The Sheikh's Secret

by Knight, Kylie

  “Fine, Nicole. Think what you like. I have a feeling that you won’t find in my parents the ally you’re looking for, but more power to you. Let’s just go in, shall we?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  He watched a pregnant looking Nicole traipse up the marble stairs leading to his parents’ front door as if she owned the place and shook his head. This was going to be rough. The only thing that made him feel better about it was that he already knew that Nicole wouldn’t be able to manipulate his family the way she thought she would. Whatever it was she thought she was going to get out of this, she was mistaken. It was only a matter of time until she figured that out.

  ***

  “Where is she, mother? Where’s my baby?”

  “Sh, careful, Aasir,” his mother said softly with a scolding look in his eyes, “there’s no need to shout. She’s right here in my arms. You shouldn’t be so impatient.”

  If there hadn’t been a sleeping infant in her arms, Aasir would have screamed. Impatient? Impatient? She had to be out of her mind if that was truly what she thought of his behavior. He had been stuck here in his family home with Nicole waring with his parents for almost seven months without any kind of relief. Seven months of their bickering, of Nicole coming to grips with the fact that there was no sweet talking his folks. Seven months of fighting with all of them while also trying to keep some kind of relationship with Alison for him to go home to when this whole thing was finally done. And then, after all of that, once his daughter was finally born he hadn’t been allowed to see her for over a week. Bad luck for both mother and child, he had been told. Nicole needed time to recover without his interference. If that wasn’t more than most men could take, then Aasir couldn’t say what would be.

  “Would you like to hold her, son? Your daughter?”

  And now, after all of the trials and tribulations, it was all worth it. He hadn’t thought that would be possible, but it was. She was so very beautiful, his daughter, with his darker skin and a shock of black hair but blue eyes as bright as the sea. Such a little beauty and she belonged to him. And Nicole, he supposed. He couldn’t get rid of her. Speaking of which…

  “Where’s Nicole, mother? Has she recovered?”

  “Well, yes. Yes, she recovered much faster than anyone could have expected.”

  “Mother? What is it? You’re hiding something. I can see it on your face.”

  “She’s gone, Aasir.”

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “Gone. Back to the States, I suppose. Your father, well, he offered her a rather large sum of money to leave and give up any rights to the baby, and she accepted. Please know, it was his idea. If you want to be angry, be angry at him. You know he doesn’t ask my opinion.”

  Aasir knew his reaction was going to surprise her, but he didn’t care. He was too excited. He let out a cry of jubilation that woke the baby and then actually began to dance around the room. His mother looked shocked, but a happy shock, and she began to laugh.

  “Aasir! Have you lost your mind? I just told you the mother of your child has abandoned the two of you!”

  “I know! She was horrible, mother! We’ll be better off without her. And the woman I have at home, the woman I love who loves me back, she will love this baby like it was her own. I believe that with all of my heart. I just need to get back to her. Do you understand?”

  She was silent for a moment and his heart began to sink. He had been so foolish, thinking that this moment and his joy would be enough to move her, to get her to see things from his perspective. But then she smiled the widest smile he had ever seen on her face and he knew that he hadn’t been so foolish, after all.

  “You go get her, son. Go get your love and when you’re ready, bring her back here. I would very much like to meet the woman who has so captured your heart.”

  Chapter Seven

  “It’s like magic, my love, isn’t it? Everything that has transpired since my return feels just like magic to me.”

  For a moment Alison couldn’t even find her voice to answer him. Magic didn’t feel like a big enough word for what she was feeling. If she had combined every Disney princess into one pot, combined them and made their joy her own, it wouldn’t been enough to compare. So no, magic wasn’t a big enough word, especially after the nightmare she had lived before Aasir’s return. Close to a year. That’s how long she had waited for him to return to her. She had continued to live in his house, to play at being his live-in maid even with him gone and the only person to make a mess being her. It was enough to drive a person crazy. All she had was time and all she had to do with that time was think about Aasir and what he might be doing at any given moment. That was a dangerous game to play when the man you were thinking about was overseas with his pregnant ex-girlfriend. And it didn’t help that the time difference and his family responsibilities made it almost impossible to catch each other on the phone. There had been so many times when she felt like just giving up, like conceding defeat and throwing in the towel. She was in a game she didn’t know how to play and the longer she staid in it the more it was going to hurt when Aasir finally shattered her heart into a million pieces.

  Except that something, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, had told her not to let go just yet. She had listened to that voice and one day while she was cleaning listlessly, she heard a key turning in the lock and stopped dead in her tracks. It had been Aasir with the most beautiful little baby girl she had ever seen. He was back, and without Nicole. When he had told her that Nicole had signed over her rights to his daughter, a girl he had named Aida, she had almost fainted. So that horrible woman was really and truly out of their lives. She could see that Aasir was worried about how Alison would receive the idea of them having the baby all to themselves, but he needn’t have worried. She loved that baby from the moment she saw her and she would continue loving her for as long as he would let her.

  “Where’d you go, love? You look far away.”

  “I’m sorry, Aasir,” she said with an embarrassed little laugh, “I guess I was just thinking about how lucky I am. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been this happy, not in my whole life.”

  “Good. I want to make you say that every day for the rest of our lives.”

  They were in his massive bedroom, presumably getting ready for a night on the town, but while Alison stood in front of the mirror holding up one dress after another to choose which would look the best, but then Aasir was moving up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and kissing along the back of her neck. He was only half dressed himself, and his smooth, hard abs pressed up against her back in a way that immediately made her feel weak in the knees. Every time he had touched her this way it had felt like a dream and this time was no exception. Every single inch of skin that he touched tingled with desire and anticipation. It amazed her how easily he could make her body respond. Even the mere thought of his body moving on top of hers made her short of breath.

  “Mm, that feels nice. But don’t we have dinner reservations?”

  “So what? They’ll wait. The owner is a friend of mine. I helped him open the place.”

  Now his light kisses were becoming more insistent, feathery touches turning to little nibbles that inflamed her body with a white heat. If she had an on switch, Aasir was the one who knew how to find it. There was no question about that. Even if she had wanted to resist him (which she didn’t), she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to. She supposed this was what people referred to as the honeymoon stage of a relationship, the beginning when you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. She had never really understood the saying before, but now it made perfect sense.

  “But the baby, Aasir. What about the baby?”

  “With the nanny. On the other end of the house. Resistance is futile my love. I intend to have you.”

  His hands were moving all over her body, first caressing her breasts, breasts that ached for his touch, and then sliding down slowly, teasingly, until th
ey rested just below her hip bones. There he waited, nibbling on her earlobes and nuzzling the back of her neck so that the five o’clock shadow of a beard he had on his face tickled her just the way she liked. He was right, resistance was futile and she was through putting up the pretense of a fight. The sensation of his body so close to hers combined with the image of the two of them in the floor length mirror (which felt much naughtier than anything she was used to) was too strong of an aphrodisiac to ignore and she was overcome by a stronger lust than she had ever known. She turned quickly to face him, pressing her breasts suggestively against his impossibly rock hard pecks, and rose ever so slightly onto the tips of her toes to kiss him.

  The kiss was deep, slow, the kind that made you forget where you were and what time of day it was. It rapidly went from soft and somehow sweet to open mouthed, tongue against tongue and the exquisite pain of his teeth biting down on her lower lip. His hands moved up to her hair, plunging into its depths and tugging on it enough to make her want to take off the few clothes she had managed to get on before he had found her in front of the mirror. Her hands moved from his strong arms to his chest, down his abs and to the buckle of his belt. That was where she got stuck. In her impatience, she couldn’t figure out how to get the buckle undone and she groaned in frustration as Aasir began to laugh.

  “Can I be of any assistance?”

  “I wish you would. And maybe in the future, stop wearing belts.”

  “Ha! Your wish is my command, darling.”

  He got the belt undone with an annoying amount of ease and with the flick of a wrist, his pants were unzipped and falling down to the ground. He had nothing on underneath and he kicked the pants aside, looking at her with a challenge in his eyes.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Oh no, don’t play coy with me. I believe I’m at a disadvantage now. I’m completely naked and you still have those pesky panties on.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Might be.”

  “Then maybe you should take them off.”

  Aasir let out a laugh that quickly turned into a growl and Alison squealed, making as if to run away, but she only made it about a half a step before he grabbed her by the hips and lifted her up into the air. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as he carried her to his large, plush bed. He laid her across the duvet, peeling the panties off of her and tossing them along side the pants. Then, for just a moment, he stood back, looking her body up and down slowly with a glimmer of appreciation in his eyes. She would have been beyond shy and embarrassed by it if she hadn’t have been able to plainly see his massive erection steadily rising.

  “You are a beautiful woman. Have I ever told you that?”

  “Only every day.”

  “Well then, let me show you how much I mean it.”

  He took her knees in his hands and spread her legs wide, climbing onto the bed and positioning himself between her thighs. She could feel his member graze against her skin and her back arched at the momentary contact, her entire body screaming for him to take her, to take her now. As always, he seemed to read her body like a book and he did not disappoint. He took that member of his in one hand and eased himself inside of her, both of them gasping with delight. Alison’s head snapped back, her eyes rolling back into her head, feeling nothing but this man she loved beginning to move inside of her. Her legs were already trembling, and that was before Aasir took them into his hands, throwing her ankles over his shoulders. Her hips lifted up into the air and he slid his hands underneath them, supporting her so well that she felt completely weightless. Never looking away from her face, he begin to move his hips. The movements were slow at first, perfectly fluid, and each time he moved his pelvic bone brushed against her clit, building a delicious friction that was very quickly going to send her over the edge. Her hips began to rock in time with his, matching his every movement, the two of them as perfectly in synch with each other’s bodies as any two people could possibly be. There was something magical about that, too, but she didn’t have time to think about that. Not at the moment. All she could think about was the buzzing in her brain and the tingling that was curling her toes and rapidly moving up each of her limbs. Very soon it was in the middle of her pelvis, and it felt like she was actually rising up off of the bed. All rational thought was gone. There was nothing but her body and his, and the heat that she wasn’t sure she would be able to stand.

  “Oh Aasir. I’m close, I’m going to come. Oh please!”

  His thrusts became more and more erratic with every second that ticked by and then she was actually biting into her own fist to keep from screaming too loudly. At almost the same moment she heard him yell out, clutching her to him as his whole body shook. It was a feeling she wouldn’t have been able to explain to anyone who didn’t already know, the complete satisfaction she felt as Aasir flopped onto the bed beside her. It was complete contentment, both mentally and physically, and she felt that she could have been happy if she had never moved from this spot again.

  “Alison?”

  “Hm?”

  Aasir pulled her into his chest, her head resting on top of his still rapidly beating heart. She sighed and nuzzled in closer, starting to feel ever so slightly sleepy.

  “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Anything.”

  “I was just wondering. How would you feel about taking a trip with me? It would be a rather long trip and with a baby along for the ride, but it would mean a great deal to me.”

  “Of course. Where, home?”

  “Yes. I was hoping to introduce my parents to the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Which brings me to my next question. I was wondering if you would mind very much becoming my wife? Because frankly, I can’t think of a thing in this world that would make me happier than that.”

  Alison, once again, could not speak. So she kissed him instead and hoped that in doing that she would make her answer clear.

  THE END

  The Bad Boy Sheikh

  Prologue

  Zadir’s feet pounded, left right left right left, on the treadmill inside the palace gym. He was sick of running but going nowhere, yet the physical therapist assured him this would help him heal. Heal. What a joke. There was no healing from what he’d done and he knew it. He would be lucky if his father ever trusted him again. As it stood now, he could barely even look at him and found they had next to nothing to talk about.

  Six months ago he’d smashed his car into a brick wall, well a brick home to be more specific about it. After surgery, a concussion and several broken ribs he was finally get back to normal. Physically. The other damage was harder to repair. Rashid had paid to fix the home he’d slammed into, even though no one had told him to. He scoffed as he ran, thinking about the day the family had shown up—with flowers—to thank him for repairing their home. The home he’d smashed into. Instead of looking like a callous jerk, he smiled and told them it was the least he could do. They’d been so grateful that long after they left, he’d felt guilty. If Rashid, the good brother, hadn’t seen to it they would have been left homeless because they couldn’t afford a lengthy hotel stay.

  That was nothing compared to the cost he’d had to pay. His heart raced as his speed increased. He was on the final leg of his daily run and smiled when there wasn’t even a twinge of pain in his ribs. “Thank goodness.”

  At least something was going right for him. His father, holding Alzari Holdings hostage, insisted he move back into the palace until his reputation has been suitably rehabilitated. If he chose to live elsewhere, he would forfeit his birthright as CEO of Alzari Holdings. He hated it, but damn he wanted that job. It was his. He’d been preparing for it his entire life. To get it, he would now have to please his babysitter when all he really wanted to do was please her.

  Zadir shook his head, beads of sweat flinging from his now too long wavy black hair and slowed the treadmill to a stop. He reached fo
r his towel, wincing at the pain that lanced through his midsection, and draped it over his face. The sound of heels, very tall heels, on the floor alerted him that he had a visitor. He smiled when Shala walked into the gym, looking out of place and twenty different kinds of sexy in a teal dress that left her arms bare and the black stilettos she wore gave her petite frame endless bronze legs, which he ogled mercilessly. “Shala, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She sighed to rein in her temper. They both knew that her presence in his life was not a pleasure. “Are you ready for tonight?” She crossed her arms and looked up at him, trying to avoid staring at the way the muscles in his arms bunched with every move.

  Zadir groaned at the mention of his twin brother’s engagement party. Tonight was the official party to announce the fact that the golden boy would soon be married. What Jovanbar and the rest of the world didn’t know, was that Rashid would soon be Sheikh. He had already withdrawn from Winchester because their father was sick and wished to step down and seek treatment in private. “Must I attend?”