Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1)

by Rosie Pike

  The naked Tariq fell upon her like a hound out of hell, the look of desire in his eyes overwhelming – and unstoppable. He unclipped Chloe's bra in a swift, practiced and unhurried motion, tossing it to one side, and then took her breasts in his hands and played with her sensitive nipples, sending two parallel shocks of electric excitement running through Chloe's entire body.

  "Yes," Chloe whispered breathlessly, and Tariq wisely took it as a sign to focus his attention on the nipples, now his turn to lick and nibble. As he moved, the short stubble of his evening beard scratched against the soft flesh of Chloe's breasts and nipple, and her back arched as her body reacted to the unexpected pleasure. "Again," she breathed.

  Tariq obliged before lightly tracing his stubbly chin down the soft, firm flesh of Chloe's belly, leaving her gasping audibly the entire way down. His hands hadn't stopped roaming her body, it seemed to be his calling card – not leaving her second's peace or an inch of flesh that wasn't being stimulated. The hot, wet slit between her legs was proof, if any was necessary, of how much she enjoyed it.

  Tariq kissed Chloe's hipbone, blowing lightly at the sex between her legs, and she shivered with pleasure. "Please," she moaned, knowing exactly what he was about to do.

  "Please what?" he asked again, as slowly as before. By now though, Chloe had lost all embarrassment, all shame – after a buildup that had been more thorough, more sensual and more complete than any other foreplay she'd ever experienced – she just needed release.

  "Lick me," Chloe whimpered, and immediately Tariq stopped everything and dived between her legs.

  He didn't hold anything back, bringing his hands down from Chloe's upper torso and sending them down to her inner thighs, tickling and stroking the most sensitive spots on her body, as with furious abandon his tongue set to work between her thighs, licking the slick, wet lips of her sex until she squirmed.

  "Oh, yes," Chloe whimpered again, her eyes rolling back into her head, her stomach, in fact every muscle in her body, clenching with the pleasure of what was happening below. Tariq's right hand broke off its relentless journey of stroking the full length of Chloe's leg from the soft skin at the back of her calf, then slowly up the inside of her leg, tracing the back of the thigh before tickling and stroking her inner thighs close to the slip between her legs, and he slowly and intently inserted his index finger inside her, sending a jolt of pleasure up to her nipples.

  "Don't stop," she breathed a moment later as he began rhythmically beckoning with his finger inside her, not stopping the incessant licking, nibbling and sucking, the pressure on exactly the right spot within her, even as her hips squirmed and bucked. It didn't take long, the pressure was growing, the pleasure building, and one last time Chloe's eyes rolled to the back of her head as she experienced a blinding, toe-clenching, earthshattering orgasm that sent electric, darting shocks of pleasure spasming out through her body.

  "Oh. My. God." Chloe whispered as she finally regained control over her eyesight, looking down at the pleased looking face of the man between her thighs.

  "Where did you learn to do that?" she asked, panting heavily.

  Tariq gave her a lazy smile. "Don't ask, don't tell."

  "I don't need to know, as long as you don't go anywhere!"

  Tariq grabbed her by her hip bones, using them to lever his way up her body with his powerful arms until their faces were level, and Chloe was more than aware of the elephant in the room between her legs.

  "Your turn," she whispered, reaching down to fondle his swollen penis, feeling him shudder with pleasure as she did so.

  Tariq scratched his nails lightly down on either side of Chloe's torso before fondling the soaked mound between her legs, returning the favor. He went from soft and caring to firm and possessive in an instant, grabbing her hips and flipping her around until she landed on her belly. She began driving her hips backwards, knowing exactly what he wanted, and excited to give it to him, but not quick enough. Tariq grabbed her hips again and pulled them backwards until her ass was pressed directly against his crotch.

  He paused for a brief second, then entered her in a slow, controlled movement. Chloe felt herself stretch around him, his delicious heat finally entering her, and tried to back into him to speed up the process. All she wanted was to feel his entire length inside her, again and again. But cruelly, Tariq had his hands wrapped firmly around her hips, and she was no match for his strength, as he controlled the pace.

  "What do you want?" he whispered into her ear, cruelly only in the fact that he was denying her the pleasure that she so desperately wanted as he leaned over so she felt the heat of his stomach press against the back.

  Chloe knew that the only way she was going to get what she wanted was by playing his game, and she also knew that he must be desperate for his own release.

  "Fuck me."

  This time Chloe said it with an animal growl, thrusting her hips backwards so hard that Tariq couldn't mistake her intentions, and he took her up on the offer. He left one hand on her hip, grasping her shoulder firmly with the other, digging his powerful fingers into her soft flesh. The slight hint of pain was delicious, and came at just the moment that Tariq began thrusting into her – long, slow and powerful strokes that stretched Chloe with every repetition.

  "Oh, fuck yes," Chloe whimpered, scrunching her hands into the sheets and arching her back so that every time he entered her, he couldn't help but stroke her G-spot. Tariq began to quicken the pace, his breathing quickening in tandem, and Chloe knew he was close to the edge. He was stroking into her faster now, and harder – and every time her ass collided with the front of his muscular legs, it felt like it was hitting a mountain of hard steel.

  Every impact sent Chloe closer and closer to the edge and she noticed that Tariq had stopped breathing. He let go of her shoulder and instead entangled his hands into her hair as he groaned with his release. The sensation of pulling, the slight hint of pain at ten thousand hair follicles was enough to send Chloe straight back over the edge with him.

  She collapsed onto her forearms, her exhausted arms finally giving way. Remaining firmly attached to his slowly shrinking manhood, she turned. "Fucking hell…"

  11

  For once, perhaps prompted by waking up in an unfamiliar bed, Chloe didn't need a blaring alarm to rouse her from her sleep. She woke up, naked other than the sheets tangled around her smooth, tanned body, and curled into the warm and comforting crevice between Tariq's torso and shoulder.

  She stayed there for a long time without moving, just watching the man's impossibly toned torso rise and fall with his breath, and devouring his musky scent, remembering with unexpected pleasure the events of the night before.

  Of course, it didn't take long for the reality of the situation to hit Chloe – after all, she'd done the unthinkable, sleeping with a client. If they ever found out, the Kingsland Group would throw her out of the high-end concierge industry so fast she wouldn't know what had hit her – and worse, there was absolutely no chance she'd ever pick up a job in the business again.

  A tremor of nervousness ran through Chloe's entire body, perhaps spurred on by the sheer exhaustion in her muscles from last night's passionate activities. She trusted Tariq absolutely – she didn't know how, or why, but she did. At least on the surface of things, there was absolutely no reason why the handsome, wealthy Prince would ever feel the need to betray her confidence; and he'd never given her even a shred of evidence to suggest that would be something he'd consider.

  And yet…

  And yet, this was her career on the line. Chloe lay there, following up one of the most complete sexual experiences of her life with one of the most encompassing, and probably unnecessary, anxiety attacks she'd ever had.

  She needed a shower, stat.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Chloe disentangled herself from the Egyptian cotton sheets, and inch by inch, crept out from underneath Tariq's muscled arm. She stood by the edge of the bed, not really wanting to leave, but equally inexplicably, not wantin
g to be next to Tariq when he woke up. She had far too much going on inside her head right now to deal with the additional stress of explaining to him the thoughts that were racing through her brain.

  Chloe searched desperately around the room for her underwear, or at least as desperately as she could while attempting not to wake up the sleeping Prince. She had a faint pang of regret that, not having expected to end last night in the bedroom of the presidential suite, she hadn't chosen to wear a more flattering set of panties, but it hadn't seemed to get in the way of Tariq's desire the night before.

  With a little hiss of triumph, she finally tracked her panties down and shimmied into them, then stepped into the pencil skirt, which she found discarded along with her shirt, jacket and heels by the sofa upon which their torrid affair had begun. Chloe inspected herself in the spaces between the liquor bottles on the mirror behind the cocktail bar, noticing with dismay streaks in her makeup, limited as it was. Another reason to get out before Tariq woke up, she thought.

  Clutching her heels in her hands, Chloe walked barefoot to the door of the Presidential Suite, thanking her lucky stars that she'd woken up before Tariq's friends and aides had started flooding into the suite, waiting for the young prince to tell them what to do next. Chloe manipulated the touchscreen on the wall beside the doorway, calling up a camera which showed what was going on in the hallway – a nifty security feature the hotel was extremely proud of.

  Luckily, there was no one about. The only people staying on this floor were herself, Abdul, Omar, Khalid and, of course, Tariq – and it was too early for housekeeping to be patrolling the corridors. Again, Chloe looked up and thanked the heavens for her unseasonably early wakeup. She waved her hand in front of the sensor on the back of the door and kept one eye trained on the touchscreen, making sure that she'd have the time to duck away and hide if someone turned the corner.

  The doors whooshed open and Chloe didn't stop running until she felt the hard wood of the inside of her own suite's front door on her back as she rested, panting from the unexpected morning exertion.

  * * *

  THE WATER COURSED down Chloe's naked body, sluicing off the sweat and smell of last night's sex, and she remained under the powerful jet of water for far longer than usual as she attempted to get the worrying thoughts of the unlikely but possible consequences to her career of sleeping with Tariq out of her head. She kept turning up the temperature a fraction at a time until her tanned skin was uncharacteristically red, and then in a fit of pique, flicked the temperature dial as far as it would go in the other direction, causing a jet of freezing cold water to fall on her head, giving her the shock of her life and causing her nipples to stiffen to pinpoint pricks within seconds.

  She allowed her body almost a minute of that almost intolerably cold temperature before stepping out of the shower to towel herself off – mostly going through the exercise as a punishment. Not for what she’d done last night, but for the uncharacteristically childish response. Chloe wasn't a worrier – that wasn't what had gotten her so far in life. No, she was the kind of girl who would take life by the balls, and sitting in fear of some hypothetical consequences to her career wasn't her style.

  As she did every morning, she flicked on the television as she dried herself down.

  "… And I'm your host, Katie Morgan."

  The familiar sound of breakfast television washed over her, and Chloe offered up a silent prayer that she didn't have to listen to another infomercial as she sat at her dressing table and began to apply her makeup in front of the mirror.

  "Today on the show, we've got a motoring expert who will be telling you all about the secret tips, tricks and techniques that will help you to keep your car on the road all winter without an expensive trip to the garage, we've got an inspiring young woman who survived breast cancer at the age of just twenty- four, but before all that, we've got an exclusive interview with the noted Saudi dissident, Rashid Al Mansouri, who's living in exile in London."

  Chloe's blood ran cold. Shit, what the hell was this? This better not have anything to do with Tariq.

  She dropped the mascara onto the dresser and turned to face the television, her hands desperately searching for the remote so that she could turn up the volume.

  "Rashid, can you hear me?"

  "Yes, yes," came the accented voice of a middle-aged Arabic man with a salt-and-pepper beard. "Loud and clear!" the man said, smiling.

  "Great. Rashid, I'm Katie Morgan, the presenter of This Morning on Channel Six."

  "Thanks for having me, Katie."

  "No, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show. So, Rashid, I'm assuming that Prince Tariq's ongoing visit to the Earls Court Arms Fair hasn't escaped you?"

  "No, Katie. I'm very much aware of Prince," he hissed the honorific as though it were some kind of unmentionable, disgusting disease, "Tariq's trip to the UK. In fact, I protested strongly to the Home Office that he not be allowed to visit."

  "And your protests fell on deaf ears?" the presenter crooned.

  "Listen, Katie. I don't have anything against Prince Tariq personally – for all I know, he's a wonderful man. All I have a problem with is the regime that he represents – but that's a very big problem."

  "So, Rashid, we might have some listeners at home who haven't heard too much about what's going on – can you give us a little summary?"

  "It'd be my pleasure, Katie. I think your viewers need to understand just how reprehensible the Saudi regime can be – it's no secret that they have launched an indiscriminate attack on human rights not only within Saudi Arabia itself, but across the region more generally. Now they've launched an illegal war in Yemen, killing thousands of innocent noncombatants, and they've come to the UK trying to buy weapons to further this horrendous, illegitimate cause. I urge all your viewers to write or call their Member of Parliament and express their dissatisfaction that this man has been allowed into the country at all."

  "Rashid, that's a very strong criticism indeed," the beautiful presenter batted back. "And why exactly do you think it is that the government allowed Prince Tariq to enter the country?"

  Chloe could almost see the dissident's eyes roll back into his skull as he had to deal with the idiotic question from the morning television presenter. She empathized with the man – it was such a stupid question.

  "Well, as I'm sure you know, Katie – he's a member of the Saudi government, so the Home Office doesn't actually have the legal power to prevent him from entering the country."

  The presenter took it in stride. Chloe was sure she dealt with this kind of situation all day every day, and while she might not be too well versed in the intricacies of international law, she was nonetheless a model professional.

  "In that case, Rashid, what is it exactly that you're asking people to say to their MPs?"

  "It's simple, Katie – we need people all over this country to put pressure on the government not to allow the sale of advanced weaponry to this reprehensible regime. If people lean on the government, then the government will have no choice but to stop these arms sales from going ahead, and I believe that the British people don't want to sell weapons that will inevitably end up killing women and children across the Middle East."

  "And that was Rashid Al Mansouri, the famous Saudi human rights protester, coming to us live from outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. After the commercial break, we've got Paul Gibson, our resident car expert, who will be giving us his time-tested top tips this winter for keeping your car out of the garage."

  Chloe had already tuned out, knowing that the shit had just hit the fan – and that she needed to go straight back to the Presidential Suite. But more importantly – and she hadn't completely figured out her position on this yet – her outlook on Prince Tariq just changed, and not for the better.

  * * *

  CHLOE HAD ONLY LEFT the Presidential Suite a short hour or so before, but the place was essentially unrecognizable when she returned – it had become a hive of activity, with
harried looking embassy staffers rushing about carrying sheaves of paper or barking into cellphones clapped firmly to the ears.

  Chloe hung around the periphery of the room, just wanting to watch for now, and knowing that – for her own peace of mind as much as anything – she needed to do some digging on exactly what Prince Tariq was supposed to be doing on his trip to London.

  The thought constantly running through Chloe's mind, the thought that hadn't given her a second of peace since she'd flicked on the television earlier that morning, was simple. Had she unwittingly been helping the Prince buy weapons with which to oppress the people of Saudi Arabia? And if, as seemed increasingly likely to be the case, she had – then what could she do about it?

  "Chloe!" a concerned looking Prince Tariq called from the other side of the enormous suite, waving her over. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, one that she wouldn't have imagined feeling upon seeing him only the day before, she went over.

  "What's going on?" she asked, as though she hadn't seen a thing.

  "A fucking disaster, that's what," he replied. "Have you seen the news?"

  "No," Chloe lied. "What happened – something serious?"

  Tariq gave her a strange look, as though he suspected she wasn't telling the entire truth, though Chloe had no idea how he would be able to tell, but then shook his head as if to dismiss the suspicion.

  "Everything's screwed up. Some exiled Saudi I've never heard of came onto breakfast television this morning and called out my visit, saying that the British government should practically kick me out the country and stop me from conducting business."

  "How can they stop you doing business?" Chloe asked, genuinely curious – and also attempting to pry.

  "They can pressure companies into backing out of deals. I'm already getting worried calls from back home. People are nervous."