STOCKINGS FOR THE SHEIKH
ANNABELLE WINTERS
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BOOKS BY ANNABELLE WINTERS
THE CURVES FOR SHEIKHS SERIES (USA)
Curves for the Sheikh
Flames for the Sheikh
Hostage for the Sheikh
Single for the Sheikh
Stockings for the Sheikh
THE CURVES FOR SHEIKHS SERIES (UK)
Curves for the Sheikh (UK)
Flames for the Sheikh (UK)
Hostage for the Sheikh (UK)
Single for the Sheikh (UK)
Stockings for the Sheikh (UK)
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AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE (UK)
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright © 2016 by Annabelle Winters
All Rights Reserved by Author
www.annabellewinters.com
If you'd like to copy, reproduce, sell, or distribute any part of this text, please obtain the explicit, written permission of the author first. Note that you should feel free to tell your spouse, lovers, friends, and coworkers how happy this book made you.
Cover Design by S. Lee
Cover Image Copyright © by DepositPhotos
STOCKINGS FOR THE SHEIKH
ANNABELLE WINTERS
1
“One more,” said Eleanor Easton, leaning over the front of the registration desk and craning her neck to see the screen. “Come on, Tammy. It’s Christmas Eve. Besides, there’s nobody here!”
Tammy shook her head, her dark bob-cut barely moving. She glanced past Eleanor at the silent glass front doors of the hospital before smiling and looking back up at Eleanor’s excited round face. “OK, Elle. But come around the desk so you don’t have to bend over the counter like that.”
“I like this position,” said Elle, going up on her toes and leaning farther down, feeling her thick calves flex tight beneath those high-compression stockings she wore under her standard-issue pink scrubs so she wouldn’t get varicose veins from standing all day. “It stretches my hamstrings.”
Tammy took another look past Eleanor and then winked. “And the reflection of your butt in the glass is stretching my imagination. Damn, those curves are solid!”
“Checking out my fat ass again, huh, Tammy?” Elle whispered, fluttering her eyelids as she wiggled her bottom. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Oh, she’d understand,” said Tammy, licking her lips as she narrowed her eyes and leaned in close. “Especially if I brought you home with me in the morning. All wrapped up tight and placed beneath the Christmas Tree.”
Elle laughed and pulled back, swiping at the air before glancing at her misty reflection in those glass doors and then walking around the hospital’s registration desk, swinging her wide hips dramatically as she did it.
“Lesbian threesome on Christmas morning?” Elle said, playfully frowning as she walked up to Tammy and stopped, hands on her hips as she twisted her mouth and pursed her lips and frowned harder. “How would that scissoring thing work with three of us?”
“Oh, it works,” Tammy said, pushing her swivel chair back from the desk so Elle could get closer to the computer monitor. “Takes some practice, but we’re always patient with a first-timer. Especially a first-timer with curves like yours.”
“Don’t forget my well-stretched hamstrings,” Elle added, reaching for the computer mouse and scrolling through the list of YouTube cat videos they had been watching to kill the time. Nashville North Memorial was slow even on a busy day—it was a private in-patient hospital that didn’t have an ER and didn’t take Medicare and wasn’t on any major insurance plans, so the patients were mostly rich people who checked in for minor surgery or rehab or sometimes (as Elle had long suspected . . .) just for a change of scenery—and on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving it was dead. Sometimes Elle wondered how the hell she even had a job and a paycheck that didn’t bounce! God bless the donors or trust funds or whatever!
Elle sighed now, putting her arm around Tammy and pulling her in for a quick hug before tousling her thick dark hair and playfully pushing her away. “Hey, I’ve told you before: if I haven’t found someone in the next three years, I’m getting a cat and becoming a lesbian.”
“You said that three years ago,” said Tammy, turning in her chair to face Elle. “So now I think we’re at the point where if you haven’t found someone in the next three MINUTES, you’re coming home with me for Christmas.”
Elle doubled over with laughter, Tammy joining in as the next cat video began to play on the screen. It was a remake of the classic “Popcorn Kittens,” with a dozen little fluffballs bouncing on a baby trampoline, and the two women shook and shivered with mirth as the on-screen digital timer ticked away . . . ticked away . . . two minutes gone . . . thirty more seconds . . . almost three minutes now . . . almost . . . tick . . . tick . . .
And those glass doors slid open, and in walked a tall, dark, exotic-looking man with thick black hair that was mussed just right, high cheekbones that glistened under the harsh light of the entryway, a manicured stubble that looked just slightly out of sorts, green eyes that were sharp and intelligent but betrayed just a bit of unease in a way that made Eleanor think that this man was not accustomed to the feeling of unease. He wore a long leather coat, that soft Italian leather, black and unweathered in a way that made Elle think it wasn’t new, but certainly hadn’t been worn often. The coat hung open down the middle, revealing a black shirt tucked into fitted brown lambswool trousers, cuffs just kissing the tops of what looked like some very expensive boots. Cowboy boots. Cowboy boots?
The man was flanked by two hulking, bearded men in sunglasses, both of whom could be bouncers at even those rough country-music nightspots Eleanor used to visit when she was younger and her legs could handle dancing the night away even after a ten-hour shift on her feet at the hospital.
The man stopped now, his two companions stopping as well, their shaded eyes pointed straight ahead like they were at attention, and Eleanor got the strangest feeling like time had stopped as she stared at that man in the middle, this dark, lean, foreign-looking man who somehow was more imposing than the two larger men flanking him. Those glass doors swished shut behind him now, the sound adding to the mystical feeling of the moment, and Eleanor blinked as she wondered if the man was a specter, an illusion, the ghost of Christmas past, maybe the ghost of Christmas future, of her future . . .
And just as that timer hit three minutes on the unwatched screen, the man looked directly at Eleanor, his green eyes suddenly showing a spark like he had somehow drawn a burst of energy from her . . . yes, he looked at her and smiled and spoke, the words coming out in a smooth accent that sounded refined and cultured and vaguely European but was unmistakably Middle-Eastern.
“Three rooms. Top floor. We are paying cash.”
2
“So you know this is a hospital, not a hotel, right?” Tammy said as one of the larger men in sunglasses pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills.
“Certainly not that kind of hotel!” Elle added without thinking, her eyes going wide as she looked at the roll of cash in Sunglass-Beard’s hand and then back at the handsome man in Italian leather and cowboy boots who had asked for three rooms.
The man stood s
till, his eyes focused on Elle, and only now did she realize that he had barely glanced at Tammy since walking in. He smiled now, a full, broad grin, showing off perfectly aligned, wonderfully white teeth behind lush, dark red lips. His angled face with those etched cheekbones looked symmetrical and almost Disney-like, as if one of those cartoon princes had been modeled off this man’s profile.
“And what kind of hotel is that?” he said now in that smooth accent, his voice deep and resonant, the combination of its dark tenor, those sparkling green eyes, and that surreal smile causing a thin line of delicate hairs on Elle’s neck to bristle to attention as a tingle of electricity ran through her stretched-out hamstrings, down the back of her thighs in those stockings.
“The kind frequented by men who wear sunglasses at night,” Elle said, holding eye contact with the man like she couldn’t break it if she tried—even though he was the only one of the three who WASN’T wearing sunglasses!
“Khalae alnnizarat alshshamsiat alkhassat bik,” the man said without taking his eyes off Elle, his voice firm, the tone making it clear that he was giving an order. “Kalakima.”
Elle felt something jump inside her as she heard the man speak in that forceful, commanding tone, and even though she didn’t understand what the hell the man had just said, it was like something inside her wanted to . . . wanted to . . . wanted to . . . obey?!
“Uh, I don’t understand what you’re—” she began to say, blinking rapidly as she wondered what the hell that feeling was inside her, that strange sense of being pulled, drawn . . . attracted?
Now both those silent, bearded men pulled off their sunglasses, the actions happening in a synchronized way that almost made it seem rehearsed, part of a script, a stage production, and Elle realized that the order had been issued to them and not her, and she half-frowned at the man, her eyes narrowing in a quizzical manner, like she was asking both him and herself why she had thought he was talking to her.
Well, it’s because he was looking at you when he spoke, she told herself as she took a deep breath, a breath that made her realize she had been holding her breath the past few seconds. Get a hold of yourself, Eleanor!
The man slowly began to walk towards Elle, and only now did she notice that he seemed to be taking each step with unusual deliberation, like he was actually thinking about each step, perhaps even telling himself to place one foot in front of the other. What the hell?
“Sunglasses are gone. And so now I hope it is clear we are not the kind of men who would frequent those kinds of hotels, yes, Doctor?” The man’s full smile transformed to a cocky half-grin, and now Elle picked up a subtle, barely noticeable slurring behind his words, so that when she glanced into his eyes again she wondered if he was perhaps drunk.
“Um, do you need a doctor?” she asked now, knitting her eyebrows as she glanced up and down at the man, taking in the tailored cut of his black dress shirt beneath the smooth leather jacket that hung open, three buttons undone on the shirt, the outline of lean muscle clearly visible in the way his pectorals pushed against the thin cloth. His brown lambswool trousers were cuffed just right above those out-of-place cowboy boots, and Elle blinked and took a quick breath when she glanced at his flat stomach tucked into those trousers, that thick leather belt, the way those trousers were tailored to the exact proportions of his muscular hips, the lambswool filled out so perfectly by the contours of his—
And now Elle jerked her head upwards when she realized that she had trailed off mid-speech. “Do you need a doctor?” she asked again, making sure her voice was firm and professional, even though for some reason she didn’t feel very professional right now. “This is a private, in-patient hospital and we don’t have an ER, but Nashville General is only three miles away. Of course, if it’s an emergency I can call—”
But the man waved his hand, coming close to the registration desk and looking Elle up and down, his gaze lingering on the contours of her hips, the swell of her breasts, until he blinked hard and took a breath and glanced into her eyes quickly, like he had suddenly realized he was staring and should stop.
“You are not a doctor? Why are you dressed for surgery? You are an assistant in the operating theater?” the man asked, leaning on the desk.
Elle smiled and shook her head. “I’m a nurse. No surgery today. These are our uniforms.”
The man straightened up now, raising his arms out to the side and shaking his head. “Ya, Allah, no! No stockings?! What have they done to the nurses’ uniforms in this country? I swear, this time America has gone too far! No matter. I will fix this.” Now he tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes and held those two arms up again like Jesus and proclaimed: “Take me to your leader!”
“OK, Mister Mohammed’s had too much Christmas spirit,” Tammy muttered through a tight smile. “I think maybe we—”
But Elle was smiling at him, shaking her head, and now she walked out from behind the registration desk. “Hey,” she said. “I’m all for knocking back a couple, but this is probably the last place I’d want to end up. And by the way, I thought Muslims weren’t supposed to even drink alcohol, yeah?”
Now the man’s smile disappeared and those green eyes darkened and he lowered his arms and straightened his back. God, he’s taller and broader than I realized, Elle thought as she blinked and looked up at him. And why the hell did I say that shit about Muslims and alcohol?! It’s none of my business! I was raised in a Catholic family, and I sure as hell didn’t follow all the rules! Yeah, the sex part of my brain is still screwed up from all that Catholic guilt, but it’s not like I’m a virgin who’s scared that Satan will take her if she has pre-marital sex.
“How do you know I am Muslim?” the man asked now. “It is because I am brown-skinned and have an accent?”
Now it was Elle’s turn to harden, and she felt a sense of indignation rise in her. “Um, no. It’s because you just called out to Allah before demanding to see my leader. And by the way, ‘Take me to your leader’ is something an alien would say in a cartoon strip.”
The man burst into laughter, that darkness chased off by the most infectious smile, his handsome face lighting up with an almost schoolboyish delight. “Yes!” he said, his voice way too loud. “That is where I got the line! As a child I read it in the American comics that were smuggled into my country! Archie and Jughead! Casper the Friendly Ghost!”
“Richie Rich!” Elle said, her own smile breaking through now as she instinctively went up on her toes. She had to actually stop herself from clapping her hands in delight at the memory of those comic books that she herself had read when she came across a box of them in the attic when she was holed up in there after a fight with Mom.
“Ah, no, the Richie Rich comics we did not like so much, my brothers and I,” he said now, shaking his head and looking at the floor very seriously. “We did not see the humor in it.”
“Really?” said Elle. “You weren’t fascinated by a kid who had vaults full of money? Statues made of solid gold? And—”
“Statues made of solid gold would actually be too soft to be sculpted well,” the man said matter-of-factly. “One of my uncles tried to have a bust of himself made in solid gold, and it looked like a frog when the sculptor was done!”
Elle giggled. “That probably didn’t make your uncle very happy.”
The man shook his head gravely. “No, it did not. First he had the statue beheaded. And then he had the sculptor beheaded.”
Elle laughed without thinking, and then she thought that hey, this guy had to smuggle Archie comics into his country, and so it was quite possible that his uncle had someone . . . wait, his uncle . . . his uncle had a statue made out of gold? His uncle?! So who the hell was this guy? Some kind of . . . some kind of . . .
“Sheikh,” came the voice, low and respectful, and it was one of the other men, the one who had pulled out that roll of hundred-dollar bills. “Min fadlik.”
Sheikh? This guy’s a Sheikh? Elle thought as she glanced back into the man’s eyes, and
only now did she realize that God, she had just been standing here, a goofy smile on her face, chatting with this guy who had burst into a hospital at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve with two . . . what, bodyguards?
And then she saw how the Sheikh flinched in the most subtle manner when his bodyguard called out to him, like he had been lost in the moment himself just like she had been, that inane chatter about comic books and aliens and stockings seeming really, really profound and important.
But now that moment was gone, and suddenly Elle realized that it wasn’t just the two of them alone together, and now she could feel Tammy’s eyes on her, and she knew what Tammy was thinking, and she turned to Tammy, and Tammy had that look in her eye, that half-smile on her face, one eye almost closed like she was asking Elle something, perhaps telling Elle something.
And without really understanding what was going on, Elle just kinda-sorta shrugged at Tammy, and those hairs at the back of her neck bristled again like a magical breeze was blowing against her . . .
Now the phone rang, sounding like a playful tinkle instead of the usual harsh bell, and Tammy answered and Tammy listened and Tammy nodded and then Tammy sighed and shook her head and looked at the Sheikh.
“Clearly you have friends in high places. That was Dr. Darius Samsara, who’s on the hospital’s board of directors. He’s sending a written notice asking that you be admitted to the hospital immediately, under his authorization. The doctor will be in tomorrow morning. On Christmas morning.” Now Tammy turned to her computer as the sound of incoming email rang out almost like a melody, a silly little tune of mirth and fantasy. Tammy clicked and nodded and glanced at the Sheikh again, a glimmer of recognition in her eyes now, Elle thought.
“Three rooms,” Tammy said. “Top floor. I think we can do that. We can do that, right, Elle? Right, Elle?”
Stockings for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 5) Page 1
