by Sophia Lynn
"I'll think about it," she said finally, and if he looked disappointed that she hadn't agreed with a fullhearted yes, he also looked confident that she would come around at one point or another.
"And that being said," Berry said hastily, "I should be on my way. There are some things I should get back to, after all."
The way Rasul smiled at her told her that she wasn't fooling him at all. Right now, what she needed was space to figure things out. She had to make sure that she had her head screwed on straight, no matter what. The professional part of it was really only a belated concern. Right now, it was her heart that felt as if it was in danger far more than her job.
"As you like, beautiful girl," he said smoothly.
With an old-world courtliness that she had seen that was much more common in Alamun than it was in the United States, he walked her down to the lobby, where his car was waiting for her.
"I will be occupied for the next two days," he said. "But after that, there is an artifact that I wish you to see at one of my residences. Can you clear your schedule for that entire day? Travel will take some time."
"Yes, I can do that," she said. "That sounds just fine to me."
Afterward, she wasn't sure why she did what she did. She could have called it an impulse, but it was far more than that. It felt like a compulsion, something that she had to do, and when something felt that powerful, she didn't bother to think about it.
When he gave her his hand to help her into the car, she moved forward instead, until she was flush against his body. He was bent slightly, making it easier for her to wrap an arm around his neck and pull him down farther for a kiss.
The kiss they had shared before was a fast and fiery thing. This one, where she was aware and ready and wanting, was dizzying. She felt as if her stomach was full of butterflies, she felt as if her entire body was igniting with that single touch. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to go back up to his apartment and to really figure out what they could be to each other.
From the look in Rasul's eyes when they split apart, he thought the same. Suddenly, however, that was too much. Too much contact, too much intensity, simply too much.
"Thank you," she said softly, and somehow, she meant for more than just dinner or even just for the kiss. It was a thank you for making her feel more than she had ever felt before.
"You're very welcome," he said, and in the huskiness of his words, she could tell that he understood exactly what it was she meant.
Desperate to say more, and at the same terrified of the very same, she ducked back into the car, and he closed it after her.
Once she was ensconced in the luxurious leather, metal, and glass of his car, she felt safer.
I don't know what I am doing in the least, Berry thought disconsolately.
However, when she glanced out the rear mirror as the car started moving, she could see Rasul standing at the curb, watching after her as she drove away.
Whatever she was feeling, she knew he was feeling it too. At least she wasn't alone. Now all they had to do was to make sure that the power of their attraction for each other didn't destroy them both …
***
Rasul went back up to his penthouse as if he were in a daze. The first kiss had been breathtaking. The second kiss, where she had clung to him as if he were the only real thing in the world, as if they would drown if they let each other go, was world changing.
Throughout the world, Alamun was known for its wealth, its commanding lead in the technological field, its impressive achievement in politics and in the past, at war. However, when you actually spoke with the Alamun people themselves, they would say that they were best known for their romance and their passion.
His parents' marriage had been arranged, but there was no denying that there was a powerful love there that bound them together. They may not have started their marriage loving each other, but there was a great foundation of care and respect there, one that had bloomed to love long before he was born. They had had almost forty good years together before a plane crash took them both, and he still saw their marriage as something that everyone should aspire to.
And then this little spitfire came into his life.
If he was honest with himself, there had always been more to them than his simple attraction for her. Even when he saw her in the souk, he knew that she was more than a fling, more than simple flirtation.
This might be the woman who was destined for him, the one who would rule his heart and his home even as he ruled his country.
But … she is so foreign.
He loved foreign women, but for the most part, they were casual acquaintanceships, brief flings, and assignations. He had always assumed that when he married, he would be looking for someone with a similar background, a similar way of looking at the world. This little American was going to fight him every step of the way, and so far, what they seemed to have in common was a passion that threatened to make them forget everything else.
Rasul looked out over the darkening city sky, pensive and almost brooding. He had meant what he said about wanting to know her better, but where did that stop? Was he looking for something more serious, and if he was, could he have it with her?
He sighed. At the moment, he didn't know.
All he did know was that the next few days were going to be painful. He was going to be attending a trade conference in Dubai, and the entire time, he was going to be thinking of a certain willowy woman with a crown of coppery chestnut hair. When she was well-kissed, her eyes were smoky with desire, and all he could think of was kissing that warm, red mouth.
Rasul could have cursed the world for introducing him to a woman who stirred his heart and body like this while being so very different from him and his world. At the moment, however, all he could think of was the taste of her and the sweetness of her body, how much he longed for her.
He sighed. He knew that fate was a strange thing, and where it decreed that you would burn, you certainly would. However, he had never expected his fate to come for him with such beauty, such passion, and such a beautiful smile.
As destructive fates went, he wasn't sure he could choose a better one.
Two days, he thought. Two days, and then I will see her again. After that, we shall see what we might have in common and what we can do with one another. Perhaps this time, we will not stop so hastily.
CHAPTER FIVE
Berry made it a point to keep herself busy over the next two days. She deliberately overbooked her schedule to make sure that she could not concentrate on what would happen when she next saw Rasul. However, despite her best efforts, he and the kisses that they had shared kept creeping into her mind.
For a while, it drove her crazy. She would be typing up a brief for a specific item that she had found, and suddenly she would imagine what his dark hand would look like pushing up her skirt, sliding along her thigh. She would be ordering herself something sweet for lunch, and she would imagine feeding him a tiny morsel of it, touching his lips with her fingertips.
"You look different," Farnsworth commented on their Skype call. He had gone to check on a few things in Dubai, but he liked to keep in contact with all of his agents.
Berry was irritated to feel herself blushing like a young girl. "Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. I wonder if it's just because it is getting hot down in Alamun …"
Farnsworth shot her a strange look, but he allowed her to change the topic to other things.
The truth was that there was something about Rasul that simply would not leave her mind. It was more than just the intense physicality that they shared. There was something about his face that haunted her. She wondered for a while if it was because he reminded her of someone that she had met before, but then she realized it was actually something that he had said. It was as though he was somehow familiar to her without her have known him before.
By the time she got the call that he was sending a car for her, she was feeling more nervous than she had in years.
; Berry dressed with care. She almost considered wearing clothes that were wholly professional and demure, but something in her protested the idea of coming before a man who made her heart beat faster dressed as if she were a drab little accountant.
Instead, she went through the meager clothes that she had brought with her from the States. In the end, there were simply not that many options available to her, which she supposed was something of a mercy.
She put on a light cotton sundress in the palest shade of warm green, and over her shining hair, she pinned a scarf of deepest emerald. For a moment, looking in the mirror, she felt like the awkward and gawky seventeen year old who had never been asked to dance, too tall and too skinny for anyone to look at twice.
For a single moment, Berry almost tore off the clothes that she wore and put on her professional clothes again, but then she remembered the way that Rasul had looked at her. He looked at her as if all of the light in the world was held in her body, and no matter what, it had to mean something.
To her relief, she got a text that the car had arrived, and she couldn't think of it any longer. Checking herself in the mirror one last time, she went to the car and got in.
She was a little surprised when the car took her out of town. There were a few villas out there, luxurious to be sure, but the car didn't stop at any of them. In the distance, she could see the mountains, tall and pale blue in the morning haze. They bordered the emirate of Alamun, keeping the country safe from the western approach.
To Berry's surprise, the car stopped at a small airfield where a dark helicopter waited for her.
"What's going on?" she asked no one in particular as she got out of the car.
"Well, I asked you to come out to my house, and I thought that it would be rude of me to let you find your own way there."
She spun around to see Rasul coming up behind her, wearing a flight jacket over his fashionable clothes.
"We're being flown out to the mountains?" Berry asked in surprise.
He grinned. "Almost," Rasul said. "I'm flying us out to the mountains in this."
"You're a helicopter pilot?" Berry asked. She had been aware that the Sheikh was a rich man, but in her experience rich men had drivers and Porsches, not helicopters. It was strange to realize that most of her most valuable clients were people whose fortunes would be inconsequential to the Sheikh of Alamun.
"Have been since I was sixteen," he said. "My father was my first teacher, though I did end up getting national certification when I was eighteen. Are you feeling nervous?"
She could hear a bit of challenge in his voice, and defiantly, Berry lifted her chin and looked him right in the eyes.
"Certainly not," she said. "I'm ready to go whenever you are."
Of course that was what she said before the blades kicked up. Even inside the helicopter, the sound was stunning, and she had to touch her harness to make sure that she was buckled in securely. She could see that Rasul handled the instrument panel in front of him with grace and competence, no wasted motion at all.
"You're good at that," she said as the helicopter lifted straight up in a gust of wind.
"Thank you," he said. "I have taken pains to be."
After a steady rise, the helicopter began its flight across the desert. Now that her nerves were a little less frazzled, Berry found that she could enjoy the smooth flight of the craft as well as the swift way it covered distances.
"This is amazing," she told him, watching the helicopter race its own shadow over the golden sands. "I've never done anything like this before!"
He laughed a little at her exuberance, but now she could tell that he was only sharing her joy, not mocking her at all.
"Good! I want you to enjoy everything just like this."
He pushed the helicopter into a steep dive before pulling it up again, making her gasp. Instead of being terrified, she only laughed. There was something about this flight, so free and so very easy with Rasul at the controls, that made her feel more alive than she had in what felt like a long time.
"Again!" she demanded, and with a laugh in return, he complied.
The small craft ate up the distance, and soon the blue mountains, which had looked so distant from the city, were looming deep and dark in front of them.
"Your house is here?" she asked, looking around wide-eyed at the sharp peaks. "Do you live in the mountain itself?"
"Almost," he said. "You'll see. Just keep looking out the window. You'll know when it appears."
She could have asked what he was talking about, but then she gasped. First there was a glint of gold, and then when the helicopter banked lower, she could see that it was a house set straight into the mountainside. The roof, like the onion domes she had once seen in Russia, was gilded, giving that golden glow, and there was a helicopter pad set off to the right of the house itself.
"My great-grandfather had a dream that his family line would live forever if he built a home for them in the mountains. It took two generations and more planning than you would believe possible, but this is the result. It has a name, some long line of poetry that I have never really been able to learn by heart, but my family has always called it Nuriran—the shining place."
"I can see why," she said, hushed as they made the final descent. "It's like a jewel set up in the mountain. Is it even possible to get to it without flying?"
"It is. There is a road that you can take, though to me, it has some rather terrifying twists and turns up the sides of the mountain. No, I much prefer to fly, because when you do, you can see the house all at once."
"It's an amazing place," she said softly. "Thank you for sharing it with me."
"It's always good to come up here with someone new. When my parents were alive, I made this trip at least once a month, and it can lose something of the pleasure it had when you are doing it so often."
She looked at him, startled, as he landed the helicopter with a deft touch. She had known that his parents were dead, but she hadn't heard him speak of them before.
"I'm sorry about your parents," she said. "Have they been gone long?"
"Several years now," he said practically. There was an ease to his statement that told her that the grief was mostly dealt with, but there was a deeper sadness that told her that he still missed them. "They died in a plane crash coming back from a function in Dubai."
Something about the way he said it clicked with his expertise in the helicopter. She wondered if his expertise with the small craft gave him some kind of control over the tragedy that took his parents.
Then they were landing on the helicopter pad, and there were far more things to focus on. She sat with him as he took care of the landing procedures, and then he helped her down from the craft.
Berry's legs were unsurprisingly wobbly after their flight, and she might have pitched forward if he hadn't been there to catch her.
"Poor thing, were you more afraid than you let on?" he teased, and she tossed her head at him. The motion made her scarf fall down, spraying her chestnut hair over his arm.
"Hardly, just cramped," she said. "Now let's see what you have for me to see …"
He led her through the halls of the mountain manor, pointing out things that might interest her, like the view over the mountains and a chair that had been in the family since it became the ruling dynasty of Alamun. However, what fascinated Berry the most was the fact that despite it being a very rich, very lavish place, it was also a home. There were hints here and there of the individuals who had lived in it; along one wall were black and white photographs that she had to stop and peer at.
"Oh my goodness, is that you?" she asked, pointing.
Reluctantly, Rasul peered over her shoulder and then nodded.
"Ah, of course you have found perhaps the most awkward picture of me you could have. Yes, it is me."
She could see why Rasul looked so chagrined. The boy in the picture was perhaps twelve, and though he was dressed in a handsome silk tunic and trousers, there was a mutinous expressio
n on his face that was certainly not helped by his swollen lower lip and his blackened eye.
"That was my cousin Mori," he said darkly. "I do not remember what we were fighting about, but we were definitely fighting."
"I see," Berry said, amused. "Did you win?"
Rasul sighed. "I suppose it depends on who you ask. These days, I am the Sheikh, and Mori is a very successful investment banker in Dubai. I like to think that I have the power to retroactively declare a victory."
"I am not certain that it works like that," she said, moving on to the next picture. "Is this one you?"
Rasul only had to glance at it before shaking his head.
"Not at all. That is a picture of my father, taken when he was just a year or two older than I am right now. I still have his clothes, and I suppose that if I put them on, that's what I would look like."
Berry was just beginning to wonder if she had trod on some sensitive ground when Rasul smiled and pointed at another photo.
"My mother and father on their wedding day. They are quite solemn."
Rasul looked so much like his father that she would have thought that he would look nothing like his mother. Then when she looked closely at the woman in the traditional robes and the tall gilded headdress, she could see that her eyes were almost shockingly pale.
"Is she where you get your eyes from?" she asked, and he nodded.
"That side of my family is very well off, but in the distant past, it was said that the only thing that they had to bargain with was the beauty of their daughters. My mother was quite beautiful, and all my aunts as well as some of my cousins have the same eyes as well. It's a little aggravating really. I am the only male in the family who has them, and believe me when I say that that was something that was remarked on a great deal when I was young."
"I think that they are beautiful," she said softly.
For a moment, she thought that he hadn't heard her. Perhaps that was for the best. For the most part, men liked to be called handsome, not beautiful, didn't they? Then he turned towards her with a slight smile, those gray eyes bright, and yes, this man was beautiful.
