I ended up with a lot of free time on my hands. So I started doing to them what they were doing to me—interfering in their lives. I suddenly became the nosy, busy-body sister. I would deliberately monitor their calls, intentionally call their girlfriends by the wrong name and, more times than I care to count, I would conveniently drop by their places when I knew they had company and were probably right smack in the middle of something immoral.”
She chuckled. “In other words, I became the kid sister from hell. It didn’t take long for them to stop meddling in my affairs and back off. However, every once in a while they go brain dead and start sticking their noses into my business again. But it doesn’t take much for me to remind them to butt out or suffer the consequences if they don’t.”
Jamal shook his head, having the deepest sympathy for her brothers. “Are any of your brothers married?”
She stared at him, her eyes full of amusement at his question. “Are you kidding? They have too much fun being single. They are players, the card-carrying kind. Alisdare, whom we call Dare, is thirty-five, and the sheriff of College Park, a suburb of Atlanta. Thorn is thirty-four and builds motorcycles as well as races them. Last year he was the only African-American on the circuit. Stone will be celebrating his thirty-second birthday next month. He’s an author of action-thriller novels and writes under the pen name of Rock Mason.”
Delaney's Desert Sheikh Page 2
