Clare Connelly Pairs: Warming the Sheikh’s Bed & Love in the Fast Lane

by Connelly , Clare

  He laid his cutlery down silently and took her hand in his. He lifted it to his lips, and his dark eyes held her. “When I become Emir, certain things will be expected of me.”

  “Magical powers?” She quipped, her expression lightly amused.

  He didn’t react. He was distracted. Searching for words. He barely knew this woman, and yet he knew her intimately. He owed her nothing, and yet he felt an obligation.

  He stroked his finger over her knuckles. “My country has been scared by the question of succession. No clear line of heir for the reigning Emir has been an issue for many. That there is only me causes further concern. If I were to die, or become incapacitated in some way that prevented me from serving as Emir, the title would pass to a distant, distant cousin.”

  “I can’t even imagine what your world must be like,” she said thoughtfully. “How you must have grown up and the issues you’ve had to address. You must have been so isolated.”

  He shook his head. This was not the time to be distracted. “My uncle is dying. We expect he has a year or so left.”

  Her face wore a perfect expression of sympathy. And though he’d heard enough platitudes to last a lifetime, the simple gesture swelled his heart with something like relief.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “The knowledge of a second heir would be a great gift to send him to his grave with.”

  “An heir? You mean … your heir?” She scanned his face in surprise. “You’re not suggesting that I … that we …?” Her panic was obvious, and if he were a lesser man, he would have been offended by the blatant terror the idea of procreating with him had inspired.

  “No. Thank you for the ego boost, though,” he drawled.

  She laughed shakily. “I’m sorry, Layth. I’m just so, so not a maternal person. You had me completely petrified for a second there.”

  He pushed aside the temptation to probe her assertion, for he disagreed with it. “Never fear. You would not be considered a suitable bride for me, nor an appropriate royal mother.”

  “Oh.” She hid her pain behind a joking tone. “Now it’s me whose ego’s taking a battering.” She slid her hand away on the pretence of lifting her coffee into her palms. It was warm, but her grip was cold.

  “I do not intend to offend you. There are very specific ideas about what my bride must be.”

  “I see.” She felt as though she was having a conversation from outside her body. “Such as?”

  “Many things,” he waved a hand in the air as though it did not matter.

  She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “And in what ways would I not be suitable?”

  His laugh was rich. “You have just had a near-miss heart attack at the very hint of bearing my child. Are you truly wanting to argue your case now to marry me?”

  “No,” her cheeks were red. “I’m just curious. What’s wrong with me?”

  Nothing. The realisation was a weight on his shoulders. If he were free to choose a bride for himself, would he choose Cassie? Or someone like her? What an absurd contemplation, given the length of their acquaintance. He pushed the idea aside. It was impossible, and therefore immaterial.

  “Seriously. I want to know. I’m a big girl.”

  He shook his head, and rubbed a hand over his chin. “It is not about you. My wife will be a princess. Either of Takisabad, or from Salima – our closest country and ally. She will have been raised from birth to understand her duty is to make a royal marriage. She will understand the requirements of state life. The invasive and difficult balancing act that being my wife will require.”

  “And you don’t think I could do that?”

  He glared at her with impatience. “You do not want this, so why are you trying to convince me you’d be suitable?”

  “I’m not.” She huffed dramatically. “I’ve just never been very good at being told no.”

  He grinned. “Nor I.”

  “I bet your wife will be excellent at it,” she murmured, blinking her eyes with mock innocence.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I’m sure she’ll be meek and mild and perfectly appropriate at all times.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Laughter was rich in his voice.

  “She would never let you slide any part of yourself inside her in a public place,” she continued, her eyes wide now.

  “No.” His blood was heating up. He had never known a craving such as he felt for this woman.

  Cassie smiled sweetly, perfectly aware of just what she was doing to him.

  “I think I would like to keep you chained to my bed until I leave.”

  The idea filled her with a slick of warmth. She sipped her coffee again, dipping her eyes away from him. “You didn’t say why you’re here. In London.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes were darkened by the full sledge of emotions he was experiencing. When he spoke, though, his voice was without feeling.

  “I have come to meet my wife.”

  She spilled her coffee in her haste to put it down on the table. She felt self-conscious, as though every movement was unnatural and jerky. “Who is she?”

  To take the idea from the abstract to the particular was a whole different situation.

  “I have three possible choices. All are suitable. Finally, it comes down to … compatibility.” She chose to believe he meant personality, rather than sexually. She could not bear to imagine him making love to another woman. “It would be embarrassing to the two who are not selected if it became publicly known that they were being considered. Coming to my palace would make my interest obvious. This is why we meet in London.”

  “I see. Very clever.” She crossed her legs in her seat and winced. They’d made love a lot. In a variety of positions, and with a pretty demanding intensity. She was sore all over, but in a way she relished. It would remind her of him for days.

  “It was sensible.”

  “Yes.” She forced herself to meet his gaze with hers. “And you’ll marry her straight away.”

  “Within a month,” he agreed. “A baby is imperative. We will need to begin trying to fall pregnant as soon as we are husband and wife.”

  Bile rose in her stomach. She told herself it was because she’d barely eaten all day. Her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. Her possessive feeling was completely unwarranted, and yet it was also unmistakable. He was hers.

  And she was his.

  Was it possible to come to claim someone in that way after a week?

  Some couples dated for years and probably didn’t share the same connection that she felt with Layth. Did the time they’d known one another really matter?

  No.

  But the fact he was actively looking for a fiancé did.

  He was not hers. He never would be. No more than he was in that strange moment.

  We will need to begin trying to fall pregnant as soon as we are husband and wife.

  “So this wife of yours … she’ll be … innocent? Virginal?”

  He was quiet for a moment, while he cut a pastry in half.

  “Yes,” he agreed finally.

  “Is that important?”

  “To some.”

  “To you?”

  “No.”

  She sighed. It was almost impossible to untangle the knot of her feelings.

  Silence returned. She watched as he lifted the pastry and ate a half in one bite.

  “Why do you do what you do?” He asked when he’d finished chewing. His voice was weighed down by the strength of his own thoughts on the matter.

  Her brow puckered in confusion at the strange change of topic. “Sell art?”

  “No. What you do with men. What you are doing here, with me now.”

  Those little barbs he’d scored into her heart were digging in deeper now. The pain was a physical shock. “You mean have sex?”

  “No. I mean have sex with many men, without bothering to get to know them first.”

  She was hot and cold all over.
“That’s none of your business,” she muttered firmly, sending him a warning look.

  He chose to ignore it, though he understood that she was angry. “I beg to differ.”

  She released her cutlery and it clattered noisily to her plate. She stood jerkily and brushed her hands down her front. Though they were alone, she whispered angrily. “I’m not the only one having sex with a virtual stranger.”

  He was quietly thoughtful. “But you deserve so much better. Why do you treat your body with such disrespect?”

  “Oh my God,” she groaned, striding back to the bedroom and scooping her clothes up hurriedly. She was talking to herself, but he had followed and heard every word. “What a bloody hypocritical thing to say.”

  He understood the charge, but was all too willing to refute it. “I do not do this often. In fact, I have never done it. Not like this.”

  “You’ve never had a one night stand?”

  His look darkened. “We are not a one night stand, as evidenced by the fact this is our second encounter. And I have slept with women that I did not know well, but I always went through the motions. A date. Two dates. Conversation. Not fucking for the sake of fucking.”

  “So why me?” She shouted, pulling her shirt over her head and then reaching for her jeans.

  “I don’t know,” he responded quietly.

  “But it is what we’re doing. Sex for the sake of sex. Yet you dare act as though I’m the one who’s at fault here?”

  “I did not say that anyone is at fault.” He thought of the men who had made love to her before him and felt his self-control snap. “Only that you should respect your body more than you do.”

  “Oh my freaking God! You have no right to judge me!” She was furious. Her blood boiled with the unjustness of his accusation. “I don’t need to defend my life to you.”

  “What life? You work and then you go and sleep with men who think of you as a gorgeous, available body and nothing else.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Is that what you thought of me?”

  “Yes.”

  Her stomach was in knots. She spun away from him, her whole soul racing with indignant despair. “Screw you,” she muttered under her breath, trying to steady her shaking hands.

  “If my words upset you so much, then why do what you do? I am being honest, and you know it.”

  She shook her head. “This was a mistake. Coming here to you was stupid of me. I thought …”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought you understood,” she said finally, her anger ebbing to make way for hurt.

  “Then make me understand. Why? Why turn sex into some meaningless act when it can be so much more.”

  Her brain refused to listen to his words. They brought with them far too much pain; memories she had long ago suppressed were snatching in her mind, trying to get her attention.

  “It’s what we both agreed to. You’re here to meet your wife, for goodness sake. What do you want from me?” She spun around to face him, her blue eyes enormous in her pale face. “What do you want from me?”

  He compressed his lips, and tried to water his anger away. But she was so beautiful, so fragile and bright, so utterly unique, and he could feel her slipping through his fingers. Time was marching on, and soon he would be back in Takisabad. And Cassie?

  She was any man’s for the taking.

  “When I return to my country, what next? You go back to the bar? To other men? You will let them do to you what I have been doing? What are you trying to achieve? What happiness do you get out of this?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t.” She bit down on her lip. “Just … leave some things be. What I do when you go back to your magical faraway kingdom won’t be your problem.”

  She was right, and he hated that with every bone in his body.

  “Help me understand,” he muttered. “You are perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she drawled at his qualifying ‘perhaps’. Cassie had no belief in her own beauty, but she didn’t like the way he spoke about it so objectively.

  “You are perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever known,” he repeated over her interruption. “You make me laugh easily. You seem to glow with confidence, and you are evidently well regarded in your profession. Yet you treat sex like sport. Do you seek validation from these encounters?”

  She crossed her arms across her chest, refusing to let him see how his words were offending her.

  “I think that’s my queue to leave,” she murmured, schooling her features into an expression of nonchalance.

  Only the way Layth’s chest was moving rapidly up and down showed how frustrated he was. Silence pulsed heavily between them before he swore softly under his tongue.

  “I will be engaged soon.”

  Cassie wanted to say something pithy, but her mouth felt wrong-shaped.

  “From the moment I am engaged, I will be honour-bound to my fiancé. I will not sleep with you again.”

  Ice sledged through her veins. Her knees felt weak. But she didn’t drop her eyes from his.

  “I am asking you to spend your nights with me, until that time. Every night.” He dipped his head forward and kissed her neck, then dragged his mouth to hers. “If you are to seek amusement in other men’s arms, after me, I want to ruin you for them first.”

  His black eyes glinted in his face as he looked at her fiercely.

  “I want to make sure your body craves only mine for the rest of your life.”

  Cassie shivered, but Layth was focussed on his goal. He scooped down and cradled her against his arm. He carried her to the bed then released her none too gently into the centre of it. His hands made deft work of the jeans she’d just replaced. He slid them down her legs and tossed them into the corner. He was mad as hell, and he wanted her like a man possessed.

  “What are you doing?” She moaned, as he slowly, tantalisingly, slipped her underwear from her body.

  “You will not move on from me, Cassie. When another man touches you, you will be bored. You will be thinking of me, always.”

  Cassie pushed up on her elbows, so that she could see his face. “That’s spectacularly unfair, given that you’ll be married to someone else.”

  He didn’t say the words he was thinking. He would forever be thinking of Cassie’s body, and the way he seemed to crave it on some soul deep level. “Do I seem like a man who cares for fairness?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, for her voice was strangled by surprise when his mouth connected with her most feminine core. His tongue was insistent as it lashed her with promises of the release that Cassandra was craving.

  “I care for winning.”

  “Yes,” she moaned, lifting her knees to the ceiling as pleasurable waves began to roll over her body.

  “I will make love to you until you admit you want only me.”

  “Not making love,” she husked desperately. “Sex. And just sex.” She dug her nails into his back. “But why?” She reached her arms over her head and gripped the pillow. “Why do you care when you are leaving anyway? Don’t you think this is a little unfair?”

  He couldn’t have said with a gun to his head.

  He lashed his tongue harder, and ran his fingers over her body, teasing her nipples before coming down to scoop her buttocks. “I am just selfish, I suppose,” he said finally. He lifted his head and then, using the hands that were pummelling her backside, he spun her on the bed. He entered her swiftly from behind, running his hands over her back as he felt how deeply he could move within her. She was so beautiful. So perfect.

  How could he not be driven crazy by how easily she gave her body to men?

  How meaningless she made the gift?

  He put all thoughts of anyone but Cassie and him from his mind. In that moment, he owned her body and soul, and that was all that mattered.

  He felt her climax and released himself simultaneously, tipping himself into her with a passion that finally settled his anger.
He collapsed beside her, one arm thrown carelessly across her back, his face angled to hers.

  Cassie’s eyes were closed. Her cheeks were pink. Her lips were parted in a soft invitation. He kissed them gently, regretting instantly that they’d fought. Why fight when there was such pleasure to be shared?

  But Cassie blinked, her heart not so easy to be placated. She didn’t look at him properly. She couldn’t.

  His pledge was circling around and around in mind. Briefly, it had been silenced by the passion he inspired in her. Reality was intruding now though and she was incapable of ignoring the way his words had surprised her.

  She sat up, moving out from under his touch quickly, as though he was burning her. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall without seeing the intricate patterning of the embossed wallpaper.

  He watched her silently.

  How, he wondered with a sense of unease, did he know her so well after so short a time? From the way her spine curved defensively, to the way her body was rigid and still, he knew she was holding onto her thoughts with a pressure seal. That her mind was swimming and jumbling with words she dared not say until she understood them better.

  As if to prove his point, she shook her head slightly, silencing her mind, before standing swiftly.

  He watched as she lifted her jeans from the floor and shook them out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going,” her voice was stony, but again, he saw beneath the façade to the deep torrent of feeling she was navigating.

  “Why?”

  She compressed her lips, and he knew she was holding back the explosion of feelings she wasn’t ready to share.

  He pushed his advantage. “You came to me, Cassie. You came to my suite this morning because you wanted this.”

  “Yes.” She shrugged. “But not this.”

  His laugh sent shivers down her spine.

  “It’s not funny,” she snapped, her voice uneven. “I told you last weekend what I wanted from you. No-strings sex. No fuss. No hassle. And you were fine with that. You told me you admired my frankness.”

  He nodded, his expression unreadable.